LORD D1TFFERIN'S SPEECH ON INDIA.
ONE of the most interesting of possible speeches would be a speech from a returned Viceroy of India frankly expressing the conclusions which his experience in that unique position had forced upon his mind. A monarch for five years, with a fifth of the human race for his subjects ; an autocrat responsible to a democracy, above all local parties, yet obliged to study all ; supreme Foreign Minister, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer all in one, yet free from that immersion in detail which so impairs breadth of view ; forced to be non-parochial, yet forced also by the roughest teaching to remember that every parish in his dominions differs from every other,—no man can comprehend thoroughly what a Viceroy of India exactly is except one who has been Viceroy. His powers are so wide, his limitations so many and so rigid. He only, for instance, could tell us, if he would, whether the statesmen are right who for a hundred years have protected the Indian throne, or Mr. Bright, who held as his cardinal doctrine about India that England requires of the Viceroy more than it is in the power of a single statesman, however gifted or however devoted, to supply. Would any Viceroy, after reigning, break India into fragments or weld it into a bar ? He alone could tell us clearly, for he alone has seen from above the working of that machine of administration, so minute in its structure, yet so marvellous in its outturn,— the Imperial Service of India. He must know accurately, as matter of personal experience, what no one else quite knows, the points at which dangerous hitches happen, where the _deep lacunx lie, in what conjuncture the collision or the breakdown will probably occur. He, and he alone, could tell us how responsibility for those awful masses of subjects affects a Viceroy, how they look when viewed from that height, what ideas they suggest as to their own two destinies, the one which should be striven for, and the one which will be reached. He could tell us whether we take too much from the whole people in the way of taxation, or give too little in the way of guidance ; whether our duty is ever-increasing interference—which is certainly the modern impression—or that passive patience in awaiting growth in which an earlier, perhaps a wiser, generation placed more trust. Above all, he could tell us whether England, the far-off ruler, could do anything she does not do ; could by any effort of hers increase the sum of happi- ness among her subjects, or"could by any sacrifice decrease the sum of misery.
We shall have no such speech. The withes which bind a Viceroy even when his experience is as varied as that of Lord Dufferin and Ava, and his ability to express himself as great, though partly invisible to the world, are in the aggregate as irresistible as the bonds which tied down Gulliver's head in Lilliput. It would take more than courage, it would take the callousness so rarely found in the gifted, to enable a passed Viceroy to say all that is in his mind. . His words reverberate too far, and are too loudly repeated by the echoes. His real opinion of natives might provoke an insurrection ; his judgment on the Army might impair discipline ; his view of the future might create a despondency fatal to administration. It might be impossible either to act on his advice, or to go on as before, loaded with its weight—that dilemma. would actually have occurred had Lord Hardinge's opinion of sepoy soldiers been made public—he is bound to his Sovereign, his colleagues, his career ; bound, too, to that army of agents whose defects he perceives, but to whom he owes an obligation, of which Lord Dufferin at least tried on Wednesday fully to acquit himself. Men who have - governed, too, actually governed, and not merely pleaded with a public meeting to take their advice, which is what is called governing here, are apt to grow—which is it, pessimist or humble ?—to doubt their own conclusions if they involve great change, to perceive what the West never remembers and the East never forgets, the wonder that in a world like this anything can be made to work at all, and consequently, to fear the shock which may come to estab- lished methods even from an authoritative opinion. His duty, a Viceroy thinks, and he is right, is to be wise, not to interest Englishmen, and he reserves suggestion for his confidential reports. It is much, under such circumstances, to get even what Lord Dufferin gave the citizens in Guild- hall, a clear sketch of what, broadly speaking, is the situation in India, and unmistakable advice as to the main principle by which its administration should be guided. The interest of the impossible speech would have been supreme, but the interest of the actual speech is considerable. It is at least instructive to know from Lord Dufferin's own lips that the subjugation of Burmah is nearly completed, though the hills will for years be a source of trouble, and that the two great Asiatic Powers with which our relations are of pressing importance are behaving beyond expectation well. Lord