The Irish standard., 1896-05-02
.E1BNW'0RSE THAN 4 TURK
That Is What England Proved IT
self to5Be in the Conquest
of India.
The Atrocities i'm Armenia Mild in
Comparison With British
Brutality.

Lord racaulay Shows the Horrible
Methods of His Own Coun-
trymen.
! Christian England" is agonizing over
the pitiful condition Of the Armenians
under Moslem rule, but has nothing to
say anent her own awful record in In
we'll for John Bull to get the beam out of
his own eye before making frantic swipes
at the mote in the optic Of the Moslem.
i The oppression of the children of Israel
by the Egyptian Pharaohs, :, the Baby
lonian king and Roman emperors were
as nothing to that suffered by the pa
| tient Bengalese at the hands of Great
Britain. England's despoilment of India
constitutes the supreme crime of all the
ages, the acknowledged acme of infamy.
Europe never dreaded Alaric the Visi-
goth, nor hated Attila the Scourge of God,
as India breads and detests John Bull,
''thei white beast from over the black
water.' ,r~e..,.4 So.
A British trading company slhaas- leased
land at Madras and Calcntfa, Tor which
it paid rent to the native powers. For
the protection of it's warehouses it was
permitted. to buiad forts and keep a few
armed police, but it was in no sense :inde-
Ipendent. Its position in India was anal
agous to that of BritishG capitalists in
factory, and have been authorized to po-
lice their property. The company con-
tinued to augment its forces until strong
enough not only to protect its own prop
| ertY, but to overaWe the native govern
ments. Then, on one dishonest pretext
or another. it began the work of trans
forming india into a British province,
Robert Give succeeding in accomplish
! ing in Asia what DIR. Jamison attempted
| with far better excuse in South Africa.
Rival powers applied to the company for
assistance, and it mattered not with
| which it allied itself, both were in the
end destroyed or enslaved, compelled to
pour out their wealth into: the Golfers Of
the British corporation.
| No crime was too horrible, !, no breath of
faith too brazen, if it promised to further
the ambition and increase, the gains OF
the company. Its policy was to unite
! with a weak government to plunder a
strong one, then by subjecting its ally,
to make itself master Of both. BY trea-
son and stratagems, by forged treaties
and briberies, by infamies planned in
cold blood and executed with more than
Kurdish barbarity, the garden spot of
the earth, with its teeming millions and
inestimable wealth, was made to pay
tribute to British greed. Macaulay, the
eElogist of both Lord Give and Warren
Hastings, thus describes India when
Great Britain, without a shadow of ex-
cuse, laid her marauding paw upon it.
"The people of India when we subdued
them We're ten times as numerous as the
vanquished Americans (the Indians sub
jects Of Montezuma), and were at the
same time quite as highly civilized as the
victorious Spaniards. They had reared
or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful
and costly than the cathedrals Of Seville.
They could show bankers richer than the
richest firm of Barcelona or Cadiz, vice.
roys whose splendors far surpassed that
Of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of
cavalry. and long trains Of artillery
which would have astonfshed the great
captain. It might have been expected
that every Englishman who takes any in.
terest in any part Of history would be
curious to know how; a handful Of their
countrymen, separated from their home
by an immense ocean, subjugated in the
course Of few years one Of the greatest
empires of the world. Yes. unless we
greatly err, this subject is, to most read
ers, not only isipid, but positively dis
TASTEFUL gls
Good God! is it any wonder that British.
readers should find the conquest Of In.
dia positively distasteful?'' Is it not,
~ Iich, RI
read Of Turkish atrocities in Armenia
than British atrocities in India? Having
told us that Lord Give was freebooter
in his boyhood and a butcher in his
prime, did he anticipate that even Eng
lishmen would be proud of this country
man Of theirs who founded the British
emprie in India? Lord Macaulay gives
us the following. description Of conditions
in Bengal under British domfna tion: 4
''They (the servants of the British East
India company covered with their pro-
lection a set of native dependants; who
ranged through the provinces. spreading
desolation and terror wherever they ap-
peared. Every Servant of 9 British fac
tor was armed with all the power of his
master; and his master was armed with
all power OF the company. Enormous
fortunes were thus accumulated at Cali
GuCLa, sWlllIC Ul uutuII aUC.5
|ings were reduced to the last extremity
Of ssWret etchedness. They had been accus-
toned to live under tyranny. but never
tyranny like this. They found the little
finger Of the company thicker than the
loinsE Of Snrajah Dowlah. 1T resembled
the government of the evil genm rather
than the government Of human ty-
rant 81. 9S IF
The people Of India, il must be remem-
bered, /. had experienced the tyranny OF
Brahman and Buddhist, Of Moslem and
even the terrible Mahratta; they had
gloaned beneath the exactions OF the
Great Moguls, Numbering viceroys and
robber chiefs; they. had paid tribute to
|Aurungzebe and to Hyder Ali, but here
we are told that they never experienced
such tyranny and pitiless despoliation as
under the ririesof Eng land, and upon the
testimony Of ans Eng glishman! (. n ss Il
Lord CliYe having acquired an Inn
mense fortune, soneluded to round 1nt
his litical career by by..naugnarting "re-
tori d Z, but the. reform was ephemeral.
ia ILLS. essay on Warren Hastings Lord
Macaulav who wonders that the. cdn-
duest III India Is distastefll g readfngSt Sto|
glishmenE gives us the following b pen
picture uf cond tipna lnd 81 ths admInis-
afions 81 6is 81