There was, indeed, some criticism at the start, but this touched only the past, and did not seriously affect the future. Indian officials felt aggrieved, as I have already said, at the strictures contained in the Report of the Royal Commission, and this movement came to a head in two documents—one, a counter-Report by Dr. Leith, the Chairman of the Bombay Sanitary Commission (Oct. 1864); the other, a dispatch (Dec. 8) from the Government of India (Sir John Lawrence on an important point dissenting). Lord Stanley thought that Dr. Leith ought to be answered at once, and wrote to Miss Nightingale (Oct. 25) for her advice on the subject. She suggested that the answer should be sent in the form of a Report on Dr. Leith's letter by the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission—an ingenious plan, as it gave opportunity to that expert body for giving further advice to one of the Presidency Commissions. Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland drafted the Report, which was adopted by the Commission on January 6, 1865. “I have pleasure,” wrote Lord Stanley to her (Dec. 26), “in sending back the draft reply to Dr. Leith with only one or two verbal amendments suggested. It seems to me well done, moderate in tone, and conclusive in argument.” A reply to the Indian Government's Dispatch, signed by Lord Stanley, Dr. Farr, and Dr. Sutherland, was sent on May 20. Miss Nightingale in her eagerness was much annoyed by these criticisms,[38] and Lord Stanley often told her that she made too much of what were only temporary ebullitions. “Don't be discouraged, dear Miss Nightingale,” he wrote (Jan. 22) when the Government of India's dispatch arrived; “the practical work may go on while the controversy is proceeding. My idea of the matter is that the Indian authorities only want time to set things a little in order—that they are willing to mend, but not inclined to give us the credit of having first put them in the right way. That is human nature.” Lord Stanley was a true prophet. The Indian authorities did mend; and so successfully has the work been carried out by a long line of Commanders, Administrators, and Engineers that the death-rate from preventable disease among the British Army in India has fallen far below the figure which the Royal Commission named as a counsel of perfection.[39]
V
In this work of “salvation” Miss Nightingale was for many years to play a part as consultant, and sometimes as inspirer. In November 1864 the Governor-General in Council intimated his readiness to consider a scheme for the employment of nurses in Military Hospitals, and thereupon the Bengal Sanitary Commission requested Miss Nightingale to aid them by her advice. She wrote in collaboration with Sir John McNeill a comprehensive series of Suggestions in the following February.[40] Throughout the year (1865) Miss Nightingale was engaged from time to time in Indian sanitary business; and her house served as headquarters for the sanitary reformers. Mr. Ellis, the President of the Madras Commission, came home in the middle of the year in order to study sanitary reforms in this country. Miss Nightingale invited him to use her rooms; sent Dr. Sutherland to accompany him on visits of inspection to hospitals and barracks; arranged meetings between him and Lord Stanley; conferred with him on changes which Sir John Lawrence was proposing to make in the constitution of the Presidency Commissions. The Governor-General himself communicated with her freely on the same subject. The Secretary of the Bengal Commission applied to her for information on trustworthy tests for the discovery of organic matter in water. Being unable to obtain what was wanted from Dr. Parkes, she applied to Dr. Angus Smith (inventor of an air-test also), who wrote a pamphlet for her on the subject. It was printed at her expense. She had it approved by the War Office Sanitary Committee, and a large number of copies was distributed throughout India. She had impressed upon the Governor-General the importance of stirring up the Indian municipalities. The Indian Towns Municipal Improvement Bill (1865) was submitted for her criticism, and she wrote a “Note on the relations which should exist between the powers of raising and spending taxes proposed to be granted to local authorities, and the proper execution of sanitary works and measures in India.” Her friend, Sir Charles Trevelyan, retired from the post of Financial Minister in India in 1865, and she made the acquaintance of his successor, Mr. W. N. Massey. She was very jubilant when she “got a vote of seven millions for my Indian barracks.” She was depressed when the Governor-General wrote to her from time to time saying that the great obstacle in the way of speedier reform was want of money; but she made excuses for her hero. “Sir John Lawrence,” she wrote to Madame Mohl (March 20, 1865), “is just as much hampered with the Horse Guards out there as I am here. He is always writing to me to apologize for the little progress he makes. By the very last mail he says I shall think him ‘timid and perhaps even time-serving.’ I could not help laughing. Certainly Sir J. Lawrence is the only man who ever called Sir J. Lawrence a time-server,—except in the highest possible sense, of serving his country at her greatest time of need in the highest possible way.” She was constantly corresponding with Lord Stanley, urging him to win points for her from the Indian Secretary. “I have just seen Sir Charles Wood,” wrote Lord Stanley (Feb. 10). “He agrees as to the expediency of sending home a yearly report of the sanitary stations in each Presidency.” “Pray never speak of being troublesome,” he wrote again (May 15): “it is a real pleasure to me to help you a little in the great work: I know no other way in which my time can be made equally useful.” He frequently saw Sir Charles Wood on matters which she urged, and he won what was almost her highest praise. “Lord Stanley,” she said, “is a splendid worker.” His cool common sense was perhaps a wholesome antidote sometimes to her almost feverish eagerness. “Publicity,” he said (Aug. 17), “will in the long-run do what we want. People won't stand being poisoned when they know it.” The annual Reports from the Presidencies, obtained by Miss Nightingale some years later (p. [155]), were submitted for her “Observations”; and in many other ways, as we shall hear, it was remarkable how close a touch upon the course of sanitary reform in India was maintained by this lady from a bedroom in Mayfair. But essentially Miss Nightingale's work was that of inspirer and pioneer. These chapters will have shown, I think, that a compliment paid to her by the Chairman of the Indian Sanitary Commission was no less true than graceful:—
(Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale.) St. James's Square, July 25 [1864]. I don't wonder that the delays of the “savage tribe” should try your patience; and I admire the more the care and success with which you keep outward show of annoyance to yourself. I had rather be criticised by any one rather than you! I am only passing through town to-day, there being nothing left to do; but shall be again in this place on Thursday, and ready to wait upon you if any matters want settling. If not, I can only wish you health—success is sure to come—and beg that you will remember the value of your own public service, and not by overwork endanger its continuance. Pray excuse a caution which I am sure I am not the first to give. Every day convinces me more of two things: first, the vast influence on the public mind of the Sanitary Commissions of the last few years—I mean in the way of speeding ideas which otherwise would have been confined to a few persons; and next, that all this has been due to you, and to you almost alone.
