BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.
"What is truth?" asked Pilate, and when he had asked the question
he went out without waiting for an answer. The question has been
asked many times and answered in many different ways. I was reminded
of a similar question when I read over the door of a court house
in Aligarh, India, the motto: "Justice is the Strength of the
British Empire." No empire, no government, no society can have any
other source of permanent strength. Lord Salisbury is quoted by
Indian leaders as saying: "Injustice will bring down the mightiest
to ruin," and we all believe it. Wendell Phillips expressed it
as strongly and even more beautifully when he said (I quote from
memory): "You may build your capitals until they reach the skies,
but if they rest upon injustice, the pulse of a woman will beat them
down."
But what is justice? How varied are the answers given! The subject,
in the name of justice, presents his appeal to his king, and the
sovereign, if he be a despot, may send him to exile or the prison or
the block and do it in the name of justice. What is justice? This
question has been ringing in my ears during our journey through
India.
When I was a law student, I read the speech of Sheridan at the trial
of Warren Hastings, and that masterpiece of invective was recalled
sixteen years later, when a colonial policy began to be suggested
in the United States after the taking of Manila. I tried to inform
myself in regard to British rule in India; the more I read about it,
the more unjust it seemed. So many Americans have, however, during
the last few years spoken admiringly of England's colonial system
that I have looked forward to the visit to India with increasing
interest, because of the opportunity it would give me to study at
close range a question of vital importance to our own country. I
have met some of the leading English officials as well as a number
in subordinate positions; have talked with educated Indians--Hindus,
Mohammedans and Parsees; have seen the people, rich and poor, in the
cities and in the country, and have examined statistics and read
speeches, reports, petitions and other literature that does not
find its way to the United States; and British rule in India is far
worse, far more burdensome to the people, and far more unjust--if I
understand the meaning of the word--than I had supposed.
[Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY THE EARL OF MINTO.]
When I say this I do not mean to bring an indictment against the
English people or to assert that they are guilty of intentional
wrongdoing. Neither do I mean to question the motives of those who
are in authority. It has been my good fortune to become personally
acquainted with Lord Minto, the present viceroy; with Lieutenant
Governor Frazer, the chief executive of the province of Bengal;
with Lieutenant Governor La Touche, chief executive of the United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and with Governor Lamington, chief
executive of the Bombay presidency, three of the largest Indian
states. These men, I am sure, represent the highest type of
their countrymen. Lord Minto is fresh from Canada, where he was
governor general; Governor Lamington was the head of the Australian
government before coming to India, and both Governors Frazer and La
Touche have long official experience to their credit. That they will
be just, as they understand justice, and do right as they see the
right, I am satisfied. But what is justice?
The trouble is that England acquired India for England's advantage,
not for India's, and that she holds India for England's benefit, not
for India's. She administers India with an eye single to England's
interests, not India's, and she passes upon every question as a
judge would were he permitted to decide his own case. The officials
in India owe their appointment directly or indirectly to the
home government, and the home government holds authority at the
sufferance of the people of England, not of the people of India.
The official who goes out from England to serve a certain time and
then return, whose interests are in England rather than in India and
whose sympathies are naturally with the British rather than with
the natives, can not be expected to view questions from the same
standpoint as the Indians. Neither can these officials be expected
to know the needs of the people as well as those who share their
daily life and aspirations.
It is not necessary to review the earlier rule under the East India
Company; that is sufficiently condemned by public record. That
company was chartered for commercial purposes, and its rule had
no other than a pecuniary aim. It secured control of state after
state by helping one native prince against another where it did
not actually instigate war between princes. The English government
finally took the colony over, confessedly because of the outrageous
conduct of the company's officials. No one now defends the rule
of the East India Company, although Warren Hastings was finally
acquitted by the House of Lords in spite of his crimes, out of
consideration for his public service in extending English authority.
