to tolerate purdah, and to have an admira-
<
tion for caste, and I should be sorry to
hear that either of them had been over-
thrown. P
No one who has applied himself to the
study of politics will be of opinion that
i
parliamentary government, or even self-
government, is applicable to all kinds of
CONCLUSION 231
people in* all conditions and in all times,
and^ few persons who have been in India
will desire to see the autocratic system "t>f /
government which prevails there materially
altered. It is difficult to imagine a
machinery by which the government of
India might be transferred, even partially,
to the hands o/ the Indiaji people. If that
is impossible, and the Congress has not
discovered a manner in which it might be
introduced, we are thrown back upon the
personal government of the Viceroy, advised
by his Council and controlled by the India
Office. If personal government is to exis't^
V
at all, it must be strong, or its weakness
will result in misery to the governed. I
cannot imagine any one engaged in a more t
beneficent course of action than a Viceroy
of India who devotes all his talents and
energy to the good of the people over whom ;
t
I
232 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
t
he is set. ' In his case the benevofent despot
is sure to be well chosen, fnd as his Jime
i~ limited his country gets the best of his
powers ; his chances of going wrong are
may do is difficult to measure. Democratic
governments have generally been found
strong in the control of dependencies, and
democratic England is no exception to this ;
rule.
The Indian Civil, Service was no creation
of a human brain ; it has grown up gradually
and has been evolved as circumstances
required it. It has got rid of its defects
and enhanced its merits, until it stands to- ^s
day as the most perfectly wise and virtuous
bureaucracy which the world has ever seen.
Those who travel in India find Englishmen
and Englishwomen at their very best. A
corrupt or self-seeking civil servant is a 1
CONCLUSION 233
3
thing unknown ; if he sins, it is rather through
ignorance and l^ck of imagination or excess /
of zeal than through the traditions of routirVe.
The responsibility with which a civil
servant is invested the ^moment he arrives
in India steadies and strengthens his
character ; the weak and self-indulgent are
sobered by the serious nature of their work
and by the healthiness of the moral at-
/
mosphere which they breathe. It has
been said that no nation but England
has sufficient political stability to place
a subject in the position of a Viceroy of -
India ; and certainly no nation but England
could furnish so accomplished and trust-
worthy a Civil jService, so ready for all ' '
tasks and so capable of performing them. >
At a university a man gains a reputation
not so much by knowing anything as by
its being perfectly certain that he knows
I
234 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
o
t
nothing else. But in India versatility is >
admired for its own sake, ajhd the present ;
Viceroy owes much of his reputation to the
fact that he can deal in a masterly manner ,
with a great variety of subjects. I express ';
no opinion about the natives, because I
was not sufficiently long with them to form
a judgment. They seemed to be very
well treated by their English masters,
and they are undoubtedly deeply attached
i
to the English Raj.
My last words shall be of a miscellaneous
t
character. Put on your helmet as soon
as you enter the Canal, and wear it when-
ever the sun shines, except in the cool of
the evening. Take a w^rm bath twice
a day, before breakfast and before dinner.
Remember that cold is moVe dangerous \
t
than heat, and that the greatest of all \
evils is a chill. It may render you helpless
CONCLUSION 335
in a few Wnutes, and death in iVidia gives j
but a short sb^ift. Drink no water unless |
it is boiled and filtered, and no milk chat
.
you cannot trust. Remember that cholera
may lurk in jellies, blaricmanges, and salads,
and that you can never know through
what bag the one may have been strained
or with whad water the other may have
been washed. Eat no fruit after the middle I
of the day, and beware oj[ shellfish. In
the cool season the same clothes are worn
as in an English summer, and it is useless
to burden yourself with white suits which
you will never put on, and which would
excite ridicule if you did. Do not walk
about with a white umbrella, unless you
wish to stamp yourself as "a globe-trotter.\
Society in India is punctilious, and the
L
', observance of social rules is more strictly
^enforced than with us. These are trivial
L
236 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
matters, but life is .nade up of trivialities, and
a happy holiday in India is cheaply purchased
by'u l^tle forethought. Once experience
the force of that life-giving sun, the parent
of health and energy, and thought, and
you will always be longing to bask again
in the full effulgence of its beams.
THE END
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