For estimating the stability of an Empire there are certain plain tests which the political student ought to have at his fingers’ ends. Of these some are applied to its internal organisation, and some to its external conditions, just as an insurance company in estimating the value of a life will take the opinion of the medical oflBcer, who will feel the candidate’s pulse and listen to his heart, but they will also inquire how and where the candidate lives, and whether his pursuits or habits expose him to any peculiar risks from without. Now I have partly applied the internal test. The internal test of the vitality of a state consists in ascertaining whether or no the Government rests upon a solid basis. For in every state besides the two things which are obvious to all, viz. the Government and the governed, there is a third thing, which is overlooked by most of us, and yet is usually not difficult to distinguish, — mean the power outside the Government which holds the Government up. This power may be slight or
318t EXPANSION OF ENGLAND LECT.
it may be substantial, and according to its solidity, or rather according to the ratio of its strength to that of the powers which tend to overthrow the Government, is that Government’s chance of duration. Now I made some inquiry into the strength of the supports upon which the Governmentin India rests, but rather with a view of explaining how it stands now than whether it is likely to last a long time. Let us reconsider then with this other object the conclusions at which we arrived.
We found that the Government did not rest, as in England, upon the consent of the people or of some native constituency, which has created the Government by a constitutional process. The Gov- ernment is in every respect, race, religion, habits, foreign to the people. There is only one body of persons of which we can positively afl&rm that without its support the Government could not stand this is the army. Of this army one part is English, and might be trusted to stand by the Government in all circumstances, but it is less than a third part of the whole. The other two-thirds are bound to us by nothing but their pay and the feeling of honour which impels a good soldier to be true to his flag. This is our visible support. Is there beyond it any moral support which, though invisible, may be reckoned upon as substantial? Here is a question which affords room for much difference of opinion. We are naturally inclined to presume that the bene fits we have done the country by terminating the chronic anarchy which a century ago was tearing it
VII INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 319 in pieces, and by introducing so many evident im- provements, must have convinced all classes that our Government ought to be supported. But such a presumption is very rash. The notion of a piiblic good, of a commonweal, to which all private interests ought to be subordinate, is one which we have no right to assume to be current in such a population as that of India. It seems indeed to presuppose precisely what we have found to be wanting—that is, a moral unity or nationality in India. This being absent, we ought to presume that, instead of consid- ering what benefits our rule may confer upon the country in general, each class or interest inquires how it separately is affected by our ascendency, the Mussulman how his religion, the Brahmin how his ancient social supremacy, the native prince how his dignity, is aflfected by it. The great benefit which we have conferred upon the country at large in putting down general plunder and the omnipotence of a mercenary soldiery, is enjoyed perhaps mainly by a class which, though the most numerous, yet has little influence and a short memory,—that class so characteristic of India, the small cultivators whose thoughts are absolutely wrapt up in the difficult problem of existing, Avhose utmost ambition extends only to keeping body and soul together. Those who used to be plundered, tortured, massacred in the chronic wars, ought no doubt to bless us; but the plunderers, the murderers are not likely to do so and these, it may be, form the more influential class. It is certain in fact that all those who under the old 320 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lbct.
rule of the Moguls used to be influential in India, those who used to monopolise ofl&cial posts, thosewho belong to the race which used to rule andrepresent the religion which used to dominate, —all those therefore whose opinion of us might be expectedto be politically important, —have suffered by ourascendency ; and that all our philanthropic attemptsto raise the native races have had the effect of de- pressing them, and that to such an extent that vast numbers of them have been reduced to the greatest distress. The subject has been discussed in Dr. Hunter’s book on the Mussulmans of India. In these circumstances it would be very rash to assumethat any gratitude, which may have been arousedhere and there by our administration, can be morethan sufficient to counterbalance the discontent whichwe have excited among those whom we have oustedfrom authority and influence.
