Health of the Army in India.

White Ribbon, Volume 3, Issue 34, 1 April 1898, Page 10

Health of the Army in India.

The following appeared in the Times , Standard , Daily Neus, and Daily Chronicle of Feb Bth, 1898 : Lady Henry Somerset has addressed the following letter to Lord George Hamilton : “ Lastnor Castle, Ledbury, “ Jan 27th, 1898. “ Dear Lord George Hamilton. “ Your Lordship invited me ten months ago to give you my view of the despatch that had been addressed to the Government of India on the health of the Army, and in a letter in which I did so, I ventured to suggest some methods, moral, and disciplinary, which seemed to me the only ones likely to succeed, because they had at least the merit of being logical. “ I was led to do so by two considerations—first, the despatch in question seemed to imply that the Government would give every encouragement to every form of elevating agency, and so emphasize the altered spirit in which the subject was approached, and that such suggested supervision would only affect an incorrigible minimum; and, second, that the system I had in mind would be so drastic and penal in its nature as to make State interference odious, and finally impossible. That w r as ten months ago; and in that time nothing has been done of which the public has heard to strengUien the forces that make for moral improvement. “ What has been done—viz., the repeal of the Indian Acts of 1895, which prohibited inspection—has been in a direction exactly opposite. It seems to have been the object of the Government to obtain the maximum of impunity with the minimum of protest from those who desire to see the State shape its actions according to Christian views of ethics. “ I need not tell your lordship I am not writing to say how strongly I am still opposed to the course which the Government has taken ; but I find that my letter to your lordship of last year has been taken by many to mean that I am on the side of the accepted view of State Regulation, and I am from time to time quoted as a sympathiser with such views. I am, therefore, writing to withdraw any proposals made in that letter, for this reason that the events of the past year have convinced me of the inadvisability and extreme danger of the system that in April last I thought might he instituted. The absence of any serious effort by

the Government to bring about a higher standard in the Army is a final proof to me that as long as regulation of any kind can be resorted to as a remedy, it will always be regarded as the one and only panacea. My view was that it would be instituted as an odious, but possibly effective, auxiliary to moral efforts. I find it will always be accepted as a convenient substitute. I take the liberty of addressing this explicit withdrawal of an endorsement in whatever form of the principle of regulation, because it was in a letter to your lordship that I originally incurred the responsibility. I trust, therefore, to your lordship’s indulgence to forgive me for troubling you further in the matter. “ I remain, my lord, “ Yours very truly, “ISABEL SOMERSET.”