4
The Commoner.
British Rule in India.
Justice Brown in delivering the opinion of
the court in the Downes case said:
"Grave apprehensions of danger are felt by
many eminent mena fear lest an unrestrained
possession of power on the part of congress may
lead to unjust and oppressive legislation, in
which the natural rights of territories, or their
inhabitants, may be engulfed in a centralized des
potism. These fears, however, find no justifica
tion' in the action of congress in the past century,
nor in the conduct of the British parliament to
ward its outlying possessions since the Ameri
can revolution."
It marks an epoch in American history
when the highest court of the land uses the ex
perience of England to support an attack on
written constitutions. It is the most audac
ious and unblushing surrender of fundamental
principles which has occurred in this country.
As Justice Brown invites us to consider and
admire the conduct of an unrestrained parlia
ment it may not ho out of place to look at
English rule in India. Below will he found a
discussion of this subject prepared for and pub
lished in the New York Journal:
In the discussion of a colonial policy for the
United States frequent references will be made to
England's government of India. The imperialists
are already declaring that Great Britain's policy
has resulted in profit to herself and benefit to her
Asiatic subjects.
. The opponents of imperialism, on the other
ihand, find in India's experience a warning against '
a-, policy which places one nation under the con- '
'trol of- another and distant nation. ......
In 1G00 the first East India company was or
ganized. Its charter was for fifteen, years, but a
now and perpetual charter was granted in 1G09.
Under the reign of Charles II. the company ob
tained another charter which continued former
privileges and added authority "to make peace or
war with any prince or. people ln India) uoi be
ing Christian."
The affairs" of the company were managed
with an eye single to gain, and intervention in
the quarrels of native princes resulted in the grad
ual extension of its influence. Money was the ob
ject, and the means employed would not always
bear scrutiny. There was, however, no hypocritical
mingling of an imaginary "philanthropy" with an
actual "five per cent."
In 1757 Lord Clive, by the battle of, Plassey,
made the company the dominant power in Indian
politics, and under Clive and Hastings the income
of the East India company reached enormous pro
portions. The history of the century, beginning with the
battle of Plassey and ending with the Sepoy mu
tiny in 1857, was written under headlines like the
.following: "The First War With Kyder Ali,"
."The Rohilla War," "The Second War With Hyder
Ali 7 4The War With Tippoo Saib," "The War
With the Mahrattas," "Suppression of the Pin
dnris," "The Last of the Peshwas," "The First
Burmese War," "The. First Afghan War," "The
Conquest of Scinde," "The Sekh Wars," "The
Conquest of Punjab," "The Annexation of Pegu,"
"The Annexation of Oudh," "The Outbreak of Mee
rut," "The Seizure of Delhi," "The Siege of Luck
now," etc., etc.
. This brief review is not given" because it is in
teresting, but to acquaint the reader with the im
perialistic plan of solving the problem of civiliza
tion by the elimination of unruly factors.
In-1858 parliament, by an act entitled an act
"for the better government of India." mnfQn,i
that the management of Indian affairs could be
i&-
improved and placed the control in the hands of a
Secretary of State for India and a council.
In 1877 Queen Victoria assumed the title Em
press of India.
Even if it could bo shown that England's sov
ereignty over India had brought blessings to the
Indian people and advantage to the Inhabitants of
Great Britain, we could not afford to adopt the
policy. A monarchy can engage in work which
a republic dare not undertake. A monarchy is con
structed upon the theory that authority descends
fiom the king and that privileges are granted by
tho crown to the subjects. Of course the ruling
power recognizes that it owes a duty to the people,
but while the obligation is binding upon the con
science of the sovereign it cannot be enforced by
tho subject.
Webster presented this idea with great force in
his speech on the Greek revolution. After setting
forth the agreement between the allied powers, he
said: "The first of these principles is, that all
popular or constitutional rights are holden no
otherwise than as grants from the crown. Society,
upon this principle, has no rights of its own; it
takes good government, when it gets it, as a boon
and a concession, but can demand nothing. It Is
to live in that favor which emanates from royal
authority, and if It have tho misfortune to lose
that favor, there is nothing to protect it against
any degree of injustice and oppression. It can
rightfully make no endeavor for a change; by it
self; its whole privilege is to receive the favors
that may bo dispensed by the sovereign power,
and all its duty is described in the single word,
submission. This Is the plain result of the prin
cipal continental state papers; indeed, it is nearly
the identical text of some of them."
The English people have from time to time
forced the crown to recognize certain rights, but
the principle of monarchy still exists. The sov
ereign has a veto upon all legislation; the farit
that this veto has not been used of late does not
change" the .governmental theory and, in India,
the application of -the theory has deprived the Ind
ian people of participation in "the control of their
own affairs.
