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BOMBAY, Monday, February 24.
We sailed at six in the evening by the splendid Peninsula and Oriental mail steamer Pekin. The city was bathed in the rays of a brilliant sunset as we steamed slowly out of the harbor, and we bade farewell to India when it looked the fairest.
And now for something on the great Indian Question, for it would never do for a traveller to visit India and not to have his decided opinion upon matters and things there, and his clearly- defined policy embracing the management of the most intricate problems involved in the government of two hundred and fifty millions of the most ignorant races known, and all founded upon a few weeks' hurried travel among them. There is, however, a much more extensive class who are even more presumptuous, for they have just as complete a policy upon this subject, although they have never seen India at all.
The vast country we know as India, then, is held and governed, not as one country, but district by district. One province, for instance, has a native ruler with whom England has nothing whatever to do except that, by right of treaty, she sends a political agent to his court, supported in some cases, and in others not, by a certain number of soldiers. This Resident is expected to confer with and advise the Rajah, and keep him and his officials from outrageous courses. Especially are they prevented from warring upon neighboring States. In extreme cases, when counsel and remonstrance avail not, the government has had either to depose the ruling Rajah and substitute another, as in the recent affair of the Rajah of Baroda, or to confiscate the province and merge it in the Empire, as in the case of the King of Oude. But what must be borne in mind is that no two native rulers govern alike. Laws and customs prevailing in one province are unknown in another. Land is held by one tenure in one place, and by an entirely different system in another. India is therefore not one nation, but a vast conglomeration of different races and principalities, each independent of the other, differing as much as France does from Germany, and much more than England does from America. Add to this the fact that the people of any one district are not a homogeneous community, but subdivided into distinct castes, which refuse to intermarry or even to eat with one another, and a faint idea of the magnitude of the Indian question will begin to dawn upon one.
It is this mass which England has to rule and keep firmly in order with her sixty thousand troops, and which constitutes the government of India the most difficult problem with which, I believe, statesmen have to deal. The amount of knowledge, statesmanship, tact, temper, patience and resource absolutely put in requisition by the men who rule India equals, I feel sure, that required for the government of the whole of civilized Europe combined; for it is always easy to govern a homogeneous people, the rulers being of the people themselves, and having the good of their respective countries at heart. It seems to me that an unnecessary element of danger arises from the fact that these Rajahs are permitted to maintain no fewer than three hundred thousand native troops, mainly to swell their importance. The question of enforcing reductions in these armaments is now under consideration, I observe, but I should decidedly say with Hamlet.
"Oh! reform it altogether."
I would not allow a Rajah to keep more than one hundred armed troops, except as a body-guard, beyond the number actually required to enforce order. Upon this point I have decided views.
The existence of Rajahs is perhaps a necessary evil. They are maintained in consequence of a well-grounded reluctance on the part of the government to assume the task of governing more territory. It is to be regretted that it has been necessary to extend the sway so far already; nevertheless, the day will come when the petty courts must be swept away, as they have been in Japan and Germany, and the whole country given the benefits of uniform rule. It is estimated that the Rajahs tax the people to an extent equal to the revenues of the government—about $300,000,000 per annum: of this much is squandered in upholding their state—a grievous exaction from so poor a country. This will soon be one of the burning questions of India.
The Rajah of Jeypoor draws from the people $6,000,000 per annum, and one or two others exceed this sum. Poor fellow! the other day he had to marry his tenth wife—a sister of two of his previous wives, for whom no suitable husband could be found. There were but two families in the realm, I believe, of the proper rank, and neither happened just then to have a nice young man on hand. The disgrace of having an unmarried woman in the family was not to be borne, and the old Rajah had to husband her, as he had her other sister some time ago. Although so well provided with wives, he has never been blessed with an heir, and at his death his first wife will adopt a son, who will be his successor.