She turned with all her old energy to efforts commensurate to the threatened calamity. In accordance with her usual method, she first consulted many influential friends (Lord Ripon amongst others), and then acted with great energy. She wrote a long statement to Lord Dufferin (Nov. 5). “I have sent your letter in extenso,” he replied (Jan. 18, 1887), “to the head of the Finance Committee. You should understand that it does not at all follow, because the Committee recommend a thing, that their recommendation will, as a matter of course, be accepted by the Government. On the contrary, I will go most carefully into this question in which you naturally take so deep an interest, and will be careful to have it thoroughly discussed in Council by my colleagues with the advantage of having had your views placed before them.” A few months later came welcome news:—
(Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale.) Simla, August 20 [1887]. I write you a little line to tell you that the Indian Government have finally determined not to sanction the proposals of the Finance Commission for the abolition of the Sanitary Commissioners, about which you were naturally alarmed. There is no doubt that the Finance Commission was in a position to prove that these officers had been able to do very little, owing to the unwillingness, or rather the inability of the local Authorities to supply funds, and in some cases to their own listlessness and want of energy. We are now, however, taking the question up, and the result of the attack upon your protégés will be, not their disappearance, but their being compelled to give us the worth of the money we spend upon them. I am also inviting all the local governments to put the whole subject of sanitation upon a more satisfactory footing, and to establish a system of concerted action and a well-worked-out programme in accordance with which from year to year their operations are to be conducted. I cannot say how grateful I am to Sir Harry Verney for his kindness in writing me such interesting and pleasant letters. In them he tells me from time to time, I am afraid I cannot say of your well-being, but of your unflagging energy in the pursuit of your noble and useful aims.
Meanwhile Miss Nightingale had been busy with Ministers at home. In the latter half of 1886 Lord Salisbury's Government was firmly seated, and she received visits from the Secretaries of State for India and for War (Lord Cross and Mr. W. H. Smith). She found Lord Cross most sympathetic; he saw her from time to time during following years, and they had a good deal of correspondence. To Mr. W. H. Smith she paid her highest compliment; in some ways he reminded her, she said in her notes, of Sidney Herbert. Superficially, and in several of their real characteristics, no two men could be more unlike; but in certain respects Mr. Smith resembled her ideal of a War Minister. He had a sincere concern for the welfare, alike physical and moral, of the soldiers; and he showed a quick and industrious aptitude for administrative detail. She saw Mr. Smith several times, and at his request had an interview with the Chaplain-General.[227] It seemed as if the work, which she had done with Sidney Herbert, might be resumed with Mr. Smith, when there was a thunder-clap from a clear sky. Lord Randolph Churchill resigned. The Ministry was for a while in confusion, and Miss Nightingale in despair. “We are unlucky,” she wrote to Sir Douglas Galton (Dec. 23). “As soon as we seem to have got hold of two Secretaries of State, this Randolph goes out! The Cabinet will have to be remodelled, and perhaps we shall lose our men. All the more reason for doing something at once.” Of her two “men,” the one was taken, the other left. Mr. W. H. Smith became First Lord of the Treasury, but Lord Cross remained at the India Office. “I am very sorry to give up the War Office,” said Mr. Smith to Miss Nightingale, “but I am told it is my duty, and duty leaves no choice.” She begged him to indoctrinate his successor, Mr. Edward Stanhope. She was already acquainted with him, and presently he came to see her. It was with peculiar satisfaction that she presently heard of the Government's intention to take a loan for four millions for the building of new barracks and the reconstruction of old ones. This was a resumption of the work of Sidney Herbert, thirty years after.[228]
An early intimation of this policy made Miss Nightingale the more anxious about the fate of the Army Sanitary Committee. If the sanitary condition of the barracks was to be improved, it was all-important that a strong Sanitary Committee should be in existence to supervise the work. At first, however, she had been unable to secure any promise about the Sutherland Succession. The War Office would not consider the matter until a vacancy occurred; the India Office would do nothing until it knew what the War Office meant to do. In 1888 the long threatened thing happened. Dr. Sutherland resigned. No successor was appointed. The whole subject, she was informed, was under consideration, and then under reconsideration. Ultimately Mr. Stanhope, after interviews with Miss Nightingale, reconstituted the Committee (June 1890). Sir Douglas Galton remained upon it. Dr. J. Marston was appointed paid member in succession to Dr. Sutherland, and Miss Nightingale's friend and ally, Surgeon-General J. W. Cunningham (formerly Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India) was appointed as an Indian expert. Her friend Mr. J. J. Frederick retained his post as Secretary to the Committee. The danger was overpast.
