The Old World and Its Ways

The railroads with all their advantages have been charged with adding to the weight of famine by carrying away the surplus grain in good years, leaving no residue for the years of drouth. While grain can now be carried back more easily in times of scarcity, the people are too poor to buy it with two freights added. The storage of grain by the government at central points until the new crop is safe would bring some relief, but it has not been attempted.

If it is argued that the railroads have raised the price of grain in the interior by furnishing a cheaper outlet to the sea, it must be remembered that the benefit has accrued not to the people, nearly all of whom are tenants, but to the landlords, the government being the largest holder.

Not only are the people being impoverished, but the land is being worn out. Manure, which ought to be used to renew the fields, is consumed as fuel, and no sight is more common in India than that of women and children gathering manure from the roads with their hands. This, when mixed with straw and sun-dried, is used in place of wood, and from the amount of it carried in baskets, it must be one of the chief articles of merchandise. There are now large tracts of useless land that might be brought under cultivation if the irrigation system were extended. Proof of this is to be found in the fact that the government of India has already approved of extensions which, when made, will protect seven million acres and irrigate three million acres. The estimated cost of these extensions is about forty-five million dollars, and the plans are to be carried out "as funds can be provided." Ten per cent of the army expenditure, applied to irrigation, would complete the system within five years, but instead of military expenses being reduced, the army appropriation was increased more than ten million dollars between 1904 and 1905.

Of the total amount raised from taxation each year, about forty per cent is raised from land, and the rate is so heavy that the people can not save enough when the crops are good to feed themselves when the crops are bad. More than ten per cent of the total tax is collected on salt, which now pays about five-eighths of a cent per pound. This is not only a heavy rate when compared with the original cost of the salt; but it is especially burdensome to the poor. The salt tax has been as high as one cent a pound, and when at that rate materially reduced the amount of salt consumed by the people.

The poverty of the people of India is distressing in the extreme; millions live on the verge of starvation all the time, and one would think that their very appearance would plead successfully in their behalf.

The economic wrong done to the people of India explains the political wrong done to them. For more than twenty years an Indian national congress has been pleading for a modified form of representative government – not for a severing of the tie that binds India to Great Britain, but for an increasing voice in their local affairs. But this request can not be granted. Why? Because a local government, composed of natives selected by the people, would protest against so large an army, reduce the taxes and put Indians at lower salaries into places now held by Europeans. It is the fear of what an Indian local government would do that prevents the experiment, although two other reasons, both insufficient, are given. One of these is that the Indian people are not intelligent enough and that they must be protected from themselves by denying them a voice in their own affairs. The other is that the Indians are so divided into tribes and religious sects that they can not act harmoniously together. The first argument will not impress any unprejudiced traveler who has come into contact with the educated classes. There are enough well informed, college trained native Indians, not to speak of those, who, like our own ancestors a few centuries ago, have practical sense and good judgment without book learning, to guide public opinion. While the percentage of literacy is deplorably small, the total number of educated men is really considerable, and there are at this time seventeen thousand students above the secondary schools and studying for the B. A. degree. There is not a district of any considerable size that has not some intelligent men in it, and these could be relied upon to direct the government until a larger number are qualified to assist. It is true that native princes have often seemed indifferent to the welfare of their subjects – Princes who have lived in great luxury while the people have been neglected, but to-day some of the native states vie with those controlled by European officials in education and material advancement. And is not the very fact that the people are left under the government of native princes in the native states conclusive proof that in all the states the government could be administered without the aid of so large a number of Europeans?

The second argument is equally unsound. To say that the Indians would necessarily fight among themselves is to ignore the progress of the world. There was a time when Europe was the scene of bloody religious wars, and our own country is indebted to the persecution of the pilgrims in England for some of its best pioneers. There has been a growth in religious tolerance during the last century, and this is as noticeable in India as elsewhere. Already the intellectual leaders of all the sects and elements of the Indian population are mingling in congresses, conferences and public meetings. Already a national spirit is growing which, like the national spirit in England and America, disregards religious lines and emphasizes more and more the broad social needs which are common to all; and with the increase of general education there will be still more of unity and national sentiment. Those who make this argument also forget that as long as England maintains sovereignty it will be impossible for religious differences to lead to war and that differences in council and in congress would strengthen rather than weaken her position.

But why is there a lack of intelligence among the Indians? Have they not had the blessings of British rule for several generations? Why have they not been fitted for self-government? Gladstone, whose greatness of head and heart shed a lustre upon all Europe, said: "It is liberty alone which fits men for liberty. This proposition, like every other in politics, has its bounds; but it is far safer than the counter doctrine, 'wait till they are fit.'"

