India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/552 (page 12)
    of the country has been secured. It is, indeed, to that part of their lives that Indian officials like my brother and myself, actively concerned although we have been in the work of the Central Government, look back with perhaps the greatest interest. We may be forgiven if we take pride in remembering that during the last century and a half four generations of our Cwv. family have given to India the best portion of their lives. A distinguished Frenchman, M. Harmand, did me the honour of translating into French the first edition of this book, and he prefaced his work with an Intro- duction which, if it had been less flattering to myself, I should have been glad to reproduce in English, show- ing as it did, the opinions of a most competent and intelligent foreign observer on the government of our Indian Empire. M. Harmand, during a long residence in the Asiatic possessions of France and in British India, in both of which he held important official posts, had rare opportunities of forming an accurate judgment on the problems which have to be solved by the Western rulers of Oriental peoples. He has discussed the principles on which the government of a great Eastern possession can alone be wisely conducted, and, taking India as his object-lesson, has endeavoured to show to his countrymen why the efiorts of the English to establish a solid and self-supporting dominion in the East have been crowned with such extraordinary success. Another interesting book, written with aims similar to those of M. Harmand, has been published by M. Chailley- Bert, the worthy possessor of an illustrious name.1 I 1 La Colonisation de VIndo-Chine, VExperience anglaise.