It remains then that our power rests on an army,and on an army of which two-thirds are in relation to us mere mercenaries. This may seem a slight support, especially for so vast an authority, but weare to consider on the other hand what is the force of opposition which has to be overcome. And wefind a population which by habit and long tradition is absolutely passive, which has been dragonnaded by foreign military Governments, until the veryconception of resistance has been lost. We find also a population which has no sort of unity, in whichnationalities lie in layers, one under another, andlanguages wholly unlike each other are brought VII INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 321 together by composite dialects caused by fusion. In other words it is a population which for the present is wholly incapable of any common action. As I said, if it had a spark of that corporate life which distinguishes a nation, it could not be held in such a grasp as we lay upon it. But there is no immediate prospect of such a corporate life springing up in it. In the meanwhile our Government seems in ordinary times sufficiently supported. It is considerably stronger in many respects than it was at the time of the mutiny. The proportion of English to native troops in the army is larger, and many precautions suggested by the mutiny itself have been taken. A mutiny might happen again, but so long as it is a mere mutiny there seems no reason why it should be fatal to our power. The native troops want native leadership, and so long as they find no efi"ective support in the people, so long as their own objects continue to be, as they were in the last mutiny, wholly unpatriotic and selfish, so long as they can be disbanded and replaced by another native army, the position looked at purely from within seems tolerably secure. But this statement at the same time brings to light certain dangers. In the first place, what is said of the passive habits of the native population applies only to the Hindus. The Mussulmans have in great part difi"erent habits and different traditions. They do not look back upon centuries of submission, but upon a period not so long past when they were a ruling race. Secondly we are to remember that, much as unity may be wanting, one kind of unity, Y 322 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
that of religion, is not wanting. There is thepowerful and active unity of Islam ; there is the less active but still real unity of Brahminism. In Dr.Hunter’s book on the Indian Mussulmans there is a chapter entitled “the chronic conspiracy within ourterritory,” in which is described the religious agitation which, under the influence of Wahabite preachers, constantly rouses against our Government (accordingto Dr. Hunter, but others deny this) just that partof the population which has the proudest memories,and therefore the keenest sense of indignation againstthe race that has superseded them. Brahminism,though a tenacious, is a much less inspiring religion. Still we all remember the greased cartridges. Themutiny of 1857, though mainly military, yet had areligious beginning. It shows us what we might ex- pect if the vast Hindu population came to believe thattheir religion was attacked. And we are to bear in mind that the Hindu religion is not, like the Moham medan, outside the region which science claims as its own. We liave always declared that we held sacred the principle of religious toleration, and on that un-derstanding we are obeyed ; but what if the Hindushould come to regard the teaching of Europeanscience as being of itself an attack on his religion t Great religious movements then seem less im- probable than a nationality-movement. On the otherhand the religious forces, if they are livelier, neutralise each other more directly. Islam ;i,nd Hinduism confront each other, the one stronger in faith, the other in numbers, and create a sort of VII INTEKNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 323 equilibrium. Is it conceivable that we may some day find our Christianity a reconciling element between ourselves and these contending religions? We are to remember that, as Islam is the crudest expression of Semitic religion, Brahminism on the other hand is an expression of Aryan thought. Now among the religions of the world Christianity stands out as a product of the fusion of Semitic with Aryan ideas. It may be said that India and Europe in respect of religion have both the same elements, but that in India the elements have not blended, while in Europe they have united in Christianity. Judaism and classical Paganism were in Europe at the beginning of our era what Mohammedanism and Brahminism are now in India; but in India the elements have remained separate, and have only made occasional efforts to unite, as in the Sikh religion and in the religion of Akber. In Europe a great fusion took place by means of the Christian Church, which fusion has throughout modern history been growing more and more complete.
Such then is the appearance which our Empire wears, when it is looked at by itself and with reference only to the internal forces which play upon it in India, But in order to form any estimate of its chance of stability it is equally important to consider what influences affect it from without.
Few countries known to history have been so isolated as India. Between Nearchus, the Admiral of Alexander, and Vasco da Gama no European com- mander navigated the Indian Ocean, but the Arabs 324 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect, appear to have made naval descents on Sind as early as the time of the Caliph Omar. With this exception the only traceable foreign relation of India, except towards the North, has been with Java, and here the influence went forth from India, for we find in the Kawi language of Java the strongest traces both linguistic and literary of Hindu influence. Whatthe sea is to the peninsula, that to the plain of the Ganges is the enormous barrier of the Himalaya. It has the effect of making India practically rather anisland than a peninsula. On this side too Indian influence has gone forth into Central Asia, for it is to the north and the east that Buddhism went forth to make its extensive conquests. But on this side too there have been no political relations, no wars or invasions of which we have any authentic knowledge, except at a single point.
We can easily imagine therefore that the isolation of India was for thousands of years complete, andindeed the natives told Alexander the Great, when heappeared among them, that they had never beeninvaded before.