Dufferin is proud of the new security which his military railways and advanced fortresses have added to the North-West frontier ; but he bears emphatic testimony to the fact that Russia is keeping faith, and that when, in the recent rebellion, she had the opportunity of creating diffi- culties in Afghanistan, she entirely abstained. That is a statement of the last importance, for the difficulty in India is not Russia's hostility, but the chance that she may at any moment violate her agreements. That, not the risk of invasion, is the Indian nightmare, the incalculable, never-ending source of fear which from time to time gives the secluded Empire a foreign policy, and reduces her otherwise prosperous Exchequer to despair. Lord Dufferin has been Ambassador, and Ambassador at St. Petersburg, as well as Great Mogul, and it is reassuring to hear from him—who approves, as we cannot do, the policy which makes of Afghanistan a buffer between the Empires— that under circumstances of great temptation, Russia kept her faith. What he said about China will interest his countrymen less, because Englishmen do not yet realise what a Power China is ; but they may take his word for it that China could have worried us unbearably on the frontier of Burmah, and did not, but helped loyally to produce endurable order. Whether she is equally honest in Tibet, Lord Dufferin did not say, and probably does not know, for neither experience nor information helps any one to understand the exact relation of Pekin to Lhassa ; but it is on the Burmese border, not in the Tibetan passes, that Chinese fidelity is required to make our possessions safe. With Russia and China friendly, India is again a secluded world, though she may still thank Lord Dufferin for the energetic supervision which has once again placed her, in all but artillery—and there is uncon- scious exaggeration afloat even about that—in such good fighting trim.
Lord Dufferin, besides arming the frontier, in itself a great work, has solved some land questions of enormous importance, particularly one on which depended the tran- quillity of Oude ; but Englishmen will be more interested to hear his opinion on the great question whether we are to go on ruling, or, under the temptation of setting up an imitation representative system, to give up the task which in our new weakness so severely tries our confidence in ourselves. Upon this point Lord Dufferin is emphatically clear, and he puts the matter in a new and impressive way. If the English are to retain the loyalty of the Indian millions, they must continue to reign. That loyalty is not based on liking—he admits frankly that they do not like us—but on a perception that their safety and pros- perity and liberty to live as they will, depend on the ascendency of the coldly impartial, irresistible, disagreeable Briton. Lord Dufferin says :—" I do not hesitate to state my conviction that the population of India is loyal to the throne and person of her Majesty and to the modes of administration of their English rulers. I do not mean to say that we English are beloved or are even popular in India, nor is there any reason why we should expect to be so But, though destitute of what may be called any strong sentimental element, the loyalty of India is based upon a far surer foundation,—namely, that of self-interest. I believe that, leaving out of account the absolutely ignorant, some fanatical sects, the discontented sections of society which are to be found in all communities, and individuals with a personal grievance, but including those who vituperate us in the newspapers,.there is not a subject of the Queen in India, whether Prince, or land- holder, or merchant, or artisan, or cultivator, who is not pretty well convinced that English administration gives him what he would get neither in an independent India nor in an India under the rule of any other Power,— namely, peace, security, justice, a free Press, education, an enormous share in the Government appointments, a native Magistracy, the conservation of the native dynasties as independent States, local self-government, the prospect of the gradual liberalisation of our methods of administra- tion, the supervision of the House of Commons, and a consciousness that English public opinion is always on the alert to notice any abuse of authority, and to temper the severity of that authoritative regime through which alone the vast congeries of nationalities, religions, and races inhabiting the peninsula can be effectually governed." If we abdicate that authoritative position, and hand over India to be governed by "educated natives," supported by the strength of a white army, we cut away the source, the only source, of that loyalty which, as the great Mutiny showed, has periods, most dangerous periods, of intermission. That is wise advice, and it comes from a man who has played the part of constitutional King as well as of autocratic satrap, who liked both, and. who in both, according to the rough but generally accurate verdicts pronounced in the Guildhall, has been markedly a success.
Previous page
