18 FEBRUARY 1899, Page 13

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE " WHITE MAN'S BURDEN."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—The following inscription on a tombstone in the old burying-ground of the Macleods of Drynoch, Isle of Skye, will emphasise the lines—

"Go, make them with your living And mark them with your dead!"

which form part of the fourth verse of Rudyard Kipling's poem:—

" Underneath are the remains of Donald Macdonald Macleod, Lieutenant, 50th Regiment Madras Infantry, who died at Drynoch in 1837, seventh son of Norman Macleod of Drynoch and of Alexandrina Macleod of Bernera, whose eldest son Donald died at Gravesend in 1824, Captain 78th Regiment. Norman died in Java, in 1814, a Captain in the same corps. Alexander died at Forres, in 1828, a Major in the 12th Regiment B.N.I. John died a Captain in 78th Regiment during passage home from Ceylon. Roderick (a midshipman) died at Killegray from a hurt received in action on board the Betvidera frigate on the North American station. Forbes died in Madras, a Lieutenant 12th Regiment Native Infantry. This stone is dedicated to the memory of the above-named by their sorrowing mother and her surviving sons, Martin, late 27th, 79th, and 25th Regiments, now of Drynoch, and Charles, now of Glendulochan. 1889."

Another point in connection with the above inscription is the fact that Martin was the only one of the soldier-brothers who had not served in the East,—all Martin's soldiering having been done in the Peninsula and in America. The great mortality among the troops, that was the outcome of the " white man's burden " in the East, caused soldiering to

be disliked and dreaded by the crofter class in the Highlands, and to this day this feeling exists among the men of the West Highlands. Even strong affection to young Highland officers will not induce the crofters to allow their sons to enlist. For example, when my mother's youngest brother received his commission in the early " forties," and was gazetted to the first battalion of the 60th Rifles (then serving in the Punjab), his boon companion and do-kadam. pachi-walla (the Hindostanee for a henchman) was anxious to join the ranks and follow his leader to India; but the young man's father would not hear of it, and her Majesty lost a promising recruit in Duncan MacGillivray, the son of old " Sandy Tailor," the gardener at Ratagan. (I will leave the Sassenach to puzzle over why a gardener, whose proper name is Alexander MacGillivray, should be called " Sandy Tailor.") I could not make up my mind whether to laugh or to sigh on reading your

interesting article, The ' White Man's Burden," since a perusal of Mr. Henry Kirke's book, " Twenty-five Years in British Guiana" and of Mr. Haldane McFall's novel, "The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyf er," had impressed upon my mind the fact that the negro race had degenerated in the West Indies, and that little good had originated from the emancipa- tion of the black slave. The unco' guid will hold up their hands in horror at these pernicious sentiments. But I wish to impress upon them the fact that the slave-owner was far from being the inhuman monster depicted by Mrs. Beecher Stowe; and I have in my mind's eye one particular slave- owner who had a very large share of all the Christian virtues. He was a bachelor, and in the days of my childhood he was living at Inverinate (in Kintail) with his widowed mother and his two maiden sisters,—one sister being blind from small-pox, and the other sister disfigured for life by the same disease. And this strong man threw up his business in Demerara to devote his life entirely to these helpless women. Although only a civilian, he was the possessor of a handsome sword of honour, which had been bestowed for his gallant behaviour during the stirring years of the first part of this century ; but at Inverinate he was content with the company of his mother and sisters, and in devoting himself to the taming of wild birds,—blackbirds, thrushes, and robins from the woods of Inverinate having the run of the house and the command of the breakfast table. I do not for a moment wish to defend the practice of slavery; my object is to prove that the growth of hypocrisy in the latter end of the nineteenth century has not developed the growth of humanity among the English-speaking peoples of Europe and America.

1 Dudley Place, St. Mary's Square, Paddington, W., Feb.12th.