Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/91

82 consequences, and which ought, when it is possible, to be avoided.

'The occupation of Lahore will afford the means of counteracting much of the disorder and anarchy which have disturbed the Punjab for the last five year, chiefly owing to a numerous Sikh army, kept up in the vicinity of the capital, in numbers greatly disproportioned to the revenues of the country, and by whose republican system of discipline the soldiery had usurped all the functions of the State.

'The control which a British garrison can exercise in enforcing order amongst the disbanded soldiery will, in conjunction with a British system of administration, protect all classes of the community. The immediate effect of depriving a numerous body of military adventurers of employment (there being still many to be disbanded to reduce the numbers to the limits of the Treaty of Lahore) may be troublesome, and a source of some uneasiness. No policy can at once get rid of an evil which has been the growth of years. But the operation of a system of order introduced into the Punjab will subdue the habits of this class, as has been the case in our own provinces since the Pindárí war, and, by gradually mitigating the turbulent spirit of the Sikh population, encourage the people to cultivate the arts of industry and peace.

'A strict adherence to the letter of the Treaty, by the withdrawal of the British garrison at this moment from the Punjab, after the avowals made by the Darbár that the Government could not stand, would probably have led to measures of aggrandizement and the extension of our territory, after scenes of confusion and anarchy. This danger was felt by the most able of the Sardárs, and it reconciled them to the sacrifices which the terms inevitably required for the interest of the Lahore State, By the course which has been adopted, the modification of the terms of the