(Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton.) 35 South Street, August 22 [1867]. I saw Sir S. Northcote on Tuesday. He came of his own accord—which I think I partly owe to you. The result is (that is, if he does as he says) that there will be a Controlling Committee at the India Office for sanitary things with Sir B. Frere at the head and Sir H. Anderson at the tail, and your War Office Commission as the consulting body. As to the Public Health Service, I told him that we want the Executive Machinery in India to do it, and the Controlling Machinery at the I.O. to know that it is being done. The work of the Controlling Committee will really be introducing the elements of civilization into India. Sir S. N. said something about having Gen. Baker and Sir E. Perry on as members and an assistant-secretary to Sir H. Anderson. (I wish I could choose the members as I did in Sidney Herbert's time.) But I have the greatest faith in Sir B. Frere, and he asked me to let him bring Sir H. Anderson here; so we shall have the Chairman and the Secretary on our side. I liked Sir S. Northcote; but he appears to me to have much the same calibre of mind as Lord de Grey. He has none of the rapid, unerring perception of Sidney Herbert; none of the power of Sir J. Lawrence; none of the power and keenness of Sir B. Frere. He talks about “talking it all over with Lord Clinton.” Do you know Lord Clinton, and does he know anything about it? But my principal reason for writing to you now is this: I went as fully as I could with Sir S. N. into this, that no time should be lost in sending R. Engineers intended for service in India to examine and make themselves acquainted with improvements in sewerage, drainage, water-supply of towns, and in application of sewage to agriculture, and with improvements in Barrack and Hospital construction, etc., as carried out here. Now, there is no one but you who can properly advise Sir S. N. in this way. Pray do so.
Sir Stafford Northcote did all, and more than all, that at this interview he had promised. She was impressed by his sincerity at the time. “I believe,” she told Dr. Sutherland, “he will carry out exactly what he consents to do.” But other friends advised her to leave nothing to good intentions, to strike while the iron was hot, and to continue jogging the minister's elbow until the things were actually done. Presently an occasion offered itself. The Governor-General had written her a long private letter about the ravages of cholera among the troops in the N.W. Provinces. She sent the substance of this letter to Sir Stafford Northcote, and invited him to concur in her opinion that such things ought not to be. But could they ever be prevented until the Public Health Service was placed on a proper footing? The minister, in acknowledging her letter (Oct. 18), said that, the pressure of other business being relaxed, he was now able to give full attention to sanitary questions, and that he would like to have another conversation. The interview was on October 23. On this occasion the minister came full-handed. He told her, first, as appears from her notes and letters, that he had definitely decided to appoint a Sanitary Committee at the India Office. He read out the list of names; with Sir Bartle Frere, according to promise, as chairman, and Sir H. Anderson as secretary. He then asked her advice with regard to the relations between this Committee and the War Office Sanitary Committee, for there was, as he explained (and as she knew only too well), great jealousy between the two offices. She advised that the India Office Committee should be the controlling and responsible body, and the War Office Committee consultative only; “but I shall be much surprised,” she wrote in explaining things to Captain Galton, “if Sir Bartle Frere does not refer many more matters to you than has previously been the case.” She had thus won the second of her Three Points.
The minister next handed to Miss Nightingale a dispatch dated August 16, which he had received from the Government of India, and to which an immediate answer was requested. This was not news to her (though she was doubtless too discreet to say so), for the Governor-General had also written to her on August 16 to like effect. In this dispatch the appointment of medical officers in each Local Government for the exclusive duty of Principal Health Officers, paid by the Central Government, was suggested. The Secretary of State left the dispatch with Miss Nightingale, and requested her to favour him in writing with her views on the whole subject, suggesting, if she cared to do so, what answer should be sent to the Government of India. The new proposal of Sir John Lawrence's Government was not all or exactly what she wanted. The local Officers of Health would be advisory only; and the Commissioner with the Government of India would remain in a like position. What she had wanted was a distinct Executive Department, both central and local, for Public Health. Still, the appointment of State Officers of Health was a step in the right direction, and a great advance on the Prisons scheme. She must see to it that the better opinion was made to prevail, while Sir John Lawrence was still at the helm in India and the Secretary of State in London was friendly to her. The new policy would win some part of her First Point. It remained to secure Annual Health Reports; and the Secretary of State had given her an opening by inviting her to make suggestions at large.
