III.
With respect to a successful invasion of India, it must be confessed that the English mind has always been keenly susceptible of alarm. The wide plains of Hisdustan, which offer so ready an access to aggressive armies, the absence of fortified places, and the frequency with which India has been won and lost in a single pitched battle, all tend to encourage the belief that some day or other British domination will be in danger from some incursion of this sort. It may be observed that for nearly a century past the English nation has been subjected to periodic fits of Indian panic. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Afghan War," states that in 1797 the whole of India was kept "in a chronic state of unrest" from the fears of an Afghan descent upon the plains of Hindustan. In 1800 the Emperor Paul of Russia and Napoleon conceived "a mad and impracticable scheme of invasion," which greatly increased local alarm. In 1809 these fears assumed even larger proportions when an alliance between Napoleon and Persia was on foot with a view to the proposed invasion; and the mission to Persia under Sir John Malcolm was inaugurated. In 1838 Russia took the place which Zeman Shah, Persia, and Napoleon had previously occupied, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan was commenced by Lord Auckland from his mountain retreat at Simla.
Since that period the suspicions of the nation have been continually directed against Russia by a small but able party, who, from their chiefly belonging to the Presidency of Bombay, have been termed the Bombay school. The late General John Jacob was the originator of the anti-Russian policy inculcated by them. He was a man of great ability and original views, and, if he had moved in a wider sphere, he might have left a name equal to that of the most illustrious of his countrymen in India. But he passed the greater part of his life on the barren wastes of Sind, and rarely came in contact with superior minds. In 1856 General Jacob addressed a singularly able paper to Lord Canning, then Governor-General, and which Sir Lewis Pelly afterwards published to the world.[8] This was just at the close of the Crimean War, when England was about to undertake an expedition against Persia to repel her aggression on Herát. It was Jacob's firm conviction that, unless India interposed, Russia, having Persia completely under her control, could, whenever she pleased, take possession not only of Herát, but of Candahar, and thus find an entrance to the plains of India, on which our dominion was to disappear. To thwart this contingency, and render the approach of a European army towards our frontier impossible, he would, as an ultimate measure, garrison Herát with twenty thousand troops, but in the first instance would occupy Quetta. These proposals were carefully considered by Lord Canning's Government, but were rejected.
The same arguments were brought forward eleven years later by Sir Bartle Frere, whilst Governor of Bombay, and were laid before the Government of India. That Government was then remarkably strong, consisting of Lord Lawrence, Sir William Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst), Sir Henry Maine, Mr. Massey, and Major-General Sir Henry Durand; but the proposals to improve our frontier by extending our dominions westward, and by the annexation of independent foreign territory, were unanimously disapproved of.
About the same time that Sir Bartle Frere was endeavouring to stimulate the Government of India to occupy Quetta, my distinguished colleague and friend, Sir Henry Rawlinson, published two articles in the "Quarterly Review,"[9] in which he called the attention of the public to the rapidly increasing extension of the Russian dominions in the direction of our Indian frontier, and to the necessity of maintaining outworks such as Herát and Candahar for the protection of our Eastern Empire. But he raised the question in a more solemn form in the confidential memorandum which he transmitted to the Government of India in 1868, and which he afterwards published in 1875,[10] with additional matter, forming a complete conspectus of the aggressive policy to be adopted to guard against a Russian invasion. The views of the Government of India on these papers have not, I believe, been given to the world, but it is well known in Indian circles that the masterly activity therein advocated did not find acceptance.
At the present moment Russophobia is raging to a greater extent than at any previous period; but this is ground on which for the present I am precluded from entering. It is gratifying to observe, however, that in the great conflict of opinion which, as it will be seen, has thus been raging for the last forty years, as to the best method of protecting our north-western frontier from an invading foe, both schools have ultimately agreed on one conclusion, namely, that a successful invasion of India by Russia is in nowise probable. The one side would avert any possibility of an attack by the occupation of Afghanistan, the Suleiman mountains, and probably the Hindu Kush; the other would husband the resources of India, and not waste blood and treasure in anticipation of a conflict that may possibly never occur, and that certainly never will occur without years of warning to the nation.
I cannot pursue this interesting question further at a moment when the whole question of our policy on the Indian frontier is ripening for discussion, and when the materials on which a sound conclusion can be drawn are not yet laid before the public. It is sufficient for my present purpose to repeat that the probability of British dominion in the East being terminated by a Russian invasion is rejected on all sides.
IV.
If the views which have been now put forward are at all sound, we may perhaps conclude that whilst our Indian empire requires on the part of its rulers the utmost watchfulness to guard against dangers and contingencies which may at any moment arise, yet that with ordinarily wise government we may look forward to a period of indefinitely long duration during which British dominion may flourish. That sooner or later the links which connect England with India will be severed, all history teaches us to expect; but when that severance occurs, if the growing spirit of philantrophy and increasing sense of national morality which characterise the nineteenth century continue, we may fairly hope that the Englishman will have taught the Hindus how to govern themselves. It is England's task, as heretofore, "to teach other nations how to live." A very long period, however, is required before the lesson can be fully learned, and the holders of Indian securities need not fear that the reversionary interests of their grandchildren will be endangered. Our rule in India dates back little more than a century; and although from the first a wise spirit of toleration and an eminent desire to do justice have prevailed, it is only within the last thirty or forty years that any serious attempts to elevate the character of the nation have been manifested.
The educational movement, which is silently producing prodigious changes in India, received its first impulse from England, and the clause in the Act of Parliament[11] which recognised the duty of educating the masses, enabled men like Lord Macaulay, Sir Edward Ryan, and others, to lay the foundations of a system which has since established itself far and wide. But the Court of Directors never took heartily to this great innovation of modern times, and it was only under the direction of English statesmanship that the Indian authorities were induced to act with vigour in this momentous undertaking. Sir Charles Wood's celebrated minute on education, in 1858, laid the foundation of a national system of education, and the principles then inculcated have never since been departed from. Some generations will require to pass before the Oriental mind is enabled to substitute the accurate forms of European thought for the loose speculations that have prevailed through long centuries. But already happy results are appearing, and in connection with the subject of this article it may be noticed as a most hopeful sign of the future that our English schools are turning out native statesmen by whom all our best methods of government are being introduced into the dominions of native princes.