A CLOUD IN ASIA.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 456, 20 April 1875, Page 2

A CLOUD IN ASIA.

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 empire. 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 presout Comraander-in-Chief in India, in which h° declared thab " we never had a less hold on the affections of the people than now." This is a painful admist-im 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 are, unfortunately, quite accordant in their hatred of British rule. For sometime past the " Indian Economist " has 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 vith expressions of animosity towards the conquering race and with incitements to rebellion. We are told that we obtained a footing 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, 4,t first we, were " wise and generous," but when we had established \ firm footing, our

•• prior©, injustice, and Avarice," Such is the allegation of the " Indu Prakash ;" and it is re[>eated by the "Satya Sadan," which asserts that onr «ld liberal policy was suspected by shrewd and experienced natives, who predicted that we should " ultimately drain the country of all its wealth, and raduce it to utt r poverty. And so it has proved." The " Oharwar Writt " follows, in much the same strain and informs its readers that " the English have comd Under the universal rule that the successors of founder of empires become intoxicated with power." The " Halishahar iWika" is quite ferocious, and classes the dominant race among the anthropophagi. lt J?b fr *■ Knglish merchants," it informs, " consider the*!; pie of India made to satisfy their appetites, just aa the tiger looks upon the sheep, the snafce on th>, frog, and the cow on the grass." According to the " Amrita Bazaar Patrika," John Bull is a gaoler and Hindostan is one VMt prison-house. " What have the people done 1 " 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 tho best way to go\ern a }>eople 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 whc mutely suffer and speak not, have a speedy and sure Nemesis. 4 ' The " Samachar Chandrika" ia rather more explicite. 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 fearfdl indeed." Considering how remarkably plain-spoken the vernacular press is, it is rather diverting to find it talking about the docile millions " suffering and speaking not." Similar language used to be, and probably is still, employed by the "Dublin Nation, which, at the very time it wasbelchii q treason and sedition, and covering r ngland and Englishmen with the foulest opprobrium, was asseverating that theie was no liberty in poor downtrodden Ireland. In fact, many of the articles ia 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 subject of the various parts of India to pine away and even to die for want of food, clothing, lodging, and medical belp." And again, " Loot is not loot when it is made by Europeans, for then the revenues of India do go to their proper place. . . . The Government has 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 hay» 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 Mahom,metans, are ungratefully stigmatised as the outcome of ** sanctimonious hypocrisy and agreed ! " The dissemation of a newspaper literature soseditous in language and so inflammatory in tone as the vernacular press from which the foregoing extract'- are taken, must be injurious to English supremacy in India. For even if no grievances existed, and the native population were 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 bounden duty to raise against their oppressors. But the more immediate causes for apprehension appears to lie in the " rapprochement " which has taken place between two of th«? great chieftains in the protected states — the Maharajah Holkar and the Maharajah Scin<dia. Both are very powerful, and both are de scribed as hating us most cordially. The "Spectator," which is generaly well-informed on Indian sul jects, asserts that shouU these potentates succeed in drawing the ruler of Nepaul and the Nizam into an alliance, we could do no more against such an uprising: than we eonld against the Atlantic if it rose a hundred 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 ! We-cannot believe that there is bo little statesmanship in the department presided over by ihe Marquis of Salisbury. — " Australiasan."