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4 " , The Commoner.
VOLUME G, NUMBER 25
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BRITISH R VLE IN INDIA
MR. BRYAN'S TWENTY-FIFTH LETTER
"What Is truth?" asked Pilate, and when ho
had asked tho question ho wont out without wait
ing for an answer. The quostion has been asked
many times and answered in many different
ways. I was reminded of a similar question when
j.read over tho door of a court house in Aligarh,
India, tho motto: "Justice is the strength of tho
British Empire." No empire, no government, no
society can havo any other source of permanent
Strength. Lord Salisbury, is quoted by Indian
leaders as saying: "Injustice will bring down tho
mightiest to ruin," and we all believe it. Wen
dell Phillips expressed it as strongly and even
more beautifully when he said, (I quote from
memory): "You may build your capitals until
they reach the skies, but if they rest upon in
justice, the pulse of a woman will beat them
down."
But what is justice? How varied are the an
swers given! The subject, in the name of jus
tice, presents his appeal to his king, and the
sovereign, if he be a despot, may send him to
exile or the prison or the block and do it in the
name of justice. What is justico? This question
has boon ringing in my ears during our journey
through India.
When I was a law student, I read the speech
of Sheridan at the trial of Warren Hastings, and
that masterpiece of invective was recalled six
teen years later, when a colonial policy began to
be suggested in tho United States after the taking
of Manila, and I tried to inform myself in regard
to British rule in India. The more I read about
it, the more unjust it seemed. So many Ameri
cans have, however, during the last few years
spoken admiringly of England's colonial system
that I have looked forward to the visit to India
with increasing interest because of the opportu
nity it would give me to study at close range a
question of vital importance to our own country.
I have met some of the leading English officials
as well as a number in subordinate positions;
have talked with educated Indians Hindus, Mo
hammedans and Parsees; have seen the people,
rich and poor, in the cities and in the country,
and have examined statistics and read speeches,
.reports, petitions and other literature that does
nbTHruTits way to the United States; and British
rule in India is far worse, far more burdensome
to the people, and far more unjust if I under
stand the meaning of the word than I had
supposed.
When I say this I do not mean to bring an
indictment against the English people or to as
sort that they are guilty of intentional wrongdo
. ing. Neither do I mean to question the motives
of those who are in authority. It has been my
good fortune to become personally acquainted
with Lord Minto, the present viceroy; with Lieu-
tenant Governor Frazier, the chief executive of
the province of Bengal; with Lieutenant Gov
ernor La Touche, chief executive of the United
.Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and with Governor
Lamington, chief executive of the Bombay pres
idency, three of the largest Indian states. Th'ese
men, I am sure, represent tho highest type of
their countrymen. Lord Minto is fresh from
Canada, where ho was governor general; Gov
ernor Lamington was the head of the-Australian
government before coming to India, and both
Governors Frazier and La Touche have long offi
cial experience to their credit. That they will
be just, as they understand justice, and do right
as they see the right, I am satisfied. But what is
justice?
fnr rtr?,Ublcl is xthat EnSiand acquired India
for England's advantage, not for India's, and that
she holds India for England's benefit, not for
India s. She administers India with an eve
single to England's interests, not India's, and she
passes upon every question as a judge would
were he permitted to .decide his own case. The
oMcials in India owe their appointment directly
or indirectly to the home government, and the
home government holds authority at the puffer
n?? o People of England, not of the people
of India. The officials who go out from England
to serve a certain time and then return, whose
interests are in England rather than in India
and whose sympathies ar.e naturally with the
exnirV111111 With thG stives, can notbe
XfCtf J? veT, queBtIonB from ie same stand-
point as tho Indians. Neither can these officials
wel?Xr?nRt0 1Crw ?e needB theeSplfas
SiratU G WU SharG thelr aai " "to and
unai' IhXnTilT t0 revlew tn earlIer rule
under the East India tympany; that is sufficient-
ly condemned by public record. That company
was chartered for commercial purposes, and its
rule had no other than a -pecuniary aim. It se
cured control of state after state by helping one
native prince against another where it did not
actually instigate war between princes. The Eng
lish government finally took the colony over,
confessedly because of the outrageous conduct
of the company's officials. No one now defends
the rule of the East India company, although
Warren Hastings was finally acquitted by the
house of lords in spite of his crimes, out of
consideration for his public service in extending
English authority.
Is English rule in India just, as we find it
today? Fortunately England permits free speech
in England, although she has sometimes restrict
ed it in her colonies, and there haB not' been
a public question under consideration in England
for a century which has not brought out inde
pendent opinion. It is tho glory of England that
she was an early champion of freedom of speech,
and it is the glory of Englishmen that they criti
cise their own government when they think it
wrong. During the American revolution Burke
thundered his defense of the rights of the colon
ists, and Walpole warned his countrymen that
they could not destroy American liberty without
asserting principles which, if carried out, would
destroy English liberty as well. During the re
cent war in South Africa the British had no more
severe critics than were to be found among her
own people and in her own parliament. And so
today British rule in India is as forcibly arraigned
by Englishmen as by the Indians themselves.
While Mr. Naoroji, an Indian, goes to England
and secures from a meeting of a radical club the
adoption of a resolution reciting that as "Britian
has appropriated thousands of millions of India's
wealth for building up and maintaining her Brit
ish Indian empire and for drawing directly vast
wealth to herself;" that as "she is continuing
to drain about thirty million pounds sterling of
India's wealth every year unceasingly in a va
riety of ways" and that as "she has thereby re
duced the bulk of the Indian population to ex
treme poverty, destitution and degradation, it
is therefore her bounden duty, in common justice
and humanity, to pay from her own exchequer
the costs of all famines and diseases caused by
such impoverishment." And further, "that it is
most humiliating and discreditable to the British
name that other countries should be appealed to
or should have to come to Britain's help for re
lief of Britain's own subjects, and after and by
her un-British rule of about one hundred and fifty
years."
