Page:Earl Canning.djvu/131

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A CONCILIATORY POLICY
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a subject of doubt — will it be the part of a wise Government to keep such a population as that of the three great Provinces in a loyal frame of temper? Can you do so, if you proscribe and scout as unworthy whole classes?

'For God's sake, raise your voice and stop this. As long as I have breath in my body, I will pursue no other policy than that I have been following: not only for the reason of expediency and policy above stated, but because it is immutably just. I will not govern in anger. Justice, and that as stern, as inflexible as law and might can make it, I will deal out. But I will never allow an angry and undiscriminating act or word to proceed from the Government of India as long as I am responsible for it.

'I don't care two straws for the abuse of the papers, British or Indian. I am for ever wondering at myself for not doing so, but it really is the fact. Partly from want of time to care, partly because an enormous task is before me, and all other cares look small.

'I don't want you to do more than defend me against unfair or mistaken attacks. But do take up and assert boldly that, whilst we are prepared, as the first duty of all, to strike down resistance without mercy, wherever it shows itself, we acknowledge that, resistance over, deliberate justice and calm patient reason are to resume their sway; that we are not going, either in anger or from indolence, to punish wholesale ; whether by wholesale hangings and burn-