The Northern Guardian. — 1898-01-04 (Hartlepool, Cleveland, England)

FROM THE DEAD HERO.! HARTLEPOOLS HOSPITAL GOVERNORS.  THE LAST WORDS OF SIR HENRY HAVELOCK-ALLAN.  The London "Daily Mail" announces that the bite Sir Henry Havelock-Allan had made arrangements with that enterprising paper to publish in its columns a series of ten articles on events SH he found them in North-West India. Two letters readied London yesterday, although owing to his lamented death, they were not expected. The London "Daily Mail" to-day publishes one of the letters, under the above heading, which describes Sir Henry's voyage to Bombay. We quote the following from the letter :  Bombay, Der.ember 17. Having been connected with India since the stormy times of the first Afghan War. 1838-1842, I have often earnestly desired to revisit that country, with a view of judging for myself of the enormous improvements that have taken place both in our modes of government and the education of the natives.  There are those who think that the time will come when, having educated the people of India to govern themselves (surely the most noble task that has ever been committed to a great people), they will be glad to ,et rid of us, and to enter once again under the despotic government exercised of old by their ancient rulers. I have always, myself, after studying the question most attentively, had considerable doubts  Whether That Day Will Ever Arrive. On the contrary, I believe that the natives of India, not one nationality, but fifty, speaking languages as various as those of the dwellers in Russia on the one hand, and of Italy on the other, or Scandinavia in the north, and Turkey in Europe in the south, know well that they cannot by any possible means substitute our rule for that of any European Power which they would like better. Russia, who alone has any possible chance of effecting our ejection from India, would find herself within six months more cordially bated by the population of Hindostan than Great Britain has ever been in her darkest day. My own belief is that, should ever the day ccme when the British people shall have so completed its splendid task of regenerating India as to enable its inhabitants to govern themselves, by that time, through the spread of education, and the acknowledged beneficial effects of our rule— our benevolent rule--the people of India Almost Unanimously Would Ask Is •  to continue our stay among them, and if not as masters, yet as fellow-citizens under the rule of Queen Victoria to continue and expand the Christian work of extending to them, and teaching them to value, civil rights not inferior to those enjoyed by the British people. This day must, of course, be far distant; in fact it is difficult for any one who has a practical knowledge of Indian social life, especially the life of the natives among themselves, to conceive that it can ever occur. The finest, most manly, and warlike races; that have ever come under our sway—the Sikhs, Clhoorkhas, and the Mahommedan Pathans, both to the east and west of the Indus would, I believe, desire and earnestly solicit us to remain among them, and continue uninterruptedly that splendid disinterested rule which has made India what it now is. In place of internecine war, murder, and outrage that characterised the native rule for centuries before our advent, we now find instead that peace and order reign. It is in order to see the steps of progress made by us in this task, and having always had the warmest interest in the natives of India, and their welfare in Parliament and out of Parliament during twenty-five years, that I undertook, after an absence from the country of full forty years, the h. zardous task of again, in advanced age, facing the ardent suns and rains of that burning climate t ) enable me to give my countrymen some feeble idea of what