Chapter XV: India (2)

I am very much averse to any interference on our part in the quarrel
which is now on foot in Afghanistan; and, indeed, I do not very well
see my way as to how any such interference can be managed without
entailing responsibilities which we may regret at a later period. You
are doubtless aware that we have no agent with the Dost. He
particularly requested that no one should be sent to his court in that
capacity, and we assented to his views on this point. All we know of
what is going on there is derived from the reports of a native vakeel,
who reports more or less faithfully what he hears and sees, but who is
not, and I apprehend, could not be employed to speak on our behalf to
the Ameer. In order, therefore, to communicate with him, we must
either send a special agent, or write. Now it must be observed that in
this affair the Dost has not been the aggressor. The Herat chief
attacked him without any provocation. We offered him no assistance,
made no remonstrance, and left him to take care of himself. He has
asked us for nothing, and we have given him nothing. It is now
proposed that we should inform the Dost that if he goes beyond a
certain point, and Persia comes into the field to support Herat, he
must not expect any assistance from us. If we had an agent there it
would be easy to instruct him to make such an intimation; and if the
Dost were to ask us for any support, an answer which would convey this
hint might be given. But situated as we are, we must move cautiously
in this matter. If the Dost stops on our suggestion, and if (as is
frequently the case with Orientals), the enemy, ascribing his
moderation to weakness, presses him with increased vigour, what are we
to do then? Are we to stand by and laugh at our dupe, telling him that
though our advice got him into the scrape, he must find his own way
out of it? or are we to set to work to check his opponents? and if we
undertake the latter task, how far will it lead us?

It is quite impossible in these affairs, and with people of this
description, to say what an hour may bring forth. A shower of rain may
convert a victorious army into a baffled one, and an advance into a
retreat. The death of a man of eighty years of age will probably throw
all Afghanistan into confusion, convert friends into foes and _vice
versâ_. Instructions framed in Calcutta to meet one set of
circumstances may arrive in Afghanistan when the whole scene has
changed. I own that I am strongly of opinion that our true policy is
to leave these kinds of neighbours as much as possible alone; to mix
ourselves up as little as may be in their miserable intrigues, which
generally entail obligations which bind us and not them, and not
unfrequently lead to most unexpected issues. We should only speak when
we have a case of self-interest so clear that we can speak with
determination, and follow up our talk if necessary with a blow.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

August 9th, 1862.

[Sidenote: Withdrawal of vakeel.]

After a good deal of consideration as to how I can, with least risk of
getting this Government into trouble, put a spoke into the Dost's
wheel in his progress towards Herat, I have despatched to Sir R.
Montgomery the telegram of which I enclose a copy. The order sent to
our vakeel, desiring him to leave the Ameer's camp, and return to
India, if the Dost proceeds to extremities against Herat, will
sufficiently show that we discountenance any such proceeding; while at
the same time the measure commits us to nothing, gives the Dost no
such claim upon us as he would naturally have if we tendered advice to
him, and induced him to abandon his own projects in order to follow
it, and leaves us free to shape our policy as the shifting current of
events may prescribe. I pointed out to you in my letter of July 16,
that we are awkwardly situated for interfering with the Ameer. He is
our friend, and we said nothing when he was attacked. He has set to
work to redress his own injuries, asking us for no aid, and paying his
own way. We are quite entitled to say, 'Your hostile advance on Herat
has not our approval, and we must show that you are making it without
our sanction.' This we do in the most emphatic manner, by withdrawing
the only British official who is with him. But I do not like to go
farther in the direction of interference. It is impossible to say how
matters may terminate in Afghanistan. It is possible that the Ameer
may get the whole country into his hands. It is possible that he may
come to an understanding with Sultan Jan, who is his connection by
marriage. It is very desirable that we should be free to accept the
_status in quo_, whatever it may be.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

Calcutta, September 9th, 1862.

[Sidenote: Lord Canning's policy.]