But this isolation came to an end at last, becauseafter all India is not an island. It has one vulnerable point. There is one point at which the mountainbarrier can be penetrated. It can be invaded fromPersia or from Central Asia through Afghanistan. Accordingly the whole history of the foreign relations of India up to the time of Vasco da Gama centres in Afghanistan. We may reckon perhaps eight great invasions by this route.VII INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 325 The first is the most memorable of all, but no history of it remains. The Aryan race must have entered by this route, or perhaps we may say that the Aryan race must have come into existence here. The Afghans themselves are Aryan by language, and the correspondence in certain matters between the Zendavesta of Persia and the Vedas of India leads us to place the original Aryan home of the Sanscrit- speaking race somewhere on the frontier of India and Persia.
The next invasion was that of Alexander the Great, famous enough in history, for it first threw open the door of India to the Western world. But it had no permanent consequences, since the Graeco Bactrian kingdom, which for a time maintained a footing in India, came to an end in the second century before Christ.
The third wants a history almost as much as the first. It is the so-called Scythian invasion, or series of invasions, of the first centuries after Christ. All- important as it is to students of Sanscrit literature, it need not detain us here.
Then comes the invasion of Mahmoud of Ghazni (a.d. 1001). This is one of the most important, because it is at once the end both of the isolation and of the independence of India, and also what may be called the practical discovery of India for the rest of the world. Mahmoud is to India, as it were, Columbus and Cortez in one. Since his time foreign domination has never been interrupted, and the way to India through the Khyber Pass has been a beaten 326 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND LECT.
road trodden by many adventurers. In several respects too Mahmoud is a precursor of the GreatMoguls. He is by birth a Turk, he has a petty throne in Afghanistan, and he is irresistibly impelled to the conquest of India by his Mussulman faith andby the near neighbourhood of the shrines of idolatry. In all these points he resembles Baber.
The fifth great invasion was that of Tamerlane in 1398. It was purely destructive, but has an import- ance of its own, which however we shall understand better when we are in a condition to compare it with the seventh and eighth invasions.
Then comes the invasion of Baber in 1524 and the establishment of the Mogul Empire. What Mahmoudhad begun he and his successors carried out with morecontinuousness. Their empire was similar to the Mussulman Empires which had preceded it, butfirmer and more consolidated.
The seventh and eighth are desolating incursions like that of Tamerlane. The one was undertaken byNadir Shah, the tyrant who seized the throne of Persia on the fall of the Sofi dynasty ; it took place in 1739, when the Mogul Empire was already in full decline. The other took place in 1760 ; the author of it was Ahmed Shah Abdali, head of an Empire of Duranis, whose headquarters were in Afghanistan.
Such are the principal invasions which India has suffered. A review of them shows that, though India has but this one point at which she is vulner- able by land, yet at this point she is very vulnerable indeed. For a long time indeed it seems that the
VII INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 327 way to invade her was not discovered, but at least from the time of Mahmond of Ghazni she has become peculiarly liable to invasion, and her historj’^ has been completely determined by it. For she has shown extremely little power of resistance. The history of India up to and outside of the English conquest may be thus briefly summed up. It consists in the first place of two great Mussulman conquests and of a great Hindu reaction against the Mussulman power, which took shape in the Mahratta confederacy ; the two conquests were both made from Afghanistan in the second place, of the destruction of the two great Mohammedan Powers in succession and the decisive humiliation of the Mahratta Power; this was accomplished by three other invasions from Afghanistan. That you may understand how this is so I will ask you first to examine the fall of the Mogul Empire—that is, the second of the great Mussulman ‘Powers. The ultimate cause of its fall was perhaps the unwise attempt of Aurungzebe to extend it over the Deccan ; accordingly its decline began visibly at Aurungzebe’s death. But the decisive blow which was mortal to it, which converted it from a sick man to a dying man, was the devastat- ing invasion of Nadir Shah, who came down through Afghanistan in 1739. He sacked Delhi, and so completely plundered the treasury that the Mogul Government was never able to raise its head again. In precisely the same way the Mahratta Power, just at the moment when it seemed on the point of uniting all India, was broken by the descent of 328 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
Ahmed Shah Abdali from Afghanistan and by the fatal battle of Paniput (in which 200,000 men are said to have fallen) in the year 1761 —that is, whenthe English were already making themselves masters of Bengal. And it appears to me that, as these twoinvasions were fatal to the Moguls and the Mahrattas, so the earlier invasion of Tamerlane at the end of the fourteenth century crushed the earlier MussulmanPower, which just before under Mohammed Toghlak had reached its greatest extension.