Is English rule in India just, as we find it to-day? Fortunately,
England permits free speech in England, although she has sometimes
restricted it in her colonies, and there has not been a public
question under consideration in England for a century which has
not brought out independent opinion. It is the glory of England
that she was an early champion of freedom of speech, and it is
the glory of Englishmen that they criticise their own government
when they think it wrong. During the American revolution, Burke
thundered his defense of the rights of the colonists, and Walpole
warned his countrymen that they could not destroy American liberty
without asserting principles which, if carried out, would destroy
English liberty as well. During the recent war in South Africa the
British had no more severe critics than were to be found among
her own people and in her own parliament. And so, to-day, British
rule in India is as forcibly arraigned by Englishmen as by the
Indians themselves. While Mr. Naoroji, an Indian, goes to England
and secures from a meeting of a radical club the adoption of a
resolution reciting that as "Britain has appropriated thousands
of millions of India's wealth for building up and maintaining
her British Indian empire and for drawing directly vast wealth
to herself;" that as "she is continuing to drain about thirty
million pounds sterling of India's wealth every year unceasingly
in a variety of ways" and that as "she has thereby reduced the
bulk of the Indian population to extreme poverty, destitution and
degradation, it is therefore her bounden duty, in common justice and
humanity, to pay from her own exchequer the costs of all famines and
diseases caused by such impoverishment." And further, "that it is
most humiliating and discreditable to the British name that other
countries should be appealed to or should have to come to Britain's
help for relief of Britain's own subjects, and after and by her
un-British rule of about one hundred and fifty years."
[Illustration: VICEROY'S PALACE AT CALCUTTA.]
While, I repeat, Mr. Naoroji was securing the unanimous adoption
of the above resolution in England, Sir Henry Cotton, now a member
of parliament, but for thirty-five years a member of the Indian
civil service, was preparing his book, New India, in which he
courageously points out the injustice from which India now suffers.
Neither he nor Mr. Naoroji suggests Indian independence. Both
believe that English sovereignty should continue, but Mr. Cotton
shows the wrongs now inflicted upon India and the necessity for
reform. Not only does he charge that the promises of the queen have
been ignored and Indians excluded from service for which they were
fitted, but he charges that the antagonism between the officials and
the people is growing and that there is among civilian magistrates
"an undoubted tendency to inflict severe sentences when natives of
India are concerned, and to impose light and sometimes inadequate
punishment upon offenders of their own race," and that in trials
"in which Englishmen are tried by English juries" the result is
sometimes "a failure of justice not falling short of judicial
scandal." If justice can not be found in the court, where shall she
be sought?
After the Indian mutiny, the Queen, in a proclamation, promised
that natives should be freely and impartially admitted to offices,
"the duties of which they might be qualified by their education,
ability and integrity to discharge." Lord Lytton, a viceroy of
India, in a confidential document which afterward found its way into
print, speaking of the pledges of the sovereign and the parliament
of England, said: "We all know that these claims and expectations
never can be fulfilled. We have had to choose between prohibiting
them (the natives of India) and cheating them, and we have chosen
the least straightforward course." And again: "Since I am writing
confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the governments
of England and of India appear to me, up to the present moment,
unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken every
means in their power of breaking to the heart the words of promise
they had uttered to the ear."
The government of India is as arbitrary and despotic as the
government of Russia ever was, and in two respects it is worse.
First, it is administered by an alien people, whereas the officials
of Russia are Russians. Second, it drains a large part of the taxes
out of the country, whereas the Russian government spends at home
the money which it collects from the people. A third disadvantage
might be named since the czar has recently created a legislative
body, whereas England continues to deny to the Indians any form of
representative or constitutional government. Under British rule
there is no official corruption and the government is probably as
impartial as an alien government can be expected to be, but British
rule has the defects which are inherent in a colonial policy.
The people of India are taxed, but they have no voice in the amount
to be collected or in the use to be made of the revenue. They pay
into the government nearly two hundred and twenty-five millions
of dollars a year, and of this nearly one hundred millions is
expended upon an army in which Indians can not be officers. It is
not necessary to keep such an army merely to hold the people in
subjection, if the Indians are really satisfied with English rule;
and if the army is intended to keep Russia from taking India, as
is sometimes claimed, why should not the British government bear a
part of the burden? Would it not be wiser to so attach the Indian
people to the British government that they would themselves resist
annexation to Russia?
[Illustration: SIR JAMES DIGGS LA TOUCHE.]