How long will it take to fit the Indians for self-government when they are denied the benefits of experience? They are excluded from the higher civil service (ostensibly open to them) by a cunningly devised system of examinations which makes it almost impossible for them to enter. Not only are the people thus robbed of opportunities which rightfully belong to them, but the country is deprived of the accumulated wisdom that would come with service, for the alien officials return to Europe at the end of their service, carrying back their wisdom and earnings, not to speak of the pensions which they then begin to draw.

The illiteracy of the Indian people is a disgrace to the proud nation which has for a century and a half controlled their destiny. The editor of the Indian World, a Calcutta magazine, says in last February's number:

"If India has not yet been fit for free institutions, it is certainly not her fault. If, after one and a half centuries of British rule, India remains where she was in the Middle Ages, what a sad commentary must it be upon the civilizing influences of that rule! When the English came to India, this country was the leader of Asiatic civilization and the undisputed center of light in the Asiatic world; Japan was then nowhere. Now, in fifty years, Japan has revolutionized her history with the aid of modern arts of progress and India, with an hundred and fifty years of English rule, is still condemned to tutelage."

Who will answer the argument presented by this Indian editor? And he might have made it stronger. Japan, the arbiter of her own destiny and the guardian of her own people, has in half a century bounded from illiteracy to a position where ninety per cent of her people can read and write and is now thought worthy to enter into an Anglo-Japanese alliance, while India, condemned to political servitude, and sacrificed for the commercial advantage of another nation, still sits in darkness, less than one per cent of her women able to read and write and less than ten per cent of her total population sufficiently advanced to communicate with each other by letter or to gather knowledge from the printed page. In the speech above referred to, Mr. Gokhale estimates that four villages out of every five are without a school house, and this, too, in a country where the people stagger under an enormous burden of taxation. The published statement for 1904-5 shows that the general government appropriated but six and a half million dollars for education while more than ninety millions were appropriated for "army service," and the revised estimate for the next year shows an increase of a little more than half a million for education while the army received an increase of more than twelve millions.

The government has, it is true, built a number of colleges (with money raised by taxation), but it is gradually extending the system of primary and secondary schools (also with taxes), though the progress is exceedingly slow and the number of schools grossly inadequate. Benevolent Englishmen have also aided the cause of education by establishing private schools and colleges under church and other control, but the amount returned to India in this way is insignificant when compared with the amount annually drawn by England from India.

It is not scarcity of money that delays the spread of education in India, but the deliberate misappropriation of taxes collected, and the system which permits this disregard of the welfare of the subjects and the subordination of their industries to the supposed advancement of another nation's trade is as indefensible upon political and economic grounds as upon moral grounds. If more attention were given to the intellectual progress of the people and more regard shown for their wishes, it would not require so many soldiers to compel loyalty to England, neither would it require a large army to preserve peace and order. If agriculture were protected and encouraged and native industries built up and diversified, England's commerce with India would be greater, for prosperous people would buy more than can be sold to India to-day, when so many of her sons and daughters are like walking shadows.

Lord Curzon, the most brilliant of India's viceroys of recent years, inaugurated a policy of reaction. He not only divided Bengal with a view of lessening the political influence of the great province, but he adopted an educational system which the Indians believe was intended to discourage higher education among the native population. The result, however, was exactly the opposite of that which was intended. It aroused the Indians and made them conscious of the possession of powers which they had not before employed. As the cold autumn wind scatters winged seeds far and wide, so Lord Curzon's administration spread the seeds of a national sentiment, and there is more life in India to-day, and therefore more hope, than there has ever been before. So high has feeling run against the government that there has been an attempted boycott of English made goods, and there is now a well organized movement to encourage the use of goods made in India.

Let no one cite India as an argument in defense of colonialism. On the Ganges and the Indus the Briton, in spite of his many noble qualities and his large contributions to the world's advancement, has demonstrated, as many have before, man's inability to exercise, with wisdom and justice, irresponsible power over helpless people. He has conferred some benefits upon India, but he has extorted a tremendous price for them. While he has boasted of bringing peace to the living, he has led millions to the peace of the grave; while he has dwelt upon order established between warring tribes, he has impoverished the country by legalized pillage. Pillage is a strong word, but no refinement of language can purge the present system of its iniquity. How long will it be before the quickened conscience of England's Christian people will heed the petition that swells up from fettered India and apply to Britain's greatest colony the doctrines of human brotherhood that have given to the Anglo-Saxon race the prestige it now enjoys?

Note – The article on British Rule in India has been severely criticized by the government papers in India and as heartily praised by prominent representatives of the native population. Delegations of Indians called upon me in London, Paris and New York to express their thanks.

In view of this criticism, I give below a few facts in support of the views expressed in the article.

