The Viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin, Part II
Dufferin urged upon an unresponsive government in London moderate proposals for representative reform in India. In fact, writes Briton Martin Jnr., reform was carried out twenty years later; too late, in the light of history.
There can be little doubt that Dufferin appreciated the costliness of pursuing Lord Randolph Churchill’s ambitious policy in Upper Burma. He now realized that the Government of India, faced with a budgetary crisis and signs of political unrest within India, must have more voice in the definition of Indian policy. He impressed this point upon Kimberley, who had momentarily returned to office after the election of November 1885.
But Kimberley could do nothing, for he was rendered impotent by the weakness of Gladstone’s coalition with Parnell’s forces in the Commons and by the overwhelming importance of the Irish question. All was settled within six months, when Gladstone’s Government fell and the Conservatives under Salisbury once again returned to power. Dufferin looked hopefully to the new Secretary of State for India, Lord Cross, as a co-operative master who would seek a solution for India’s ills at the highest levels in the new Government.
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