The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-26 00:00:00

•
far the Pee le of all mnks in the Punjab, that Golab Sinith
....la be (It of it. He could only have wished to be Wink,
tbs; ie might realise at lint the schemes of aggrandisement
,shstb his ambitious heart had for years been scarce able to
It is indeed difficult to conjecture whether wisdom
coamis•
vsajd ham prompted bitn to aim only at the independent
....aaeigoty of the hills, which, as a subject, he had so long
_...tise4l; or avarice, his ruling vice, have tempted
upon the throne before which he was once
him to
But his road to either object would have
mead "'
yes
ths mme. The impoverishment of the Punjab t; amend
uld
.ftogred the way for its division or its conquest ; and
lii3sartar of all classes of the people, from the Birder to the
ld have been gradually broken by fines, coufisea-
vos, wou
II cam, and extortion.
If am we, of the exoteric school, have not before us all
mops which led to it, we can at least seo the wisdom of
finial arrangement ; and they, of the esoteric
whoa the negotiators of the treaties, have a right
si ex
on
that, amid all the arguments brought to
upon their diplomacy, the argumrutum ad Imminent
;hold not be forgotten by the world. The names of Mr.
• and Major Lawrence are a sufficient guarantee for the
Curne Major
eity of any ocument to which they are attached.
—We need notd protons, our narrative. The troeps, left at
Lahore, have been comfortable, healthy, and kindly treated;
though something far otherwise was
Ma prophesied by dabblers
politics of high and low degree. Many, indeed, at parting
the friends whom they lett behind in occupation of" the
devoted city," cheered their spirits with a shake of the head
and a hope—for which there was just coons !—that another
gibe' catastrophe might not be their fate. But, with all
rpicacity acuminated to the highest possible degree,
oar Pc •
ars could never see the similarity between the two cases
Abe position, on the one hand, of 6,000 men with thirty
sum of their own, and a hundred others belonging to
stabs, well supplied with provisions aad only 40
mate from their own frontier, occupying a capital at the
sagest entreaty of the sovereign and the sird.ths —and the
veno, on the other hand, of se fl more than halt
'that number, without provision, without material, forcibly
oxapying two unconnected posts, in the heart of a die-
jested country, 500 miles from support of any kind !
Bat we leave these questions to the decision of history ;
history, which we, being neither Whig nor Tory, neither go-
vernment scribes, nor radical opponents.
Whenever time for
writing that history shall arrive, and an historian be
hand among us, or our children, who shall bring impartiality
to the consideration of facts, it will, we think, be sufficiently
opsrent, that though errors of detail mayare
mha crhoept into
o
departments—cur so long as governors ve
enw
it be otherwise ?—it would yet be hard to show how, circum-
stanced as Lord Hardinge found the N. W. Frontier in
1844, he could have acted better with the view of preserv-
ing peace ; or how, when in 1815 war seas forced upon him,
he could more effectually base carried it on, or
brought it to a more successful conclusion. Rapidly, yet
quietly, he doubled the froniier-posts; he had IPSOO men af
lerosepore ; 7,'200 at Ltidiana ; and 13,000 at U cabana: in
other words, out of an army of scarce 100,000 men, he
brought tm more than 30,000 within 70 miles of a contin-
gent—nay, judging from past exeerience, an improbable—
danger. k'emzthali was fought within ten days of the inva-
sion, with 16,700 men; and six weeks after, when the
strength of the empire had been brought to bear
as a single point, and all possible re-inforcements had
beep pressed into the field, Sobraon was fought with
maly 18,000! thus proving, that, after the necessary precau-
tions had been taken to watch the frontierand keep open the
communication with the rear, under no circumstances, and
by no measures however warlike, could many more men have
been brought into action than were brought by the pacific,
but energetic policy, which the Govemor-General pursued.
And as for the war's conclusion, which hasbeen called "lame
and impotent," let it be compared with the wars of his pre-
dectoors, which have been mere drains upon the Treasury.
