Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/137

Rh dispute the policy of taking advantage of every just opportunity which presents itself for consolidating the territories which already belong to us, by taking possession of States which may lapse in the midst of them; for thus getting rid of those petty intervening principalities which may be made a means of annoyance, but which can never, I venture to think, be a source of strength; for adding to the resources of the public treasury; and for extending the uniform application of our system of government to those whose best interests, we sincerely believe, will be promoted thereby ... The Government is bound, in duty as well as in policy, to act on every such occasion with the purest integrity and in the most scrupulous good faith. When even a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should be at once abandoned.'

In enunciating these principles Lord Dalhousie laid down no new doctrine. He only reiterated the maxim which in the words of a statesman of a different school, the Duke of Argyll, 'had governed the action of the Indian Government in every previous case in which the failure of natural heirs had been made the occasion of appropriating petty states, principalities or jaghírs. It had been explicitly laid down in very similar terms by the Court of Directors nearly twenty years before .'