In Whitaker's Almanac for 1906 (published in London), the appropriation for education is given at 1,298,000 pounds in 1902-3, 1,368,000 pounds in 1903-4, and 1,474,000 pounds in 1904-5. The appropriation for army services is given at 17,346,000 pounds for 1902-3, 17,892,000 pounds for 1903-4, and 20,463,000 pounds for 1904-5. (The figures for 1904-5 are described as "revised estimates" in both cases.) Multiplying the pounds by five, it will be seen that the appropriation for education is about seven million dollars and the appropriation for army services (for the last year) about one hundred and two millions. What defense can be made for the expenditure of more than thirteen times as much for the army as for education?

Within a few days after the publication of my article, Hon. John Morley, Secretary for India, delivered a speech in Parliament upon the Indian budget. The following quotations show that he has made the same criticism on three important matters. First, on the salt tax. He says:

"But for my part I cannot regard, and I will not regard with satisfaction, or even with patience, the continuance at a high scale of a tax on a prime necessity of life. (Cheers.)"

And again:

"It is not that the Indian is more heavily burdened in the matter of the salt duty than the Italian. But, however that may be, I am glad to think that the very able and expert financial member of the Viceroy's council hopes to make further reduction in the duty, even though he cannot go so far as I should like to go, and sweep the thing away altogether. (Cheers.)"

On the expenditure for the army, he says:

"So far, I have given a rose-colored – I hope a true colored – picture. In military expenditure, however, we have the shadow. Comparing broadly 1906-7 with the figures of ten years ago, there is an increase in the strength of the army of four thousand one hundred and forty seven men. In 1896-7 the number was two hundred and twenty-seven thousand men and in 1906-7, two hundred and thirty-one thousand five hundred men. But the remarkable circumstance comes out that in British cavalry and infantry there is no increase. The only important addition to the fighting strength of the army are an increase in our artillery and an increase in the number of British officers to the tune of one thousand. That is a large and costly addition, but I will not argue it now. The net army expenditure in India, British and native, in 1896-7, was fifteen million pounds; the estimate for 1906-7 is eighteen million seven hundred thousand pounds – an increase of three million seven hundred thousand pounds. (This is an estimate of the net expenditure, the Whitaker estimate is gross.) This has to be divided into two equal items of one million eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds for ordinary and special military expenditure. I invite the House to attend to one element in the increase in the ordinary expenditure. The House will remember that the late government found it necessary to grant additional pay to the non-commissioned officers and men in the British army in India. Those were circumstances for which neither the Government nor the governed in India had a shadow of responsibility. They were not responsible for those social circumstances which made it necessary to add to the pay of the British soldier, but the increase of pay in the British contingent of the Indian military force was saddled on India to the tune of nearly a million sterling."

On higher civil service he confesses the injustice done the Indians. He says:

"In regard to the question of the employment of Indians in the higher offices, I think a move – a definite and deliberate move – ought to be made with the view of giving competent and able natives the same access to the higher posts in the administration that are given to our own countrymen. (Cheers.) There is a famous sentence in the Queen's proclamation of 1858 which says: – 'It is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service-offices, the duties of which they may be qualified by their educational talents and ability duly to discharge.' I think those words, 'so far as may be,' have been somewhat misinterpreted in the past. I do not believe that the ministers who advised Queen Victoria in framing one of the most memorable documents in all our history meant those words to be construed in a narrow, literal, restricted or pettifogging sense. (Cheers.) I do not believe that parliament ever intended this promise of the Queen's should be construed in any but a liberal and generous sense. The Governor-General of India to-day is, I am glad to say, a man of a firm texture of mind. I do not believe the Governor-General has any intention of riding off on a narrow interpretation of a promise which was as wise and politic as it was just. (Hear, hear.) I do not know if there is any case in history of an autocratic, personal or absolute government co-existing with free speech and free right of meeting. For as long a time as my poor imagination can pierce through, for so long a time our government in India must partake, and in no small degree, of the personal and absolute element. But that is no reason why we should not try this great experiment of showing that you can have a strong and effective administration along with free speech and free institutions, and being all the better and all the more effective because of free speech and free institutions. (Cheers.) That policy is a noble one to think of, but the task is arduous; and because it is noble and because it is arduous, I recommend the policy, of which I have only given a broad outline, to the adoption of the House." (Cheers.)

CHAPTER XXVII.

