How India Has Helped England Make Her Empire

CHAPTER IV

HOW INDIA HAS HELPED ENGLAND MAKE HER EMPIRE

“Perhaps the most striking testimony to the virtue of benevolent despotism is seen in the employment of native races to fight our battles for us. . . . Having extended the Empire by bringing the ‘inferior races’ under our sway, by a master stroke of genius we utilise them to still further extend and also to defend the Empire, and convert them into instruments for bestowing upon their brethren the boons which they themselves have obtained. It is very largely in this way that our Indian Empire has been built up.”

—MR. J. G. GODDARD, M. P.—“Racial Supremacy.”

India and “The Empire.”

The present generation of Englishmen, born into conditions of extreme prosperity, at a time when their country is at the zenith of her imperial glory, are apt to forget how much they owe to India. They ignore the fact that India is The Empire,—perhaps the only Empire they have. She is the pivot round which the whole Imperial edifice has been built and revolves. The self-governing dominions except in the present hour of war contributed little, if anything, to the prosperity and strength of the Empire. So far, they have laid more emphasis upon their rights than their duties, which they scarcely recognised at all. They rendered some help to Great Britain in the Boer War, and have splendidly borne their share in the present titanic struggle, but looking at their past history, they have got immensely more from the Empire than they ever gave it.

India, on the other hand, has always been the “milch-cow.” She has supplied the British Isles with food, and with raw products to be turned into manufactured articles; she has supplied labour to develop the colonies; she has fought for the Empire in almost every hemisphere. She affords a vast field for all kinds of experiments; she is the training camp for engineers and generals from the British Isles. This point was frankly admitted by Lord Roberts in the evidence he gave before the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditures (97) when he said: “From the point of view of training, India is a very great strength to the United Kingdom.”

But what is even more significant, India conquered most of her Empire for Great Britain. Her sons, her blood and her resources have been freely used by England to make new acquisitions, to put down revolts in existing dominions, and to maintain her prestige in Europe. At the time of the Boer War, India was the first to send an expedition to the Transvaal. The same thing happened in the present European war; the Indian expedition reached France very early in the conflict, and helped materially. Since then, Indian troops have been used at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. India herself has paid the bills. Yet when her sons talk of post-war reforms in the Administration, they are rebuked with a warning not to be sordid! It is their duty to shed blood for their great benefactor. For details of India’s contribution to this war in men and money see the Post-Scriptum to the Preface.

In this chapter we purpose showing how India has helped England make her Empire. It would be well to remember, in this connection, that all the acquisitions of the East India Company in Asia were won through their Indian Government employing Indian troops, and paying the cost from Indian exchequers. It was the East India Company which acquired the Isle of France (Mauritius) the island of Ceylon, the settlement and port of Singapore, and other islands in the Indian Seas now in possession of England. It was the East India Company which originally obtained foothold in Persia and Arabia, conquered Burmah, and conducted military and naval operations for Great Britain whenever the latter was at war with France, Portugal or Holland, and desired to strike at their Asiatic and African holdings.

The following table, taken from the Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditures, Vol. II, page 305, will show how India has been saddled with the expenses of the various wars she fought, or participated in, for the glory of the British Empire.

Foreign Wars Whose Cost Was Charged to India

To this table, we append the following extract from the same Report, showing India’s expenditures for Great Britain’s consular representation in Asia:

“The Persian mission was established in 1810 and maintained at the charge of Great Britain until 1823, when it was transferred to India. From 1823-31 it was wholly supported by Indian funds. In 1835 it was transferred to the British Foreign Office, the Indian Government contributing £12,000 a year towards its cost. Again, in 1850, the mission and consulate at Teheran, Tabriz and Resht were placed under the Government of India. The cost of the mission was then estimated at £15,000 a year, towards which Great Britain contributed £3,000, with £2,000 on account of the consulate. In 1860, the mission and consulate were re-transferred to the British Foreign Office and from 1860-1880, India contributed £12,000 towards the mission, leaving the consulate at the sole charge of Great Britain. In 1880-90, the Indian contribution was reduced to £10,000 and further reduced, in 1891, to £7,000.”

That India has been unjustly and sometimes illegally treated in this respect, will be clear from a few extracts we submit from the evidence of British statesmen given before the Royal Commission. For fuller material, we refer the reader to the evidence itself and to the written statements of Colonel Hanna and Colonel Waterfield in Vol. II. India not only pays for a huge British garrison within her confines, but also for all the expenses incurred in connection with their enlistment, training and equipment; for all pensions earned by the men and officers as well as every cent spent on medical and various philanthropic institutions maintained for their benefit in England. The whole thing is so unjust, that rather than trust our own language to express our feelings, we will let Lord Northbrook, Sir Henry Brackenberry and Sir Edward Collen speak about it.

Lord Lansdowne on the Indian Army.