But now, as Mahmoud of Ghazni threw open India to invasion from the north, Vasco da Gamaopened it to maritime invasion from Europe. This was, though it did not seem so at the time, the greater achievement of the two. For Mahmoud only established a connection between India and the Mussulman world of Western and Central Asia, but Vasco da Gama for the first time since Alexander the Great connected it with Europe, and this time it wasEurope christianised and civilised. This could not be remarked at the time because, while Mahmoudcame as a mighty conqueror, Vasco da Gama was but a humble navigator. His discovery for a very long time led to no political results. There followed a century which I called the Spanish-Portuguese age of colonial history. Almost throughout the sixteenth century the whole newly-discovered oceanic world was in the hands of two nations, and the Asiatic half of it almost exclusively in the hands of the Portuguese. But in the last years of that century the Dutch succeeded in taking their place. As to the English, vn INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 329 when the seventeenth century opened, they were still but timid interlopers encroaching a little in India upon the monopoly of the Dutch.
I explained above how at the end of the seven- teenth century England and France had begun to take in the colonial world the position which had belonged in the sixteenth century to Spain and Portugal, and how the whole eighteenth century is filled with the struggle of these two nations for supremacy in it. In 1748 this struggle breaks out violently in India, and it has already become clear to Dupleix that the struggle is political, not merely commercial, and that the prize is nothing less than an Indian Empire. Here then is a momentous turning point in the history of Indian foreign relations. Hitherto she had been connected with the outer world only through Afghanistan ; henceforth she is to be connected with it also by the sea.
This new connection, once established, for a time eclipses the old, especially in the eyes of the English conquerors themselves. As I have said before, the enemy whom the English for a long time continued to dread most in India was their earliest enemy, France. Invasions from Afghanistan had not indeed ceased. Nadir Shah’s invasion took place only nine years before that year 1748, from which we date the rise of the British Empire. The invasion of Ahmed Shah Abdali took place thirteen years later. But these occurrences did not much attract the attention of the English. For we are to bear in mind that, though they had begun to conquer, they did not yet 330 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
dream how far their conquests would carry them. Because they Avere now firmly planted as territorial rulers in the neighbourhood of Fort St. George and Fort William, they did not as a matter of course think themselves responsible for all India, or study comprehensively the relations of the country con- sidered as a whole to the outer world. The affairs of Afghanistan or the Punjab seemed almost as muchbeyond their horizon as those of the Turkish Empire.
But towards the end of the eighteenth century a change took place in the view of the English. Hitherto they had looked most anxiously towards Madras and the Deccan. Their main fear was lest the French might make some new alliance with one of the native princes of the South, might help him with arms and officers or with a fleet, while he descended upon Madras. This was what actually took place in that war with France which grew out of the American Eevolution, and never perhaps were we so hard pressed in India. Hyder Ali descended upon the Carnatic to the gates of Madras, and from the sea the greatest of all French sailors, the Bailli de Suffren, co-operated with him. But fifteen years later the whole face of our foreign relations in India was changed by Bonaparte’s Egyptian expedi tion. French policy here took a new direction. It did not indeed break off from its old connections in the Deccan. Tippoo was expected to be as useful to the Directory as his father Hyder had been to Louis XVI. But at the same time Bonaparte’s occupation of Egypt and his campaign in Syria, movements vu INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 331 whicli were avowedly aimed at England, seemed to show that he had conceived the design of attacking our power in India from the north. Then for the first time we remembered Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali ; then for the first time we began to look anxiously, as we have so often looked since, towards the Khyber Pass, towards Zemaun Shah, who at the end of the eighteenth century sat in the seat of Ahmed Shah at Cabul, and towards the Court of Persia.
This then is the second great phase of the foreign policy of our Indian Empire. It is marked by the celebrated mission of Malcolm (afterward Sir John) to the Persian Court in 1800. Never before had we had occasion to study what I may call the balance of Asia, or to inquire quid Tiridaien terreat, what thoughts agitate the mind of the Persian king. But observe it is not the secret influence of Russia that is feared, but that of France. I said before that perhaps the Duke of Wellington considered himself to be fight ing the French at Assaye, not less than at Waterloo. In like manner you will find that Malcolm in his Persian negotiations has Napoleon and the power of France, not at all that of Russia, in his mind.
But in this second phase, though we have begun to look towards Afghanistan, we have not ceased to be afraid, as in the first phase, of French influence in the South. The life of this same Sir John Malcolm illustrates this. He was selected for the Persian mission on account of the distinction he had won just before in the war against Tippoo Sultan of Mysore.