The Burmah war entailed a cost of several cranes of rupees ;
the Afghan war saddled the country with a debt, the inter-
est of which occasions a present large deficiency of revenue;
and the war in Sind)); in truth, Sir Charles Napier has
found it so irnpos-ible to keep the books, that we cannot
tell how high to estimate the price of that war ; but
this we do know, that it bids fair to prove a
perennial curse. The Sikh war, on the contrary, has
added to our possessions territory, worth forty lakhs per
annum ; has strengthened our frontier by throwing our right
bank forward so far as to cover Simla, Ladianas and
L in-
belle ; and exacted an indemnity of 11 millions from the
enemy for the expenses it involved. It is said that those
expenses amounted to 11 mil:ions-12 months' bath'' com-
missariat, &c., being included—so that, making a liberal
allowance of 20 lakhs per annum for the interest of the
extra 25 lakhs expended in the war, and on the government
of the new country, we have still an equal sum to carry
annually to the credit of British India. It would have been
more, could we have avoided taking the Hill country north
of the Byes. We suppose it was necessary, in order to
square off the frontier ;_ but it was a dear bargain ; and, if
politic, we should gladly have seen it left in the hands
of either of our neighbours. This is an opinion which
will not perhaps meet with general favour; for there
is always something alluring in annexation; and in
the present instance, we know that many advo-
cated the appropriation of the Hill country, and
blamed the sate of Kashmir to Golab Singh. We sus-
pect, however, that the advocates of such a policy have not
much studied the question on which they so dogmatically
enlarge ; that they have never very closely calculated the
number of men requisite to hold the lltizaras, Peshawar,
or Kashmir ; much less compared that calculation with the
probable revenues of the countries they covet,--or rather,
with the balance uf revenue, which would be laft after the
meal confirmation of Jagirs which follows a British Indian
conquest.
The Punjab is the popular al Dorado of our army;
and even those, who bare neither medals nor honours
to gain by its annexation, consider it a rich and
fertle land. Taken as a whole, it is far otherwise.
In its palmy days, the fertilising dew of prosperity may
indeed have fallen over its whole surface; but it ever
evaporated from the few chosen spots where the lakes and foun-
tains were. The superabundance of the Jullundur supplied
the rest of the Punjab with competence : a part paid for the
government of the whole. That part is in our paws-
non; and if the exquisite filvour of the sunny side of the
melon tempts us to pick up the green side which we threw
away, we shall fiod it sour, unwholesome, and unripe.
Each Boob is a kingdom in itself; fur it is cut off far
half the year by rapid and difficult rivers. Each, there-
fore, in our hauls, would require a separate army to
ensure its tranquillity. Not many months have passed
since it took 10,000 men to put down insurrection in a
territory less by half than the smallest of the Punjab
Be'abs ; a territory which had been for nearly halt a century
accastomed to our supremacy; and was close to the Bombay
presidency. The country west of the Jhelum is wilder than
that of Ko!apore and Sa wuntwarri ; the features of the country
are on alarger vale ; the people more savage and independent,
more impatient of restraint; less satisfied to pay revenue; and
accustomed for generations to a fast and loose government,
that one day is content to take what it can get, and the next
comes down upon the people with frightful executions, muti-
lations, and massacres. Few people, when they come toconsi-
der these details, will deny that the governor-general was
wise to refrain from annex ng the Punjab. To us, his for-
bearance steins more than wise; it is eminently magnani-
mous, merciful, and patriotic. In the Punjab itself, none
could have blamed; in India, all would have approved,
the conquest. Sir Henry would have gathered a large
harvest of what is called fame, and run no risk in the
reaping; for by him not another shot would have been
fired. The country was at his feet; and chronologies
would only have recorded that he, Sir Henry Hardinge,
had added it to British India, The difficulties of a widely
extended frontier and the embarrassments of a sterile province
would have awaited his successor ! To England's mission in
the East, we trust we are as much alive as those,who, at the
point of the sword, wish to carry Philanthropy and Liberty
through the world; but we can see as little humanity as vris-
dem in commencing an enterprise which seems to have no end.
Peace is the great want of British India : and how can we hope
forpeace in tne Punjab? One insurrection, a single outbreak,
tuna like a shudder through an Empire—unsettles long settled
provinces, diverts revenue from its proper channels, and
puts back' the course of civilisation. Instead, therefore, of
cheating ourselves into new conquests, by calling them new
fields of usefu:neas, let us be honest, and cultivate the fields
we have already gained ; let us improve our present pos-
mations before we venture to enclose more; let us educate
the millions of Hindustan before we pretend to " emanci-
pate the Sikhs."—Calcutta Review.