The evening times., 1899-07-08
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.
A Laud of Ironies and Many Cootrn-
dfctfons.
C. W. Stevens In the London Msii.)
If there is any enterprise in the worlds
history that has deserved to succeed. it
is the British Empire in India.
Our connection with the country began
as most legitimate and mutually benef-
cent commerce; it developed into con-
quest, not through any lust OF dominion,
hut almost accidentally, and certainly
against our will, as the inevitable conse-
quence OF the weakness and dissensions OF
the Indian races themselves. Having ac-
quired the empire, we have administered
it with a single-minded devotion to the
interests of its own people, which had
never had a parallel. We make India pay
its own way, but beyond that Britain gets
not penny from 1t for any public pur-
pose. We have imposed duties against
our own products, and in hundred ways
refuse to facilitate the business Of our own
countrymen.
II is sometimes said that India offers ia
vorable careers for our superfiuous youth.
This may be true spiritually; nation like
ours does well to offer adventures to it's
sons, yet it has half dozen spheres
where hardship and dangers can be had on
terms as favorable as any that India Of
fers. Materially, it is enough to say that
every officer in our service, except about
a thousand civil servants, is heavily un-
derpaid. If any nation ever deserved the
reward Of good work done for its own
sake it is Britain in India.
And on this comes in the hideous irony
that the reward of our work is largely fail
ure, and the thanks for our unselfishness
is mainly unpopularity You might almost
imagine that there was a curse on British
India, which ever turns good endeayors
into bad results.
have given India are justice and internal
peace-and each has turned to her distress
The one is driving her peasantry OF the
land; the other is preventing an effete
race from the renovation brought in by
alien conquerors.
When we say we have given justice, we
only mean that we have offered it-tried
to force it upon peoples which dislike and
refuse it. What we have really given is
handful of incorruptible judges, whose
experience enables them to strike a rough
balance between scales piled up with per-
jury on either side Often and often lit
igant comes to the European Judge and
says: You were wrong to give that case
against me, Sahib The other side were
all lying, and we-well, of course, we lied,
too; but the truth was such and SUCH and
we were right. But, of course, you could
not tell which was lying most. and we
knew you did your best to decide rightly;
only you were wrong" AS for the great
mass OF native judges, subordinate and
supreme. some are incorruptible; there
were incorruptibles in India before We
came; but the mass of them, as of the
other native officials, are just as they ever
were, and with the whole country leagued
TO screen them it is impossible that they
shall be otherwise.
The differences under our rule is not
so much that justice is done. as that the
law is enforced The rich man benefits
under this, for rajah's government would
seldom let rich man get out OF q law
suit with full pocket, but the poor man
suffers in the same proportion. In the old
days the poor debtor was protected by the
rapacity OF judges and government. The
usurer dared not go before the rajah for
leave TO attack the peasants stock and
crops and land. Aha" his majesty would
say. you must have been making money,
my friend; we must look into this" But
in British court the sacred contract must
be upheld. and the ryot is ruined
The irony of peace is as bitter Peace
is sometimes a blessing. no doubt; but
then, so, sometimes, is war. War was the
salt that kept India from decay. II caused
| horrible suffering, presumably, though in
India not perhaps much more than peace.
At least ii conspired with famine and pes
thence 10 keep the population down; all
| three have been greatly mitigated under
our rule. and now a prodigiously increas-
ing multitude Is dead weight on the gen
| eral prosperity of native India and a night
mare TO her foreseeing statesmen
But that IS the only the liTeSf
| curse of peace. India is effete 1t strikes
you as very, very old-worked out sap
less. extinct. Its peoples, for the most part,
are small, languid, eiTeminate. It's pol
| cies. arts, Industries, social systems stag
nate, and the artificial shackies OF caste
| bind down their native feehleness 10 a
complete sterility. Now, the old wars
| periodically refreshed this effeteness with
| strains of more vigorous blood Most Q:
! the greatest names of Indian history the
| braveSt armies, the noblest art belong
! soil and climate OF India need but three
or four generations to sap the vitality OF
the most powerful breed
| Whence is the new life to come? From
US? The gulf between BTiton and native
yawns as deep today-perhaps deeper
than when the first Englishmen set VI
their factory at Surat. Our very virtues
have increased the gap that was in any
| case inevitable between temperaments Sc
opposite ss Britain's and Indias. Jus.
| tice India can do without; for peace i
does not thank US. This too, will grow
worse and worse with time, instead O
better Even the best educated native!
| are very ignorant OF Indian history; the.
simply do not know what we have done
Even If they did things would be LITTLE
better; for. although it Is a silly fictiol
| that &c native OF India can be grateful
political, and national gratitude is wa
terry feeling at the best.
What else have We to count on for tn,
| regeneration OF India? Christianity? L
has made few converts and little enough
improvement in the few; is it not too ex
ot.c a religion to thrive in Indian soil
| Actual fusion of blood has done as little
1t is usual to Eneer at the Eurasan al
com mbining the vices Of both parents, bu
this appears to be q SANDER. In the day!
when generals married begums Eurasiani
counted many men Of ability and charac
ter: that you hear few now is more likel,
due to the fact that the modern breed ar,
almost necessarily of low type on botI
sides. AS 1t is, Eurasiars fill place mos
creditably which nobody else could fill. In
dustriaily, as orerseers, foremen, raiiwa!
guards and the like the are an almost in