332 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
Now this is a war against the French almost as truly as that earlier war in which Clive first distinguished himself. Tippoo himself was understood to be hand and-glove with the Directory : Bonaparte is his ally, as Suffren had been his father’s. The French called him Citoyen Tipou. And what is the Nizam doing 1 It was with the Government of the Nizam at Hydera bad that the French had had their earliest connection half a century before. They knew even better than the English how to conquer India, and that the secret lay in training sepoys and putting them underEuropean leadership. We find that now in 1798 there is in the Hyderabad country a force of 14,000 men, who are disciplined and commanded by French officers. A certain Raymond is in command of them, and we read in Kaye’s Life of Malcolm that " assign- ments of territory had been made by the Nizam for the pay of these troops. Foundries were established under competent European superintendence. Gunswere cast. Muskets were manufactured. Admirablyequipped and disciplined, Raymond’s levies went out to battle with the colours of Revolutionary Francefloating above them and the cap of liberty engravedon their buttons." Now so long as our nominalally the Nizam supported such a force and Tippoowas avowedly in concert with France, our position in the Deccan was not so materially changed from whatit had been when our Indian quarrel with Francefirst began. It was still possible that the tables might be turned on the English in 1798 by Ray mond’s force, as they had been turned on the French vn INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 333 before by Clive at Arcot. At this juncture the young Malcolm was sent to Hyderabad, and he succeeded in disbanding this French force, or, as he himself calls it, “expelling this nest of democrats.” Thus we have two phases of the foreign policy of British India. At first it has but one enemy outside India, namely France, and it expects the attack of this enemy only in one quarter, namely the Deccan.
In the second phase it has still the same enemy, who works in the same way, but his power has become far wider. He has formed, or is supposed to have formed, relations with other Asiatic Powers outside India. These Powers are the Afghans and the Persians, and after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 there is added to these another Power, European indeed but beginning already to overhang Asia, a Power which is now named for the first time in the history of British India, Russia.
This second phase is brought to an end by the fall of Napoleon. With him fell completely, though it woidd be rash to say finally, the influence of France upon India. Her exclusion was secured by the capture of the Maiu-itius in 1810 and by the reten tion of the island at the general peace.
There followed a pause in our foreign afi’airs. Our Empire had no important foreign relations for about twenty years. And then began a new phase. Another European Power takes the place of France as our rival in Asia. This Power is Russia.
In the whole history of Greater Britain from its commencement at the end of Elizabeth’s reign we 334 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect, may perhaps distinguish three gi-eat periods. Thereis first the seventeenth century, in which it rises gradually from a humble position to pre-eminence among colonial Empires. There is next that duel with France both in America and Asia, of which I have said so much. This occupies the eighteenth century. But this too passed, and we have entered upon a third phase, which, according to the fashion of historical development, began to form itself long before the second phase was over. In this third phase the English world -empire has two gigantic neighbours in the West and in the East. In the West she has the United States and in the East Russia for a neighbour.
These are the two States which I have cited as examples of the modern tendency towards enormbuspolitical aggregations, such as would have beenimpossible but for the modern inventions which diminish the difficulties caused by time and space. Both are continuous land-powers. Between them, equally vast but not continuous, with the ocean flow- ing through it in every direction, lies, like a world Venice, with the sea for streets, Greater Britain.
This third phase may in a sense be said to havebegun with the American Revolution, but it is morejust to consider it as dating only from about the thirties of the present century. For the great destiny that was reserved for the United States did not become manifest till long after its independence wasestablished. That great emigration from Europewhich is the cause of its rapid progress, did notVII INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 335 begin till after the peace of 1815, and in the twenties again its importance in the world was vastly increased by the South American Revolution and the establish- ment of republican government in Spanish America, an event which placed the United States in a lofty position of primacy on the American Continent. Now it was about the same time that the great extension of Russia in the East took place. The moment when we began to feel keenly the rivalry of Russia in the East is very plainly marked on the history of British India. It was in 1830 that Russia in her progress touched the Jaxartes, and soon after she reduced Persia to a condition which we might take to be one of practical dependence. When there fore in 1834, and again in 1837, Mohammed Shah of Persia led an army into Afghanistan, we believed we saw the hand of Russia, as thirty years before we had seen the hand of Napoleon when any movement took place in the same region. At this moment begins a new and stormy period in our Indian history, which may be said to extend to the mutiny—that is, over twenty years. This period witnessed a series of wars, in the course of which we conquered the whole north-west, annexed the Punjab, Sind and Oude, and at last aroused a disquiet in the minds of our Hindu subjects which issued in the mutiny. These disturb- ances seem traceable in the main to the alarm caused by Russia. For it was this alarm which led to the disastrous expedition into Afghanistan, and it was in the effort to restore our damaged reputation that the conquest of Sind was made, and it seems likely 336 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
also that if these disturbances in the north-west had not thus been commenced, the Sikh wars might never have happened.
