(11.): To William Hargreaves

Hopelessness of our rule in India.

“Paris, August 4, 1860—To confess the truth I have no heart for discussing any of the details of Indian management, for I look on our rule there as a whole with an eye of despair. Whether you put a screen before your eyes and call it a local army, or whether you bring the management face to face in London, the fact is still the same. The English people in Parliament have undertaken to be responsible for governing one hundred and fifty millions of people, despotically, in India. They have adopted the principle of a military despotism, and I have no faith in such an undertaking being anything but a calamity and a curse to the people of England. Ultimately, of course, nature will assert the supremacy of her laws,’ and the white skins will withdraw to their own latitudes, leaving the Hindoos to the enjoyment of the climate to which their complexion is suited. In the meantime we shall suffer all kinds of trouble, loss, and disgrace. Every year will witness an increased drain of men and money to meet the loss entailed on us. In the meantime, too, an artificial expansion of our exports growing out of government expenditure in India, will delude us as to the value of our ‘possessions’ in the East, and the pride of territorial greatness will prevent our loosening our hold upon them. Is it not just possible that we may become corrupted at home by the reaction of arbitrary political maxims in the East upon our domestic politics, just as Greece and Rome were demoralized by their contact with Asia? But I am wandering into the regions of the remote future. It is, however, from an abiding conviction in my mind that we have entered upon an impossible and hopeless career in India, that I can never bring my mind to take an interest in the details of its government.”