And here it is a joy to acknowledge that a vast amount of good has been done for India, and that our rule has been productive of great social and moral improvement. Roads have been made and canals formed; justice has been administered to an extent never known previously; Thuggism, Sutteeism, and child murder have been abolished, and on the whole there has been a vast and increasing amount of just and beneficial legislation. All this we most freely and thankfully acknowledge. Why then, it may be asked, is there need for humiliation? If so much good has been done, what reason is there to be humbled for our sin?
For the answer to this question, we must not merely consider civil and social improvements, but we must consider the Christian character of our trust, and I fear it will be found, that instead of holding it as a stewardship from God, we have treated India as if it were our own, holding it in the pride of our own power, and making use of it for the purpose of our own aggrandizement.
Consider some of the acts of Government, and in the first place, the trade in opium. The use of this drug is of comparatively recent date in China. In 1767, there were only 200 chests imported there, whereas now there are above 60,000. And this has been done in defiance of the Chinese Government. The opium used to be carried in fast vessels, fully armed, so that our opium merchants were in fact armed smugglers. The determination to force the trade on China, was the simple cause of the former Chinese war. But the Chinese Government has been utterly unable to contend against British enterprise, and the result is that thousands and tens of thousands are at the present time falling victims to the scourge. You may see all along the coasts of China innumerable cases of constitutions broken, intellects impaired, hopes blasted, homes desolate, and whole families sunk into the lowest state of degradation and distress, and all through the opium which we Englishmen have supplied from India.
The effect is also most injurious in India itself. It is stated that there are 100,000 acres of the finest land in Central India, besides the alluvial valley of the Ganges, now devoted to opium, which were once productive of sugar, indigo, corn, and other grain for the sustenance of man.
And who are the parties to this great crime? If they were simply private individuals, it might be exceedingly difficult to check the trade by legislation, and it might possibly be beyond the power of Government to prevent it. But what are we to say when the Government itself is the great offender? When, instead of putting the smallest check on the traffic or the growth, they interpose their mighty power, and claim to themselves the sole monopoly of the trade. In this respect the East India Company is a vast monopolist, and in order to increase the profits of their monopoly, they adopt a system of advances which forces the growth of the poppy on the ryots or cultivators of the soil. Oh, who can wonder that God has brought a scourge on India!
And why, it may be asked, is all this done? The question has often been discussed, but I never heard more than one answer given. There is no plea put forth of social improvement. There is no pretence that any good is done either to India or China. It is admitted that thousands of acres of our best land are diverted from useful purposes. It is admitted, for it cannot be denied, that the trade is spreading death like the most fatal pestilence in China, and there is but one argument put forth in defence of the system. There is but one apology even offered. I know it is a strong argument to some minds, and it seems to be strong in the minds of the East Indian Government. That one argument is, that it pays so well. It is said to bring in about 5,000,000l., a-year to the East India Company. And this is a rapidly-increasing income. In 1836 it was 1,399,000l. In 1850 it had grown to 3,309,637l., and now it is said to have reached the large sum of 5,000,000l. a-year. This is the one argument for China’s ruin, and is it strange that God has smitten us in India?
But again we endeavoured to show, in the outset, that England had a religious trust, being the steward of truth as well as power. But the Indian Government, on the other hand, has taken up the position of absolute neutrality between the Gospel and the most foul idolatry. Indeed, so far has this gone, that in some instances it might have been almost supposed that they looked with a more favourable eye to idolatry than Christianity.
For example. Until a very recent date the Government has not merely maintained some idol temples, but paid the expense of the idol worship, not merely paying the priests, but actually going one step further, and providing the payments for the abandoned females who are connected with the idolatrous rites. Such honour has the Indian Government paid to idolatry, that British troops have been ordered out, under British and Christian officers, to fire salutes in honour of foul and filthy idols, such as Juggernaut. Nor has this deference to idolatry even yet altogether ceased, for to this very day the filth and obscenity of idolatry is spared, while decency is enforced in other quarters. There was a law passed not long since against obscene paintings and publications, but there was this clause inserted, “Nothing contained in this Act shall apply to any representation sculptured, engraved, or painted on, or in, any temple, or on any car used for the conveyance of idols.” So that even public decency has been set aside out of respectful deference to an obscene and filthy idol. Oh! brethren, have we not reaped what we have sown in the late most awful outbreak of abominable and polluting passion?
But much has been done in India in the way of education. Large schools have been established at the expense of Government, and a great effort has been made to elevate the standard of intellect amongst the natives. But here again there has been the same fatal principle of indifference, I cannot say of neutrality in religious matters. The education given in those schools has been secular not Christian. There have been many books read and taught there. The Koran has been studied there. The Hindoo Shastres may have been seen on the table, English literature of all kinds is taught in the classes. There you may find Bacon, and Milton, and Gibbon, and Shakspeare, and other great authors that adorn our own libraries; but there has been one book till very recently excluded, one book that even now you can merely find on the shelf, while the Koran and the Shastres are on the table; one solitary book on which is placed the ban of the East Indian Government, and that one book is the Bible, the only book that has come direct from God; the only book that claims, by its divine authorship, the universal study and obedience of mankind. Who can be surprised, then, if the pupils in those schools grow up without scriptural principles? And are we not reaping the fruit of our own seed when such a wretch as Nena Sahib, who is reported to have been one of the pupils in these very schools, teaches us, by his foul acts, the awful atrocities of which educated human nature, without the grace of God, is capable.
And now for missions. And here we are met by the fact that for the first fifty-six years of our century of power a missionary, as a missionary, was not allowed to set his foot on British soil. It is true that some of the chaplains, such as Martyn, Buchanan, and others, went out in a missionary spirit, and though their duty was to attend to the Europeans, they went beyond it, as volunteers in efforts among the heathen; but it was not until the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1813; that missionaries, as missionaries, were allowed to land in British India. Before that date several had actually been sent away by the authorities of Calcutta, and in order to pursue their labours, were compelled to take refuge under heathen governments. So completely did we forget our stewardship that, for more than half the time we have held it, we did not even allow God’s missionaries to attempt their work among the millions committed to our charge.