INDIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 528, 25 November 1857, Page 3

INDIA.

(From the Times.)

It has long- been set down among the singularities of our race that an Englishman is more than half satisfied when he knows the cause of a disaster. No doubt he is a very reasonable being, and ofteu finds in a sufficient theory a compensation for actual failure. If it be so, our readers will find an immense store of comfort in the shape of Sir Charles Napier's published opinions on the condition of the Indian Army, and some extracts from the more recent official despatches of the Go-vernor-General. Any one who reads the former, unless he resides under the shade of some Director or retired Commander-in-Chief, will only wonder how we have held the empire so iong* by such a rope of sand as our military system turns out to be. That, no doubt, has been the very reflection that has a thousand times instilled a false security, and stifled the thought of reform. It has gone on in this way for generations; it answers; no other way would answer, for what we can tell.' True, there are. misgivings, not to say actual dangers. So there were thirty years ago j ay, sixty years. Indeed, there never was a time when there were not people to tell us our empire hung on a thread. Bishop Heber says that had Lord Combermere been forced to raise the siege of Bhurt--pore, as Lake had done twenty years before,' every man from the Sutlej to the Nerbudda who had a sword, or who could either buy or steal a horse, would have arisen against us. It so happens that, chiefly owing* to the intense jealousy of the Indian Government, and the incubus which sits on the pen and the tongue of every Indian functionary, we have not had many means of knowing how the system worked. We have had no men of quick observation, sound judgment, free from professional bias, and able to defy all authorities, who passed through India, took notes of all they saw, and gave us the results of their tour. When a man did this, or when opinions did actually transpire, these were 'set down to, disappointment, eccentricity, ;or malice j and few indeed are the men who are riot open to such imputations. "In jfact, the prophet "always was an ecc^tric, 'and rather iil-^empered 'feSingl.' lEdr; : years it iias been' known^■"that 1 ; Sir. jdliarles ; ,skpierJfejt the naost Kffieyoi&~s.g--isatisfaption with'jthe •state/ofr't'hin^jm. ilndm; arid that' he had inburjedthe,wissfi lof its rulers by the freedom of Jiis tohgui&l ■ButWhatdid this matter? #ij?^hJnfT jwas'.^vdustin* the scale cptop'axeji'witn

the vast reality of an empire which had survived so many hostile predictions, and which it was often said required rather a certain assimilation to the Oriental character than so striking a contrast as the energetic Englishman is apt to become. India is a subject, indeed, on which msre Englishmen—and every one of us who has not seen India is a mere Englishmanin the eyes of the more fortunate—have hardly courage to speak. The whole thing" is a mystery in our eyes. None of us can divine by -what spell or by what law of nature the schoolfellows .whom we beat at every possible trial become in a few years collectors or judges with princely incomes, or military officers with extraordinary employments of great responsibility. It was not for us to criticize a state of things in which the least drop of English blood went for so much, where it seamed a positive waste to be olever and s-tiong, and where the only danger was lest,. like .Gulliver among the Lilliputians, we should occasionally do damage by forgetting-, the smallness and the frailness of the race> we had to do with. Hence it is i that even^he British public, ever alive as it is <to all misgovernrcent at home, and quick to hear complaints, was not roused "by the known indignation and misgivings .of •Sir- Charles Napier. In fact, what could we-do:? We have only just renewed and largely modified the Charter, with hopes '■of. improvement. As for the Army, that we could not reach. These standing armies &o indeed stand. The highest -military ?reasenJs that a thing is so. Why, for ex-ample,-did we make Delhi a-strong forti'ess, surround it with new bastions, excavate a deep ditch out of the granite rock, leave within it a hundred thousand muskets, two parks of the heaviest artillery an India, and powder enough to blaze aw.ay.-iat'.any enemy for a year, and then place the^whole in the sole charge of three native ■>■ regiments'? Why did 'we not see the absurdity- of this -course ? The answer is, that it-always was so in" Indian memor}^. It has been so the whole of this -century, and no harm has-.eomfi of it.

What is described in these passages from the " Life of 'Sir"Charles Napier is the. gradual extinction of" the British ele ment in the Native Indian -Army, arid'the simultaneous elevation of the Hiridoo, Had there been a compact by virtue of which we were gradually to surrender our ■'dominion, 1;o relinquish step by step the' ground won {for us by a succession of conquerors : absve our own standard, to let the Hindoo acquire the strength, "the rank, the selfconfidence, the absolute independence, and the contempt of ourselves Tiecessary to qualify him ibr doingwithout us, we could not have done otherwise than we have. Here we see "the picture of an immense army, of the finest men the country could produce:: full of caste and prejudice; well paid; with wives, children, and camp followers ; completely officered by their own racs; these officers men of years, experience, and dignified diameter; and everything, in a word, that could make a good native army. We see a long indulgence to native pride and scruples to an extent unknown in our own army at home. On the other hand we see the British officers of these noble regiments generally reduced to a few youths, learning their profession from the very men. they are sent to command and overawe; spending their time in amusements, or worse, in idleness; or, if they do learn and practice their profession, forthwith transferred to some civil employment. The collection of j the revenue, which is said to have drained ! the Judicial Department of its best heads, robbed the army also, of its ablest hands. Thus in many reavments England has becoma only a nams, as .mucii a nams as tue puppet we left on the throne of the Mogul and his feudatories. What remained intact, what improved, and grew stronger' day by day, was the native organization. There were, indeed, pageants of Mahomedan royalty, and there were also other msn in buckram that stood for the British conqueror. History reeordarl itself in a few foreign uniforms and idle - ceremonies. There was. nothing1 raai but tlie native, and that reality was witnessed with respectful alarm "by such man as Sir Caarlas Napier, w.'th blind indiS.3i*enc3 by sueli insn. as S;r 'William Gamin, and, we must, arid with pain, Lard Dalhoiisie. S:> Sir Charles pfptasted- and prophesied. He knew the.,* b:;eath would *bo hardly ' out of his ■ -body, bafpretha whole rotten fabric tv^iM, crumble to pieces,, but he would not "be" tiie'Cassandra of .India, the langhingsibek"of Directors and Departments. He would, .indeed, have protested in vain. He did protest in vain. His own life and character"'"were a cojitinual protest against

the indolence and luxury of the Englishman who plays the soldier to the increasing contempt of the Hindoo. Sir Charles was laughed at, snubbed, caricatured, and finally beaten from the field, warning his friends to the last of the impending catastrophe. He has, however, done his work. We have his light and we shall profit by it. We have now to reconquer India, and we shall doit. We have to reconstruct our sjrstem, to .reorganize our army, and to create-a new ideal of the British soldier in" India. That we -shall do, for we are not a nation to give ?up our ground once won, or to acquiesce in deterioration. We have lost ground, slipped and fallen; but we have no doubt India will soon be ours' in a sense in which 'it has ; never been before.