The growth of a national spirit in India under our self-appointed guardianship, while giving us just pride in the nobility of our achievement, may yield us the yet nobler crown of humility when we behold in its maturity the developed genius of our foster-children.
Mr Theodore Morison, writing on Imperial Rule in India, sought authority for his proposed suppression of all newspapers but a subsidized government organ in "the policy which has done so much for the progress of Mexico," and remarked, "It is apparently necessary for English politicians to behold a country given up to anarchy before they can realize that popular institutions make for the disruption of a nation which is not yet compact and unified."
The recent happenings in his chosen instance incline me to say that even Mr Morison himself would now, doubtless, admit that such despotic methods only produce an apparent and temporary calm and are certain sooner or later to break down, together with the government that enforced them.
The influence of the Press is only beginning to help the creation of a national spirit. Newspapers are naturally more likely to fan the red embers of latent animosities than to attack the infinitely more difficult and less lucrative task of sound patriotic afforestation to make a permanent fuel supply to those fires of national aspiration, which as yet have little more hold than a handful of crackling thorns.
It is as erroneous to assume that local press opposition to any particular measure of government is the sign of an united national feeling as to pretend that an united national feeling can only be created by agitation against the British rule.
The fact that there is not yet a national sympathy in India strong enough to overrule the enmity of religions or the rivalry of races, is the best of all arguments for cherishing its growth by every means in our power. National feeling must first be associated with territorial boundaries and many many will be the years to come ere the Mohammedan will lie down with the Hindoo and a little Parsee shall lead them to the sound of Sikh flutes and Christian tabors!
Mr Theodore Morison contends that all men east of Suez think themselves the slaves and chattels of the man God has set above them for their king,[[1]] but in whatever way they regard their relation to their rulers we, at least, may no longer regard them as slaves and chattels; rather must we think of them as wards for whom we have become responsible through the actions of our grandfathers—wards whom we have not only recognized as family relations but have trained in our own business and given just so much knowledge of our methods as to make them capable of being invaluable to our rivals though not as yet in any way competent to exercise independent authority.
[[1]] "East of Suez ... there lies upon the eyes and foreheads of all men a law which is not found in the European Decalogue; and this law runs: 'Thou shalt honour and worship the man whom God shall set above thee for thy king; if he cherish thee thou shalt love him; and if he plunder and oppress thee thou shalt still love him, for thou art his slave and his chattel.'" Imperial Rule in India (Page 43). Theodore Morison.
There must come a time when the people of every habitable part of the world will have tried the system of government by majority of elected representatives. Even in the case of a nation like China, which has at present no desire among its proportionally small class of educated minds for such a form of rule, the popular longing for enfranchisement will arise, and sooner or later a representative form of government will be established. The obviously possible oppression and tyranny of democratic rule are dangers which no people as a whole will learn except by their own experience. The stirring spirit of life that brings man self-reliance will make him claim his share in the ordering of his own country sooner or later but in any case sooner than he has been able to learn that a measure is liberal or tyrannous, not according to the type of government that imposes it but according to the degree of liberty it secures to, or takes away from, the individuals it affects.