This review of the past history of India may seem an unduly long introduction to a brief statement regarding its condition under our rule, but it is only by looking to the past a right answer can be given to the questions: What right have we to govern India? From what evils has our government delivered it? What benefits have we conferred on its population? Inattention to the past has led many to give in some cases an utterly wrong, in other cases a very inadequate, answer to these questions. It is clear that India has been brought under our rule by what may be rightly called aggressive war only to a very limited extent. It is also clear that the hostile forces we encountered were not those of the ancient princes of the land, but of adventurers who were struggling to rise on the ruins of the disorganized empire. At the present time, on the mere ground of the length of possession, our rule has a stronger claim than that of the potentates whom we overthrew.
[Sidenote: THE ADVANTAGES OF BRITISH RULE.]
A review of the past prepares us to see some of the advantages our rule has conferred. No longer are armies marching over India, supplying their wants by the plunder of its people, and leaving ruin in their track. No longer has the husbandman, when he sees at a distance the dust raised by the tramp of the Mahratta cavalry, to flee to his walled village, if he has one to flee to, or to his hamlet if he cannot do better, leaving his field, perhaps ready for the sickle, to be trodden down by the unwelcome stranger. No longer are hosts of marauders like the Pindarees, who scarcely professed to be anything else than marauders, allowed to roam over fertile and populous regions in their robbing and murdering expeditions. No longer are professional robbers called Dacoits allowed to set out on excursions, and make their way under various disguises to towns, to rise at an arranged signal, attack the houses of the rich, and force them, often under torture, to reveal their treasures. No longer are Thugs, professional murderers, left to arrange their plans for insinuating themselves into the goodwill of travellers, with a view, when the opportunity came, to throttling their victims, robbing them, and then burying them, that all mark of their deeds might be effaced. From Dacoity and Thuggery Europeans had nothing to fear, but natives suffered frightfully; and special departments were formed for their suppression. In Northern India, at least, these bands of robbers and murderers have been broken up. No longer are the lives and property of the people at the disposal of their rulers, as was to a large extent the case previous to the British era. They are now under the ægis of law.