The home charges, as they are called, absorb practically one-third
of the entire revenues. About one hundred million dollars go out of
India to England every year, and over fifteen millions are paid to
European officials in the civil employ. What nation could stand such
a drain without impoverishment?
Taxation is nearly twice as heavy in India as in England, in
proportion to the income of the people. Compared with the people
of other countries, the Indian's income is, on an average,
one-twentieth of the average English income, one-seventh of the
average Spaniard's income, one-sixth of the average Italian's
income, one-fifth of the (European) Russian's income, and one-half
of the income of the Turk. Sir Henry Cotton shows that the average
per capita deposit in banks in England is one hundred dollars
while the average per capita deposit in India is fifty cents; but
how can the Indian be expected to have a large bank account when
the average yearly income is only ten dollars? I have, in another
article, referred to the jewelry worn by Indian women. The bracelets
and anklets are silver except among the poorest, and this was
formerly a form of hoarding, but the suspension of the coinage of
silver deprived the people of the privilege of converting this
hoarded silver into rupees. It will be remembered that the late
Senator Wolcott, a member of the monetary commission appointed by
President McKinley in 1897, on his return to Europe declared that
the suspension of the coinage of silver in India had reduced the
value of the savings of the people to the amount of five hundred
millions of dollars. The suspension was carried out for the benefit
of European interests, regardless of the welfare of the masses.
So great have been the drain, the injustice to the people and the
tax upon the resources of the country, that famines have increased
in frequency and severity. Mr. Gokhale, one of the ablest of India's
public men, presided over the meeting of the last Indian national
congress (held in December) and declared in his opening speech that
the death rate had steadily risen from twenty-four to the thousand
in 1882-4 to thirty in 1892-4 and to thirty-four at the present
time. I have more than once within the last month heard the plague
referred to as a providential remedy for over-population! Think of
it, British rule justified because "it keeps the people from killing
each other" and the plague excused because it removes those whom the
government has saved from slaughter!
The railroads with all their advantages have been charged with
adding to the weight of famine by carrying away the surplus grain in
good years, leaving no residue for the years of drouth. While grain
can now be carried back more easily in times of scarcity, the people
are too poor to buy it with two freights added. The storage of grain
by the government at central points until the new crop is safe
would bring some relief, but it has not been attempted.
If it is argued that the railroads have raised the price of grain in
the interior by furnishing a cheaper outlet to the sea, it must be
remembered that the benefit has accrued not to the people, nearly
all of whom are tenants, but to the landlords, the government being
the largest holder.
Not only are the people being impoverished, but the land is being
worn out. Manure, which ought to be used to renew the fields, is
consumed as fuel, and no sight is more common in India than that
of women and children gathering manure from the roads with their
hands. This, when mixed with straw and sun-dried, is used in place
of wood, and from the amount of it carried in baskets, it must
be one of the chief articles of merchandise. There are now large
tracts of useless land that might be brought under cultivation if
the irrigation system were extended. Proof of this is to be found
in the fact that the government of India has already approved of
extensions which, when made, will protect seven million acres and
irrigate three million acres. The estimated cost of these extensions
is about forty-five million dollars, and the plans are to be
carried out "as funds can be provided." Ten per cent of the army
expenditure, applied to irrigation, would complete the system within
five years, but instead of military expenses being reduced, the army
appropriation was increased more than ten million dollars between
1904 and 1905.
[Illustration: SIR ANDREW FRAZER.]
Of the total amount raised from taxation each year, about forty per
cent is raised from land, and the rate is so heavy that the people
can not save enough when the crops are good to feed themselves
when the crops are bad. More than ten per cent of the total tax is
collected on salt, which now pays about five-eighths of a cent per
pound. This is not only a heavy rate when compared with the original
cost of the salt; but it is especially burdensome to the poor. The
salt tax has been as high as one cent a pound, and when at that rate
materially reduced the amount of salt consumed by the people.
[Illustration: LORD CURZON.]
The poverty of the people of India is distressing in the extreme;
millions live on the verge of starvation all the time, and one would
think that their very appearance would plead successfully in their
behalf.
