years were over, the chiefs of Hunza and Nagar were fugitives from their States, which had been taken possession of by British officers. Little more than two years later, the chief of Chitral was overtaken by the same fate. Either the Government of India had strangely misunderstood the temper and misinterpreted the desires of the chiefs with whom it had to deal; or it had been hurried by destiny into acts of violence which, in spite of its own wishes, have practically destroyed the autonomy of these States; or it has adopted deliberately that policy of forcing itself, on one or other pretext, into relations with its neighbours which has never had but one final issue, and which, if persisted in, will lead to the usual results in the tribal country on its own borders. Even, therefore, if the tribes should desire peace, it does not follow that they will be left to enjoy it. Should relations, however, be yet established with the tribes on the most amicable footing, there will be none the less need of maintaining a high rate of expenditure among them. Subsidies for levies and police must be allowed; political officers must be remunerated; head men must be placated. Apart from this, no civilised government, least of all the British, sets foot in barbarous countries without the need of administrative expenditure springing up in its footsteps, although it may not have assumed the actual administration. It is compelled to justify its intrusion, to conciliate the people by promoting at least their material well-being. Roads must be made, bridges built, dispensaries and hospitals in some degree provided, accommodation found for public servants, and so on. The Government must be furnished with the funds necessary to these ends. But if India is to find them and the tribes certainly cannot find them-obnoxious taxation must be the longer retained in India. Now it may be possible, for a limited time at least, to impose in the interests of Indian expenditure taxation which is in itself otherwise open to gravest objection. But to keep open such a financial sore for the benefit of tribes beyond India, having nothing in common with India, is not consistent with good government. To tax the salt or the soil of the Brahman, the Mahratta, the Sikh, for the development or the benefit of the Muhammadan of Waziristan, or of Chitral, is a course which cannot be long pursued, because it is opposed to political morality; almost, it might be added, to political sanity. Burmah, taken as a whole, and inclusive both of Upper and Lower Burmah, pays, I believe, its way. But Quetta and the Pishín valley are, if I am not mistaken, a heavy charge on the Indian exchequer, and illustrate the growing drain of the trans-Indus territories. But behind the Government of India is another force, which, if it speaks less openly, speaks little less to the point. Echoes of its views reach us now and again, and it is wise not to despise them. 'If we neglect to keep under our influence the tribes south of the great watershed, these will undoubtedly place themselves on the side of the apparently stronger power,' wrote Mr. Knight, in 1893, in his book, Where Three Empires meet. In 1895 the necessary measures have been taken to commence carrying out the desired end. In 1895 Mr. Thomson, fresh like Mr. Knight from contact with Indian political and military officers, tells us: 'It is not unlikely that it may prove necessary to subdue the turbulent tribes of Yaghistan before we can fully establish peace on our own border.' Nay, more: 'It is quite possible that Káfiristan and not Chitral may eventually be found to be the key of the position. . . . It is quite possible there may prove to be a practicable road through it. . . . Now that the point of greatest strategic importance has been shifted from Gilgit to Chitral, it is manifestly of vital importance that we should know what sort of a country it is, and whether there are any easy passes into or out of it.' If this is the spirit in which our officers on the frontier are about to approach the tribes, their autonomy is not worth many months' purchase. Expressions like these are no doubt straws, but they show which way the wind is blowing. The omens are not favourable to that temper of conciliation and moderation by which alone violence can be averted. Neither, therefore, in the characteristics of these tribes nor in the present course of policy of the Government of India, nor in such indications as reach us of the desires of its officers, is there much ground for hoping that collision beyond the frontier can be long avoided. Ill prepared as the Indian finances may be to bear the strain of further enterprise, ill suited as at present they may be for any policy but one of rest and recruitment, there is little hope that such a policy will be granted them. But, even should actual collision for the present be avoided, there presses behind, and grows ever nearer, another vital question of expenditure, which is the outcome of the present forward policy. Since the Indian army was increased by 30,000 men in 1885, Upper Burmah has been annexed. The increase made in that year did not contemplate the annexation of Upper Burmah, nor, it may be added, the advance of the French on our south-eastern frontier. Let that be, however. Apart from this, the new area beyond the Indus has been for the most part annexed or acquired since 1885. At present the territories comprised in that new area are controlled by native levies, police, or what not. In Zhob and in Chitral we have regiments of the Indian army; but, so far as I am aware, neither there nor elsewhere in the new dominion and protectorate, except in Quetta, is the native force balanced by the presence of a single British soldier. Finally, great additions have been made in the last decade to native forces within India itself, by the constitution of the Imperial State troops. These are troops in the employ and pay of the various Native States, which are formed into selected regiments, organised, disciplined, and armed under the supervision of British officers on the model of the Indian army. What is the entire strength of this great addition to the native element in the efficient armed force of native India I cannot precisely say, but I believe it to be about 19,000. In Kashmir alone it exceeds 4,000, and recent events have shown how effective it can be made. With the creation of this mass of frontier levies and State troops the due proportion of British to native troops-viz. one to two-has been practically destroyed. It may be held that at least the proportion is maintained in the Indian army. But we have now to reckon not only with the Indian army, properly so called, but with the armed force which we have created beyond our own