Mr. Chamberlain, at the same meeting, was nearly as strong
as Mr. Bright, though dwelling more on the iniquity of the alliance with Turkey, which he said Mr. Layard was doing his beat to bring about. He made, too, the new point that in bringing Native troops to fight Russians we were proving that India was in no danger from Russia. That point deserves amplification, for Mr. Chamberlain, we suspect, hardly saw how unanswerably strong it is. If the natives do not dislike Russia and will not fight her, it is folly to bring them into Europe. If they do dislike her and will fight her, the invasion of India by Russia is a physical impossibility. Her whole army, if she could transport it thither, would be like a bucket of water poured into a lake of fire. No words can exaggerate the resources which England possesses for the land defence of India, if only the fighting races of the peninsula are cordially willing to help us. It is literally true that we could, under those circumstances, in three months meet the Russian armies below the Suleiman with 100,000 Europeans, 240,000 Sepoys—the armed and drilled police, who are most of them old soldiers, being used as regiments—and the 250,000 men drilled and organised in the Native States, 500,000 natives in all. The conquest of India, while governed by England and unwilling to be conquered, is beyond the power of all Europe combined, and this unwillingness is assumed as a certainty in bringing the natives home.