The economic wrong done to the people of India explains the
political wrong done to them. For more than twenty years an
Indian national congress has been pleading for a modified form
of representative government--not for a severing of the tie that
binds India to Great Britain, but for an increasing voice in their
local affairs. But this request can not be granted. Why? Because
a local government, composed of natives selected by the people,
would protest against so large an army, reduce the taxes and put
Indians at lower salaries into places now held by Europeans. It is
the fear of what an Indian local government would do that prevents
the experiment, although two other reasons, both insufficient, are
given. One of these is that the Indian people are not intelligent
enough and that they must be protected from themselves by denying
them a voice in their own affairs. The other is that the Indians
are so divided into tribes and religious sects that they can not
act harmoniously together. The first argument will not impress any
unprejudiced traveler who has come into contact with the educated
classes. There are enough well informed, college trained native
Indians, not to speak of those, who, like our own ancestors a few
centuries ago, have practical sense and good judgment without book
learning, to guide public opinion. While the percentage of literacy
is deplorably small, the total number of educated men is really
considerable, and there are at this time seventeen thousand students
above the secondary schools and studying for the B. A. degree.
There is not a district of any considerable size that has not some
intelligent men in it, and these could be relied upon to direct the
government until a larger number are qualified to assist. It is true
that native princes have often seemed indifferent to the welfare of
their subjects--Princes who have lived in great luxury while the
people have been neglected, but to-day some of the native states
vie with those controlled by European officials in education and
material advancement. And is not the very fact that the people are
left under the government of native princes in the native states
conclusive proof that in all the states the government could be
administered without the aid of so large a number of Europeans?
The second argument is equally unsound. To say that the Indians
would necessarily fight among themselves is to ignore the progress
of the world. There was a time when Europe was the scene of bloody
religious wars, and our own country is indebted to the persecution
of the pilgrims in England for some of its best pioneers. There
has been a growth in religious tolerance during the last century,
and this is as noticeable in India as elsewhere. Already the
intellectual leaders of all the sects and elements of the Indian
population are mingling in congresses, conferences and public
meetings. Already a national spirit is growing which, like the
national spirit in England and America, disregards religious lines
and emphasizes more and more the broad social needs which are common
to all; and with the increase of general education there will be
still more of unity and national sentiment. Those who make this
argument also forget that as long as England maintains sovereignty
it will be impossible for religious differences to lead to war and
that differences in council and in congress would strengthen rather
than weaken her position.
But why is there a lack of intelligence among the Indians? Have
they not had the blessings of British rule for several generations?
Why have they not been fitted for self-government? Gladstone, whose
greatness of head and heart shed a lustre upon all Europe, said: "It
is liberty alone which fits men for liberty. This proposition, like
every other in politics, has its bounds; but it is far safer than
the counter doctrine, 'wait till they are fit.'"
How long will it take to fit the Indians for self-government when
they are denied the benefits of experience? They are excluded from
the higher civil service (ostensibly open to them) by a cunningly
devised system of examinations which makes it almost impossible for
them to enter. Not only are the people thus robbed of opportunities
which rightfully belong to them, but the country is deprived of
the accumulated wisdom that would come with service, for the alien
officials return to Europe at the end of their service, carrying
back their wisdom and earnings, not to speak of the pensions which
they then begin to draw.
The illiteracy of the Indian people is a disgrace to the proud
nation which has for a century and a half controlled their destiny.
The editor of the Indian World, a Calcutta magazine, says in last
February's number:
"If India has not yet been fit for free institutions, it is
certainly not her fault. If, after one and a half centuries of
British rule, India remains where she was in the Middle Ages, what
a sad commentary must it be upon the civilizing influences of that
rule! When the English came to India, this country was the leader
of Asiatic civilization and the undisputed center of light in the
Asiatic world; Japan was then nowhere. Now, in fifty years, Japan
has revolutionized her history with the aid of modern arts of
progress and India, with an hundred and fifty years of English rule,
is still condemned to tutelage."
Who will answer the argument presented by this Indian editor?
