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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    give their opinion whether onr Government was more generally popular than that in the Native States. As might have been anticipated, nearly all the answers were affirmative, but I shall only refer to that of Lord Lawrence himself. His conclusion was given in these o words : “ The masses of the people are incontestably more prosperous, and—sua si bona ndrint—far more happy in British territory than they are under Native rulers.” No Englishman knew India better than Lord Lawrence. That the people had been made more prosperous by our administration was, in his opinion, beyond controversy, but when it came to the question of their happiness and of our popularity, well—at any rate they ought to be more happy. The proviso is significant, sua si bona ndrint. The truth is that, in a country in the condition of India, the more actively enlightened our Government becomes, the less likely it is to be popular. Our Government is highly respected ; the confidence of the people in our justice is unlimited. That accomplished traveller, Baron von Hiibner, says in his excellent book, Through the British Empire, that if proof were needed to show how deeply rooted among the people is this trust in English justice, he would quote the indisputable fact that throughout India the Native prefers, in civil and still more in criminal cases, to go before an English judge. “ I think,” he says, “it would be impossible to render a more flattering testimony to British rule.” The duty was once imposed upon me of transferring a number of villages which had long been included in a British district to one of the best governed of the Native States. I shall not forget the loud and universal protests of the people against the cruel injustice with which they considered they were being treated. Every
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