METHODIST REVIEW.

JULY, 1887.

ART. I.-WHAT ENGLAND IS DOING IN INDIA.* NEITHER the pessimist nor the optimist can logically estimate the prospects of the human race if he does not take into the account, as a chief datum, the modern invasion of nearly all the outlines of the world by Christian civilization. Long ago. there were spirited navigation, and discovery, and some partial settlements in the foreign world, notably by the Portuguese, Spaniards, and Hollanders. But colonization, prompted by commerce, yet tending to the civilization and unification of the world, is a characteristic, if not a peculiar fact, of our times. Considered in its connection with the modern means of rapid intercommunication, it becomes a profoundly interesting fact. In its most general aspect it means the domination of the Aryan race, especially of its great Teutonic branch. We write this paper in the oldest historic field of that race, India; the arena of one of its earliest migrations from the Bactrian highlands. It is a curious thought for an American, here amidst these hoary Oriental scenes, that he and all his kindred nationalities, with, indeed, all the great peoples of Europe, are Hindus -or at least brothers of the Hindus; that from those northwestern table-lands emigrant hosts descended into these plains, and founded the Hindu race and the Brahmanic faith; into Persia, and founded the Zoroastrians; into Hellas and Latium, and founded the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin peoples; into the north-west, and founded the varied Germanic nations, peopling England with Anglo-Saxons and Northmen, and invading, at * India's Needs. By John Murdock, LL.D. Madras, 1886. 31-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. III.

last, America, Australia, and the South Sea Islands. But though the mighty movement began in prehistoric times, nothing in history is more certain; linguistic science has demonstrated it. The elder emigrants, Hindu, Persian, Greck, and Latin, have long since decayed; but the Teutons are to-day in full vigor, and, under the ancient impulsion, are marching around the planet. Their Anglo-Saxon branch, especially, seems destined to a universal mission of colonization and civilization. While Russia is bearing European thought and civilization (though in a rude form) into northern and central Asia, and France into northern Africa, the Anglo-Saxons are not only dominant in the United States, in Canada, and in the great island world of the South Seas, but in southern Africa, Ceylon, and above all in India.

What, in a century or two, must come of this almost universal movement of Aryan migration and colonization? 'The coasts of Africa, north, west, south, and east, are now dotted with its settlements; and it is reaching her very heart by the Congo, and all the outlines of Asia are more or less studded with them. Steam navigation, railroads, magnetic telegraphs, and Christian ideas go with them every-where. Can these powerful agencies continue to operate without dispelling the barbaric traditions and the moral darkness of the whole foreign world?

The question is peculiarly relevant to the English sway in India. That sway has no parallel in the history of the world. It controls twice the population that imperial Rome ruled in her greatest power. No Moslem sovereign now reigns over a Mohammedan population as large as that which Victoria rules in this remote land, to say nothing of the millions who are of other religions. An incredible but an incontestable fact it is, that Christian England is to-day the greatest Mohammedan dominion on earth.

Including the various religions of India, some two hundred and fifty millions of its people acknowledge the scepter of England. They amount to about one sixth of the human race. If we add the growing millions of the United States, Canada, Australia, Ceylon; the recent British acquisitions in Burmah; the experiment on the Congo; the tentative projects of the German Empire in Zanzibar and elsewhere, it evidently can

not be long before the Teutonic Aryans will rule a fourth of the human race; and if their industrial and Christian civilization is a blessing, pessimism will need to qualify much its speculations on the destiny of the world. European thinkers now admit that the English language is to be the leading speech of the earth. The American traveler hardly needs any other in Europe, and here in India and Ceylon he hears it almost every-where spoken, imperfectly, indeed, but intelligibly, by men, women, and children, not only in the hotels, but in the shops and along the streets.