A doubt naturally suggests itself as to whether the received notion
respecting the relations which Canning sought to establish between the
native chiefs and the British Government in India be altogether
correct, or, (as it perhaps would be more accurate to say) altogether
complete--whether, in short, that portion of it which was a policy of
circumstance has been duly distinguished from that which was a policy
of principle: a doubt by no means unimportant, now that this policy,
whatever it be, is crowned by the double aureole of success and death;
so that while, on the one hand, it is naturally set up as an example
for imitation, on the other, we have not the author to refer to when
difficulties arise respecting its application.

[Sidenote: (1) Clemency.]

In approaching the consideration of this very momentous question we
must, in the first place, be careful lest we suffer ourselves to draw
erroneous conclusions from the warm expressions of gratitude and
affection lavished upon Canning by the natives generally. If I were to
venture to compare great things with small, I should say that their
feelings towards him were due to causes somewhat similar to those
which earned for me the good will and confidence of the French
Canadians in Canada. Both he and I adopted on some important points
views more favourable to the subject races than those which had been
entertained by our respective predecessors. So far we established
legitimate and substantial claims on their regard. But it was not so
much the intrinsic merit of those views, still less was it the extent
to which we acted upon them, which won for us the favour of those
races; we owed that mainly to the uncompromising hostility, the bitter
denunciations, and the unmeasured violence which the promulgation of
those views provoked from those who were regarded by them as their
oppressors. I used often to say to my Scotch friends in Lower Canada,
when they were heaping every indignity upon me, and even resorting to
open violence (for there they did not hold their hands off), 'You are
playing my game. I want to win the confidence of the French Canadians;
but I know the nature of that people: they are touchy and suspicious
as races who feel that they are inferior, and believe that they are
oppressed; invariably are. By measures of simple justice towards them
(and beyond that line I do not intend to proceed an inch), I despair
of being able to effect my object; but if you continue for a year to
act as you are now acting, denouncing me as your enemy and their
friend, and proving the sincerity of your belief by outrage and
violence, you will end by convincing them that I am to be trusted, and
I shall win the day.'--The result proved the accuracy of this
prediction.

The feeling of the natives of India towards Canning was in some
measure due to a similar cause. The clamour for blood and
indiscriminate vengeance which raged around him, and the abuse poured
upon him because he would not listen to it, imparted in their eyes to
acts which carried justice to the verge of severity the grace of
clemency.

[Sidenote: (2) Consideration for native chiefs.]

I could give you plenty of proofs of this.... The following sentences
occur in a letter written from Delhi during our recent panic, by an
officer.... 'The native force here is much too small to be a source of
anxiety, and unless they take the initiative it is my opinion that
there can be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Delhi are a
contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare on this side of the Sutlej.
The terrors of that period when every man who had two enemies was sure
to swing are not forgotten. The people declare that the work of Nadir
Shah was as nothing to it. His executions were completed in twelve
hours. But for months after the last fall of Delhi, no one was sure of
his own life or of that of the being dearest to him for an hour.' The
natives not unnaturally looked with gratitude to the man who alone had
the will and power to put an arrest on this course of proceeding, and
to prevent its extension all over the land. No doubt, as I have said,
Canning earned a substantial claim to the gratitude of the native
chiefs by adopting a more liberal and considerate policy towards them
than that pursued by his predecessor. It was perhaps not surprising
that he should have done so. Situated as we are in this country--a
small minority ruling a vast population that differs from us in blood,
civilisation, colour and religion, monopolising in our own territories
all positions of high dignity and emolument, and exercising even over
States ostensibly independent a paramount authority--it is manifest
that the question of how we ought to treat that class of natives who
consider that they have a natural right to be leaders of men and to
occupy the first places in India, must always be one of special
difficulty. If you attempt to crush all superiorities, you unite the
native populations in a homogeneous mass against you. If you foster
pride of rank and position, you encourage pretensions which you cannot
gratify, partly because you dare not abdicate your own functions as a
paramount power, and, partly, because you cannot control the arrogance
of your subjects of the dominant race. Scindiah and Holkar are
faithful to us just in proportion as they are weak, and conscious that
they require our aid to support them against their own subjects or
neighbours: and among the bitterest of our foes during the Mutiny were
natives who had been courted in England.... Canning saw the evils
which the crushing policy of his predecessor was entailing, and he
reversed it. It was a happily timed change of policy. The rebellion
broke out while it was yet recent; and no doubt, the hopes and
gratification inspired by it had their effect in inducing a certain
number of chiefs to pause and to require more conclusive proof that
the British Raj was to kick the beam, before they cast their weight
into the opposite scale of the balance.

