A CLOUD IN ASIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4383, 7 April 1875, Page 3

A CLOUD IN ASIA.

(From the Australasian, March 20.) The stability of our position in India is a question which is being canvassed at Home by more than one journal possessing special sources of information on a subject of such vital concernment to the Umpire. Towards the end of 1870 the late Lord Mayo warned the Imperial Government that there was a feeling of discontent pervading the minds of the native population, which he impressively described as “a political danger, the magnitude of which can hardly be over-estimated.” That the Viceroy did not exaggerate or misconceive the threatening aspect of affairs, is evident from the terms of a minute written about the same time by the present Commander-iu-Chief in India, in which he declared that “ we never had a less hold on the affections of the people than now.” This is a painful admission to have to make after having occupied and governed the country for upwards of a century ; and we regret to find the statements confirmed by the vernacular press of India. Whatever differences of creed or caste may exist among the native populations, they arc, unfortunately, quite accordant in their hatred of British rule, For some time jrast the Indian Economist lias been publishing a series of extracts from the newspapers of Bombay and Lower Bengal, translated by Mr. F. P. Lely, of the Bombay Civil Service ; and these teem with expressions of animosity towards the conquering race and with incitements to rebellion. We are told that we obtained a tooting in India under the plausible pretext of assisting the weak against their oppressors ; and that, instead of our taking our compensation in money, we preferred to receive it in territory. We came as allies, and remained as masters. At first we were “ wise and generous,” hut when wo had established a linn footing our “ wise conduct utterly censed,” and was replaced by “pride, injustice, and avarice.” Such is the allegation of the Indu Prc.kash ; and it is repeated by the Satya Sudan, which asserts that our old liberal policy was suspected by shrewd and experienced natives, who predicted that we should “ultimately drain the country of all its wealth, and reduce it to utter poverty. And so it has proved." The Dharwar Writt follows in much the same strain, and informs its readers that “ the English have come under the universal rule that the successors of founders of empires become intoxicated with power.” The Jlalishahar Patrika is quite ferocious, and cktliaoa the dominant race among the - ' anthropophagi. “The English merchants,” it informs us, “ consider the people of

India made ,to satisfy their appetites, just as the tiger looks upon the sheep, the snake on the'frog, and the cow on the grass.” According to the Amrlta Bazaar Patnhi, John Bull is a gaoler and Hindostan is one vast prison-house. “What have the people done ?” inquires this patriotic journal. “ Why this inhuman treatment of a peaceful people ? . . . . The magistrates remain omnipotent, and may Heaven defend the quiet people of India from those men in power who think that the best way to govern a people is to keep them constantly in gaol.” This state of things is not destined to last, however, for the Gujerat Mitra assures the native population that disregard of the interests of the docile millions of India, and crime against those who mutely suffer and speak not, have a speedy and sure Nemesis.” The Samachar Chandrika is rather more explicit. Its hopes of the emancipation of Hindostan from the yoke of Great Britain evidently centre in the Czar, and it admonishes the Imperial Government that “ should any calamity such as a war with Russia befal India at this time, while there are disputes between us and the English, it will be very fearful indeed.” Considering' how remarkably plain-spoken the vernacular press is, it is rather diverting to find it talking about the docile millions “ mutely suffering and speaking not." Similar language used to be, and probably is still, employed’by the Dublin Nation ; which, at the very time it was belching treason and sedition, and covering England and Englishmen with the foulest opprobrium, was asseverating that there was no liberty in poor down-trodden Ireland. In fact, many of the articles in these Indian papers might have been translated mutatis mutandis from that scurrilous journal. Thus we are told, in the face of the immense efforts put forth to prevent a famine last year, that the Government in India “bestows enthusiastic sympathy on the alien races of Africa, and coolly allows its own subjects of the various parts of India to pine away and even to die for want of food, clothing, lodging, and medical help." And again, “Loot is not loot when it is made by Europeans,” for then tire revenues of India go to their proper place. . . . The Government had no sympathy with the people. It is a reign of humbug and hypocrisy. . . . The pretended equality of English laws is only the equality given by the wolf to the goat when he lets him drink at the same ghat, in order to have a chance of eating him.” Even our costly missionary enterprises, and the large sums of money which England is expending in the distribution of bibles and religious tracts among the Hindoos and Mahommedans, are ungratefully stigmatised as the outcome of “ sanctimonious hypocrisy and greed !”

The dissemination of a newspaper literature so seditious in language and so inflammatory in tone as the vernacular press from which the foregoing extracts are taken, must be injurious to English supremacy in India. For even if no grievances existed, and the native population wer e perfectly contented—as numbers are—with British rule, they would very soon imbibe the idea that they were plundered and oppressed, and that it was their boundeu duty to rise against their oppressors. But the more immediate cause for apprehension appears to lie in the rapprochement which has taken place between two of the great chieftains in the protected States—the Maharajah Holkar and the Maharajah Scindia. Both are very powerful, and both are described as hating us most cordially. The Spectator , which is generally wellinformed on Indian subjects, asserts that should these potentates succeed in drawing the ruler of Nepaul and the Nizam into au alliance, we could do no more against such an uprising,than we could against the Atlantic if it rose 100 feet in a single night, and that it would be folly to think of providing against such an event. We venture to assert, however, that if England were as well served by her diplomatists as Russia is by hers, such an alliance would be anticipated and frustrated. We are told that “these native chiefs have little in common with each other except jealousy and distrust,” and yet the Government in India is “so childlike and bland ” that it does not know how to turn these elements of disunion to account, so as to preserve our empire in that peninsula from being jeopardised by the concerted action of two such potentates 1 We cannot believe that there is so little statesmanship in the department presided over by the Marquis of Salisbury.