India Under Ripon: A Private Diary - Blunt Wilfrid Scawen

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visit to India where I had enjoyed the then Viceroy’s hospitality during two months at Simla. It had been a visit solely of personal friendship, made at the close of a long journey in Arabia, Turkey, and Persia, and that, notwithstanding a Tory education and much prejudice in favour of my countrymen, and in spite, too, of the daily society of such high Anglo-Indian officials during my stay as Sir John Strachey, Sir Alfred Lyall, and Lord Lytton himself, who had been at special pains to instruct me in their ways and methods of administration, it had left me more than doubtful of the advantage to native India of our imperial rule. Strachey’s policy of “forward finance” seemed to me one especially ruinous to India – a policy of ever-increasing expenditure, ever-increasing public debt, and ever-increasing taxation. Neither he nor Lytton had been able to convince me that the immense poverty of the agricultural peasantry was not connected with our extravagant English administration. This last Lytton, in his lighter moods, was fond of describing as “a despotism of office boxes tempered by an occasional loss of keys.”

      Still I knew nothing for certain about native India. At Simla I had had no opportunity of conversing with so much as a single representative of its thoughts in opposition to the official views, nor had I caught more than a glimpse of the skeleton figures of the starving ryots as I passed rapidly by railway through their plains. When I once more, four years later, turned my thoughts to Indian travel, the single advantage I had acquired was that in the interval my political education in regard to East and West had progressed, and I had graduated in the severe school of personal experience. The case of the Egyptian fellah is not very different from that of the Indian ryot, and the economical needs of both are closely parallel. I had witnessed the Egyptian revolution, which was a revolt of the peasantry against a burden of debt, with my own eyes and at close quarters, and I had found myself behind the scenes in its struggle with European intrigue, a struggle where I knew the right to be with the native reformers, the wrong with our obstinate officials. I was determined that this time it should not be under official chaperonage I would travel, but as far as was possible on a basis of free intercourse with whatever inhabitants of the land I could get access to. As a Home Ruler in the East, I wished to ascertain what the true feeling of the country was towards its English masters, and what the prospect of India’s eventually gaining her freedom.

      In this design I was of course greatly aided, as far as Mohammedan India went, by the common cause I had made with the Egyptians in their revolution, and the public advocacy of it I had undertaken. It had put me in communication with some of the liberal leaders of the Panislamic movement, and it is from them that I obtained, so to say, my passports to the confidence of their Indian co-religionists. To the Hindus I had no introduction. But here circumstances, at the outset adverse in appearance, aided me. My arch opponent in Egypt had been the Anglo-Indian Controller there of Finance, Sir Auckland Colvin, and he, having got wind of my intention, made an effort to frustrate it, by representing me to Lord Ripon as a person politically dangerous, whom it would be prudent to exclude from India, or place under official ban. Colvin’s special service in Egypt had just come to a close and he was once more in active Indian employment, and his name carried weight. Nevertheless he found Lord Ripon irresponsive. Then, having failed at head-quarters, he had recourse to the Anglo-Indian press and, through an old standing connection with the “Pioneer” newspaper, denounced me in print, an ill-advised action which, more than any favourable introduction could have done, insured me a welcome with the Hindus. Thus it happened that wherever I went I was an object of pleased curiosity with the disaffected, as one who, having incurred the anger of the Anglo-Indians, was by that fact presumably their friend. If, in the sequel, my journey achieved its object, and indeed far more than its object, it was to the “Pioneer” and other organs of hostile official opinion that I mainly owe it.

      At the moment of my leaving London I received, in connection with this and another matter, a message from Downing Street asking me to call there, and the first entry in my diary refers to this. The other matter was in regard to Egypt, where it had been suggested that I should stop on my way to India and see Sir Evelyn Baring, then newly appointed to the post he was so long to hold, and concert with him a plan of restoring there the National Party. The idea had been Mr. Gladstone’s, and I reserve a full account of it for another occasion when I shall return to my Egyptian history, only premising here that it came to nothing at the time and was made a pretext later for excluding me from Egypt, reference to which exclusion will be found in the diary. The first entry of all refers to this, and to my then political connection with Lord Randolph Churchill, in concert with whom, more or less, my journey was undertaken. The Hamilton mentioned in the diary was Sir Edward Hamilton, Mr. Gladstone’s chief private secretary; the Primrose, Sir Henry Primrose, then holding the same position with Lord Ripon. I omit in transcription nearly all that relates to Egypt, reserving that part of my diary for another occasion. As to Lord Randolph, it may not be unnecessary to explain that, in the battle in which I had been engaged during the past year in Egypt, by far the most effective ally I had found in Parliament had been the young leader of the Fourth Party. Churchill, though an imperialist of the Disraeli school, was a young man full of engaging qualities, with generous impulses and a large sympathy with the weak and oppressed. I had formed a close friendship with him, and had succeeded in interesting him in my Oriental ideas to the extent that besides taking up the cause of Egyptian nationalism, he later visited India, and on his return in 1885 professed himself converted to Lord Ripon’s policy. About this, and about his short career as Secretary of State for India, I had intended to include a chapter in this volume. But it has been decided that this, with much else of a later date than 1884, shall be reserved for another occasion. Churchill entered on his office with the best of intentions and ideas, and I am still of opinion that had he remained for a few years at the India Office he would have pushed on reform there as none of his successors have had the courage since to attempt it.

      With this preliminary word I leave my diary to tell its own story.

       CHAPTER II

      CEYLON

“12th Sept., 1883.

      “Left home by the 10 o’clock train, and spent the day in London. A letter had come from Eddy Hamilton by the morning’s post asking to see me before I went abroad, and I went to Downing Street at one o’clock. Mr. Gladstone is away yachting, and Eddy is acting Prime Minister, and a very great man. I had not been to Downing Street since last year – just upon a year ago – when I went to ask for Arabi’s life. Eddy was extremely amiable this time, and asked me what I was going to do in the East. I told him my plans exactly – that I was going first to Egypt, and should call on Baring and, if I found him favourably disposed, should propose to him a restoration of the National Party, but if he would not listen I should go on to Ceylon and India; that I could not do anything in Egypt without Baring’s countenance, for the people would not dare to come to speak to me; but, if Baring would help, I thought I could get the Nationalist leaders elected at the elections – all depended on the action of our officials. Also as to India – that I had no intention of exciting to rebellion; that I should go first to Lord Ripon, then to Lyall, and afterwards to the provinces; that the subjects I wished principally to study were the financial condition of the country, that is to say, to find out whether our administration was really ruining India, and to ascertain the views of the natives with regard to Home Rule. Of both these plans Eddy seemed to approve, said that Baring would be sure to wish to see me, and listen to all I had to say, and, though he did not commit himself to anything very definite about the rest, did not disapprove. With regard to India, he said he would write to Primrose, Lord Ripon’s private secretary, to show me all attention; so on the whole I am highly satisfied with my visit. I had some talk with Eddy about Randolph Churchill. He said that my connection with him in Egyptian affairs did me harm, but I don’t believe that, and I look upon Churchill as quite as serious a politician as the rest with whom I have had to deal. On Egypt I think he is sincere, because he has an American wife, and the Americans have always sympathized with freedom there. I believe, too, that he is at a turning point in his character, and means to have done with mere random fighting, and we both agreed that he has a career before him. For my own part I like Churchill. He does not affect any high principles, but he acts squarely.”

      The next day I left with my wife for Paris, where our principal interest was to see the small group of Egyptian exiles congregated there.

      “13th Sept.– We

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