After the rebellion was suppressed, the inducement to persevere in
this line of policy was still more stringent. To grant to native
Potentates who were trembling in their shoes, and ready to receive the
boon on any terms which you might prescribe, the reversion of States
which had become vacant because you had, of your own authority and
mere motion, hanged their chiefs, and declared them to be escheated,
was a wise, a graceful, and under the circumstances a perfectly safe
policy. The same may be said of the measures taken to put the
talookdars of Oude on their legs, and which were preceded by the
confiscation of all their properties. I believe that this policy, like
the policy of Clemency, was sound and right in principle; but in
forming a just estimate of its success and of its applicability to all
seasons and emergencies, it is necessary to take into account the
specialities of the time to which I have referred.

[Sidenote: (3) Assertion of British sovereignty.]

What then was the scope and extent of application which Canning in
action was prepared to give to this policy? Here is the important
question, and it is not altogether an easy one to answer. For like
most wise administrators, Canning dealt with the concrete rather than
the abstract, and it would not be difficult to cull from his decisions
sentiments and sentences which seem to clash. When you meet with an
individual ruling which appears not to tally with what you have
assumed to be his general principles, you say it is 'unnatural.' This
is one way out of the difficulty. But is it the right way? My own
opinion is, that Canning never intended to let the chiefs get the bit
into their mouths, or to lose his hold over them. It is true that he
rode them with a loose rein, but the pace was so killing during the
whole of his time, that it took the kick out of them, and a light hand
and silken thread were all that was required. His policy of deference
to the authority of native chiefs was a means to an end, the end being
the establishment of the British Raj in India; and when the means and
the end came into conflict, or seemed likely to do so, the former went
to the wall. Even in the case of the chieftainship of Amjherra, he
looked, as the Yankees say, 'ugly,' when Scindiah, having got what he
wanted, showed a disposition to withhold the grants to loyal
individuals which he had volunteered to make from the revenues of the
chieftainship. It is true that the ostensible ground of Canning's
dissatisfaction was the violation of a promise, but what title had he
to claim this promise, or to exact its fulfilment, if the escheat
belonged as of right to Scindiah? Again, when I came to this country,
I found that he was walking pretty smartly into a parcel of people in
Central India who were getting up a little rebellion on their own
account, a tempest in a teapot, not against us, but against their own
native rulers. In this instance he interfered, no doubt, as head
policeman and conservator of the peace of all India. But observe, if
we lay down the rule that we will scrupulously respect the right of
the chiefs to do wrong, and resolutely suppress all attempts of their
subjects to redress their wrongs by violence, which, in the absence of
help from us, is the only redress open to them, we may find perhaps
that it may carry us somewhat far--possibly to annexation--the very
bugbear from which we are seeking to escape. Holkar, for instance,
unless common fame traduces him, has rather an itching for what Mr.
Laing calls 'hard rupees.' His subjects and dependents have decided,
and not altogether unintelligible, objections to certain methods which
he adopts for indulging this propensity. When they--those of them more
especially who have Treaty claims to our protection, come to us to
complain, and to ask our help--are we to say to them:--'We have too
much respect for Holkar's independence to interfere. Bight or wrong
you had better book up, for we are bound to keep the peace, and we
shall certainly be down upon you if you kick up a row'? In the
anomalous position which we occupy in India, it is surely necessary to
propound with caution doctrines which, logically applied, land us in
such dilemmas.