In one of many moments of vexation at the delays of the “savages” in their red-tape, Miss Nightingale wrote thus to Captain Galton (June 23, 1864): “The Horse Guards say that they were quite aware of Sir John Lawrence's application and of the delay, but that ‘it is Sir J. Lawrence's one and only object of interest, while it is one out of a thousand of the War Office's.’ They ought to have the V.C. for their cool intrepidity in the face of truth. I have told Sir J. Lawrence of the opinion of these dining-out freliquets as to his hard work. And I think I shall publish it after my death.” But “unlicked cubs,” as she said at Scutari, “grow up into good old bears”[41]; and it is not in order to pay off a score against the “puppies” that I quote this letter. Behind the remark which excited Miss Nightingale's righteous anger there was an element of unconscious truth, and it is one which sums up this and the preceding chapter. It was, indeed, an ignorant untruth to say that Sir John Lawrence had no other work or interest than the promotion of sanitary improvements for the Army in India; and it would be untrue also, as later chapters will show, to say the same thing of Miss Nightingale. Yet it made all the difference for the promotion of that work in India that there was at the head of affairs a man whose heart and soul were in it. And at home, it made all the difference that there was one resolute will, combined with a clear head, determined to give impetus and direction to the work. It was probably quite true to say that to many, perhaps to most, of the men at the War Office and the Horse Guards this question of Army sanitation in India appeared as only “one out of a thousand” questions. To Miss Nightingale it was, in a very literal and instant sense, a matter of life and death; and it was her passionate conviction that supplied the initiating and driving force which compelled reform. If the Governor-General of the time had been hostile or apathetic, even her persistence might yet have been foiled. But, as things were, the co-operation between Sir John Lawrence and Florence Nightingale was as beneficent in its results upon the welfare of the British Army in India, as the co-operation between her and Sidney Herbert had been in the case of the Army at home.
CHAPTER IV
ADVISORY COUNCIL TO THE WAR OFFICE
(1862–1866)
We are trying to reduce chaos into shape. It is three years to-day since I first felt what an awful wreck I had got myself into. I interfering with Government affairs; and the captain of my ship, without whom I should never have done it, dying and leaving me, a woman, in charge. What nonsense people do talk, to be sure, about people finding themselves in suitable positions and looking out for congenial work! I am sure if any body in all the world is most unsuited for writing and official work, it is I. And yet I have done nothing else for seven years but write Regulations.—Florence Nightingale (Letter to Julius Mohl, Jan 1. 1864).
Though Miss Nightingale's main work during these years was connected with the Army in India, she was also continuously engaged in work for the War Office in relation to the army at home. Indeed in some respects the work was as constant, and it was quite as varied, if not as far-reaching in range, as in the days when Sidney Herbert was Secretary of State. She was a kind of Advisory Council to the War Office on all subjects within her sphere, and on some outside it; but the references to her were far more frequent than is commonly the case with those somewhat shadowy bodies; and besides she was a privileged person, with the right of initiating suggestions. The picture of her relations to the War Office as it is disclosed in her papers is remarkable. There are scores of letters from the Ministers. There are hundreds from one of the (non-political) Under-Secretaries. Her own letters in reply are equally numerous. There is a large collection of Drafts, Minutes, Warrants, Regulations. Her private letters tell of frequent interviews with one of the Ministers. Was there ever another case in which nearly every vexed question in War Office administration (other than of a purely military kind) was referred almost as a matter of course to a private lady, and that lady an invalid in her bed? It is not likely that the situation will ever exist again; and it becomes of interest to trace “the Nightingale power” in this matter to its sources.