While, I repeat, Mr. Naoroji was securing the
unanimous adoption of the above resolution in
England, Sir Henry Cotton, now a member of
parliament, but for thirty-five years a member
of the Indian civil service, was preparing his
book, New India, in which he courageously points
out the injustice from which India now suffers.
Neither ho nor Mr. Naoroji suggests Indian inde
pendence. Both believe that English sovereignty
should continue, but Mr. Cotton shows the wrongs
now inflicted upon India and the necessity for
reform. Not only dbes he charge that the prom
ises of the queen have been ignored and Indians
excluded from service for which they were fitted,
but he charges that the antagonism between the
oflicials and the people is growing and that there
is among civilian magistrates "an undoubted
tendency to inflict severe sentences when natives
of India are concerned, and to impose light and
sometimes inadequate punishment upon offenders
of the r own race," and that in trials "in which
Englishmen are tried by English juries" the re
sult is sometimes "a failure of justice not falling
short of judicial scandal." If justice can not be
found in the court, where shall she be sought?
After the Indian mutiny the queen, in a
proclamation, promised that natives should be
freely and impartially admitted to offices, "the
duties of which they might be qualified by their
education, ability and integrity to discharge."
Lord Lytton, a viceroy of India, in a confidential
document which got into print, speaking of the
pledges of the sovereign and the parliament of
England, said: "We all know that these claims
and expectations never can or will be fulfilled
, We have had to choose between prohibiting them
(the natives of India) and cheating them, and we
have chosen the least straightforward course." and
again: "Since I am writing confidentially, I do
not hesitate to say that both the governments of
England and of India appear to me, up to the
present moment, unable to answer satisfactorily
the charge of having taken every means in their
promise they had uttered to in !.
power of brealdng to the heart the words of
The government of India is as arbitrary and
despotic as the government of Russia ever wasL
and in two respects it is worse. First it is ink
ministered by an alien people, whereas the oiifc
cials of Russia are Russians. Second, it dra'na
a large part of the taxes out of the country
whereas the Russian government spends at lion n
the money which it collects from the people 3
third disadvantage might be named since 'tho
czar has already created a legislative body,
whereas England continues to deny to the In
dians any form of representative or constitutional
government.
The people of India are taxed, but they have
no voice in the amount to be collected or in the
use to be made of the revenue. They pay into
the government nearly two hundred and twenty
five millions of dollars a year and of this nearly
one hundred millions is expended upon an army
in which Indians can not be officers. It is not
necessary to keep such an army merely to hold
the people in subjection if the Indians are really
satisfied with English rule, and if the army is in
tended to keep Russia from taldng India, as is
sometimes claimed, why should not .the British
government bear a part of the burden? Would
it not be wiser to so attach the Indian people to
the British government that they would them
selves resist annexation to Russia?
The homo charges, as they are called, ab
sorb practically one-third of the entire revenues.
About one hundred million dollars go out of
India to England every year, and over fifteen
millions are paid to European officials in the
civil employ. What nation could stand such a
drain without impoverishment?
Taxation is nearly twice as heavy in India
as in England in proportion to the income of the
people. Comparedwith the people of other coun
tries, the Indian's income is, on an average, one
twentieth of the average English income, one
seventh of the average Spaniard's income, one
sixth of the average Italian's income, one-fifth
of the (European) Russian's income and one-half
of the income of the Turk. Sir Henry Cotton
shows that the average per capita deposit in
. banks in England is one hundred dollars while
the average per capita deposit in India is fifty
cents; but how can the Indian be expected to
have a large bank account when the average
yearly income is only ten dollars? I have, in an
other article, referred to the jewelry worn by In
dian women. The bracelets and anklets are sil
ver except among the poorest, and this was for
merly a form of hoarding, but the suspension of
the coinage of silvnr deprived the people of the
privilege of converting this hoarded silver into
rupees. It will be remembered that the late
Senator Wolcott, a member of the monetary com
mission appointed by President McKinley in 1897,
on his return from Europe declared that the sus
pension of the coinage of silver in India had re
duced the value of the saving of the people to
the amount of five hundred millions of dollars.
The suspension was carried out for the benefit
of European interests regardless of the welfare
of the masses.
So great has been the drain, the injustice
to the people and the tax upon the resources of
the country, that famines -have increased in fre
quency and severity. Mr. Gokhale, one of the
ablest of India's public, men, presided over the
meeting of the last Indian national congress (held
in December) and declared in his opening speech
that the death rate had steadily risen from
twenty-four to the thousand in 18824 to-thirty in
1892-4 and to thirty-four at the present time. I
have more than once within the last month heard
the plague referred to as a providential remedy
for over-population! Think of It, British rule
justified because "it keeps the people from killing
each other" and the plague praised because it
removes those whom the government has saved
from- slaughter!
The railroads with all their advantages have
been charged with adding to the weight of famine
by carrying away the surplus grain in good years,
leaving no residue for the years of drouth. While
grain can now be carried back ; more easily ia
times of scarcity, the people are too poor to buy
it with two freights added. The storage of grain'
by the government? at central points until the
new crop is Bafe would bring some relief, but it
has not been attempted. . .
' If it is argued that the railroads! have raised
the price of grain in the interior by furnishing a
cheaper outlet to the sea, it must be remembered
that the benefit has accrued not tor the people,
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