[Sidenote: Problems for a time of peace.]

At a future time, if I live, and remain here, it is possible that I
may take the liberty of submitting to you some views of my own on
these questions. It may perhaps turn out that a time of peace is
better fitted than one of revolution for the discovery of the true
theory according to which our relations with native States ought to be
conducted; or, it may be, for the discovery that no theory can be
framed sufficiently elastic to fit all those relations and the
complications which arise out of them, and that, after all, we must in
a great measure rely on the rule of common sense and of the thumb.
When the circumstances of the time are such that it is deemed right
and proper to abrogate all law, and to establish over the land a reign
of terror and of the sword--to pour out, in deference to the paramount
claims of the safety of the state, public money, whether obtained from
present taxation or the mortgage of posterity, with profusion
absolutely uncontrolled--to decree confiscation on a scale of
unprecedented magnitude; it is obvious that a reputation for clemency,
economy, and respect for the native rights of property, is obtainable
under conditions that are not strictly normal. If you want to
ascertain whether your system will stand in all weathers, you must
test it when the rule of law and order have replaced that of arbitrary
will--when men present themselves, not as the scared recipients of
bounty, but as the assertors of admitted rights. We shall see how far,
in such piping times, it may be possible for the Governor-General to
enforce on the British local authorities the claims of public economy,
without resorting to any interference which can be supposed to
militate against the hypothesis that the said authorities understand a
great deal better than he does what their wants are, and how they
ought to be supplied; or to maintain the peace of India without
questioning the indefeasible title of the native chiefs to do what
they like with their own.

Meanwhile all I want as regards this matter is, to learn what
Canning's policy really was, and to follow it out faithfully. It is
neither fair to him nor to the cause, that we should misjudge its
character by founding our estimate of it on a partial or incomplete
induction.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

Calcutta, December 23rd, 1862.

[Sidenote: Consideration of the natives.]

As to consideration of the natives, I can only say that during a
public service of twenty years I have always sided with the weaker
party, and it is so strongly my instinct to do so, that I do not think
the most stringent injunctions would force me into an opposite course
of action. But I am quite sure that it is not true kindness to the
weaker party, to give the stronger an excuse for using to the utmost
the powers of coercion which they possess, by seeming to be unwilling
to listen to any statement of grievances which they may desire to
make, or to suspect their motives when they suggest remedies.... It is
quite possible that such views as you instance may prevail to a
considerable extent with our agitating people; but it is equally
certain that many who join them would indignantly repudiate the
imputation of being actuated by any motives of the kind. My study
always is, to keep those who _profess_ moderate and reasonable views
right, and to prevent them from going over arms and baggage to the
enemy, by taking for granted that they mean what they profess, and,
when they propose objectionable remedies, arguing against them on
their own premises. Some, of course, would rather abandon their sound
premises than their illogical conclusions, when they are driven in
this way to the wall; but a large number come over to the right side
when they find that the consideration of their alleged grievances is
approached without any prepossession against them. Of course, this is
all a matter of tact, and cannot be reduced to any definite formula.
But you speak of our Press as hopeless on some of these subjects. Have
you observed the comparative mildness of its tone lately,
notwithstanding the action of Government in the matter of the Waste
Lands, and Contract Law? Does not that argue a better state of feeling
in the European Community; and do not you think that it is for the
benefit of the Ryots, that their interloping landlords should not be
in a humour to employ vindictively the vast powers which, whether you
disallow Contract Laws or not, they, as proprietors, possess over
them?

[1] Vide _supra_, p. 329.

[2] It was sometimes complained that on these occasions he was so
little communicative: drawing out the opinions of others, without
expressing his own. But it requires very little reflection to see that
this complaint is really a commendation.

[3] He died in London from the effects of a fever caught in the
East.