The Mysore Reversion: “An Exceptional Case”

This argument appears to me not only to be devoid of all moral principle, but to be directly opposed to sound political science.The real political danger in India is not what it has been recently represented. The danger is not that the Viceroy’s authority will be despised, but the Queen’s. There is no danger that the tributary and protected Princes and their Ministers and adherents will learn to look for orders to London instead of Calcutta in ordinary matters. The danger is that if in their extraordinary emergencies an appeal to Great Britain is found to be nugatory, they may say in their despair, ” There is no Imperial Power ; there is no Parliament ; there is no Sovereign over us ; there is only a Collector.” I shall endeavour to prove, that although the expected Mysore Eeversion is not by any means “an Exceptional Case”, in the sense of the official document which I quote, it is so far exceptional that the appropriation of this State would be exceptionally unjust, injurious, imprudent, and unprofitable.