Page:Earl Canning.djvu/16

10 In Lord Dalhousie the policy of progress found its most impressive exponent. His powerful intellect saw a new India, fashioned to the last model of modern improvement. He carved it and its institutions unflinchingly to the desired pattern. He pulled down, he built up, he changed the squares of obsolete tradition for the rounds of civilised enlightenment. Nothing was proof against the indefatigable energy of this determined reformer. To trample down open hostility with the red heel of war — to crush factious opposition — to carry beneficent civilisation to scenes of anarchy, oppression, and suffering — to proclaim order, and order's long train of blessings to communities shattered by war, devastated by rapine or convulsed by internecine strife — to give full swing to trade, locomotion, and education, and set human intelligence free for triumphs redounding in advantages to humanity — to develop new industries, discover new resources, — to lop away with firm, unsparing hand such parts of the body politic as were incompatible with a régime of improvement, or refused to lend themselves to its advance — such was Lord Dalhousie's rôle, and he played it in a fashion which filled onlookers with the awe due to superhuman efficiency, and his sympathising and applauding countrymen with delight.

Eastward and westward the tide of conquest flowed. Year by year the red line which marked the confines of British rule embraced a wider area and newly-acquired subjects. The conquests of the sword were supplemented by a less hazardous but not less