Tempo:
— HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
294 ^^^*-
chap, ix
kings idly chafe and intrigue, and all are ready to hope for everything from a change of masters. The merchant alone sits partly happy in the reflection, that if
he is not honoured with titles and office, the path to wealth has been made smooth, and its enjoyment rendered secure. Princes and nobles and yeomen can all be kept in obedience for generations by overwhelming means, and by a more complete military system than at present obtains. Numerous forts and citadels,^ the occasional assemblage of armies, and the formation of regiments separately composed of different tribes and races,- will long serve to ensure supremacy and to masses of the population, whether of towns or villages, are ready to submit to any master, native 'or foreign; and the multitudes of submissive subjects possessed by England contribute nothing to her strength except as tax-payers, and, during an insurrection or after a conquest, would at once give the 'government share of the produce' to the wielder of power for the time being, and would thereby consider themselves freed from all obligations and liabilities. England must be just arid generous towards these tame myriads; but the men whom she has pre-eminently to keep employed, honoured, and overawed are the turbulent military classes, who are ever ready to rebel and ever desirous of acquiring power. 1 The fewness of places of strength, and indeed of places of ordinary security, for magazines of arms and ammunition is a radical defect in the military system of the English in India. The want of extensive granaries is also n>uch felt, both as a measure of the most ordinary prudence in case of insurrection or any military operation, and as some check lipon prices on the common recurrence of droughts in a country in which capitalists do not yet go hand in hand with the government, and are but little amenable to public opinion beyond their order. Such was, and is, the custom of the native princes, [The first defect was •and no practice exists without a reason. realised and remedied as one of the lessons of the Mutiny, while the question of the check on prices is one of the common-
modern administration. Ed.] The English have not succeeded in making their well-, ordered army a separate caste or section of the community, except very partially in the Madras presidency, where a places of a 2
sepoy's home is his regiment. It is, moreover, but too apparent that the active military spirit of the sepoys, when on service in India, is not .now what it was when the system of the 'Company' was new and the fortune of the Strangers beginning. This is partly due to the general pacification of the country, partly to the practice of largely enlisting tame-spirited men of inferior caste because they are well behaved, or pliant intriguing Brahmans because they can write and are intelligent; and partly because the system of central or rather single management has been carried tpo far. The Indian is eminently a partisan, and his predilection for his immediate superior should be encouraged, the more especially as there can be no doubt The clannish, or of the loyalty qf the English commandant. feudal, or mercenary, attachment do not in. India yield to
294 ^^^*-
chap, ix
kings idly chafe and intrigue, and all are ready to hope for everything from a change of masters. The merchant alone sits partly happy in the reflection, that if
he is not honoured with titles and office, the path to wealth has been made smooth, and its enjoyment rendered secure. Princes and nobles and yeomen can all be kept in obedience for generations by overwhelming means, and by a more complete military system than at present obtains. Numerous forts and citadels,^ the occasional assemblage of armies, and the formation of regiments separately composed of different tribes and races,- will long serve to ensure supremacy and to masses of the population, whether of towns or villages, are ready to submit to any master, native 'or foreign; and the multitudes of submissive subjects possessed by England contribute nothing to her strength except as tax-payers, and, during an insurrection or after a conquest, would at once give the 'government share of the produce' to the wielder of power for the time being, and would thereby consider themselves freed from all obligations and liabilities. England must be just arid generous towards these tame myriads; but the men whom she has pre-eminently to keep employed, honoured, and overawed are the turbulent military classes, who are ever ready to rebel and ever desirous of acquiring power. 1 The fewness of places of strength, and indeed of places of ordinary security, for magazines of arms and ammunition is a radical defect in the military system of the English in India. The want of extensive granaries is also n>uch felt, both as a measure of the most ordinary prudence in case of insurrection or any military operation, and as some check lipon prices on the common recurrence of droughts in a country in which capitalists do not yet go hand in hand with the government, and are but little amenable to public opinion beyond their order. Such was, and is, the custom of the native princes, [The first defect was •and no practice exists without a reason. realised and remedied as one of the lessons of the Mutiny, while the question of the check on prices is one of the common-
modern administration. Ed.] The English have not succeeded in making their well-, ordered army a separate caste or section of the community, except very partially in the Madras presidency, where a places of a 2
sepoy's home is his regiment. It is, moreover, but too apparent that the active military spirit of the sepoys, when on service in India, is not .now what it was when the system of the 'Company' was new and the fortune of the Strangers beginning. This is partly due to the general pacification of the country, partly to the practice of largely enlisting tame-spirited men of inferior caste because they are well behaved, or pliant intriguing Brahmans because they can write and are intelligent; and partly because the system of central or rather single management has been carried tpo far. The Indian is eminently a partisan, and his predilection for his immediate superior should be encouraged, the more especially as there can be no doubt The clannish, or of the loyalty qf the English commandant. feudal, or mercenary, attachment do not in. India yield to
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