THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.

BY TOHUNGA.

There ; are many romances in history, so e many that when we begin to enumerate them we become lost in a sea of human ? recollections, which merges beyond the horizon into the shoreless ocean of the l ' forgotten past, whereon every wave that 6 breaks unseen by human eyes is green 6 with the ambitions of nations long dead l " and white with the breaking of dooms '' that befel thousands and thousands of I years ago.- 1 , years ago. ! S Wo wonder of the Maoris and from k whence they come to the Long White Cloud ' and from what great race of men they e drew their arts of war and peace and the 6 courage and skill that enabled them to sail the trackless Pacific in their paddle- ' driven canoes. But what of the Northern race, of which Anglo-Saxondom is part? 'Is it not a greater wonder still—the origin and the development of the fair-haired white man, who came down from the lands of snow and the seas of storm to seize 9 with strong hand the fairest and the richest Ij countries in the world? Consider a little this bearded forefather of ours, who hamg mered at Home till Rome fell crushed and g broken at his feet, who built up this t Western Civilisation, ■as we call it, in s stern defiance of all precedence, upon the s inherent democracy of ,'nis nature, and j spread it broadcast round the globe in the t form of a dozen great English-speaking States! Where did he com© from? The origin of the Maori is an easy riddle beside the unanswerable problem of the I origin of the Northman. He comes into" history, two thousand years ago, our Northman ancestor, called e by Imperial Rome " barbarian," but no v more barbarian in reality than he is to- ° day. For he had already the science of e sailing, as Rome never had it, had already >* bent wind and water to his service, alII ready ploughed the land and beat iron . into steel, and instituted the'..self-govern- . ment which stands to this day wherever the Teutonic nations are. He had Law ' and Order, Poetry and Folklore of the 5 highest; and through all the two thou--6 sand years that have passed since, he has g never, on equal terms, been vanquished in [. war. - Now, where did he come from? . For does anybody imagine, that he evolved ' on the shores of the Baltic any more than 8 anybody imagines that the Maori evolved " on the shores of Tasman's Sea? t Behind Northman, as behind Maori, is romance and tragedy, .be sure of that— romance and tragedy so much more the greater as the Northern brain is quicker k to think and the Northern heart keener yto feel, to suffer, or rejoice. There in the e dark Past, over the edge of the horizon s of history, in the wave-swept ocean that human eyes no longer see, is doubtless the . greatest tragedy ,of all the ages, the most wonderful romance that the sun above us ' has ever shone down upon—of a civilisa- % tion - that • towered to heaven, as neither" 6 Babylon nor Egypt ever towered, beaten 1 to the very dust; of a mighty race that a aimed at freedom and set its face against i wrong and injustice, swept away by some 3 stupendous disaster; of a nation that 'iad t carried human courage to the highest, bei cause it feared' neither king nor priest, a and because alone of all the nations that have been gave tjie love-choice to Woman and thus made her - free, broken -as a e bubble is broken, in the very zenith of its j glory and its pride. ' a Thus, or somewhat thus, is the tragedy „ of the unknown people from whose homes a the Northman came, for the Northman as _ we know of . him first is only the shat- . tered remnant of what had been, recovering strength: and numbers in the barren J North, holding - stoutly ?. to §the -knowledge , he had saved from the great Overthrow, , world-mastery which was air instinct 4of ' . his blood. • " And how do we know this?" 1 one asks. Well, how do we know any- | thing? It is so. t * „. • ; : Which brings us to India and the ro- . , mance of the English in India! There , , were romances and tragedies for us long before that. The romance and tragedy of the English in France, where a white- ' faced girl roused at' last the millions ■ against their masters and so inspired them i that all the Northman's valour was swal- , lowed up in a living quicksand of fighting • men. ; The romance that had no tragedy 1 of the English against ; Spain, when the ' Invincible Armada came and went—such as' escaped to tell the story of its shame, i The romance : and tragedy, of ' America, ] where a continent was seized upon and ( drenched not once but twice ,in : fratricjdal blood. And the romances, sometimes c tragic and • sometimes not, of those 5 great . migrations that :. covered : the s far seas with English States, . and of i the great ocean wars by which the sea-road 1 was kept open so that at last for nearly '<■ a hundred years the' English-speaking, man - has gone to and fro along it, unarmed and ' without fear. But of all- the romances ( and of all the tragedies there are none 1 greater than'that of the English, in India.' £ Who does not know the story? Of 1 traders who turned soldiers, of clerks who •' took to the sword, of some long-forgotten c strain in the blood that , lifted at oppor- ' tunity and recreated that ancient race of 5 which we dream, that nation of masters in which the humblest was over kings, 1 and the meekest prouder than an em- i peror. And so the English handful that came to trade stayed to rule, and ruling 'J did not shrink from the attempt to c mould upon Western lines the un- } changing East; . ■ Boys fresh from the i school and the cricket field led corporals' *■ guards to wonderful victories over mar- i shalled hosts; and smooth-faced young a men played dusky monarchs against one i another like grey-haired diplomats; and t men gave lawaye, and good law—to a uncounted millions, men who at Home had c never aspired beyond the counter •or the s anvil or the plough. And the fair-haired c woman stared, unveiled, with her insolent t blue eyes into the face of prince and pea- v sn.nt, and counted them as alike beneath cthe thoughts of her whose hands trie ' J masters kissed. And then the blow fell! a As perchance it fell in that unknown 11 tragedy which left the Northman a. fugi- 8 tive and an outcast on the shores of the v Northern seas., ' • (

Fifty years ago to-day the romance of the English in India had become tragedy. Meerut was in flames. Delhi was rising. From town to town, and over the country side the news was spreading .that the time had come to pull down the stern, cold man who dealt the same justice to the castes that; were sacred and to the . low-caste wretch who had been as a dog. and to give loose rein to fierce hatred for the fair-faced woman, to whom prince and peasant were as one. There is the secret of the Mutiny, as it is the secret of the Indian discontent of to-day the master-race the conquered were all alike; the white man and the white woman were separated from all others by a gulf which the Great Mogul himself could rip more pass than could the lowest vagabond who warmed his dusky skin beneath the Indian sun,' That proud race-feeling made the romance of India possible, but it gave birth to the outbreak which made its awful tragedy. And thus; it ever is. For the gods are just, and from strength comes weakness ever, as heartbreaking sorrow from that which gives us the supremest joy. And so the blow fell in India—fifty years ago! And there are old men ' among us to- ■ day who might tell of how it fell, and of the vengence that- followed, were it : not that of some things men in cold blood cannot even speak. For the women saved India for the English, wakened the old Northmen spirit for the saving of those still safe, conjured up the madness of the Berserk by the sight of those slain. For many a fair-hair-ed woman stared with her blue eyes to the cruel Indian skies, insolence in them no longer, but only the honor of unspeakable things. And for every fair hair a life was taken in ;, vengeaence, so that while the memory of the Mutiny lasted, neither prince nor peasant dared to lift a hand against the English in India.