Page:The empire and the century.djvu/645

 the Indians, or between us and the Egyptians. India has need of some strong outside influence to give it cohesion. To train to stand by themselves a people who would almost certainly fall to pieces directly they were left alone is an altogether unreasonable proceeding. Noble as is the idea, it is not one which for some tune to come it would be possible to carry out in actual practice, and the announcement of it gives rise to hopes which cannot be fulfilled, and, when not, fulfilled, lays us open to charges of hypocrisy and bad faith.

There seems, then, little prospect of our voluntarily leaving India, and little wisdom in contemplating such a step. But there are among those who have most profoundly studied Asiatic problems some who hold that as we won India in a day we shall lose it in a night; that there will be some kind of combination among Asiatics generally to spew Europeans out of Asia. Great latent forces now surging beneath the surface will suddenly burst forth, and Europe will be rolled back from Asia. Asiatics do not fear death as do Europeans, and will sacrifice any numbers to drive them away. I am not concerned here with this argument so far as it relates to the rest of Asia; but, in my view, it is inapplicable to India. I would not pretend to be infallible in this matter, for I am aware now many mistakes we Anglo-Indians make in estimating situations, and I always remember Lord Palmerston's dictum, that if you want to be thoroughly misinformed about a country you should go to a man who has lived there thirty years and speaks the language. Still, as I have been in India only twenty-three years, and speak the language very badly, there may yet remain a particle or two of sense in what I say, and my opinion, for what it is worth, is that India and England will be bound together for many days and nights to come, so long as we do not hold India simply from pure pride of possession, but with the strong faith that it is our appointed task in the development of