Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/497

 forth the advantages of introducing into India the most brand-new political machinery, and the other a petition from a condemned criminal, who asked for mercy, on the ground that he had been persuaded by the banker of his village, the Sir John Lubbock, in fact, of the locality, that the wife of his victim was in the habit of turning into a tigress, had already eaten his sister, and was about to eat his buffaloes.

Such contrasts, and they are very numerous, coming in the ordinary course of business, are apt to make a man who acts under a sense of responsibility remember the saying, that the rulers here are like men bound to make their watches keep true time in two longitudes at once. "If they go too fast," says Sir Henry Maine in his famous Rede lecture, "there will be no security: if they go too slow, there will be no improvement."

Again, Mr. Muttuswami Aiyar advised you to travel in India, and, if possible, to, go to Europe. I may be permitted, without presumption, to do the same; but I would caution you against one mistaken opinion, which I have observed that some natives of India have picked up in England. They have been led to imagine that Englishmen at home were more kindly and friendly than Englishmen in this country: but you should recollect that, in England, a native of India is a rarity; in provincial circles one of the rarest of rarities. He comes only as a guest, and is treated as a guest. Here, whatever may be his merits, he is not a rarity, and he is not a guest.

Then, I have sometimes met with the idea that the English democracy would be more favourable to the native of India than the English aristocracy, or the English bourgeoise, which ruled from 1832 to 1868, had been.

I would not, if I were you, attach too much weight to that idea. Our English Demos has many virtues, but he is, when his path is crossed, about the most formidable personage on the surface of this planet.

India never crossed his path but once, and, even then, his attention was happily distracted by his being given the Great Company to toss. If he had quite understood that the movement of 1857 was directed, not against an institution, but against him, many things might have taken a worse turn than they did. However that may be, avoid touching our home political controversies, even with your little finger. Keep India sedulously away from any contact with English parties. "Have a care how you fan the flame," as a wise man said, in words that turned out to be too terribly prophetic; "have a care how you try to extinguish it, for it may easily burn your fingers!"