Page:The Mutiny of the Bengal Army.djvu/33

Rh to him alone, and they imagined that the transfer of the subordination to themselves would have ensured the transfer the devotion also. They knew that the Sepoys were the mainstay of order throughout the country, that they represented the feelings of the entire population of Oudh, of Behar, of Gwalior, the Punjab, Nagpore, and Hydrabad: that so long as they were contented, the people would remain passive, if not altogether satisfied. The Sepoy, in fact, was their barometer, and they were unwilling to believe the steady indication of a cyclone. They would not even admit to themselves that their house was founded upon sand, liable to be levelled to the ground by the first storm.

And it is certainly true that they had little other surety for the tranquillity of the country than the fidelity of the Sepoy. Attached by education, training, and hereditary policy to the principle, "India for the Civil Service," they had steadily discouraged the settlement in the land of that other element which, in a crisis like that which, in spite of themselves, they felt approaching, might have formed a countervailing barrier to Mahomedan or Hindoo rebellion. Had independent Europeans been encouraged to invest their capital in the land of India; had not the terrors of subjection to a Hindoo or Mahomedan magistracy been held over their heads to prevent such a catastrophe (to the Civil Service); had they been allowed the smallest exercise of political power, or had the way to that power been open to them, an independent body of landholders would have arisen, who would have formed the connecting link between the Government and the natives, and also have been able, from their numbers and organisation, to have checked any outbreak on the part of the people of the country. But it was very evident that such a measure could not have been accomplished without invading the exclusiveness of the Civil Service. Hence it has always been (with the brilliant exception of Lord Metcalfe, who had thoroughly at heart the interests of India,) systematically opposed by the members of that body. Their policy has ever been to shut out independent Europeans from the country. To carry out this end they have encouraged the trade in opium, whilst they have neglected purposely the cultivation of cotton; they have restricted as much as possible public enterprises which necessitated settling in the land; and although this policy has resulted in a wide-spread rebellion, it will never be lost sight of so long as the rule exists that a man, were he to possess the highest administrative abilities, would be debarred from their exercise, because he did not in the first instance come out to India as a member of the Civil Service.

True to this policy they, as stated above, affected to make light of the discontent in the native army, and persuaded Lord Canning to view matters in the same light. The determination to disband the 34th was accordingly postponed, in the hope that affairs would settle down quietly, and that no further interference on the part of Government would be needed. In pursuance of this plan the 84th were ordered to re-embark for Rangoon.

In a few days they would have started, and the long-wished-for