And he might have made it stronger. Japan, the arbiter of her own
destiny and the guardian of her own people, has in half a century
bounded from illiteracy to a position where ninety per cent of her
people can read and write and is now thought worthy to enter into
an Anglo-Japanese alliance, while India, condemned to political
servitude, and sacrificed for the commercial advantage of another
nation, still sits in darkness, less than one per cent of her women
able to read and write and less than ten per cent of her total
population sufficiently advanced to communicate with each other by
letter or to gather knowledge from the printed page. In the speech
above referred to, Mr. Gokhale estimates that four villages out of
every five are without a school house, and this, too, in a country
where the people stagger under an enormous burden of taxation. The
published statement for 1904-5 shows that the general government
appropriated but six and a half million dollars for education while
more than ninety millions were appropriated for "army service," and
the revised estimate for the next year shows an increase of a little
more than half a million for education while the army received an
increase of more than twelve millions.
The government has, it is true, built a number of colleges (with
money raised by taxation), but it is gradually extending the system
of primary and secondary schools (also with taxes), though the
progress is exceedingly slow and the number of schools grossly
inadequate. Benevolent Englishmen have also aided the cause of
education by establishing private schools and colleges under church
and other control, but the amount returned to India in this way
is insignificant when compared with the amount annually drawn by
England from India.
It is not scarcity of money that delays the spread of education
in India, but the deliberate misappropriation of taxes collected,
and the system which permits this disregard of the welfare of the
subjects and the subordination of their industries to the supposed
advancement of another nation's trade is as indefensible upon
political and economic grounds as upon moral grounds. If more
attention were given to the intellectual progress of the people
and more regard shown for their wishes, it would not require so
many soldiers to compel loyalty to England, neither would it
require a large army to preserve peace and order. If agriculture
were protected and encouraged and native industries built up and
diversified, England's commerce with India would be greater, for
prosperous people would buy more than can be sold to India to-day,
when so many of her sons and daughters are like walking shadows.
Lord Curzon, the most brilliant of India's viceroys of recent years,
inaugurated a policy of reaction. He not only divided Bengal with a
view of lessening the political influence of the great province,
but he adopted an educational system which the Indians believe was
intended to discourage higher education among the native population.
The result, however, was exactly the opposite of that which was
intended. It aroused the Indians and made them conscious of the
possession of powers which they had not before employed. As the cold
autumn wind scatters winged seeds far and wide, so Lord Curzon's
administration spread the seeds of a national sentiment, and there
is more life in India to-day, and therefore more hope, than there
has ever been before. So high has feeling run against the government
that there has been an attempted boycott of English made goods, and
there is now a well organized movement to encourage the use of goods
made in India.
[Illustration: GOV. LAMINGTON--BOMBAY, INDIA]
Let no one cite India as an argument in defense of colonialism. On
the Ganges and the Indus the Briton, in spite of his many noble
qualities and his large contributions to the world's advancement,
has demonstrated, as many have before, man's inability to exercise,
with wisdom and justice, irresponsible power over helpless people.
He has conferred some benefits upon India, but he has extorted a
tremendous price for them. While he has boasted of bringing peace
to the living, he has led millions to the peace of the grave; while
he has dwelt upon order established between warring tribes, he has
impoverished the country by legalized pillage. Pillage is a strong
word, but no refinement of language can purge the present system of
its iniquity. How long will it be before the quickened conscience
of England's Christian people will heed the petition that swells
up from fettered India and apply to Britain's greatest colony the
doctrines of human brotherhood that have given to the Anglo-Saxon
race the prestige it now enjoys?
NOTE--The article on British Rule in India has been severely
criticized by the government papers in India and as heartily
praised by prominent representatives of the native population.
Delegations of Indians called upon me in London, Paris and New
York to express their thanks.
In view of this criticism, I give below a few facts in support
of the views expressed in the article.
In Whitaker's Almanac for 1906 (published in London), the
appropriation for education is given at 1,298,000 pounds in 1902-3,
1,368,000 pounds in 1903-4, and 1,474,000 pounds in 1904-5. The
appropriation for army services is given at 17,346,000 pounds for
1902-3, 17,892,000 pounds for 1903-4, and 20,463,000 pounds for
1904-5. (The figures for 1904-5 are described as "revised estimates"
in both cases.) Multiplying the pounds by five, it will be seen that
the appropriation for education is about seven million dollars
and the appropriation for army services (for the last year) about
one hundred and two millions. What defense can be made for the
expenditure of more than thirteen times as much for the army as for
education?
