INDIA FREE, INDIA MORE VALUABLE 77 5632. Would it not identify them with British dominion, and give them a common interest in preserving it, which they do not now feel? -To a certain extent it might do so. 5633. Do you not consider that such securities for the attachments of the inhabitants of India would be both more honourable to the country, and more to be permanently depended upon than any other attempts to govern India by keeping its natives in darkness and ignorance?—I would decidedly enlighten them as much as possible; but then you lose the country. 5634. Supposing any rival European Power were to find its way into India, would it not, by holding out the abolition of the existing disqualifications of natives, find the certain means of seducing them from their allegiance to us?—If they can once establish themselves, of course it would depend vastly on the Power; they know there is no European Power like ours likely to conquer the country. 5636. Supposing those disqualifications were removed in time by ourselves, would any inducement remain to the people of India to prefer the dominion of any other European Power ?-No, I do not think any European Power could have any influence with them, if we use our power properly, by giving them a participation in the govern ment of the country, and promoting education and civilisation. 5639. If in the progress of time India were to become sufficiently instructed to understand the principles of the Christian religion, and to comprehend the nature of government, such as that which belongs to the British Constitution, is it your opinion that in that state of civilisation India would permit itself for any length of time to be governed by the authority of England?-No, I should say not; taking the history of nations, that they would feel the value of governing themselves; it is human nature, I think, that they should. 5640. Is it not the case that in that state of civilisation which you contemplate as of advantage, the British dominion in India must also be contemplated by you as to cease?—I have expressly said, that I feel the effect of imparting education will be to turn us out of the country. 5641. If that should take place, are you prepared to say that India may not be of more value to us than it now is ?-By no means; America has been of more value to us separate than as a colony. 5642. What portion of the population of India is most attached to the British rule, whether the most ignorant or the most intelligent; or, in a word, is there any part of India with which you are acquainted where the attachment to the British Government is so strong as at Bombay?—I should say the most intelligent; I look upon it the people of Bombay, who are intelligent and well educated, have higher expectations from those advantages, and look up to Government with more confidence to derive those advantages; therefore that they must have stronger excitement of loyalty and affection to Government than those who are perfectly ignorant. 5643. Are the Committee to understand your opinion to be, that in proportion as India becomes civilised and instructed, there would be a desire for independence ?—I should think there naturally would. 5644. Even if that independence took place, you are not prepared to say that India might not be equally valuable to England as it now is ?-Certainly not; there would not be such an outlet for gentlemen's sons for appointments and things of that kind, but I should think the profit of the country would be as great; there would be none of the expense and all the advantages. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY: WHERE DOES INDIA STAND? India in a Worse Position To-day than on January 1, 1801. A Condescension to Particulars: (a) Wealth. (b) The Poverty of the People. A Significant Contrast. (c) National Industries. (d) Government Service. (e) Moral, Intellectual, and Spiritual, Position. Appendix: How Lascars voyaging to England would suffer moral harm 'The arrival in the port of London of Indian produce in Indianbuilt ships created a sensation among the monopolists which could not have been exceeded if a hostile fleet had appeared in the Thames. The shipbuilders of the port of London took the lead in raising the cry of alarm; they declared that their business was on the point of ruin, and that the families of all the shipwrights in England were certain to be reduced to starvation.'-TAYLOR's History of India, p. 216. 1801. Lord WELLESLEY, WITH 1901. Lord CURZON, Viceroy and Governor-General. WITH the beginning of a new century it may not be unsuitable to ask and to answer the question contained in the heading to this chapter. So far as the present writer is concerned there can, unhappily, be no hesitation as to what must, of necessity, be the reply. The question cannot, with any approach to accuracy, be answered save in some such sentence as this: India stands in a terribly worse position to-day than that which it occupied when the first dawn of 1801 trembled across the bay of Bengal and flashed upon the hilltops on the north-eastern coast of Hindustan. It matters not in what direction one looks, so far as the material prosperity of the vast mass of the population goes, the answer must be seriously adverse in comparison with the ancient time. Not now is prosperity, but once was prosperity. In all of a material character that goes to make a prosperous realm, India on January 1, 1901, was a greater number of leagues behind India on January 1, 1801, than I, for one, care to try to count. To finish assertion and to come to facts: WEALTH. One hundred years ago, in spite of the conveyance ('convey, the wise it call,' said Shakspeare) of vast amounts of ill-gotten wealth by civilians and military men and others to England, especially from Bengal and Madras, there was still much accumulated wealth throughout the continent. Other conquerors before us in India settled in the country; what they stole remained in India; they spent it or hoarded it in India. It might be taken from Bengal to Delhi, but much of it found its way back to Bengal, and Bengalis in high office in Delhi had their fair share of what was available. Save in a few historical instances India's treasure was not removed from India, and even what was taken was not extraordinary in amount. Nearly the whole of the wealth remaining in the country a hundred years ago has been so drained away that there is now less of popular pecuniary reserve in India than in any civilised country in the world. During the famine of 1900 so completely had the reserves been exhausted that a large number of very ancient coins found their way into ALL THE MONEY TO BE REPAID SOME DAY 81 circulation, and, in 1901, were offered to numismatists in London. How terrible the drain has been may be judged by various statements made at divers times. Notable amongst them Montgomery Martin's remarks of nearly seventy years ago. The annual drain of £3,000,000 from British India,' he said, 'has mounted in thirty years, at 12 per cent. (the usual Indian rate) compound interest, to the enormous sum of £723,900,000 sterling.' From that day to this there has been no cessation in the flow. More: with every year it has increased until the stream which in 1830 was regarded as almost beyond control, has increased tenfold, and has become altogether beyond control. It is true the area drained is larger now than then, but the proportion of wealth annually taken is far greater. During the closing ten years of the nineteenth century it became beyond control, to the extent of involving more than half the cultivators in the Empire in almost irremediable debt;1 it has turned the moneylender into the real lord and sovereign of India, while twenty millions of patient, suffering, excellent, people have died prematurely from want of food and from the diseases occasioned by privation and from plague. During the last thirty years of the century the average drain cannot have been far short of £30,000,000 per year, or, in the thirty years, £900,000,000, not reckoning interest! Against this great and forcible withdrawal, forcible by economic law in the first instance, by British might in the second, is to be set the money loaned by England to India for warlike purposes and public works, only a small portion of which has been wealthcreating to an appreciable extent, so far as the masses of the people are concerned, and the sum total of which does not compare with the drain to England. And, further, all of it has to be repaid some day. It may, in another chapter, be possible to strike the balance, although only approximately, between the two sides of the account, 'In the Bombay Presidency, according to the Macdonnell Famine Com. mission Report, four-fifths of the cultivators are indebted. |