20th December.
Ir Lord Beaconsfield's imperialism had had no other result, it would have been justified by the altered view which the patriotic Briton now takes of the heritage handed down to him by his forefathers. It is well within the memory of men, hardly middle-aged, that there were to7 be found "numbers, perhaps a majority, of Englishmen calling themselves patriots who viewed the expected separation of the colonies from us with complacency, if not with pleasure. ''he colonies were to them millstones in two senses: they hung about our necks, a dead weight of sulky indifference: they were used on occasion to grind out of us some all too grudging aid. Patriots of this class considered the separation of the colonies a foregone conclusion, and "O, let it be soon!" was. their sometimes outspoken prayer. What commentary on such patriotism has been the experience of the past two rears So with India. In times even more recent than those of the shortsighted colonial pessimism, we have heard the hasty expression, " Perish India!" from lips permitted to speak in a British Parliament. We are not likely to have a repetition of such fatuous polemic, for not only has the action of the colonies been so magnificently true to the empire as for the first time in history to advertise the fact that it is one and indivisible, but India, herself, has not hung back. Her only regret has been that she has not been allowed to do more.
In the case of South Africa it was seen from the beginning that as the war was purely one within the British Empire, which is literally true since, even before it began, our territory entirely enclosed that of the Boers, it should be carried through by. Britain's own boys, a decision which resulted in not a little heart-burning amongst the warlike sons of India's many tribes, who would gladly have crossed the "black water" to do battle with the Empire's foes. Their chanca was soon to come. The outbreak in North China was their opportunity, and as regiment after regiment came along, Gurkha and Sikh, Pathan and Baluchi, those of us who had never seen an Indian force before were more than satisfied.
Some writers have not hesitated to express their opinions as to the relative qualities of the varied troops which took part in the expedition to Peking and the many off-shoots from it..So far as these have been con-damnatory we have no desire to repeat them. It is sufficient for us to know that in the opinion of those best qualified to judge, the Indian troops behaved admirably in camp, on the march, and in battle. They were the first to enter Peking, they were never the last " when the guns began to shoot." At Peitsang it was the sturdy little Jap that bore off the honours of the day, but when the next fight took place the stalwart Sikh met his opportunity and was not found wanting.
These are the men who have come to look upon themselves as sons of the Empire, and are ready at any moment to fight, as warlike races will fight, for their raj. They do not stand alone. No more magnificent a roll of military clans could be found the wide world over than is to be seen in the annals of Indian war. On the northern frontier, in the still almost unknown land of Nepal, we have a recruiting ground from whence come the sturdy little Gurkhas, rarely surpassed by troops of apy nation. And yet, wonderful to relate, the ancestors of these same redoubtable warriors were, about a century ago, completely beaten by the Chinese. From Nepal right round to Karachi, there are moun-famous ramparts forbidding the native to leave, or the outsider to enter India, except by toilsome travel over high passes and through dangerous ravines. Amongst these mountains, there are hardy races inured to difficulty and danger; men to whom fear is as unknown a quantity as it was to Nelson; men whose one idea of right in this world, and happiness in the next, is to be faithful to their leader, to do his bidding, and follow him to the death. What they have achieved once with the British officer in front is already known. Some of the fights on the N.W. frontier a few years ago were as fine performances as war has ever seen, and there was little to choose between the fiery Scot and the wiry Gurkha, when, on the fatal day of Dargai, they raced each other to the summit.
Every employment of the Indian army abroad serves to add to this sense of the unity of the empire, which has become the object of so much desire in these latter days. Already India has fought for us and for herself against the Persian, against the Chinese, Taiping, Boxer, and Imperialist alike, against King Theodore of Abyssinia, against the Burmese, and the Khalifa's hordes of Fuzzy-Wuzzies. He has moreover made a demonstration in Malta, as though to prove his adaptability to more northern climes. In all these instances his character and behaviour have been most satisfactory. There has been no expedition in which he has been engazed, either within or without the bounds of the empire, which has not been concluded to the satisfaction of those who sent him, That this should be so, is of something more than military qualities. It is evidence. of the general feeling of loyalty which pervades the peninsula. An Indian paper, some three or four years ago, some very outspoken' criticism of British: policy, had these remarks "The oft-exploded fallacy still obtains that India is held by British troops, and not in virtue of popular assent to British rule as good in the main though capable of improvenent"... and proceeded to base an argument on "that falsehood, and on the kindred fallacy that India is likely to become the willing prey of a foreign power." "The loyalty of India," continues the writer, " was pnt to the severest test in 1857, and it proved equal to it. Since then it has stood the strain of innumerable petty shocks and minor injustices."
This, being the evidently honest opinion of one who was by no means afraid to criticise, is highly valuable as an index to real native feeling. The article concludes with a recommendation that "some measure of self-government " should be conceded, something after the same style as that allowed to Canada or Australia. "Then India, the brightest jewel of the British crown, would become a treasure to be displayed with pride bulwark of England's strength."
It may perhaps be questioned whether India is ripe for self-government, The warlike tribes are not as a rule gifted with the readiness of the effeminate Ben-galee to assimilate book-learning and. satisfy His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. Were self-government to be conceded under the Pax Britannica, it is easy to see into whose hands the wires would fall, "Natives of. India," wrote General Prendergast in the " Asiatic Quarterly" some years ago, "are faithful to Government; they speak much of the Sirkar, but little of the 'Kaisar' or Empress; in Parliament they are represented, not by a Hindu or a Mussulman, or even by a Buddhist or a Sikh, but by a Parsee in the newspaper Press they are represented or led by the Bengali Baboo and the half-caste Vakeel." It goes without saying, that the warrior would not submit to be ruled in any sense by such as these. Powgr he respects, but it is the power of the armed hand, of the mailed fist. It would then be the most suicidal of mistakes to attempt to put him under any sort of authority but that which he naturally obeys. This may, and doubtless will, mean the continuance for some time to come of the semi-democratic, semi-despotic style of government which has abroad tee TR, admirable resin had so nobly refused great depensrominent landmark of the in heart
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.