National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
398 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP.
if it cannot be considered the only, power by which we do so, is the power of sympathy.
Let a stranger go anywhere outside the barracks of the
seventy thousand British troops in India, and watch those
Englishmen who are employed in direct dealings with the
natives of India. Let him go to a native regiment, or to a
civil district, or to a political agency in a native state, and
watch the officer who is engaged on behalf of Government
in dealing with ' the 'crowd of natives around him. If the
stranger looks sufficiently carefully, he will see that, in spite
of the Englishman's cold, " stand-offish " exterior, he has the interests of the natives under his charge very deeply at heart.
He may not " fraternize " with the natives, and as likely as not he will tell the stranger that a native of India can never be trusted ; but, in spite of that, he will trust those particular natives who are under himself, and will look very sharply after their interests. If they are attacked in any way, or any semblance of an injustice is attempted on them, he will stand up for them, often against his own Government ; and many cases might be mentioned where he has even laid down his life in proof of his trust in them.
This regard for the interests of those whom he governs is one of the most characteristic features of the Englishman's rule in India. Wherever an Englishman is left long enough in the same position, it will nearly always be found that his sympathies go out to those under him, often to the extent of opposing his superiors. And we have recently seen an ex-Viceroy and a Secretary of State for India declaring, the one in the House of Lords and the other in the House of Commons, that even before our own interests the interests of those we govern must first be looked to. And that this same principle of showing sympathy to those we govern is not merely enunciated as an empty platitude by statesmen living here in England, but that it is actually carried into practice, every one must acknowledge
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