Page images
PDF
EPUB

DOMINE, QUO VADIS ?*

THERE stands in the old Appian way,
Two miles without the Roman wall,
A little ancient church, and grey :

Long may it moulder not, nor fall!
There hangs a legend on the name
One reverential thought may claim.

"Tis written of that fiery time,

When all the angered evil powers
Leagued against Christ for wrath and crime,
How Peter left the accursed towers,

Passing from out the guilty street,
And shook the red dust from his feet.

Sole pilgrim else in that lone road,
Suddenly he was 'ware of one
Who toiled beneath a weary load,

Bareheaded in the beating sun,
Pale with long watches, and forespent
With harm and evil accident.

Under a cross His weak limbs bow.
Scarcely His sinking strength avails.
A crown of thorns is on His brow,

And in His hands the print of nails.
So friendless and alone in shame,
One like the Man of Sorrows came.

Read in her eyes who gave thee birth,
That loving, tender, sad rebuke;
Then learn no mother on this earth,

How dear soever, shaped a look
So sweet, so sad, so pure as now
Came from beneath that holy brow.

And deeply Peter's heart it pierced,
Once had he seen that look before;
And even now, as at the first,

It touched, it smote him to the core.
Bowing his head, no word save three
He spake-" Quo vadis, Domine ?"

* See Mrs JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 180.

Then as he looked up from the ground,
His Saviour made him answer due-
"My son, to Rome I go thorn-crowned,
"There to be crucified anew;
"Since he to whom I gave my sheep
"Leaves them for other men to keep."

Then the saint's eyes grew dim with tears.
He knelt his Master's feet to kiss-
"I vexed my heart with faithless fears,
"Pardon thy servant, Lord, for this."
Then rising up-but none was there-
No voice, no sound, in earth or air.

Straightway his footsteps he retraced,
As one who hath a work to do.
Back through the gates he passed with haste,
Silent, alone, and full in view;

And lay forsaken, save of One,

In dungeon deep ere set of sun.

Then he, who once, apart from ill,

Nor taught the depth of human tears, Girded himself and walked at will,

As one rejoicing in the years, Girded of others, scorned and slain,

Passed heavenward through the gates of pain.

If any bear a heart within,

Well may these walls be more than stone,
And breathe of peace and pardoned sin
To him who grieveth all alone.
Return, faint heart, and strive thy strife;
Fight, conquer, grasp the crown of life.

P. S. WORSLEY.

THE TRANSITION-STATE OF OUR INDIAN EMPIRE.

THE Government of India is now in a transition state, which it must be impossible for any reflecting mind to regard without feelings of the liveliest interest, not altogether unmixed with anxiety, perhaps we might say with alarm." For al though hope may, with the more sanguine, predominate over fear, it is certain that we are inaugurating a great experiment, that we are tearing up with a remorseless hand all ancient traditions and time-honoured precedents, and plunging headlong into a sea of novelty, to sink or swim as Providence may decree. That there is danger in this who can doubt?"Nothing venture, nothing have," is a good old proverb; it stimulates energy, and encourages enterprise, and the lessons which it has taught us are at the very bottom of our great national successes. there is another proverb which tells us that "discretion is the better part of valour;" and if this be true in military life, how much more true is it in relation to political affairs? Experiments ought to be made in single files, not in battalions. The diruitædificat practice ought to be carried out a little at a time, or not at all.

