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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



met perhaps by an appeal to the net results of 

 Indian administration. But he brings certain 

 peculiarities, and the circumstances which pio- 

 duce them, distinctly under our view. 1 



We have renounced for the present purpose 



1 " Society everywhere in India labors under very great 

 disadvantages, and varies very much according to the 

 character of its ever-changing leaders. Sir Emerson Ten- 

 nent has observed that it is, ' unhappily, the tendency of 

 small sections of society to decompose when separated 

 from the great vital mass, as pools stagnate and putrefy 

 when cut off from the invigorating flow of the sea ; ' and 

 he adds that the process is variable, so that a colonial so- 

 ciety which is repulsive to-day may be attractive to-mor- 

 row, or a contrary change may take place with one or two 

 departures or new arrivals. The same holds go&d in India; 

 and though Indian society can boast of some superiority 

 to colonial (a superiority which is amusingly asserted on 

 board mail-steamers), it has very great defects of its own, 

 and in certain circumstances degenerates into the intoler- 

 able. One tendency of life in India is to create an immense 

 amount of conceit, and to make men assume airs of su- 

 periority, not because of any superiority of mind or char- 

 acter, or on account of great services rendered to the 

 state, but simply because long residence in the country, 

 or in some particular district of it, has given them high 

 appointments, or the advantage as regards local knowl- 

 edge. Then, though military society has many good 

 points, ' discipline must be observed,' and it was in per- 

 fect good faith, and expressing his own opinion as well as 

 that which he believed to be generally entertained, that an 

 old Indian remarked to me, ' We don't think much of any 

 one's opinions here until he is a lieutenant-colonel at 

 least.' Of course, in all countries opinions are often meas- 

 ured by the position of the spokesman, but in Europe that 

 is not so much the case as in India, and in our happier 

 climes it is easy to shun the society of snobs, whether 

 social or intellectual, without becoming a social pariah. 

 This social tendency :s not corrected, but developed rather 

 than otherwise, by a close bureaucracy, such as the Indian 

 Civil Service— and there is no other element in the com- 

 munity sufficiently strong to correct it— while it is almost 

 justified by the extraordinary effect India has in rapidly 

 producing intense conceit and insufferable presumption 

 among Europeans of a low order of mind and character, 

 whatever classes of the community they may belong to. 

 Nothing struck me more in that country than the contrast 

 between its elevating and even ennobling effects on those 

 Europeans whose minds were above a certain level, and its 

 exactly contrary effects on almost all those who were be- 

 low that level. What, then, Indian society has specially 

 to struggle against are two apparently opposite tendencies, 

 a slavish respect for mere position, and for exceptional 

 power and knowledge in particular directions ; and, on the 

 other hand, excessive individual conceit and presumption. 

 But these evil tendencies (which, curiously enough, be- 

 long also to the Indian native character) are not opposed 

 in any such way as to counteract each other. On the 

 contrary, they are apt to foster and inflame each other, 

 because the old Indian justly sees that he has opposed to 

 him an immense deal of ignorant presumption, which 

 ought to be severely repressed, while the democrat and 

 the griffin instinctively feel that they are oppressed by an 

 amount of tryrannical old-fogyism which would not be 

 allowed to exist in any other country." — (" Abode of 

 Snow," by Andrew Wilson, p. 56.) 



the consideration of morality, but we must be 

 allowed to consider the influence of empire on 

 the political character of the imperial country. 

 Our free institutions with the character on which 

 they rest, and the corruption of which they would 

 not survive, are supposed, apart from sentiment, 

 to be objects of paramount importance. The ad- 

 dition of an unconstitutional title to the constitu- 

 tional titles of the British sovereign seems aptly 

 to symbolize a tendency already perceptible, and 

 which that measure was perhaps partly intended 

 to assist. Dependencies, even under the mildest 

 system, must be governed on principles wholly 

 different from those of a constitutional polity, and, 

 though superior minds may be able to keep the 

 distinction between the two spheres always be- 

 fore them, and to don the despot without doffing 

 the citizen, in ordinary minds the lines of sepa- 

 rate allegiance will become more or less blurred 

 and the indefeasible sanctity of freedom will be 

 lost. The effect will be intensified by every re- 

 bellion which breaks out in a dependency, and, 

 after exciting the passions of the imperial nation, 

 is quenched in servile blood. It was for this rea- 

 son that many people who were by no means 

 admirers of the East India Company deprecated 

 its abolition, and the political identification of 

 India with England which necessarily ensued. 

 The company being under the control of the 

 British Government, the responsibility under the 

 old system was the same, but the danger of po- 

 litical contagion was not so great. 



Anglo-Indians, as a body, return rich ; they 

 must thereforehave some political influence, and 

 it would be interesting to know what their politi- 

 cal tendencies are, and what sort of citizens In- 

 dia sends back to England. In former days, be- 

 fore the dependencies were controlled, both East 

 Indian nabobs and West Indian planters avenged 

 the oppressed native upon the dominant race by 

 playing a leading part in the corruption of the 

 English Parliament. It w r as on the East India 

 Bill and with the support of the nabobs that 

 George III. gained the victory over the constitu- 

 tion which established his ascendency, and en- 

 abled him to bring a train of calamities on the 

 country. 



But the reflex influence may go deeper still and 

 affect not only those sentiments which lie at the 

 root of political liberty, but those which lie at 

 the root of all civilization. A conqueror neces- 

 sarily persuades himself that his yoke is righteous, 

 that submission to it is loyalty, that insurrection 

 against it is the worst of treasons. He forgets 

 that, as Pym said when Strafford pleaded that 



