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Excerpt from British Rule in India
The East bowed low before the blast, In patient deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, Then plunged in thought again.
The so-called critics make the problem of British Adminis tration even more and more difficult. It is a great pity that, with most critics on Indian affairs, a sound knowledge of the history of the country is hardly considered essential before the formulation and public utterance of most decided opinions. Nothing in the world is perfect, and I do not for a moment say that the British Administration of India is not capable of great improvements. The rulers show no lack of adjustment to local conditions, though they have yet to teach young India to appreciate the dignity of manual labour. The immense inert mass of peasantry have a firm faith in the Sirkar, and show a willing submissiveness to a strong and consistent govern ment; and not all the harangues of the agitators have as yetbeen able to in¿uence the current of devotion to the person of the Sovereign and belief in the benignity of his rule. But the profound, possibly unconscious, indifference of English states men to Indian affairs, if much longer continued, is likely to break the spell of British prestige in India; specially as now certain faddists systematically indulge in the luxury of ferret ing out isolated instances of injustice, and are trying to shape formless and occasional discontent into a single con tinuous outcry against imaginary widespread oppression. Sometimes English faddists unwittingly fan the ¿ames of discontent for the mere love of party applause, which has risen among some of them to the height of a passion. With others, it is the hunger for cheap distinction. They have evidently no time to give a thought to the serious nature of their utterances. They forget that modern India is the most striking achievement of the white people in the tropics. The French in Indo China, the Dutch in java, or the Americans in the Philippine Islands, have not been half as successful as the English in India.
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