But

The old system under which the affairs of India were administered was not a perfect system; indeed, we may cheerfully acknowledge that it had many inherent defects. That the great Indian mutiny made those defects more apparent is not equally admissible. If anything so exceptional can be said to have tested the efficacy of the system at all, the result must be said to have been in its favour. In that tremendous crisis, the indomitable energy and the fertility of resource displayed by the servants of the Company were equal to the occasion. They kept the enemy in check till succours arrived from England; and those succours were despatched with an amount both of promptitude and of careful organisation by the authorities of the India House, such as had never been evinced in the corresponding arrangements of the Imperial Government. Neither the Company nor

the Company's servants were found wanting in this emergency. If they had been, we should have lost India. But a great calamity had befallen the empire. It is true that a similar calamity had befallen every native government, and that the most extraordinary fact in connection with the history of the great military rebellion of 1857 is, that the storm burst upon us for the first time after a lapse of a hundred years; that whereas in all other native armies mutiny may be said to be chronic, with periodical acute symptoms, the British army has had only one severe attack in the course of a century. Still, as we have said, there was a gigantic calamity-and, for a while, there was a tremendous danger. It is the way with us, whenever there is a great disaster, to demand a victim. There was no Minister in this case to be impeached, and no General to be shot, so the Company was arraigned, sentenced, and executed.

We said what we had to say about this at the time, and we have no desire to revive the discussion. The East India Company was being destroyed piecemeal; and it is probable that, if there had been no Indian mutiny, it would have died out in the course of a few years. It was simply a question of time. The passion for change, the hatred of powerful corporations, with vested rights, and privileges and patronages of any kind, were much too strong to have permitted the continued existence of such a gigantic "anomaly" as a company of princes, elected by holders of stock. The extinction of the Company, as a governing bodyhowever little advantageous it might be to India-was, indeed, a political necessity. But surely that one great change might have sufficed for some years. The popular appetite does not require to be cloyed with changes. We do not perceive that there was any political necessity for destroying at once the whole system under which our Indian empire has been built up, and has flourished as no such empire has ever flourished before. The changes which it is now proposed to

institute-organic changes as for the most part they are might all be excellent in themselves, and yet it might not be expedient to give them all simultaneous effect. It behoves us to experimentalise cautiously and gradually; to make sure that we have planted one foot on firm ground before we advance the other. If we do not, we may find the earth crumbling beneath us, and may be shattered to pieces in our precipitous descent.

If time and space be allowed to us, we may offer some remarks upon these several contemplated changes, and show how, in the aggregate, they entirely destroy the constitutional balance, to which, in the old time, we were wont to look as the very safeguard of the empire. Primarily, our concern is with the Army question, which is a part, and a very large part, of the proposed revolution; but its full significance can hardly be understood and appreciated except in connection with the other changes which are now on the ministerial anvil.

When the government of the East India Company ceased to be, and the affairs of India were brought under the immediate superintendence of the Crown, the Company's army was nominally converted into her Majesty's Indian forces. It was supposed, in the first instance, that there would be nothing more than a change of name, and as the Act of Parliament guaranteed to the Company's servants the continuance of all their rights and privileges, it was assumed that from the highest to the lowest-from the Viceroy to the drummer-boy-there would be great rejoicing in the access of dignity derived from direct connection with the Crown. No substantive change in the general character of the Indian army was necessitated by the change of government. That army had hitherto been, in technical parlance, partly a line army and partly a local army. That is to say, the local or Company's army, consisting mainly of native troops, had been supported by certain regiments-cavalry and infantry-of her Majesty's army, which were periodically relieved. The European troops serving in India were mainly troops of the

line. The artillery was entirely local artillery. But the Company, before the period of the mutiny of 1857, had, throughout all the three presidencies of India, only nine European infantry regiments, and no European cavalry. The defection of the native army necessitated an increase of the Company's European army; but still, at the time of the transfer of the government to the Queen, a very large proportion of the European troops in India belonged to the regular service of the Crown. Her Majesty, therefore, had two armies-the British army and the Indian army; and people soon began to ask whether these two armies would be retained as separate establishments, or blended-amalgamated-into one.

The revolt of the native army had necessitated a revision of that branch of the service; but still no one doubted for a moment that there must be a native army. And that so long as there is a native army there must be a local army, was equally clear. But the "anomaly," at the contemplation of which some people affected to stand aghast, was the existence of two separate European armies under the Crown. It will be understood, therefore, that when we write of "line" and "local" armies, as distinguished from each other, we class under the latter epithet only the white troops of her Majesty's army. About the local character of the native army there was, of course, no manner of doubt.

