Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎5r] (10/312)

The Pall Mall Budget.
SA TURD A Y, SEPTEMBER 14, 1878.
UNACKNOWLEDGED TRUTHS ABOUT INDIA.
To our view, no controversy was ever more romantic than that
which represents the country as divided between two great parties :
one heroically bent on extending the area of the empire, the
other desirous of sitting down to the comfortable enjoyment of
what we have got, without hankering for more territory and more
grandeur. We must suppose that these parties not only exist,
but that they are in a fair way of settling their differences once
for all, to the great gain or the lasting injury of England. We
■ought to believe it, because so we are assured on all hands.
At this moment it is the main topic of all political discus
sion, whether in the press or on the platform. In one only
of this month's miscellanies there are no fewer than three j
papers by men eminent in political debate; and the text of i
all three is the question whether England will elect to con
tinue her career of conquest and acquisition, or whether she
will not rather choose to content herself with the husbandry |
of her present possessions. It may be presumptuous to say so,
but all this strikes us as very wonderful, somewhat pathetic,
and altogether portentous. Does it really and truly seem to
so many perceptive minds that our country is in this excellent
position ? It is not a party way of putting things, a general elec
tion being near ? Actually it is believed that the main thing to ?
be discussed and decided by England is how she will choose—
whether to help herself to a little more greatness and respon
sibility, or to fall back on the peaceful enjoyment of the goods she ?
has already gained. Happy land! Where else in the world
does the " great question of the day " resolve itself into such a
choice? Nowhere else;—nor is it the great question here. We j
study our Daily Telegraph, we labour over the Times, we listen
to Mr. Gladstone , Colonel Stanley , Mr. Greg , Mr. Grant
Duff , and to others with more words and less meaning; and
though we would fain believe in their view of the great question
for England we find it impossible to do so. Our own convic
tion is that England is by no means so blest as these authorities
make out; that, in fact, the only choice before her, in a time of
vast and rapid change, is as to whether she will or will not make
the necessary efforts to keep her" empire in existence.
If the condition of affairs in India were commonly known, if
those who are aware of it were not studious to conceal what they
lack courage enough to face the country with, there would be no
doubt about the truth of our conclusion. The fact is, however,
that if Englishmen at home take little interest in India, Indian
officials are by no means anxious to encourage close inquiry. But,
unless we are mistaken, a time is at hand when a good deal
of interest will be taken in India ; and if the curiosity of the
public is then allowed the same scope in Indian as in other affairs,
it is not improbable that they may complain of grave conceal
ments and of shirkings too long continued. To be sure, there is
no need of official revelation or official teaching in respect of j
much that is going wrong in India. We have all ample means
of observing how fast the financial administration of the country is
sinking into collapse ; how manifest it is that its burdens must still
increase rather than diminish ; how hopeless it is to look for more
revenue to populations impoverished to a degree which no Bulgarian
peasant ever heard of. And more than this we may know without
the assistance of official reports. We may be sure that millions
of men in a chronic state of starvation can hardly form a con- ■
tented community ; we may be sure that when these millions
believe that their poverty is intensified by grinding taxation,
contentment is still less probable ; and still less when they reflect,
or when they are reminded, that the tax-gatherers are foreigners,
alien in blood, in religion, in everything that separates man j
from man. So far, no doubt, there has been comfort in the |
assurance that these humble remote people do not reflect
upon such things, and are not reminded of them. So far,
perhaps, though it seems somewhat unlikely. But the school
master is abroad in India as well as elsewhere. It has been
our duty to see to that. Roads are made to run hither and
thither, upon which not only merchandise but knowledge and
ideas, speculation and device, are current. Natives are " educated "
in large and increasing numbers; and it seems that natives have
always found rapid means of communicating with each other over
wide distances. There is a native press, too, not a very strong i
one or approaching to " the largest circulation in the world ;" but |
one that has a reader and exponent in many a village and will |
soon find one in very many more. Some things like these^ are
known to us, we say, by the commonest means of information ;
and considering that as a rule, and quite naturally though of