15,906—Mr. Courtney—“Have you considered, Lord Lansdowne, from the point of view of India herself, supposing she were isolated from Great Britain, whether it would be necessary to maintain a force such as is borrowed from the United Kingdom, and in the same degree of efficiency?” “Certainly not. The Indian army is organised with a view to its employment upon operations which have nothing to do either with the internal policy of the country, or the mere repression of tribal disorders on the frontier.”

15,907. “Then the difference in the cost of training that force so borrowed, between what would be necessary for Indian purposes and the standard kept up for Imperial and Home purposes, should be borne by the home exchequer?” “Your question points to the principle which I was endeavouring in my answers to enforce.”

15,998. “That we for home and Imperial purposes, keep the army at a higher standard of efficiency than India taken by herself, requires, and we should make that a consideration in settlement of charges between the two countries?” “Certainly.”

Lord Roberts on India as Training Ground for British Army.

15,664. “The argument that India affords the best training ground for the British army during peace is a ground for reducing the home charges of British regiments in India. Any one who has served in India must admit it affords the best training ground for troops and this should not be lost sight of in apportioning home charges. I doubt if any country is so peculiarly well adapted for training troops as India. From the point of view of training, India is a very great strength to the United Kingdom.”

Sir Henry Brackenberry on Indian Army Expenditure.

14,782. “The army in India is largely in excess of requirements for preserving internal peace. The foreign policy of India is directed entirely from England and is a part of British foreign policy in general. The object of British foreign policy is to secure British rule over the British Empire. If British rule were maintained in India only for India’s sake, then it would be fair to make India pay everything that was due to Britain’s rule over India. But I cannot but feel Britain’s interest in keeping India under British rule is enormous. India affords employment to thousands of Britons; India employs millions of British capital; Indian commerce is of immense value to Great Britain. It seems to me Great Britain should pay her share of expenditures, and in estimating that share, she should behave generously, because England is a rich country and India a poor one;—also India has no representation; where a nation is arbitrarily governed, the governing power should behave generously.”

14,896. “If this Royal Commission could see its way to recommend the abolition of all those accounts for military and naval services, for the Secretary of State’s salary, and the expenses of the India Office, for diplomatic and consular charges in Persia and China and elsewhere, and to substitute for them a fixed contribution from India, many constant causes of irritation would be removed, and it would do much to convince all classes of India of the desire of this country which rules India, to treat her justly and generously.”

Sir Edwin Collen on the Apportionment of Expenses.

6,197. “The division between the British and Indian Treasuries of the charges for European troops in India should be determined with special reference to the fact that the military forces of the United Kingdom are organised to meet the requirements of the whole Empire, that India has no voice in deciding on the nature of such organisation, and that she as a poor country is made to enter into partnership with England, one of the wealthiest in the world. India’s contribution should be decided with reference to the relative wealth of India and England, to the fact that India, supplies a great training ground for the British part of the Indian army. That a contribution should be made by the Imperial Exchequer towards the cost of fortifications which have been erected on the frontier, or to defend the ports of India against attack by great European powers, and that England should bear a share of the cost of Aden, which is practically an Imperial fortress. That this is not to be regarded as a matter of generosity, but of justice and legality.”

Lord Northbrook on Wars Outside India.

14,108. “Have you paid any attention to the arrangements made for the payment of troops lent by India for service outside the country?” “Yes, I have had occasion to give considerable attention to this matter.”

14,109. “Do you think that fair treatment has been given to India in the apportionment of these charges?” “I think India has been hardly treated.”

14,110. “Could you go through the various cases and give us your reasons?” “The cases will be found in Sir Henry Waterfield’s Memorandum in the Appendix, page 364. . . .”

14,119. “Do you remember the ground upon which the Government decided that India had an interest in the Abyssinian Expedition?” “No, I should like to see it—I never heard of it. I believe a protest was made at the time.”

14,120. “I am speaking from memory. Was it not put forward that the Government of India was concerned, because Abyssinia, being within the purview of India, you may say the prestige of the English name must not be endangered by allowing any official English subjects to be taken prisoner?” “The idea may have been put forward. I do not think any impartial person would have paid the slightest attention to it.”

14,121—Mr. Courtney—“I remember a French critic arguing at the time that the war was for the purpose of discovering a sanatorium for English troops?” “That would be a better reason than the one adduced as regards prestige. Then I come to the next case,—the Perak Expedition. I cannot conceive any one doubting that India has been hardly treated. An expedition beyond the frontier of India, and for which, to apply any portion of the Indian revenue, it is by statute necessary to address the Crown from both Houses of Parliament. I was Governor General at the time, and protested at this charge being put upon India. No notice was taken of the protest, made by the Government of India, and not even were the statutory addresses from both Houses moved, so the law was broken, and the charge made upon India has never been repaid.”

