Morris tribune., 1888-08-08
THE WHITES IN INDIA.
THE CORPORATION AND GARRISON
WHICH FORM 1.-THE EMPIRE"
no White Man Proposes to Rc:sain In
India-What Would Happen II the
Brown Men struck-English oficials
larry but Few Years.

no White Man Proposes to RcaaIn In
India-what Would Happen II the
Brown Men struck-English onicials
Tarry but Few Years.
Above this inconceivable mass Of hui
manity. governing all, protecting all. tax
ing all. rises what we call here "the en-
pire, a corporation of less than fifteen
hundred men, part chosen by examinar
ton, part by co-optation. who are set to
govern, and to protect themselves In gov
erning by finding pay for q minute white
garrison of 65, 900 men, one-ffth Of the
Roman legions-though the masses to be
controlled are double the subjects Of
Homeless than the army Of Sweden, or
Belgium, or Holland. That corporation
and that garrison constitute the "lndian
empire" There is nothing else. Banish
those fften hundred men in black. defeat
that slender garrison in red, and the EN-.
pire has ended, the structure disappears,
and brown India energies unchanged and
Interchangeable. To support the official
world and its garrison-both. recollect.
smaller than those of Belgium-there Is,
except Indian opinion. absolutely nothing
NO ONE WILL STAY.
Not only Is there 10 white race In India,
not only Is there no white colony, but
there is no white man who purposes to
remain Lord Dufferin, whom we scarcely
think of as middle aged, Is possibly the
oldest. certainly among the oldest, Of
white men In India. No ruler stays there
to help or citicise or moderate hts sue
cessor No successful white soldier
POUNDS family. No white man who
makes a fortune builds house or buys
an estate for his descendants. The very
planter. tie very engine driver, the very
foreman of works, departs before he Is %,
leaving no child, or house or trace of him
self behind. No white man takes root In
India. and the number even Of sojourners
is among those masses imperceptible. The
whites in our own three capitals could
hardly garrison them, and outside those
capitals are, except in government en-
ploy, only few planters, traders and pro-
f2ssional men, far fewer than the black
men in London. .-...
In city like Benares, q stone city
whose buildings rival those Of Venice,
city of temples and palaces beautiful
enough and original enough to be .
worlds wonder, yet in which no white
ecuted anything. a traveller might live
rich, and, unless he had official business
to do, might never see white face. And
away from the s'stations" planted outside
the native cities it Is so everywhere.
There are no white servants, not even
grooms, no white policemen, no white
postmen, no white snything. II the
brown men struck for week, the ''em-
pire" would collapse like house OF cards,
and every ruling man would be starv-
ing prisoner in his own house. He could
not move or feed himself or get water.
NOTHING Is PERMANENT.
shall not soon forget the observation
Of one Of the keepest and most experienced
of all observers who arrived In India dur
ing the mutiny. he had just landed, and
had consented to drive with me to . house
sixteen miles out Of Calcutta. On the
road, as usual, he noted everything, but
at Last turned to me with the question:
Where. then, are the white men?" "No-
where" was the only possible reply; and
it is true Of the entire continent. This
absence of white men Is said to be dus to
climate, but even In ''the hills" no one
settles. Englishmen live on the Sultry
plains of New South Wales; Americans.
who are only Englishmen a little desic-
Gated, are filing up the steamy plains of
Florida; Spaniards have settled as gov
erning caste throughout the tropical Sec
tions of the two Americas; Dutchmen
dwell on in Java; but the English, what
ever the temptation, will not stay in
India No matter what the sacrifice,
whether in money, or dignity, or pleasant
occupation, an uncomfortable disgust, an
overpowering sense of being aliens mex
orably divided from the people Of the
land, comes upon them, and they glide
silently away.
It follows that even in the minute
official world and the minute garrison
nothing is permanent. The viceroy rules
for five years, and departs. The coun-
cilor advises for five years, and departs.
The general commands for five years, and
departs. The official serves for thirty
years, probably in ten separate countries,
and departs. There is not In India one
ruling man whom two generations Of In
dams have known as ruling man. OF all
that In Europe comes of continuousness,
heredity, accumulated personal expert
ence, or the wisdom Of old age, there Is In
India not one trace, nor can there ever be.
Imagine If in Europe no sovereign or
premier or commander-in-chiefe ever lived
six yearsl Yet these men, thus shifting.
thus changing. do the whole work of leg
islating. governing, and administering,
all that is done in the whole Of Europe BY
all the sovereigns, all the statesmen, all
the parliaments, all the judges, revenue
boards, projects, magistrates, tax gath
erers and police officers. They are 1.-THE
empire, and there is no other. Meredith