Greater Britain Part 37

Lah.o.r.e matches Umritsur in the purity of its Orientalism, Agra in the strength and grandeur of its walls: but it has no Tank Temple and no Taj; the Great Mosque is commonplace, Runjeet Singh's tomb is tawdry, and the far-famed Shalimar Gardens inferior to those of Pinjore. The strangest sight of Lah.o.r.e is its new railway station--a fortress of red brick, one of many which are rising all over India. The fortification of the railway stations is decidedly the next best step to that of having no forts at all.

The city of Lah.o.r.e is surrounded by a suburb of great tombs, in which Europeans have in many cases taken up their residence by permission of the owner, the mausoleums being, from the thickness of their walls, as cool as cellars. Sometimes, however, a fanatical relative of the man buried in the tomb will warn the European tenant that he will die within a year--a prophecy which poison has once or twice brought to its fulfillment in the neighborhood of Lah.o.r.e and at Moultan.

Strolling in the direction of the Cabool Gate, I came on the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjaub, driving in an open carriage drawn by camels; and pa.s.sing out on to the plain, I met all the officers in garrison returning on Persian ponies from a game at the Afghan sport of "hockey upon horseback," while a little farther were some English ladies with hawks. Throughout the Northern Punjaub a certain settling down in comfort on the part of the English officials is to be remarked, and the adaptation of native habits to English uses, of which I had in one evening's walk the three examples which I have mentioned, is a sign of a tendency toward that making the best of things which in a newly-occupied country precedes the entrance upon a system of permanent abode. Lah.o.r.e has been a British city for nineteen years, Bombay for two centuries and more; yet Lah.o.r.e is far more English than Bombay.

Although there are as yet no signs of English settlement in the Punjaub, still the official community in many a Punjaub station is fast becoming colonial in its type, and Indian traditions are losing ground. English wives and sisters abound in Lah.o.r.e, even the railway and ca.n.a.l officials having brought out their families; and during the cool weather race meetings, drag hunts, cricket matches, and croquet parties follow one another from day to day, and Lah.o.r.e boasts a volunteer corps. When the hot season comes on, those who can escape to the hills, and the wives and children of those who cannot go, run to Dalhousie, as Londoners do to Eastbourne.

The healthy English tone of the European communities of Umritsur and Lah.o.r.e is reflected in the newspapers of the Punjaub, which are the best in India, although the blunders of the native printers render the "betting news" unintelligible, and the "cricket scores" obscure. The columns of the Lah.o.r.e papers present as singular a mixture of incongruous articles as even the Government _Gazette_ offers to its readers. An official notice that it will be impossible to allow more than 560 elephants to take part in the next Lucknow procession follows a report of the "ice meeting" of the community of Lah.o.r.e, to arrange about the next supply; and side by side with this is an article on the Punjaub trade with Chinese Tartary, which recommends the government of India to conquer Afghanistan, and to reoccupy the valley of Cashmere. A paragraph notices the presentation by the Punjaub government to a native gentleman, who has built a serai at his own cost, of a valuable gift; another records a brush with the Wagheers. The only police case is the infliction on a sweeper of a fine of thirty rupees for letting his donkey run against a high-caste woman, whereby she was defiled; but a European magistrate reprimands a native pleader for appearing in court with his shoes on; and a notice from the Lieutenant-Governor gives a list of the holidays to be observed by the courts, in which the "Queen's Birthday" comes between "Bhudur Kalee" and "Oors data Gunjbuksh," while "Christmas" follows "Shubberat," and "Ash Wednesday" precedes "Holee."

As one of the holidays lasts a fortnight, and many more than a week, the total number of _dies non_ is considerable; but a postscript decrees that additional local holidays shall be granted for fairs and festivals, and for the solar and lunar eclipse, which brings the no-court days up to sixty or seventy, besides those in the Long Vacation. The Hindoos are in the happy position of having also six new-year's days in every twelvemonth; but the editor of one of the Lah.o.r.e papers says that his Mohammedan compositors manifest a singular interest in Hindoo feasts, which shows a gratifying spread of toleration! An article on the "Queen's English in Hindostan," in the _Punjaub Times_, gives, as a specimen of the poetry of Young Bengal, a serenade in which the skylark carols on the primrose bush. "Emerge, my love," the poet cries

"The fragrant, dewy grove We'll wander through till gun-fire bids us part."

But the final stanza is the best:

"Then, Leila, come! nor longer cogitate; Thy egress let no scruples dire r.e.t.a.r.d; Contiguous to the portals of thy gate Suspensively I supplicate regard."

