LORD CURZON: SPEECHES IN INDIA
Selected and edited by Roddy Sale,
Roddy Sale, No price

A doggerel written about George Nathaniel Curzon while he was an undergraduate described him as a “most superior person’’ who dined at Blenheim twice a week. The last claim may not have been literally true but he was certainly a very superior person with an expression that Margot Asquith famously called one of “enamelled self-assurance’’.

Curzon was born in 1859 at Kedleston, the Derbyshire estate his family had owned for more than 700 years. (The family house served as the model for the Government House in Calcutta in the early 19th century.) Curzon went to Eton and Balliol and was elected fellow of All Souls.

In Westminster, Curzon rose fast but not fast enough. He failed to make it to the cabinet and was made under-secretary in the Foreign Office. As compensation, Lord Salisbury made him a member of the Privy Council, the youngest man in living memory to be so elevated.

Curzon was appointed Viceroy of India in August 1898, and he took over charge from Lord Elgin in Calcutta on January 6, 1899. The viceroyalty of India was to be the high noon of Curzon’s career.

Apart from everything else that he did, Curzon, as Viceroy between 1899 and 1905, delivered over 250 speeches. Roddy Sale, from Curzon’s old school and an admirer of the Viceroy, has brought together in this volume the most important of the speeches.

Many of the speeches retain a contemporary relevance even though they were delivered more than a century ago. For example, the three speeches he gave on the preservation of ancient buildings and on archaeology speak directly to a country which is just beginning to wake up to the importance of monuments and heritage. In these speeches, Curzon was honest enough to admit that some of his predecessors had perpetrated acts of “vandalism’’(sic), and he wanted to bring this to an end. He said, in an address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in February 1900, “I see fruitful fields of labour still unexplored, bad blunders still to be corrected, gaping omissions to be supplied, plentiful opportunities for patient renovation and scholarly research.’’ In a speech informed by foresight, Curzon set aside his own predilection for shikar and spoke for the urgent need for the preservation of wildlife in India. That speech can be read even today and admired for the good sense and objectivity.

Curzon’s speeches serve as models in the way he communicated his views to his audience and the literary quality he brought to them. In Balliol, the venerable Jowett had warn- ed him against verbosity. Curzon did not forget that injun- ction. In India, he has been, and continues to be, disparaged as an imperialist, which he was. But he had a vision about India which was noble, civ- ilized and — because it was Curzon’s — superior.