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THE

LIBRARY MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1879.

THE FUTURE OF INDIA.

SPECULATION as to the political future is not a very fruitful occupation. In looking back to the prognostications of the wisest statesmen, it will be observed that they were as little able to foresee what was to come a generation or two after their death, as the merest dolt amongst their contemporaries. The Whigs at the beginning of the last century thought that the liberties of Europe would disappear if a prince of the House of Bourbon were securely fixed on the throne of Spain. The Tories in the last quarter of that century considered that if England lost her American provinces she would sink into the impotence of the Dutch Republic. The statesmen who assembled at the Congress of Vienna would have laughed any dreamer to scorn who should have suggested that in the lifetime of many of them Germany would become an empire in the hands of Prussia, France a well-organized and orderly republic, and the "geographical expression" of Italy vitalised into one of the great powers of Europe. Nevertheless, if politics is ever to approach the dignity of a science, it must justify a scientific character by its ability to predict events. The facts are too complicated, probably, ever to admit the application of exact deductive reasoning; and in the growth of civilised society new and unexpected forms are continually springing up. But though practical statesmen will not aim at results beyond the immediate future, it is impossible for men who pass their lives in the study of the difficult task of government to avoid speculations as to the future form of society to which national efforts should be directed. Some theory or other, therefore, is always present, consciously or unconsciously, to the mind of politicians.

With respect to British India it may be observed that very different views of policy prevail. Native writers in the Indian press view their exclusion from all the higher offices of Government, and the efforts of Manchester to transfer 800,000l. per annum raised on cotton goods to increased taxation in India, as a policy based on mere selfishness; and a Russian journal, apparently in good faith, assured its readers the

other day, that India pays into the British treasury an annual tribute of twenty to twenty-five millions sterling. On the other hand, some advanced thinkers amongst ourselves hold that India is a burden on our resources, and the cry of "Perish India !" so far as relates to its dependence on England, is considered to be not unsupported by sound reasoning. One of the ablest publicists of India, in a published letter to Sir George Campbell, has declared his conviction, after twenty years' exporience in that country, that good government by the British in India is impossible.

It may be admitted that exaggerated notions as to the pecuniary value of India to England prevail, and it must also be confessed that, with all our self-complacency as to the benefits of British rule, we have to accuse ourselves of several shortcomings. Nevertheless, it may be affirmed with confidence that the national instinct as to the value of our possessions in the East coincides with the views of our most enlightened statesmen. My colleague, Colonel Yule, has pointed out, I think with entire justice, that the task which we have proposed to ourselves in India, unlike that of the Dutch in Java, is to improve and elevate the two hundred millions under our charge to the utmost extent of our powers. The national conscience is not altogether satisfied with the mode in which some of our possessions have been acquired, but impartial inquiry demonstrates that unless a higher morality had prevailed than has ever yet been witnessed amongst the sons of men, the occasions for conquest and acquisition of territory that have presented themselves to the British during the last hundred years would not have been foregone by any nation in the world. But the feeling I allude to quickens the sense of our obligations to the inhabitants of India. Having undertaken the heavy task of their government, it is our duty to demonstrate to posterity that under British rule we have enabled them to advance in the route of civilization and progress. We recognise that in all probability so distant and extensive an empire cannot permanently remain in subjection to a small island in the West, and therefore our constant task is to render the population of India at some day or other capable of self-government. Is such a problem susceptible of a favourable solution? I propose to discuss this question in the following pages.

I.

The late Sir George Lewis once observed to me that in his opinion, it was labour lost to endeavour to make anything of the Hindus. They were a race doomed to subjection whenever they came into collision with peoples more vigorous than themselves. They possessed, in short, none of the elements which are requisite for self-government. Any opinion of that philosophic observer is entitled to grave consideration, and undoubtedly there is much in the history of the past that tends to justify the above desponding conclusion. The Persians, the Greeks, the Parthians, the Huns, the Arabs, the Ghaznivides, the Afghans, the Moguls, the Persians a second time,

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