Ever since the transfer of the direct government of India to the Crown, this question of the amalgamation of the two European armies has, we say, been more or less agitated. As there have been great conflicts of opinion on the subject, so have there been many fluctuations of feeling. The expectations and the wishes of those concerned have oscillated and alternated from time to time; and it is only within the last few months that we have been able to fix our minds steadily upon a given start-point. At one time the prevailing impression was, that the local army of India would be maintained. It was known to be the opinion of the Indian Minister (Lord Stanley) that it was advisable to keep up the old Company's Euro

pean army, considerably increased in numbers, as an integral establishment, entirely distinct from the royal forces. The majority of the Commission which had been appointed to collect evidence bearing generally upon the question of the reorganisation of the Indian army, European and native, had, it is true, reported in favour of the amalgamation of the two armies; but it was generally felt that the balance of evidence was against that amalgamation, and that the larger amount of knowledge and experience was on the side of the minority of the Commission. It was known, too, that the Council of India were strongly opposed to amalgamation, and that the GovernorGeneral had recorded an opinion against it. These circumstances confirmed for a time the general belief that the local European army of India would be maintained as an integral establishment.

Everything, however, remained in a state of uncertainty until the spring of the present year. There had been a change of Government, but it was by no means certain that therefore there had been a change of opinion. Sir Charles Wood, indeed, has stated in his place in the House of Commons, that his original prepossessions were in favour of the maintenance of the local army. And the local army would, probably have been maintained, but for its inability to understand that, having enlisted for the Company, it could lawfully be made over, like a herd of oxen or a gang of negroes, to the Crown.

This inability appears to us to have been somewhat harshly judged. It is said that when the native mutiny was over, the old Company's European army, following the example of the sepoys, revolted; and this alone is held to be more than enough to seal its condemnation. Even the Indian Minister, as we have said, changed his mind in consequence of

this manifestation of bad feeling. But nothing can possibly be more inconsequential. The old Company's Europeans did not strike for the bounty because their discipline was bad, but because they felt that they could not be transferred from the service of the Company to the service of the Crown without re-enlistment by their own consent; and re-enlistment involved the payment of the bounty. The occasion was of a purely exceptional character-the exception being one that cannot occur again except by carrying out the very measure now recommended as a remedy for all the evils of the old system.**

Three large Blue-books have been published illustrative of this socalled mutiny of the local army. It is impossible to conceive a milder affair. The language of the men was, for the most part, as respectful as it was logical. They had enlisted, they said, for the service of the East India Company; the East India Company had ceased to exist, and therefore their service was at an end. Some of the men put this in plain, untutored, but forcible language of their own; others appear to have had their answer drawn up for them by the lawyer, for there is a lawyer in almost every regiment. Let us take, at random, from the parliamentary papers, two or three of the answers given by the men of the Company's European regiments, when asked if they had any complaints. At page 553, we find that Lance corporal Robert Milligan, Scotchman, put the case thus plainly-"I feel aggrieved at being made over to her Majesty; I would not have enlisted for her Majesty's service, if I had had the choice. I enlisted to serve the Company, and as the Company does not now exist, I consider my oath no longer binds me as a soldier. wish, if I can get my discharge, to go home; and I wish my claim referred to Parliament, as I do not

I

This is a point which might advantageously be enlarged upon. It is obvious that, if care be not taken, we may raise a second "mutiny" by an attempt at a second transfer. In Mr Willoughby's dissent, to which subsequent reference is made in the body of our article, there are some pertinent observations on this head. We conclude that the difficulty will be got over by enacting that none of the local corps, converted into line regiments, shall be relieved until the ten or twelve years' Indian service, for which the men have enlisted, are expired. There are, doubtless, some ticklish operations which will demand very careful handling.

« PreviousContinue »