The advertis.e.m.e.nts range from books on the languages of Dardistan to government contracts for elephant fodder, or price-lists of English beer; and an announcement of an Afghan history in the Urdu tongue is followed by a prospectus of Berkhamstead Grammar School. King Edward would rub his eyes were he to wake and find himself being advertised in Lah.o.r.e.

The Punjaub Europeans, with their English newspapers and English ways, are strange governors for an empire conquered from the bravest of all Eastern races little more than eighteen years ago. One of them, taking up a town policeman's staff, said to me, one day, "Who could have thought in 1850 that in 1867 we should be ruling the Sikhs with this?"

CHAPTER XII.

OUR INDIAN ARMY.

During my stay in Lah.o.r.e, a force of Sikhs and Pathans was being raised for service at Hong Kong by an officer staying in the same hotel with myself, and a large number of men were being enlisted in the city by recruiting parties of the Bombay army. In all parts of India, we are now relying, so far as our native forces are concerned, upon the men who only a few years back were by much our most dangerous foes.

Throughout the East, subjects concern themselves but little in the quarrels of their princes, and the Sikhs are no exception to the rule.

They fought splendidly in the Persian ranks at Marathon; under Shere Singh, they made their memorable stand at Chillianwallah; but, under Nicholson, they beat the bravest of the Bengal sepoys before Delhi.

Whether they fight for us or against us is all one to them. They fight for those who pay them, and have no politics beyond their pockets. So far, they seem useful allies to us, who hold the purse of India. Unable to trust Hindoos with arms, we can at least rule them by the employment as soldiers of their fiercest enemies.

When we come to look carefully at our system, its morality is hardly clear. As we administer the revenues of India, nominally at least, for the benefit of the Indians, it might be argued that we may fairly keep on foot such troops as are best fitted to secure her against attack; but the argument breaks down when it is remembered that 70,000 British troops are maintained in India from the Indian revenues for that purpose, and that local order is secured by an ample force of military police. Even if the employment of Sikhs in times of emergency may be advisable, it cannot be denied that the day has gone by for permanently overawing a people by means of standing armies composed of their hereditary foes.

In discussing the question of the Indian armies, we have carefully to distinguish between the theory and the practice. The Indian official theory says that not only is the native army a valuable auxiliary to the English army in India, but that its moral effect on the people is of great benefit to us, inasmuch as it raises their self-respect, and offers a career to men who would otherwise be formidable enemies. The practice proclaims that the native troops are either dangerous or useless by arming them with weapons as antiquated as the bow and arrow, destroys the moral effect which might possibly be produced by a Hindoo force by filling the native ranks with Sikh and Goorkha aliens and heretics, and makes us enemies without number by denying to natives that promotion which the theory holds out to them. The existing system is officially defended by the most contradictory arguments, and on the most s.h.i.+fting of grounds. Those who ask why we should not trust the natives, at all events to the extent of allowing Bengal and Bombay men to serve, and to serve with arms that they can use, in bodies which profess to be the Bengal and Bombay armies, but which in fact are Sikh regiments which we are afraid to arm, are told that the native army has mutinied times without end, that it has never fought well except where, from the number of British present, it had no choice but to fight, and that it is dangerous and inefficient. Those who ask why this shadow of a native army should be retained are told that its records of distinguished service in old times are numerous and splendid. The huge British force maintained in India, and the still huger native army, are each of them made an excuse for the retention of the other at the existing standard.

If you say that it is evident that 70,000 British troops cannot be needed in India, you are told that they are required to keep the 120,000 native troops in check. If you ask, Of what use, then, are the latter?

you hear that in the case of a serious imperial war the English troops would be withdrawn, and the defense of India confided to these very natives who in time of peace require to be thus severely held in check.

Such shallow arguments would be instantly exposed were not English statesmen bribed by the knowledge that their acceptance as good logic allows us to maintain at India's cost 70,000 British soldiers, who in time of danger would be available for our defense at home.

