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.

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    Asiatic countries with British India. Not only has it been rescued from the incessant sequence of foreign conquest, plunder, and anarchy which had marked its past history, but in little more than a century it has acquired a position of peace, good government, and wealth, in which it will compare favourably with that of many of the States of Europe. There have always been, and perhaps always will be, people who, according to the unfortunate English fashion of decrying the great achievements of their countrymen, endeavour persistently to show that, in consequence of the wickedness or folly of our Government, India is in a state bordering upon bankruptcy; that its people are becoming poorer and poorer, more and more miserable, more and more exposed to ruin and death by famine ; that crushing taxation goes on constantly increasing ; that an enormous and^ ruinous tribute is exacted in India to be spent in England, and I know not what else. I have no inclination to reply to statements of this sort. “ I know,” said the wisest of English states- men, “ the obstinacy of unbelief in those perverted minds which have no delight but in contemplating the J. supposed distress, and predicting the immediate ruin of country. These birds of evil presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the periods of our most abundant prosperity.” 1 It is not pretended that the social, material, and political conditions of India do not leave ample room for improvement. Defects of many sorts can readily be pointed out. But it is through the progress made that 1 Burke’s Third Letter on a Regicide Peace.
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