V
Sanitary reports from India were still to be referred to the Committee, but Miss Nightingale and some of her friends thought that the time had come for an advance in India. Lord Cross was so sympathetic that the occasion seemed opportune for reviving her former plea for a sanitary department in India which should be more directly executive. Sir Henry Cunningham (married to a niece of Sir Harry Verney) had been in communication with her for some years. He was a judge of the High Court of Calcutta, and had taken an active part in the cause of sanitation in that city. He now prepared a memorandum advocating a forward policy. Miss Nightingale's ally on the India Council, Sir Henry Yule, prepared another, which was so far approved by the Secretary of State that he ordered it to be circulated in the Office as the draft of a proposed dispatch to the Government of India. This draft was, in fact, the joint production of Sir Henry Cunningham, Colonel Yule, and Miss Nightingale. It went the rounds. It was minuted on. It was considered and reconsidered; printed and reprinted. Sometimes the report to Miss Nightingale was that it would be adopted and sent; at other times, that it had been postponed for further revision, recirculation, and reconsideration. Ultimately it became in some sort out of date, because the Government of India took a step on its own motion, in accordance with the intention which Lord Dufferin had already communicated to Miss Nightingale (p. [373]). By Resolution, dated July 27, 1888, the Government of India provided for the constitution of a Sanitary Board in every province, which would not only advise the Government and local authorities upon sanitary measures, but would also be an executive agency. The passages in which the latter point is insisted upon might have been written by Miss Nightingale herself.[229] Lord Dufferin's term of office was now drawing to a close. He had proved himself an apt pupil of the “Governess of Governors-General.” As on the voyage out he had promised to do her bidding, so now on the voyage home he gave some account of his stewardship:—
(Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale.) SS. Kaiser-i-Hind at sea, Dec. 26 [1888]. We are now on our way home and are having a beautiful passage, thanks to which we are all picking up wonderfully, and shall arrive in Europe quite rejuvenated. This is merely a line to apologise for having sent you the Report of a speech I made at Calcutta recently. I would not have troubled you with it, were it not that on page 15 I have tried to give a parting lift to sanitation.[230] My ladies go home at once, but I, alas, am compelled to take up my business at Rome, so that I shall not get my holiday for another two or three months. Amongst the first persons whose hands I hope to come and kiss will be yours.
Lord Dufferin was succeeded by Lord Lansdowne, who was introduced to Miss Nightingale by Mr. Jowett. She saw Lord Lansdowne twice before he left for India, and they corresponded frequently on sanitary affairs. “He did much for us in every way” is her comment on his Viceroyalty.
VI
The constitution of the Sanitary Boards in India proceeded with due regard to “the periods of Indian cosmogony,” and Miss Nightingale watched their formation and their proceedings carefully, putting in words of encouragement, expostulation, or reminder, whenever and wherever an opportunity was offered or could be made. It was soon apparent that the great obstacle to sanitary progress among the masses of India lay, where perhaps for many generations it is still likely to lie, in the immobility of immemorial custom, especially in the villages. Education was making some slight impression, but the force of passive resistance, combined with lack of funds, prevented the hope of any rapid or signal advance. Recognition of these factors now led Miss Nightingale to concentrate her efforts upon Village Sanitation, and a scheme for combining the power of education with a financial expedient formed the motive for the last of her Indian campaigns.