That the English force of 70,000 men maintained in India in time of peace can be needed there in peace or war is not to be supposed by those who remember that 10,000 men were all that were really needed to suppress the wide-spread mutiny of 1857, and that Russia--our only possible enemy from without--never succeeded during a two years' war in her own territory in placing a disposable army of 60,000 men in the Crimea. Another mutiny such as that of 1857 is, indeed, impossible, now that we retain both forts and artillery exclusively in British hands; and Russia, having to bring her supplies and men across almost boundless deserts, or through hostile Afghanistan, would be met at the Khyber by our whole Indian army, concentrated from the most distant stations at a few days' notice, fighting in a well-known and friendly country, and supplied from the plains of all India by the railroads. Our English troops in India are sufficiently numerous, were it necessary, to fight both the Russians and our native army; but it is absurd that we should maintain in India, in a time of perfect peace, at a yearly cost to the people of that country of from fourteen to sixteen millions sterling, an army fit to cope with the most tremendous disasters that could overtake the country, and at the same time unspeakably ridiculous that we should in all our calculations be forced to set down the native army as a cause of weakness. The native rulers, moreover, whatever their unpopularity with their people, were always able to array powerful levies against enemies from without; and if our government of India is not a miserable failure, our influence over the lower cla.s.ses of the people ought, at the least, to be little inferior to that exercised by the Mogul emperors or the Maratta chiefs.

As for local risings, concentration of our troops by means of the railroads that would be constructed in half a dozen years out of our military savings alone, and which American experience shows us cannot be effectually destroyed, would be amply sufficient to deal with them were the force reduced to 30,000 men; and a general rebellion of the people of India we have no reason to expect, and no right to resist should it by any combination of circ.u.mstances be brought about.

The taxation required to maintain the present Indian army presses severely upon what is in fact the poorest country in the world; the yearly drain of many thousand men weighs heavily upon us; and our system seems to proclaim to the world the humiliating fact, that under British government, and in times of peace, the most docile of all peoples need an army of 200,000 men, in addition to the military police, to watch them, or keep them down.

Whatever the decision come to with regard to the details of the changes to be made in the Indian army system, it is at least clear that it will be expedient in us to reduce the English army in India if we intend it for India's defense, and our duty to abolish it if we intend it for our own. It is also evident that, after allowing for mere police duties--which should in all cases be performed by men equipped as, and called by the name of, police--the native army should, whatever its size, be rendered as effective as possible, by instruction in the use of the best weapons of the age. If local insurrections have unfortunately to be quelled, they must be quelled by English troops; and against European invaders, native troops, to be of the slightest service, must be armed as Europeans. As the possibility of European invasion is remote, it would probably be advisable that the native army should be gradually reduced until brought to the point of merely supplying the body-guards and ceremonial-troops; at all events, the practice of overawing Sikhs with Hindoos, and Hindoos with Sikhs, should be abandoned as inconsistent with the nature of our government in India, and with the first principles of freedom.

There is, however, no reason why we should wholly deprive ourselves of the services of the Indian warrior tribes. If we are to continue to hold such outposts as Gibraltar, the duty of defending them against all comers might not improperly be intrusted wholly or partly to the Sikhs or fiery little Goorkhas, on the ground that, while almost as brave as European troops, they are somewhat cheaper. It is possible, indeed, that, just as we draw our Goorkhas from independent Nepaul, other European nations may draw Sikhs from us. We are not even now the only rulers who employ Sikhs in war; the Khan of Kokand is said to have many in his service: and, tightly ruled at home, the Punjaubees may not improbably become the Swiss of Asia.

Whatever the European force to be maintained in India, it is clear that it should be local. The Queen's army system has now had ten years'

trial, and has failed in every point in which failure was prophesied.

The officers, hating India, and having no knowledge of native languages or customs, bring our government into contempt among the people; recruits in England dread enlistment for service they know not where; and Indian tax-payers complain that they are forced to support an army over the disposition of which they have not the least control, and which in time of need would probably be withdrawn from India. Even the Dutch, they say, maintain a purely colonial force in Java, and the French have pledged themselves that, when they withdraw the Algerian local troops, they will replace them by regiments of the line. England and Spain alone maintain purely imperial troops at the expense of their dependencies.

Were the European army in India kept separate from the English service, it would be at once less costly and more efficient, while the officers would be acquainted with the habits of the natives and customs of the country, and not, as at present, mere birds of pa.s.sage, careless of offending native prejudice, indifferent to the feelings of those among whom they have to live, and occupied each day of their idle life in heartily wis.h.i.+ng themselves at home again. There are, indeed, to the existing system drawbacks more serious than have been mentioned.

Sufficient stress has not hitherto been laid upon the demoralization of our army and danger to our home freedom that must result from the keeping in India of half our regular force. It is hard to believe that men who have periodically to go through such scenes as those of 1857, or who are in daily contact with a cringing dark-skinned race, can in the long run continue to be firm friends to const.i.tutional liberty at home; and it should be remembered that the English troops in India, though under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, are practically independent of the House of Commons.