“Lord Auckland, we are now very sure, did not take the right way in 1838 to meet the danger he foresaw. Perhaps he exaggerated the danger ; per- haps even now, after forty years more have passed and the advance of Eussia in Central Asia during that time has been beyond all anticipation, we still exaggerate the danger. But the historical sketch of the foreign relations of India which I have given in this lecture shows that there exists a pima facie case for alarm, which cannot but produce a prodigious effect. That case rests upon the simple fact that our three predecessors in the Empire of India, the Mahrattas in 1761, the Moguls in 1738, the older Mussulman Empire in 1398, all alike received a mortal blow from a Power which suddenly invaded India through Afghanistan, and that, on two other occasions quite distinct from these, invaders from Afghanistan, viz. Mahmoud of Ghazni and Baber, have founded Empires in India.
I call this a prima facie case for alarm. It is nothing more. Such reasonings per enumerationem simplicem can establish only that there is ground for instituting an examination, though unfortunately when history is brought to bear at all upon politics, which happens but rarely, it is commonly done in this random way. We cannot argue from the Moguls and Nadir Shah to the English and Russia. It would be easy perhaps to show that the Mogul Empire never ni INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DANGERS 337 had a solidity at all approaching that of the English Empire, and we might point out also that when Nadir Shah came to Delhi the Empire had already been in manifest decay for thirty years. With re- spect to Russia, on the other hand, it would be easy to show that it is a Power wholly different in kind from those Powers, generally more or less Tartar, which have invaded India, —a Power certainly far greater and more solid than most of them, but still so different that we cannot assume it to be equally capable of invasion and conquest at a prodigious distance. In short, history proves nothing more than that the way to India lies through Afghanistan. Whether a Power such as Russia can successfully attack by this route a Power such as British India, is a question upon which historical precedents throw no light whatever. It can be answered only by analysing and estimating the military resources, both moral and material, of the two Powers.
But it may be asked, How is it possible to question Russia’s power or her will to make distant conquests ? Has she not conquered in the North the whole breadth of Asia, and in the centre has she not penetrated to Samarcand and Khokand? What Power ever equalled her in successful aggression 1 But we must pronounce no man happy, Solon said, till we have seen his end. Can such a career continue indefinitely, when Russia shall have been thoroughly Europeanised at home? As soon as her political awakening is complete, must not a transformation of her foreign policy take place 1 z 338 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
On the other hand it may be said, Who can ques tion the ability of England to contend with Russia 1 But as I have argued, England is very distinct fromBritish India. Russia may be rich enough to conquer vast regions at a distance of thousands of miles, but England is not. British India must in the maindefend herself—that is, she can have English troops, but she must pay for them.
We must ask then. What is the inherent strength of British India? And thus its stability dependsupon its being strong enough to withstand those in- ternal dangers I spoke of, complicated with the ex- ternal danger from Afghanistan. We were able to put down the mutiny, and perhaps we could defeat a Russian army of invasion. But what if a mutiny and a Russian invasion came together 1 What if our native army, in some fit of disaffection or in somevague hope of profiting by a change, should prefer the Russian service to the English? This is the danger which since about 1830 has been foreseen. The Government can hold its own within and also without. But it has little strength to spare, andmust guard itself anxiously against any coalition between its domestic and its foreign enemies.
Other combinations may be imagined which wouldbe extremely dangerous. Thus it is sometimesargued that sooner or later avo must lose India, because sooner or later some war in Europe will force us to withdraw our English troops. It is true that without those troops we cannot keep India, and yet some great sudden attack upon ourselves, such as an VII INTERNAL AND EXTEKNAL DANGERS 339 invasion of England, might compel us to send for them. It is however also true that such a danger is not at present to be foreseen, for what enemy could invade us but France 1 Now sixty-eight years have passed since we last fought the French; our old hostility to France has become a matter of ancient history ; and the aggressive power of France has much declined.
But the subject is too large for the space I am able to give to it, and I must ask you to be content with this imperfect outline.
LECTURE VIII