And yet this British sway in India is a constant subject of hostile criticism both at home and abroad. The home English journals borrow their invectives largely from the native Indian press; but the very existence of the latter is one of the most significant proofs of the beneficent tendency of the English rule. India knew nothing of the newspaper till England gave it to her. Few foreigners know how extensive this great exponent of civilization has become there. The first vernacular periodical was issued by missionaries in 1822. When the "Press Regulations" were repealed, in 1835, there were but six native papers, and not one of them political. The press is now as free, and, it must be added, as vituperative, as that of London or New York, and last year (1885) the public statistics showed it to amount to about 450 distinct periodicals. They are: English, 175; Bi-lingual, 51; Bengali, 24; Burmese, 1; Canarese, 3; French, 1; Gujarati, 31; Hindi, 15; Malayalam, 4; Marathi, 17; Oriya, 3 ; Punjabi, 1; Persian, 1; Portuguese, 4; Sanskrit, 1; Tamil, 10; Telugu, 3; Urdu, or Hindustani, 102. One of the sixteen English "dailies" is conducted by natives; and English is one of the languages of most of the Bi-lingual journals. Some of the native papers are of high character, but many of them have very limited circulation, and most of them show crude notions of political science, especially of political economy, and recklessly criticise the administration of the government, particularly its most important schemes of internal improvement. A publicist said, two years since, that "any one who will go through the weekly reports of the native papers cannot help thinking that, in the current vocabulary, education means the loss of respect for government; public spirit is synonymous with empty bluster; patriotism is

hatred of Englishmen; and impartiality is gross abuse." An attempt of Sir G. Campbell to introduce gymnastic exercises for the physical improvement of native pupils in the English schools was opposed by an editor as a project for disabling the students that they might not successfully compete with Europeans in civil service examinations. The creation of an agricultural department, by Lord Mayo, was stigmatized by a Calcutta journal as a scheme for providing "a wider field for the extension of vice-regal patronage." The creation of new functions, however necessary to develop the country, is opposed by the Calcutta Liberal as having no other purpose than to provide for "the bureaucracy and their relations at the public expense." These journals continually embarrass the adininistration by blundering comments and deprecatory denunciations, mourning over "the spoliation of India," the "official greediness of foreigners," "India bleeding to death," etc. Some of them do not hesitate to make preposterous comparisons between the ancient native and modern European civilization. Popular opinion is thus heedlessly flattered, and, at the same time, perverted. Enlightened natives deplore this fact. Monamohun Ghose complains of his countrymen as "doing a great deal of mischief" by such follies. "It is quite sickening," he says, "to hear the remark made at almost every public meeting, that the ancient civilization of India was superior to any that Europe has ever had." The editor of the Indian Mirror says: "Modern science is still very much in its infancy, and has yet to make much greater progress to enable it to even approach one tenth part of the ancient philosophy of the East. Our modern scientists are not fit to hold a candle to some of those learned men of our country who are well versed in the scientific teachings of the East."

Such ridiculous nonsense saturates the native press. The government, in its beneficent schemes, especially of educa tion and internal improvements, has to confront every-where this ignorant babble, and the popular prejudices produced by it. But, we may repeat, the very existence of this unshackled press is proof of the advancement of civilization under the British sway. Bad as it is, the press is the mightiest organ of modern progress. No people among whom it is allowed free play can be stagnant; even its calumnious recklessness may

have a salutary influence on governments. The discussion and collision of opinions, which are its life, cannot fail to fill with life the popular mind; and to make men think is always to make them better. Set them thinking, even to quarreling about their thoughts, and sooner or later the truth will emerge from their disputes and prevail over their fallacies. England, then, lias done a good work in producing in India a free and numerous press; an instrument entirely un-Asiatic, and perhaps the most effective one that could be introduced for the resurrection of the dormant Oriental mind.

By this, and still more by other means, England has initiated European civilization in India, which promises to be permanent. Perverse as is the native press, and pervasive as may be the popular prejudice to which it so heedlessly ministers, she has reclaimed a host of the best native minds by her educational institutions, and set in operation internal improvements, commercial schemes, and social changes which certainly can never be reversed, and which cannot continue without revolutionizing the social, religious, and material condition of these thronging millions. Enlightened natives cannot doubt the superiority of the English sway over that of any preceding government in their recorded history. The "young India" educated in the English colleges can no longer accredit the native superstitions; if they do not immediately become Christians, they either reject the old religions or "rationalize" them away. The higher mind of India may be said generally to have become imbued with European thought. The early stages of such changes are usually, if not necessarily, slow, but they sooner or later reach a crisis where they are no longer ambiguous, but become dominant, and, thenceforward, determine all things. The boasted "ancient civilization" is seen by these advanced minds to have been a huge though splendid fallacy. Modern science refutes it at almost every important point; and modern thought is daily gaining ground in India. Max Müller says: "Readers who have been led to believe that the Vedas of the ancient Brahmans, the Avesta of the Zoroas trians, the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, the King of Confucius, or the Koran of Mohammed are books full of primeval wisdom and religious enthusiasm, or at least of sound and simple moral teaching, will be disappointed on consulting these volumes. . . .