A nation which denies the principle that gov
ernments derive their just powers from the con
sent of the governed can give self-government to
one colony and deny it to another; it can give It
to colonies strong enough to exact it by force and
deny it to weaker ones; but a nation which rec
ognizes tho people as the only sovereigns, and re
gards those temporarily in authority merely as
public servants, is not at liberty to apply the prin
ciple to one section of the country and refuse it to
another.
Bu(;, so far from supporting the contention of
the imperialists, British rule in India really en
forces every argument that can be made against a
colonial system of government. In the first place,
to authorize a commercial company "to make
peace or war with any prince or people (not Chris
tian)," according to its pleasure, was to place the
pecuniary interests of a few stockholders above
the rights of those with whom they had dealings.
Clive and Hastings seem to have acted upon this
authority. When the former was called to ac
count he confessed that he had forged a treaty and
his conduct was such that parliament was com
pelled to vote that he "had abused his powers and
set an evil example to the servants of the public,"
but, as he had increased the power of England in
India, his condemnation was accompanied by the
declaration that he had, "at the same time, rend
ered great and meritorious services to his coun
try." The prosecution of Hastings for wrongs in
flicted upon the people of India occupies a con
spicuous place among the political trials of his
tory. The speeches made against him recall tho
orations of Cicero against Verres, who, by the-way,
was also charged with plundering a colony.
Cicero said that Verres relied for his hope of
escape upon his ability to corrupt the judges of
his day, and it appears that tho East Indian com
pany was also accused of polluting the stream of
justice only a century ago.
In his speech on the Nabob of Arcof's debts
Burke said: "Let no man hereafter talk of tho
decaying energies of nature. All the acts and
monuments in the records of peculation; the con
solidated corruption ojt ages; the pattern of ex
emplary plunder in the heroic times of Roman in
iquity, never equalled the gigantic corruption of
this single act. Never did Nero, in all the insolent
prodigality of despotism, deal out to his praetorian
guards a donation fit to be named with the largess
showered down by the bounty of our chancellor
of the exchequer on the faithful band of his Indian
sepoys."
How little human nature changes from age to
age! How weak is the boasted strength of the
arm of the law when" the defendant possesses the
influence purchased by great wealth, however ob
tained, and the accusation comes from a far-off
victim of oppression!
Those who expect justice to be exercised by
officials far removed from the source of power
officials who do not receive their commissions
from, and cannot bo removed by, tho people whom
they govern should read Sheridan's great speech
portraying the effect of the Hastings policy upon
the people of India.
Below will be found an extract:
"If, my lords, a stranger had at this time en
tered the province of Oude, ignorant of what had
happened since the death of Sujah Dowlah, that
prince who, with a savage heart, had still great
lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity
in war, had with a cultivating hand preserved to
his country the wealth which it derived from be
nignant skies, and a prolific soil;, if observing the
wide and general devastation of fields unclothed
and brown; of vegetation burnt up and extin
guished; of villages depopulated and in ruin; of
temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoirs
broken down and dry, this stranger would ask,
What has thus laid waste this beautiful and
opulent land; what monstrous madness has rav
aged with widespread war; what desolating for
eign foe; what civil discords; what disputed suc
cession; what religious zeal; what fabled monster
has stalked abroad and, with malice 'and mortal
enmity to man, withered by the grasp of death
every growth of nature and humanity, all means
of delight, and each original, simple principle of
bare existence? The answer would have been:
Not one of these causes! No wars have ravaged
these lands and depopulated these villages! No
desolating foreign foe! no domestic broils! no
disputed succession! no religious superservic
able zeal! no poisonous monster! no offliction of
Providence, which, while it scourges us, cut off
tho sources of resuscitation!
"No. This damp of death is the mere effusion
of British amity! We sink under tne pressure of
their support! We writhe under their perfidious
gripe! They have embraced us with their protect
ing arms, and lo! these are the fruits of their al
liance!" No clearer case was ever made against a
prisoner at the bar, and yet after seven years trial
before the house of lords Hastings was acquitted,
not because he was guiltless, but because England
had acquired territory by his policy.
Lord M'acaulay, in describing the crimes per
petrated at that time against a helpless people,
gives expression to a'truth which has lost none of
its force with the lapse of years. He says: "And
then was seen what we believe to be the most
frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civili
zation without its mercy. To all other despotism
there is a check, imperfect indeed, and liable to
gross abuse, but still sufficient to preserve-society
from the last- extreme of misery. A time comes
-when tho evils of submission are obviously greater
than those of resistance, when fear itself begets