It is not only const.i.tutionally that Indian rotation service is bad. The system is destructive to the discipline of our troops, and a separate service is the only remedy.

CHAPTER XIII.

RUSSIA.

For fifty years or more, we have been warned that one day we must encounter Russia, and for fifty years Muscovite armies, conquering their way step by step, have been advancing southward, till we find England and Russia now all-but face to face in Central Asia.

Steadily the Russians are advancing. Their circular of 1864, in which they declared that they had reached their wished-for frontier, has been altogether forgotten, and all Kokand, and portions of Bokhara, have been swallowed up, while our spies in St. Petersburg tell the Indian Council that Persia herself is doomed. Although, however, the distance of the Russian from the English frontiers has been greatly reduced of late, it is still far more considerable than is supposed. Instead of the Russian outposts being 100 miles from Peshawur, as one alarmist has said, they are still 400; and Samarcand, their nearest city, is 450 miles in a straight line over the summit of the Hindoo Koosh, and 750 by road from our frontier at the Khyber. At the same time, we must, in our calculations of the future, a.s.sume that a few years will see Russia at the northern base of the Hindoo Koosh, and in a position to overrun Persia and take Herat.

It has been proposed that we should declare to Russia our intention to preserve Afghanistan as neutral ground; but there arises this difficulty, that, having agreed to this plan, Russia would immediately proceed to set about ruling Afghanistan through Persia. On the other hand, it is impossible, as we have already found, to treat with Afghanistan, as there is no Afghanistan with which to treat; nor can we enter into friendly relations with any Afghan chief, lest his neighbor and enemy should hold us responsible for his acts. If we are to have any dealings with the Afghans, we shall soon be forced to take a side, and necessarily to fight and conquer, but at a great cost in men and money.

It might be possible to make friends of some of the frontier tribes by giving them lands within our borders on condition of their performing military service and respecting the lives and property of our merchants; but the policy would be costly, and its results uncertain, while we should probably soon find ourselves embroiled in Afghan politics.

Moreover, meddling in Afghanistan, long since proved to be a foolish and a dangerous course, can hardly be made a wise one by the fact of the Russians being at the gate.

Many would have us advance to Herat, on the ground that it is in Afghanistan, and not on the plains of India, that Russia must be met; but such is the fierceness of the Afghans, such the poverty of their country, that its occupation would be at once a source of weakness and a military trap to the invader. Were we to occupy Herat, we should have Persians and Afghans alike against us; were the Russians to annex Afghanistan, they could never descend into the plains of India without a little diplomacy, or a little money from us, bringing the Afghan fanatics upon their rear. When, indeed, we look carefully into the meaning of those Anglo-Indians who would have us repeat our attempt to thrash the Afghans into loving us, we find that the pith of their complaint seems to be that battles and conquests mean promotion, and that we have no one left in India upon whom we can wage war. Civilians look for new appointments, military men for employment, missionaries for fresh fields, and all see their opening in annexation, while the newspapers echo the cry of their readers, and call on the Viceroy to annex Afghanistan "at the cost of impeachment."

