VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21457, 3 April 1933, Page 9

VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD

DEATH IN ENGLAND GOOD WORK IN INDIA ACTIVITIES AS VICEROY AUSTRALIAN GOVERNORSHIPS By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received April 2, 11.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 2 The death has occurred of Viscount Chelmsford as the result of a heart seizure after listening to a broadcast description of the university boat race. Lord Chelmsford had a splendid record in India. He will be remembered particularly there and in Australia. The Chelmsford-Montagu reforms of 1919 laid the foundation of democratic government in India. Frederic John Napier Viscount Chelmsford, was born in 1868 and educated at Winchester and Oxford. A Fellow of All Souls' from 1892 to 1899, he was called to the Bar and then served for a time on the London School Board and London County Council. After_ succeeding to the title he was in 1905 appointed by the Conservatives Governor of Queensland, and on completing his term there the Liberal Government made him Governor of New South Wales in 1909. In both these pos*ts ho was very popular. During the war Lord Chelmsford went to India as an officer in a territorial battalion and had been there more than a year when in April, 1916, he was appointed Viceroy. He held office during a very difficult time. In view of the calls which had been made on India's patriotism during the war it was felt that tho time had come to assert India's claims. On the iniative of Mrs. Besant, Tilak and others a scliemo was put forward which subjected the executive officials to tho orders of an elected legislative body. This was adopted by the National Congress and the Moslem League and was known as the Congress-League scheme. Tho Viceroy appointed the Sadler Commission to report on education and at the end of 1916 submitted a reform scheme to the Cabinet. But it was not till August, 1917, that Mr. E. S. Montagu, then Secretary for India, announced the Government's policy, which was to increase the association of Indians in overy branch of tho administration and gradually develop self-govern-ing institutions. In the winter Mr. Montagu visited India and as a result the Chelmsford-Montagu scheme was completed in April, 1918. It pronounced against the Congress-League proposals, but suggested that decentralisation should be" carried out by transferring certain subjects to be dealt with by the provincial governments, while others were to be reserved for tho central executive. This plan came to be known as the " dyarehv." The British Government had appealed to India to renew its war-effort, and a conference called by the Viceroy made a hearty response. But after the armistice tho agitation began again, the extremists rejecting the Chelmsford-Montagu plan and demanding full provincial autonomy at once. Tho Rowlatt Bill for dealing with sedition, which was regarded by the extremists as an instrument of tyranny, received the Viceroy's assent, and this led to the starting by Gandhi of his passive resistance movement. Then came anti-British risings in various centres, including Amritsar. where tho troops were called out and General Dyer had the mob fired on, nearly 400 persons being killed —an episode that aroused intense indignation. When the "Dyarchy" became law in December, 1919, the National Congress condemned it, denounced the Government's action in the Punjab and demanded the Viceroy's recall. This attitude developed into tho non co-opera-tion policy. On April 2, 1921, Lord Chelmsford handed over the Viceroyaltv to Lord Reading after a term during which ho had shown much courage, patience and devotion to duty. His era saw India started on the road to self-government. In recognition of his services ho was made a viscount. In 1923 he was chairman of the statutory commission appointed to carry out in Oxford the recommendations of tho Royal Commission on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Next year after having received appointments from the Conservatives and the Liberals Lord Chelmsford, who said ho was not a politician, accepted the post of First Lord of tho Admiralty in the short-lived Labour Government. In June, 1926, ho aroused surprise by undertaking the duties of Agent-General in London for Now South Wales —the first time such a post had been held by a peer. It was regarded as rather a minor one for an ex-Viceroy, but it was merely temporary and he relinquished it in 1928. Lord Chelmsford became chairman of the Miners' Wei faro Fund which awards 10 university scholarships annually in 1930 Lord Chelmsford was appointed Warden of Winchester College, and in July, 1932, he was made Warden of All Souls', Oxford, of which ho had been re-elected a Fellow in 1929. The chief function of that foundation is to provide for a few select prize Fellows, giving them agreeable chambers and a common room. It has no undergraduates. Lord Chelmsford was also an lion. Fellow of Magdalen College and an hon. D.C.L. of tho university. His heir is his son tho Hon. A. C. G. Thesiger, who was born in 1903.