550 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



viceroy, and whatever improvements he might 

 effect would be more likely to adhere to the soil. 

 In the case of Egypt, it is true, there would, so 

 far as the mass of the natives are concerned, be 

 little in the way of military, and nothing in the 

 way of political, life to extinguish. We should 

 only render impossible that which might other- 

 wise be possible, the gradual growth, under an 

 independent government, of an Egyptian nation. 



To associate the conquered with the con- 

 queror in the work of Indian government, and 

 thus in time train India to self-rule, is a policy, 

 the very conception of which attests the com- 

 paratively beneficent spirit of British conquest. 

 But before it can be really carried into effect, 

 not only must great political difficulties be over- 

 come, but a bridge must be thrown over a social 

 gulf, so wide as to be apparently impassable. 

 Real participation in government implies political 

 equality between the races, and political equality 

 cannot exist between those who are socially far 

 apart. The higher and more sympathetic minds 

 may be able to surmount the prejudice of race, 

 and to act with a Hindoo as cordially as with an 

 Englishman. But this cannot be expected of the 

 ordinary officials of the dominant nation, much 

 less of the lower class of Europeans and the 

 common soldier. We have heard Lord Elgin on 

 the relations between the races. In another pas- 

 sage (p. 417), speaking of a murder committed by 

 a European on a native, he says that, though not 

 deliberate, it had a feature just as bad, and char- 

 acteristic of homicides committed by Europeans 

 on natives, inasmuch as it was done " in wanton 

 recklessness, almost without provocation, under 

 an impulse which would have been resisted if the 

 life of the native had been estimated at the value 

 of that of a dog." He goes on to mention an- 

 other cas?e, in which a native had been kicked to 

 death for milking a goat which was alleged not 

 to belong to him, and says that the local paper, 

 instead of pitying the victim or his family, only 

 complained of the hardship to which the homi- 

 cide was subjected by having to go to Calcutta 

 to answer for his conduct in hot weather. As- 

 suredly, to make these two elements work to- 

 gether politically would be no easy matter. The 

 gulf between the Hindoo and the European is no 

 doubt partly caused by the strange primeval 

 mystery of Hindoo nature. In the use of the 

 Egyptian Fellah there would be no great obstacle 

 of this kind ; but the Fellah would probably be an 

 object of still greater contempt than the Hindoo. 



From war we have saved India. But what if 

 in doing so we have unwittingly aggravated the 



danger of famine ? What if, in the calm but en- 

 feebling security created by our rule, a helpless 

 and shiftless population has multiplied without 

 any limit but that of bare subsistence, to be the 

 prey of this periodical destroyer, or to be rescued 

 only by Government aid on an enormous scale ? 

 We may well feel proud both of the humanity 

 which accepts the burden, and of the adminis- 

 trative vigor with which it is borne. Yet this may 

 be an instance of the tendency of interference 

 with the course of Nature in other countries to 

 work out in unexpected ways. 



Since England has taken India into her own 

 hands, her sense of responsibility has compelled 

 her to introduce improvements, administrative 

 and educational, on the pattern of the best Euro- 

 pean civilization. But can India afford this sys- 

 tem ? Can she afford it when she has to pay 

 exile price for all her officials, and to give them 

 all large pensions besides ? She is gorgeous, but, 

 in proportion to her population, poor. The Duke 

 of Wellington is reported to have said of her : 

 " She is a magnificent country, and it would be a 

 shame to govern her ill ; but it would be ruinous 

 to govern her well." With an annual deficit 

 always called extraordinary, yet regularly recur- 

 ring, is it certain that the duke's saying will not 

 prove true ? Bankruptcy is a foe at least as 

 much to be dreaded by the Anglo-Indian Govern- 

 ment as the Russian legions which fancy sees 

 descending from the clouds of the Himalayas. 



From bankruptcy the Indian Government is 

 in fact saved only by the revenue from the opium- 

 traffic, which, as the present Secretary of State 

 for India said in defending it, " involves incon- 

 veniences of principle, but is wrapped up in our 

 finances." Inconveniences of principle the traffic 

 does seem to involve, when we consider that it 

 is not merely, like the liquor-traffic in this coun- 

 try, a trade licensed by Government, but a Gov- 

 ernment trade. The Chinese Government is 

 semi-barbarous, but it is paternal ; and there is 

 no reason for doubting the sincerity of its desire 

 to save the souls and bodies of its people from 

 the ravages of this hellish drug. But we, im- 

 pelled by financial exigency, constrain the Chi- 

 nese to admit it and bombard Canton when they 

 refuse. The excuses put forward — that Govern- 

 ment limits the traffic by undertaking it, and 

 that private villainy might commit the crime if 

 Government did not — would hardly impose upon 

 a child. Such, however, is the pillar of Indian 

 finance and it can hardly be thought adaman- 

 tine, unless morality and religion cease to be 

 forces in the world. 