Were our frontier at Peshawur a good one for defense, there could be but little reason shown for an occupation of any part of Afghanistan; but, as it is, the question of the desirability of an advance is complicated by the lamentable weakness of our present frontier. Were Russia to move down upon India, we should have to meet her either in Afghanistan or upon the Indus: to meet her at Peshawur, at the foot of the mountains and with the Indus behind us, would be a military suicide. Of the two courses that would be open to us, a retreat to the Indus would be a terrible blow to the confidence of our troops, and an advance to Cabool or Herat would be an advance out of reach of our railroad communications, and through a dangerous defile. To maintain our frontier force at Peshawur, as we now do, is to maintain in a pestilential valley a force which, if attacked, could not fight where it is stationed, but would be forced to advance into Afghanistan or retreat to the Indus. The best policy would probably be to withdraw the Europeans from Peshawur and Rawul Pindee, and place them upon the Indus in the hills near Attock, completing our railroad from Attock to Lah.o.r.e and from Attock to the hill station, and to leave the native force to defend the Khyber and Peshawur against the mountain tribes. We should also encourage European settlement in the valley of Cashmere. On the other hand, we should push a short railroad from the Indus to the Bholan Pa.s.s, and there concentrate a second powerful European force, with a view to resisting invasion at that point, and of taking in flank and rear any invader who might advance upon the Khyber. The Bholan Pa.s.s is, moreover, on the road to Candahar and Herat; and, although it would be a mistake to occupy those cities except by the wish of the Afghans, still the advance of the Russians will probably one day force the Afghans to ally themselves to us and solicit the occupation of their cities. The fact that the present ruler of Herat is a mere tool of the Persians or feudatory of the Czar will have no effect whatever on his country, for if he once threw himself openly into Russian hands his people would immediately desert him. So much for the means of defense against the Russians, but there is some chance that we may have to defend India against another Mohammedan invasion, secretly countenanced, but not openly aided, by Russia. While on my way to England, I had a conversation on this matter with a well-informed Syrian Pacha, but notorious Russian-hater. He had been telling me that Russian policy had not changed, but was now, as ever, a policy of gradual annexation; that she envied our position in India, and hated us because our gentle treatment of Asiatics is continually held up to her as an example. "Russia has attacked you twice in India, and will attack you there again," he said. Admitting her interference in the Afghan war, I denied that it was proved that she had any influence in Hindostan, or any hand in the rebellion of 1857. My friend made me no spoken answer, but took four caskets that stood upon the table, and, setting them in a row, with an interval between them, pushed the first so that it struck the second, the second the third, and the third the fourth. Then, looking up, he said, "There you have the manner of the Russian move on India. I push No. 1, but you see No. 4 moves. 1 influences 2, 2 influences 3, and 3 influences 4; but 1 doesn't influence 4. Oh, dear me, no! Very likely even 1 and 3 are enemies, and hate each other; and if 3 thought that she was doing 1's work, she would kick over the traces at once. Nevertheless, she is doing it. In 1857, Russia certainly struck at you through Egypt, and probably through Central Asia also. Lord Palmerston was afraid to send troops through Egypt, though, if that could have been largely done, the mutiny could have been put down in half the time, and with a quarter the cost; and Nana Sahib, in his proclamation, stated, not without reason, that Egypt was on his side. The way you are being now attacked is this:--Russia and Egypt are for the moment hand and glove, though their ultimate objects are conflicting. Egypt is playing for the leaders.h.i.+p of all Islam, even of Moslems in Central Asia and India. Russia sees that this game is for the time her game, as through Egypt she can excite the Turcomans, Afghans, and other Moslems of Central Asia to invade India in the name of religion and the Prophet, but, in fact, in the hope of plunder, and can also at the same time raise your Mohammedan population in Hindostan--a population over which you admit you have absolutely no hold. Of course you will defeat these hordes whenever you meet them in the field; but their numbers are incalculable, and their bravery great.

India has twice before been conquered from the north, from Central Asia, and you must remember that behind these hordes comes Russia herself.

Mohammedanism is weak here, on the Mediterranean, I grant you; but it is very strong in Central Asia--as strong as it ever was. Can you trust your Sikhs, too? I doubt it."

When I asked the Pacha how Egypt was to put herself at the head of Islam, he answered:--"Thus. We Egyptians are already supporting the Turkish empire. Our tribute is a million (francs), but we pay five millions, of which four go into the Sultan's privy purse. We have all the leading men of Turkey in our pay: 30,000 of the best troops serving in Crete, and the whole of the fleet, are contributed by Egypt. Now, Egypt had no small share in getting up the Cretan insurrection, and yet, you see, she does, or pretends to do, her best to put it down. The Sultan, therefore, is at the Viceroy's mercy, if you don't interfere. No one else will if you do not. The Viceroy aims at being nominally, as he is really, 'the Grand Turk.' Once Sultan, with Crete and the other islands handed over to Greece or Russia, the present Viceroy commands the allegiance of every Moslem people--thirty millions of your Indian subjects included: that is, practically Russia commands that allegiance--Russia practically, though not nominally, at Constantinople wields the power of Islam, instead of being hated by every true believer, as she would be if she annexed Turkey in Europe. Her real game is a far grander one than that with which she is credited." "Turkey is your va.s.sal," the Pacha went on to say; "she owes her existence entirely to you. Why not use her, then? Why not put pressure on the Sultan to exert his influence over the Asian tribes--which is far greater than you believe--for your benefit? Why not insist on your Euphrates route? Why not insist on Egypt ceasing to intrigue against you, and annex the country if she continues in her present course? If you wish to bring matters to a crisis, make Abdul Aziz insist on Egypt being better governed, or on the slave-trade being put down. You have made your name a laughing-stock here. You let Egypt half bribe, half force Turkey into throwing such obstacles in the way of your Euphrates route that it is no nearer completion now than it ever was. You force Egypt to pa.s.s a law abolis.h.i.+ng the slave-trade and slavery itself, and you have taken no notice of the fact that this law has never been enforced in so much as a single instance. You think that you are all right now that you have managed to force our government into allowing your troops to pa.s.s to and fro through Egypt, thus making your road through the territory of your most dangerous enemy. Where would you be in case of a war with Russia?"