She had now a spell of very hard work. At the end of it she had sent to Sir Stafford Northcote (1) a draft for immediate reply to the Indian Government, approving the appointment of the Health Officers. This was sent to India on November 29. (2) Secondly, a digest of the Indian Sanitary Question from 1859 to 1867. This was printed in a Blue-book issued by the Secretary of State in 1868. (3) Thirdly, a memorandum on the whole subject full of suggestions and advice. This was sent out to the Indian Government, and printed in the same Blue-book. It was printed anonymously, though there are tell-tale phrases (such as “The result will be the civilization of India”); the manuscript of the “review,” in Miss Nightingale's hand, is amongst her papers. (4) Fourthly, and principally, the heads of a dispatch on the whole subject which, she suggested, might be sent to the Government of India. “Of course I cannot say,” she wrote, “how far these heads may meet with your concurrence.” The heads, in her hand, are also amongst her papers, and a comparison of this manuscript with Sir Stafford Northcote's dispatch of April 23, 1868, shows that they all met with his concurrence; they were adopted for the most part in her own words. The suggestions of this dispatch constitute one of Miss Nightingale's best services to the cause of Public Health in India. It begins with calling for a Report on Sanitary Progress. It then reverts to the famous “Suggestions in regard to Sanitary Works” of 1864, which Miss Nightingale had so large a hand in writing (above, p. [48]). “I consider these Suggestions,” wrote the Secretary of State, “to be of very great practical value and to constitute a good foundation for sanitary inquiry and work in India.” The dispatch invites particular attention to some of the Suggestions seriatim, and calls for a report on any progress that has been made in carrying them out. It also includes Miss Nightingale's later suggestion (above, p. [152]) that Engineer Officers should be sent to England to study sanitary questions. The whole dispatch, whilst leaving full executive authority to the Government of India, was directed to stimulating its zeal in the cause of Public Health.
The adoption by Sir Stafford Northcote of Miss Nightingale's “heads” for this dispatch secured the last of her Three Points. The reports for which the minister called were duly forwarded. They were printed in the Blue-book above mentioned, together with the other Papers, and with the dispatch itself. This Blue-book[95] was the first of an Annual Series of Indian Sanitary Reports. So, then, Miss Nightingale's intercourse with Sir Stafford Northcote had, with the limitations already explained, secured all her points.
“I hope, in this recourse to Sir Stafford Northcote,” she had written three months before,[96] “as a last hope. Hope was green, and the donkey ate it (that's me).” “I am inclined to think,” Mr. Jowett had written to her at the same time (July 18), “that you have really made a considerable step. I talked about Sir Stafford Northcote to some people who know him. They say, besides what I told you, that he works really hard at Indian affairs. Now, you must get hold of him and fuse him and Sir Bartle Frere and Sir John Lawrence into one by some alchemy or wicked wit of woman, and then something will be accomplished.” And this was what had now been made possible; though perhaps the only secret on the woman's part was the combination of singleness of purpose, fulness of knowledge, clearness of insight, and a resolute will.
IV
Sir Stafford Northcote's dispatch, and the accompanying memorandum, did not immediately have the effect which Miss Nightingale hoped so far as the Supreme Government was concerned. The Government of India somewhat resented the process of hustling by the India Office at home. Miss Nightingale had kept her faith in Sir John Lawrence, but it was put to some severe trials. For some time she had been more ready to praise and pray than he to do her bidding:—
(Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale.) Calcutta, Feb. 7 [1867]. Many thanks for your very kind note of the 26th of December. I am quite sure that I in no wise deserve your blessings; nevertheless I am grateful to you for them, perhaps the more so when I bear in mind my own demerits. It is not a very pleasant duty talking to the “Kings of the East,” for though they receive all which one in my position may say with gravity and politeness, it makes but a wretched impression on them. You will be glad to hear that the death-rate among the English troops in India for 1866 was only 20.11, while it was 24.24 in 1865. This seems to me a very satisfactory result.… I have had an envoy down in Calcutta for some time, from the King of Bokhara, asking for aid against Russia. How strange it will be if Russia and England meet in Central Asia! I hope, if it is to be so, that it will be in amity. There is ample verge and room enough for both powers; and if both would only see this we might be a help instead of an injury to each other.
(Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale.) Simleh, July 9 [1867].… [A passage dwelling on the many difficulties he had to encounter.] I do what I can to further the objects to which you have devoted your life—no doubt with slow and faltering steps, but still as fast as circumstances will permit.