Cyril Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe

Cyril John Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe GBE PC FBA (30 March, 1899 – 1 April, 1977), was a British lawyer and Law Lord best known for his role in the Partition of India. He served as the first chancellor of the University of Warwick from its 1965 foundation until 1977. Quotes The British have formed the habit of praising their institutions, which are sometimes inept, and of ignoring the character of their race, which is often superb. In the end they will be in danger of losing their character and being left with their institutions: a result disastrous indeed. 'British Rule in India', The Listener, Vol. XLVI, No. 1188 (6 December 1951), p. 968 It has been part of the cant of English life for so long to speak of power as an evil thing, an intoxicating thing, a corrupting thing. I call it cant because all experience shows that the British are singularly fitted to the exercise of power or authority and by no means go mad or become ruthless tyrants when entrusted with great responsibilities... There is a tradition of life in these islands that both enables and restrains authority. 'Power and the State', Reith Lecture (16 December 1951), quoted in 'Restraining Authority. Lord Radcliffe on a British Tradition', The Times (17 December 1951), p. 3 Culture is a word that makes some people in this country reach for their guns—like Marshal Göring; but I do not see how a country that is worth living in can get on without a reverence for it. 'Power and the State', Reith Lecture (16 December 1951), quoted in 'Restraining Authority. Lord Radcliffe on a British Tradition', The Times (17 December 1951), p. 3 Almost from the first the rulers of India seem to have accepted two main principles. They were in India to protect the weak from the oppressor: they were in India to govern until its broken peoples had found anew the strength to govern themselves. The second aim, we see now, would be confounded by the mere passage of time, needing for its fulfilment the most constant and enlightened resolution. It would need more, an uncharacteristic humbleness of heart. Perhaps things went astray amid the gathering splendours of the Victorian era. 'The Men Who Sustained “Our Imperial Adventure”', The Times (30 November 1953), p. 9 A review of The Men Who Ruled India, Volume One, by Philip Mason Tod reports that in Central India, after the Maratha wars, the universal greeting to an Englishman was: "Atul Raj! May your rule last for ever." Bishop Heber notes that in Kumaon "the British Government was most popular" and that "we are still really regarded as the deliverers of the people from an intolerable tyranny." Indeed the British administrator may be forgiven if he failed to see, with the more rarefied perceptions of some modern theorists, that in his simple desire to save others from the grosser forms of evil he was doing no better than to oppose the materiality of the West to the spiritual vision of the East.Nevertheless, it was this very scrupulousness in the use of power that was in the end to block the best lines of progress. 'The Men Who Sustained “Our Imperial Adventure”', The Times (30 November 1953), p. 9 Weigh all the advantage on one side against all the disadvantage on the other, and there still eludes us that formula of inspiration that sustained so many in the face of so much. When the long and brave endurance of the defence of Arcot had ended in relief, an English sergeant wrote: "We solaced ourselves with the pleasing reflection of having maintained the character of Britons in a clime so remote from our own." Perhaps it was no more obscure and no less demanding than that. 'The Men Who Sustained “Our Imperial Adventure”', The Times (30 November 1953), p. 9 The I.C.S. was a service designed to secure certain things that were of undebatable value to India: order, first and always, and then the hard structural foundation upon which others might build, railways, roads, irrigation, land survey, town planning, control of famine and disease. Within this range its alien recruitment and its philosophy of detachment were themselves a strength. 'The Men Who Ruled India. Testimony To A System And A Philosophy', The Times (27 September 1954), p. 7 A review of The Men Who Ruled India, Volume Two, by Philip Mason At the close the author turns to glance for a moment at other systems, Spanish, Chinese, Ottoman, Roman. Somehow the comparison seems unrevealing. This story takes its meaning from the relationships between British and Indian to which each side brought what there was in it of weakness and of strength, and one comes in the end to the conclusion that its measure of success was due to the fact that so many of our countrymen through so many generations gave to India a spontaneous love that amounted to selfless devotion. "I have been in the service of the people of India," said Sir William Wedderburn, one of the two British founders of the Indian National Congress, "and have eaten their salt; and I hope to devote to their service what still remains to me of active life." Touched by the light of loyalty of this quality the ordinary features that distinguish ruler from ruled take on an unreal air. 'The Men Who Ruled India. Testimony To A System And A Philosophy', The Times (27 September 1954), p. 7 Quotes about Lord Radcliffe What sticks out a mile in every page of this collection is his all-too-uncommon common sense. Lord Radcliffe says things that need to be said in ways which have the treble compulsion of wisdom, knowledge and directness; things for which we have looked in vain for the words ourselves; things which we have often felt or suspected but lacked the profundity to express with conviction. Adam Fergusson, 'Against inanity', The Times (2 November 1968), p. 24 A review of Not in Featherbeds by Lord Radcliffe External links Category:1899 births Category:1977 deaths Category:Anglicans from the United Kingdom Category:Judges from England Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:University of Oxford alumni