Before this time Yule had succeeded his friend Baker as de facto Secretary to Government for Public Works, and on Baker’s retirement in 1858, Yule was formally appointed his successor.[43] Baker and Yule had, throughout their association, worked in perfect unison, and the very differences in their characters enhanced the value of their co-operation; the special qualities of each friend mutually strengthened and completed each other. Yule’s was by far the more original and creative mind, Baker’s the more precise and, at least in a professional sense, the more highly-trained organ. In chivalrous sense of honour, devotion to duty, and natural generosity, the men stood equal; but while Yule was by nature impatient and irritable, and liable, until long past middle age, to occasional sudden bursts of uncontrollable anger, generally followed by periods of black depression and almost absolute silence,[44] Baker was the very reverse. Partly by natural temperament, but also certainly by severe self-discipline, his manner was invincibly placid and his temper imperturbable.[45] Yet none was more tenacious in maintaining whatever he judged right.
Baker, whilst large-minded in great matters, was extremely conventional in small ones, and Yule must sometimes have tried his feelings in this respect. The particulars of one such tragic occurrence have survived. Yule, who was colour-blind,[46] and in early life whimsically obstinate in maintaining his own view of colours, had selected some cloth for trousers undeterred by his tailor’s timid remonstrance of “Not quite your usual taste, sir.” The result was that the Under-Secretary to Government startled official Calcutta by appearing in brilliant claret-coloured raiment. Baker remonstrated: “Claret-colour! Nonsense, my trousers are silver grey,” said Yule, and entirely declined to be convinced. “I think I did convince him at last,” said Baker with some pride, when long after telling the story to the present writer. “And then he gave them up?” “Oh, no,” said Sir William ruefully, “he wore those claret-coloured trousers to the very end.” That episode probably belonged to the Dalhousie period.
When Yule resumed work in the Secretariat at Calcutta at the close of the Mutiny, the inevitable arrears of work were enormous. This may be the proper place to notice more fully his action with respect to the choice of gauge for Indian railways already adverted to in brief. As we have seen, his own convictions led to the adoption of the metre gauge over a great part of India. This policy had great disadvantages not at first foreseen, and has since been greatly modified. In justice to Yule, however, it should be remembered that the conditions and requirements of India have largely altered, alike through the extraordinary growth of the Indian export, especially the grain, trade, and the development of new necessities for Imperial defence. These new features, however, did but accentuate defects inherent in the system, but which only prolonged practical experience made fully apparent.
At the outset the supporters of the narrow gauge seemed to have the stronger position, as they were able to show that the cost was much less, the rails employed being only about ⅔rds the weight of those required by the broad gauge, and many other subsidiary expenses also proportionally less. On the other hand, as time passed and practical experience was gained, its opponents were able to make an even stronger case against the narrow gauge. The initial expenses were undoubtedly less, but the durability was also less. Thus much of the original saving was lost in the greater cost of maintenance, whilst the small carrying capacity of the rolling stock and loss of time and labour in shifting goods at every break of gauge, were further serious causes of waste, which the internal commercial development of India daily made more apparent. Strategic needs also were clamant against the dangers of the narrow gauge in any general scheme of Indian defence. Yule’s connection with the Public Works Department had long ceased ere the question of the gauges reached its most acute stage, but his interest and indirect participation in the conflict survived. In this matter a certain parental tenderness for a scheme which he had helped to originate, combined with his warm friendship for some of the principal supporters of the narrow gauge, seem to have influenced his views more than he himself was aware. Certainly his judgment in this matter was not impartial, although, as always in his case, it was absolutely sincere and not consciously biased.
In reference to Yule’s services in the period following the Mutiny, Lord Canning’s subsequent Minute of 1862 may here be fitly quoted. In this the Governor-General writes: “I have long ago recorded my opinion of the value of his services in 1858 and 1859, when with a crippled and overtaxed staff of Engineer officers, many of them young and inexperienced, the G.-G. had to provide rapidly for the accommodation of a vast English army, often in districts hitherto little known, and in which the authority of the Government was barely established, and always under circumstances of difficulty and urgency. I desire to repeat that the Queen’s army in India was then greatly indebted to Lieut.-Colonel Yule’s judgment, earnestness, and ability; and this to an extent very imperfectly understood by many of the officers who held commands in that army.
“Of the manner in which the more usual duties of his office have been discharged it is unnecessary for me to speak. It is, I believe, known and appreciated as well by the Home Government as by the Governor-General in Council.”
In the spring of 1859 Yule felt the urgent need of a rest, and took the, at that time, most unusual step of coming home on three months’ leave, which as the voyage then occupied a month each way, left him only one month at home. He was accompanied by his elder brother George, who had not been out of India for thirty years. The visit home of the two brothers was as bright and pleasant as it was brief, but does not call for further notice.
In 1860, Yule’s health having again suffered, he took short leave to Java. His journal of this tour is very interesting, but space does not admit of quotation here. He embodied some of the results of his observations in a lecture he delivered on his return to Calcutta.
During these latter years of his service in India, Yule owed much happiness to the appreciative friendship of Lord Canning and the ready sympathy of Lady Canning. If he shared their tours in an official capacity, the intercourse was much more than official. The noble character of Lady Canning won from Yule such wholehearted chivalrous devotion as, probably, he felt for no other friend save, perhaps in after days, Sir Bartle Frere. And when her health failed, it was to Yule’s special care that Lord Canning entrusted his wife during a tour in the Hills. Lady Canning was known to be very homesick, and one day as the party came in sight of some ilexes (the evergreen oak), Yule sought to cheer her by calling out pleasantly: “Look, Lady Canning! There are oaks!” “No, no, Yule, not oaks,” cried Sir C. B. “They are (solemnly) Ibexes.” “No, not Ibexes, Sir C., you mean Silexes,” cried Capt. ——, the A.D.C.; Lady Canning and Yule the while almost choking with laughter.
On another and later occasion, when the Governor-General’s camp was peculiarly dull and stagnant, every one yawning and grumbling, Yule effected a temporary diversion by pretending to tap the telegraph wires, and circulating through camp, what purported to be, the usual telegraphic abstract of news brought to Bombay by the latest English mail. The news was of the most astounding character, with just enough air of probability, in minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was all he could wish—or rather more—and there was a general flutter in the camp. Of course the Governor-General and one or two others were in the secret, and mightily relished the diversion. But this pleasant and cheering intercourse was drawing to its mournful close. On her way back from Darjeeling, in November, 1861, Lady Canning (not then in Yule’s care) was unavoidably exposed to the malaria of a specially unhealthy season. A few days’ illness followed, and on 18th November, 1861, she passed calmly to