Within a few days after the publication of my article, Hon. John
Morley, Secretary for India, delivered a speech in Parliament upon
the Indian budget. The following quotations show that he has made
the same criticism on three important matters. First, on the salt
tax. He says:
"But for my part I cannot regard, and I will not regard with
satisfaction, or even with patience, the continuance at a high scale
of a tax on a prime necessity of life. (Cheers.)"
And again:
"It is not that the Indian is more heavily burdened in the matter
of the salt duty than the Italian. But, however that may be, I am
glad to think that the very able and expert financial member of the
Viceroy's council hopes to make further reduction in the duty, even
though he cannot go so far as I should like to go, and sweep the
thing away altogether. (Cheers.)"
[Illustration: INDIAN STUDENTS.]
On the expenditure for the army, he says:
"So far, I have given a rose-colored--I hope a true
colored--picture. In military expenditure, however, we have the
shadow. Comparing broadly 1906-7 with the figures of ten years
ago, there is an increase in the strength of the army of four
thousand one hundred and forty seven men. In 1896-7 the number
was two hundred and twenty-seven thousand men and in 1906-7, two
hundred and thirty-one thousand five hundred men. But the remarkable
circumstance comes out that in British cavalry and infantry there is
no increase. The only important addition to the fighting strength
of the army are an increase in our artillery and an increase in the
number of British officers to the tune of one thousand. That is a
large and costly addition, but I will not argue it now. The net army
expenditure in India, British and native, in 1896-7, was fifteen
million pounds; the estimate for 1906-7 is eighteen million seven
hundred thousand pounds--an increase of three million seven hundred
thousand pounds. (This is an estimate of the net expenditure, the
Whitaker estimate is gross.) This has to be divided into two equal
items of one million eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds for
ordinary and special military expenditure. I invite the House to
attend to one element in the increase in the ordinary expenditure.
The House will remember that the late government found it necessary
to grant additional pay to the non-commissioned officers and men
in the British army in India. Those were circumstances for which
neither the Government nor the governed in India had a shadow
of responsibility. They were not responsible for those social
circumstances which made it necessary to add to the pay of the
British soldier, but the increase of pay in the British contingent
of the Indian military force was saddled on India to the tune of
nearly a million sterling."
On higher civil service he confesses the injustice done the Indians.
He says:
"In regard to the question of the employment of Indians in
the higher offices, I think a move--a definite and deliberate
move--ought to be made with the view of giving competent and able
natives the same access to the higher posts in the administration
that are given to our own countrymen. (Cheers.) There is a famous
sentence in the Queen's proclamation of 1858 which says:--'It is
our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever
race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our
service-offices, the duties of which they may be qualified by their
educational talents and ability duly to discharge.' I think those
words, 'so far as may be,' have been somewhat misinterpreted in the
past. I do not believe that the ministers who advised Queen Victoria
in framing one of the most memorable documents in all our history
meant those words to be construed in a narrow, literal, restricted
or pettifogging sense. (Cheers.) I do not believe that parliament
ever intended this promise of the Queen's should be construed in
any but a liberal and generous sense. The Governor-General of India
to-day is, I am glad to say, a man of a firm texture of mind. I
do not believe the Governor-General has any intention of riding
off on a narrow interpretation of a promise which was as wise and
politic as it was just. (Hear, hear.) I do not know if there is any
case in history of an autocratic, personal or absolute government
co-existing with free speech and free right of meeting. For as long
a time as my poor imagination can pierce through, for so long a
time our government in India must partake, and in no small degree,
of the personal and absolute element. But that is no reason why we
should not try this great experiment of showing that you can have a
strong and effective administration along with free speech and free
institutions, and being all the better and all the more effective
because of free speech and free institutions. (Cheers.) That policy
is a noble one to think of, but the task is arduous; and because it
is noble and because it is arduous, I recommend the policy, of which
I have only given a broad outline, to the adoption of the House."
(Cheers.)
[Illustration: FAMOUS ASOKA PILLAR.]