VII
“O that I could do something for India!” She had done much, and was yet to do more; but it was a constant regret of her later years that she had failed to carry through one piece of work which she had planned. This was a book on the allied questions of Indian Irrigation and Indian Land Tenure, to which, in her first draft, she had given the fanciful title The Zemindar, the Sun and the Watering Pot as Affecting Life or Death in India. Miss Nightingale had first written the book in 1874, and she had several copies privately printed. The earliest copies are prefaced by the following notes on “Dramatis Personæ.” They introduce, besides the Minister on whom at this time she pinned her hopes, her principal informants, and they show the spirit of the book:—
The Marquis of Salisbury: A real workman and born ruler of men. Secretary of State for India by the grace of God.
Sir George Campbell: Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Gulliver among the Lilliputians.
Sir Arthur Cotton, R.E.: The most perfect master of the water question living.
Colonel Rundall, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal, then of all India; now at home.
Colonel Haig, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal; now at home ill.
The Zemindar: Created Landlord out of Tax-Gatherer. Growing rich.
The Ryot: Created Slave out of Landowner or Privileged Cultivator. Starving. For while “wealth accumulates, men decay.”
Mr. Jowett revised the book many times, and among the first things which he cut out was the characteristic “Dramatis Personæ.” His unfavourable opinion of the book as a literary work prevented the publication of it in 1874. “The style,” he wrote (Aug. 11, 1874), “is too jerky and impulsive, though I think it is logical and effective. You must avoid faults of taste and exaggeration. The more moderate a statement is the stronger it is. But strength lies in paragraphs, in pages, in the whole; not in single sentences. The form should appear to flow irresistibly from the facts and reasonings. ‘What does the man mean by talking to me about style when I am thinking only of the sufferings and oppression of 100,000,000 of Ryots?’ Yes, but if you want to make the English people think about the Ryots you must be careful of the least indiscretion or exaggeration. You must make style a duty, and then your book will last.” And again, “I find myself amid striking expressions, but I do not know where I am.” He told her that she must rewrite the whole thing before publishing it. He offered to help her, and drew out a more methodical scheme; but she was impatient of his “passion for making heads”; besides, his heads “do not cover the ground that I must cover, and do cover ground that I don't want to cover.” She was disheartened, and laid the book aside for a while; but at various times during the following years she resumed work upon it. The book was in two Parts, the first dealing with the Land Question, and being a plea for a reform of the Permanent Settlement, with an appendix (largely contributed by M. Mohl) “On Prussian, Austrian, and Russian Reforms in Abolition of Servitude.” The second Part dealt with Irrigation as affecting Life or Death in India, with an appendix of statistical data. For the first Part she had prepared a series of illustrations of Indian agricultural life and customs. Many of the woodcuts were from sketches by the son of her old friend, Sir Ranald Martin. For the second Part she had prepared the Irrigation maps already mentioned. Meanwhile, the tables of statistics which she had compiled had, owing to the delay, become out of date. Some of her friends—Sir Bartle Frere and Sir George Campbell and Sir Arthur Cotton—urged her to revise the book and publish it; and there are in existence a series of proofs, in various stages, and belonging to various years, corrected by the three friends just mentioned and by many others. Lord Lawrence too had read the book carefully, and one of his last letters to Miss Nightingale contained a full discussion of many of the points involved in it. Clearly the book first written in 1874 required in 1879 large revision, and she could not bring herself to do it. In later years she used some of the material in other ways; it served, indeed, as a quarry for many articles, papers, and private letters; but she never ceased to regret that she had not been able to leave in permanent literary form her views on the questions discussed in the book. In her Will, made in 1896, she left special provision for the publication of “such part, if any,” as her executors might think fit, of the “books, papers (whether manuscript or printed), and letters relating to my Indian work (together with two stones for Irrigation maps of India, and also with the woodcut blocks for illustration of those works).” By “those works” I take it that she meant principally the book written in 1874. I do not know whether her suggestion will be carried out. If it were, much revision and editing would be necessary. Indian reform moves, it is true, at a rate which “savours much of the periods of Indian cosmogony”; but yet it moves. There is a good deal in Miss Nightingale's published and unpublished writings about India which might be collected and still serve as Tracts for the Times; but there is at least as much which is now happily out of date. Of the reform of the Bengal Land System, projected by Lord Ripon, and carried into effect by Lord Dufferin, we shall hear something in a later chapter (VI.). Some of the principal Irrigation works which Miss Nightingale advocated were presently carried out with success, and to the great benefit of the country, notably the Swat river canal (1885), the Chenab canal (1887), and the Jhelum canal (1902). Her Irrigation map, “brought up to date by statistics at the India Office,” was published in 1900;[177] and maps brought up to a later date are accessible.[178] Twenty years after the date of Miss Nightingale's paper on “The People of India,” the area irrigated by “productive” canals had increased from 5 million acres to 9½ million, and since 1901 a consistent policy of “preventive” irrigation has been adopted.[179] The policy of introducing some element of representation and of admitting the natives of India more largely to administrative and judicial posts has slowly but steadily progressed since the years when Miss Nightingale turned her attention to such questions.