WHAT TO DO WITH THE PTINJAUB.
THE higher the officer at present engaged in the military opera- tions of the Punjaub, the more disastrous the blunders. The latest transactions on the Chenab are deplorable. The men were coura- geous as ever, the regimental officers were of the same order with those that have assisted at our greatest victories ; but the results are a series of mishaps, which even the euphuism of the official despatches cannot convert into triumphs. A great reconuoisance party is trapped into a fruitless attack ; a gun is lost ; a second attack is made on impracticable ground, only to end in humi- liating defeat ; and all these bootless manoeuvres are performed at the expense of losing some of the best officers in the service. It is mentioned as a matter of consolation that "our losses in all the operations since the ambuscade in the nullah have fortunately been exceedingly slight " • and it is rather hastily assumed that the Sikhs were merely dying from the British, and not leading them to the North for more easy handling. If civil criticism durst ven- ture upon military ground, we might hazard the opinion that the directors of the operations on the Chenab failed for the want of the faculty of practical imagination : apparently, they could not laiagine what was really the case—the state of preparation among th'Siklm, their force, resources, and strategy.
Perhaps these untoward events may he traced mately and in part, to our system of routine for
ap-
pointments; the principle of which is to pres '
regimental officer must of necessity grow into a good fiel officer, and that a field officer naturally ripens into a general officer. The system of purchase, too, no doubt helps to force upon the Horse Guards a sense of " fairness" towards its customers, BO that all shall have something like equal chances for their money. And then, the practice being established, good feeling interferes to prevent the breach of it lest that should cause mortification ; so that men are appointed to a general commission or a command in chief, just as everybody is " mentioned" after a battle in the official despatches that are to be gazetted, or as every respectable actor is called on after the play.
Whatever the causes, the adverse progress of the campaign has been generally viewed, by the best writers in the press of all parties, as tending to precipitate the question, whether the Punjaub shall finally be abandoned or annexed. The Leading Journal balances between the two courses of policy.
" Our Indian history must comprise no more retreats.' Still, as we have ac- tually retired from the gates both of Candahar and Ave without leaving any un- favourable impression of our power either in Affghanistan or Burmah, it is clear that the evacuation of a territory once occupied is not essentially significant, even in Oriental eyes, of imbecility or decline. We shall be perfectly justified, there- fore, in including the total abandonment of the Punjaub among.st the alternatives which may shortly be entertained by the Government of India."
Indeed, although the writer expresses no positive opinion, he gives to abandonment the preference, by position and implica- tion. He inclines to the opinion that the Sikhs have a spirit of nationality which renders them indomitable ; and observes, that if, "after a plain example of our unshaken superiority, we aban- don the Punjaub to its fate, we limit our liabilities to such a pro- tection of our original frontier as we have previously maintained."
On this view two remarks obviously suggest themselves. Our withdrawal from the distinctly extraneous countries of Cabul and Burmah has no point for comparison with such a movement as our withdrawal from a territory which penetrates to the very heart of our empire, and of which we have held a quasi possession for years. Again, the Sikhs know us only by our conduct on the banks of the Five Rivers : they will have marked our progressive retreat from Herat, Cabul, Candahar, and Jellalabad : let us retreat also from Lahore and Moultan, and what must our history teach them, unless it be, that the British, however potent and brave, are a people that may be forced to retreat and to abandon their conquests ? From Herat to the inmost point of the Punjaub is half way to Calcutta. We in London know that our Indian em- pire is in no danger from the Sikhs ; but they are not such com- prehensive politicians as we Cockneys are : they will draw con- trasts between the Eldred Pottingers or Sales and the Elphin- stones, between the Blackfoots or Edwardeses and the Goughs ; and will conclude, by a very natural induction, that though the English win the battles of a campaign, they can be made to fore- go the conquests of a generation.
As to the capacity and hardihood of the Sikhs, those are but two strong reasons why we should not begin to imitate the retracta- tions of the Romans before the encroachments of the Goths. The very journalist who recognizes as an alternative course, if not a preferable one, the abandonment of the Punjaub, admits that it can only be effected "after a plain example of our unshaken superi- ority "—in a battle or a campaign. But if Sikh politicians ever generalize, it is difficult to see how the success of a pitched battle or a campaign can contradict the rule which our conduct has appeared to establish—that we win battles and abandon provinces. The Sikhs, whom we have reduced to a subject condition, are a fair exemplar for the rest of India, and they may become a living proof that the bold can force even the British to retreat. Already their hopes are known in other states; their advanced guard of spies and intriguers, those unfailing scouts of an Indian army, have penetrated even to Calcutta ; and there can be no doubt that other races, on the Ganges and Burratnpooter as well as the Indus and the Sutlej, are watching the progress of the Sikhs as an experimental test of the great Hindoo question—whether ob- stinate revolt can gain its ends, or whether Britain is really as irresistible as she has seemed—South of the Sutlej ?
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