frontiers, and with the Native State Imperial troops which we have organised within them. It would be valuable to have a return of the numbers, equipment, armament, and organisation of those two new auxiliary divisions of the Indian army. For, however gratifying it may be to see Hunza and Nagar hillmen, Swáti and Chitrali, enrol themselves under our flag, we cannot at our peril lose sight of the one great lesson of 1857. The error we made an error which was pointed out, but to which no one would listen-was adding to our native troops, while the strength of the European force actually fell off. The insane confidence which continued vociferation on the part of our officers had generated in the fidelity of our native army had produced a belief in England that we could really hold India by means of those troops.' In proportion as we augment native forces must we continue to augment the strength of our British soldiers. That is, for us, articulus stantis aut cadentis imperii. For the moment, while the forward policy is still struggling for supremacy, the demand may not be urged by those who are responsible for the military security of the Indian Empire. But the difficulty cannot long be postponed. Whatever the outcome on the frontier of recent measures or of present policy, from this important direction also inevitably, and at no distant date, there is impending a very formidable claim for a further charge upon Indian revenues. So at present stands the situation. It is surrounded by clouds and darkness. Is it a time to prophesy smooth things, to smile complacently, to exchange congratulations, to talk comfortably of the clouds going by? It seems, indeed, difficult to understand how it can be believed that the financial outlook, as was said in the recent Indian budget debate, is better than it was three years ago. Three years ago the necessity of reimposing the cotton duties had not been demonstrated. The Famine Grant had not been appropriated to current revenues. Three years ago the Secretary of State sold his bills at 18. 2d.; at present he barely touches 18. 13d. The deficit three years ago was Rx. 800,000; now it is estimated at well over a million. For, three years ago, the forward frontier policy had been but reLife of Lord Lawrence (by R. Bosworth Smith), ii. 196: Sir John Lawrence to Mr. Colvin, cently revived, and we had not made the progress in creating and completing our new dominion and protectorate beyond the Indus which has been achieved of late. Frontier policy and Indian finance are as inseparable as foreign policy and finance in Western countries. There can be no improvement in Indian finance so long as Indian revenues are depleted by the claims of frontier extension, or exposed to the risk and requirements of war. Consequently there can be no vigorous internal policy, whether of railway development or of other kind. The most experienced are the first to recognise this. 'We know,' it was said in the course of the Chitral debate, that at the India Office, and among retired officers, the old-fashioned view prevails. But in India, and it is there where most responsibility rests, opinion is almost invariably opposed to it.' This reminds us of that other dictum, in its time also accepted, that 'the opinion of Colley on the frontier question was worth that of twenty Lawrences.' The 'old-fashioned' view has been indicated in the course of this paper, and in the words of its first and greatest exponent. It is the old-fashioned view to 'seek to put limits to expenditure.' It is the old-fashioned view to 'protest against the necessity of having to impose additional taxation on the people of India, who are unwilling, as it is, to bear such pressure even for measures which they can both understand and appreciate.' It is the oldfashioned view to look for our true policy, our strongest security in the contentment, if not in the attachment, of the masses, in husbanding the finances of India, and in consolidating and multiplying its resources.' If in India, where most responsibility lies, these views are no longer in favour, let us learn why they have been discarded, and what are the views by which they have been replaced. If, on the other hand, their importanceis still admitted, let us be told how they are to be made consistent with the present forward policy. Economy, the contentment of our Indian fellow-subjects, and multiplying the resources of British India may be merely the old-fashioned views of the India Office, of retired officers, of dead Viceroys, and of other unconsidered obscurities. But they are, at least, the views which in building up India in the past guided the great men who were charged with the task, and which enabled them to hand over the India of the present day, such as we still see it, to the men who are now responsible. Old-fashioned as they are, they are therefore views which will continue to challenge and command consideration till they have been proved unsuited to the India of the future. AUCKLAND COLVIN. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake THE NINETEENTH CENTURY No. CCXXVI-DECEMBER 1895 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ARMY UNDER THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE My position as the senior officer on the active list of the armyalthough alas! no longer fit for active service-after Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Cambridge and Prince of Wales, induces me to make a few observations upon the services rendered to the Queen, to the country, and to the army by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge during the period of nearly forty years for which he has been in chief command of the army. The military career of the Duke of Cambridge in the British army commenced in 1837, when he was in his nineteenth year, and after he had received a previous military training in the army of Hanover, which, until the accession of the Queen to the throne of Great Britain, had been under the Duke's father as Viceroy, and the traditions of which were bound up with those of the British army, with whom they had served with so much honour and distinction during the Peninsular War. On joining the British army the Duke went through all the details of regimental duties, of which he made himself thoroughly master; so much so that I have frequently heard it stated by a former Brigade Major in the North-Eastern District, in which the Duke was serving with his regiment, that he was the only commanding officer who, when critical observations were made on the returns of his regiment, took the trouble personally to attend at the Brigade office to explain, when he gave convincing proof that he had not only signed the returns when presented to him, but that 3 M VOL. XXXVIII-No. 226 |