ANCIENT EGYPT

We have been moving among the oldest monuments reared by man, and they make the rest of the world seem young. In Japan a Buddhist temple, built twelve hundred years ago, impressed us with the youthfulness of American institutions; in China we were shown temples that had stood for twenty centuries and were told of customs and laws even older; in India we found a pagoda some twenty-five hundred years old, and visited the site of a city whose foundations were probably laid more than three thousand years ago; but here we see the mummied forms of human beings who lived two thousand years before Christ was born, inspect the handiwork of men who laid down the chisel before Abraham appeared upon the earth, look upon colors that have withstood the changes and defied the elements of forty centuries, and handle wheat that grew upon the banks of the Nile long before Joseph built granaries for Pharaoh. The guides count centuries as trippingly on the tongue as a treasury expert or an insurance magnate handles millions. They discuss dynasties that rose and fell when Europe was shrouded in darkness, before the light of history dawned upon the Ganges and the Yangtse; they decipher hieroglyphics that kept their secrets for ages and lead one among ruins that astonish by their immensity as well as by the artistic skill which they reveal.

Back in the misty past – in the prehistoric period – there were two Egyptian kingdoms, one occupying upper, and the other lower Egypt. This was prior to 2,500 B. C., and from the stirring scenes engraved upon stone, one can imagine the conflicts which took place along the fertile valley of the Nile before Menes, the earliest known ruler, united the two kingdoms, assumed the title, Lord of Both Lands, fashioned a double crown for himself, and adopted the lily, or lotus, and the papyrus as symbols of his consolidated empire. We are probably indebted to certain natural peculiarities of Egypt for the preservation of the unique evidences of ancient civilization found here. First, there is but a small area of tillable land stretched along the most wonderful of rivers and guarded on either side by a barren waste that offers greater protection than a wall. Second, the climate of Egypt is dry, and there are no drenching rains to deface and no violent changes of temperature to disintegrate. Third, the temples and tombs are so massively built as to discourage the vandal; and fourth, the sands of the desert have drifted in and concealed for a hundred generations many of the most valuable of these relics of a bygone age.

There is such a wealth of archæological treasures here that one scarcely knows where to begin or how to condense the most important things into the space allotted to a newspaper article. I shall not attempt to describe things chronologically, because some of the temples have been added to by different kings and dynasties, until they represent the art and life of many hundred years. The temple at Karnak, for instance, bears the impress of Egypt's rulers from Thutmosis to the Rameses, and from the Rameses to the Ptolemies, a period of some twelve hundred years, and the building of the numerous pyramids covered even a longer time.

As the tourist usually begins a trip through Egypt with a visit to Cairo, he is likely to find the great Egyptian museum, the Museum of Gizeh, a fitting introduction to his subsequent investigations. Here one finds samples of all the antiquities of the country, excepting the pyramids and the temples, and there are mummies, sarcophagi, statues, carvings and hieroglyphics from these. A considerable space is devoted to mummies, some from the tombs of kings, but many of more humble rank. The early Egyptians believed that man was composed of several different entities. First, there was the body, and second, the double – a sort of invisible form reproducing the features of the body. Next came the soul, represented as a human-headed bird and then a spark of the divine fire called Khu, which has been translated as "the Luminous." It was to prevent the departure of these attending forms that embalming was resorted to. By suspending the decomposition of the body, they thought that they could preserve the connection between it and the Double, the Soul and the Luminous, and by prayers and offerings these could be saved from the second death. This is the explanation of the mummy given by archæologists. The Double, it was supposed, never left the place where the mummy rested, and the Soul, while it went away to commune with the gods, returned from time to time, and for this reason rooms were made for the reception of the Soul and for the habitation of the Double. One can hardly believe as he looks upon the shriveled forms that they were interred so long ago. I will enclose with this article a photograph of the mummy of Egypt's great builder, and known as "the Pharaoh of the Oppression," who died more than three thousand years ago. The hand no longer sways the scepter; the eyes look no more upon the gigantic statues which he scattered along the Nile, and the voice does not now demand the making of "bricks without straw," but the mortal remains of this famous ruler vividly recall the days of Israel's bondage.

With the mummies are many mummy cases, some covered with hieroglyphics, some ornamented with pictures in colors, and most of them covered with a lid upon which are a face mask and an outline of the form of the occupant. The process by which these bodies have been preserved is still a mystery, but the fact that they have outlived dynasties and survived the countless changes of so many centuries gives to them a lasting interest. The collection of statues and images of gods, human beings, beasts and birds runs up into the thousands. Some of these are heroic in size, others are not more than an inch in height; some are strong, some beautiful and some grotesque. Granite, both red and black, alabaster, stone, iron, bronze and clay – all have been brought into requisition for this work. Some of the bronze has, upon analysis, been found to contain practically the same combination of metals as the bronze now used. There are even statues in wood, and one of these – a photograph of which I secured – attracted my attention because the head and face bear a resemblance to the late Senator Hanna. It is called "Sheikh el Beled" or Village Chief; that it should have resisted decay for more than forty centuries is little less than marvelous.