When I pleaded that, if we were refused pa.s.sage, we should occupy the country, the Pacha replied: "Of course you would; but you need not imagine that you will ever be refused pa.s.sage. What will happen will be that, just at the time of your greatest need, the floods will come down from the mountains and wash away ten miles of the line, and all the engines will go out of repair. You will complain: we shall offer to lay the stick about the feet of all the _employes_ of the line. What more would you have? Can we prevent the floods? When our government wished to keep your Euphrates scheme from coming to anything, did they say: 'Do this thing, and we will raise Islam against you'? Oh no! they just bribed your surveyors to be attacked by the Bedouin, or they bribed a pacha to tell you that the water was alkaline and poisonous for the next hundred miles, and so on, till your company was ruined, and the plan at an end for some years. Your home government does not understand us Easterns. Why don't you put your Eastern affairs into the hands of your Indian government? You have two routes to India--Egypt and Euphrates valley, and both are practically in the hands of your only great enemy--Russia."

In all that my Syrian friend said of the danger of our relying too much upon our route across Egypt, and on the importance to us of the immediate construction of the Euphrates Valley Railway line, there is nothing but truth; but, in his fears of a fresh invasion of India by the Mohammedans, he forgot that for fighting purposes the Mohammedans are no longer one, but two peoples; for the Moslem races are divided into Sonnites and s.h.i.+tes, or orthodox and dissenting Mohammedans, who hate each other far more fiercely than they hate us. Our Indian Moslems are orthodox, the Afghans and Persians are dissenters, the Turks are orthodox. If Egypt and Persia play Russia's game, we may count upon the support of the Turks of Syria, of the Euphrates valley, and of India. To unite Irish Catholics and Orangemen in a religious crusade against the English would be an easy task by the side of that of uniting Sonnite and s.h.i.+te against India. A merely s.h.i.+te invasion is always possible, but could probably be met with ease, by opposition at the Khyber, and resistance upon the Indus, followed by a rapid advance from the Bholan.

Russia herself is not without her difficulties with the strictest and most fanatical Mohammedans. Now that she has conquered Bokhara, their most sacred land, they hate her as fiercely as they hate us. The crusade, if she provokes it, may be upon our side, and British commanders in green turbans may yet summon the Faithful to arms, and invoke the Prophet.

It is to be remarked that men who have lived long in India think that our policy in the East has overwhelming claims on the attention of our home authorities. Not only is Eastern business to be performed, and Eastern intrigues watched carefully, but, according to these Indian flies, who think that their Eastern cart-wheel is the world, Oriental policy is to guide home policy, to dictate our European friends.h.i.+ps, to cause our wars.

No Englishman in England can sympathize with the ridiculous inability to comprehend our real position in India which leads many Anglo-Indians to cry out that we must go to war with Russia to "keep up our prestige;"

and, on the other hand, it need hardly be shown that, apart from the extension of trade and the improvement of communication, we need not trouble ourselves with alliances to strengthen us in the East. Supported by the native population, we can maintain ourselves in India against the world; unsupported by them, our rule is morally indefensible, and therefore not long to be retained by force of arms.

The natives of India watch with great interest the advance of Russia; not that they believe that they would be any better off under her than under us, but that they would like, at all events, to see some one thrash us, even if in the end they lost by it; just as a boy likes to see a new bully thrash his former master, even though the later be also the severer tyrant. That the great body of the people of India watch with feverish excitement the advance of Russia is seen from the tone of the native press, which is also of service to us in demonstrating that the ma.s.s of the Hindoos are incapable of appreciating the benefits, and even of comprehending the character, of our rule. They can understand the strength which a steady purpose gives; they cannot grasp the principles which lie at the root of our half-mercantile, half-benevolent despotism.

No native believes that we shall permanently remain in India; no native really sympathized with us during the rebellion. To the people of India we English are a mystery. We profess to love them, and to be educating them for something they cannot comprehend, which we call freedom and self-government; in the mean time, while we do not plunder them, nor convert them forcibly, after the wont of the Mogul emperors, we kick and cuff them all round, and degrade the n.o.bles by ameliorating the condition of humbler men.