14,124. “Have you mentioned the Egyptian operation of 1882?” “That is the next case. There was no doubt that as regards keeping the Suez Canal open, India had a substantial interest. The question was, what interest? It was intended that India should pay the whole cost of the expedition that was sent. The English Government was put to considerable cost, and we thought India would be put to small cost, so might fairly pay the cost of troops sent to Suez. The operations became very extended and the expedition from India became a large one. The whole cost was 1,700,000 pounds. India paid 1,200,000 pounds and England 500,000. The Government of India thought it had been hardly treated, and looking at it now, I must say it would have been better if we had charged India half.”

14,127—Soudan War—“Would you consider, under the original plan, India was sufficiently interested in the expedition to justify her being called on to contribute?” “No, certainly not. I do not think there was a substantial interest of India in any expedition to the Soudan. By statute, the Indian revenues are not to be used except after addresses from both Houses of Parliament; in my opinion, the continued employment of the Indian troops at Suakim as a garrison was not covered by the address. As to the force sent to Suakim last year, certainly India should not have been charged.”

14,166. “To sum up what I have put before the Commission, I think if the ordinary charges of the Abyssinian War were 600,000 pounds, India has a fair and equitable ground to claim that sum. The whole of the Perak charges ought to be paid. The whole of the garrison charges at Suakim ought to be refunded to India. On equitable grounds, £350,000 ought to be given India for the Egyptian Expedition of 1882,—because India has been inequitably and in some cases, illegally treated during many years, I do not see any reason why that treatment should not be redressed by some action at the present time.”

We will conclude this chapter with a few instances, illustrating further India’s contribution to the making of the British Empire:

The First Treaty with Persia.

The first British embassy to Persia was sent from India at the expense of the Indian exchequer. “The Embassy,” to use the words of the negotiator, “was in a style of splendour corresponding to the character of the monarch and the manners of the nation, to whom it was sent; and to the wealth and power of that state from which it proceeded.”

Commenting on the above quotation, Mill remarks:

“A language, this, which may be commonly interpreted, lavishly, or, which amounts to the same thing, criminally expensive.”

The negotiator continues: “It was completely successful in all its objects. The King of Persia was not only induced by the British envoy to renew his attack upon Khurassan, which had the effect of withdrawing Zamanshah from his designs upon India; but entered into treaties of political and commercial alliance with the British Government.”[^21]

For the terms of the treaty, we quote again the language of Mill:

“It was stipulated that the King of Persia should lay waste, with a great army, the country of the Afghans, if ever they should proceed to the invasion of India, and conclude no peace without engagements binding them to abstain from all aggressions upon the English: that should any army belonging to the French, attempt to form a settlement on any of the islands or shores of Persia, a force should be employed by the two contracting states to co-operate for their extirpation,— and if any individuals of the French nation should request permission to reside in Persia, it should not be granted. In the Furman, annexed to the treaty, and addressed to the governors and officers in the Persian Provinces, it was said: ‘Should any person of the French nation attempt to pass our ports or boundaries, or desire to establish themselves either on the shore or frontiers, you are to take means to expel or extirpate them, and never to allow them to obtain a footing in any place, and you are at full liberty, and authorised, to disgrace or slay them.’ Though the atrocious part of this order was no doubt the pure offspring of Persian ferocity, yet a Briton may justly feel shame that the ruling men of his nation, a century ago, could contemplate with pleasure so barbarous and inhuman a mandate, or endure to have thought themselves, except in the very last necessity, its procuring cause.”

“The Embassy proceeded from Bombay on December 29, 1799. ‘These treaties,’ says Malcolm, ‘while they excluded the French from Persia, gave the English every benefit they could desire from the connection.’”

It appears, from Wilson’s “History of India” that the East India Company had been maintaining a Resident at Bagdad for many years before the English Government resolved to send an ambassador to the Persian Court. The allowances of “His Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Sir Hartford Jones, and the cost of the mission” were defrayed by the Company, and the Envoy was to act under instructions from the Governor-General in India. The latter had meanwhile sent his own representative in the person of Sir John Malcolm, and protested against the English Government sending their own ambassador to the Court of Persia, but his protests were unheeded, and upon this precedent, ambassadors to Persia were from that time forward sent directly from the Court of St. James.

In 1819, expeditions were sent from Bombay for the subjugation of certain Arab tribes. A political station had been maintained for a time at Kishme Mocha, where an officer was employed by the Company to superintend the affairs of its subjects. This station was bombarded in 1879, and the Chief taken prisoner.

In 1828, the Indian Government paid to the Shah of Persia two hundred thousand Tomans as an equivalent for the final abrogation of the Treaty of Teheran.

Other Nations of Asia. In Chapter VI., Book 1 of his “History of India,” Wilson speaks of Lord Minto being “busily and anxiously engaged in asserting the ascendency of the British Empire in India over the other nations of Asia.” The cost of every expedition into the Persian Gulf, whether against the Persians, the Arabs or the Afghans, was of course, defrayed by the Indian Revenues. We are told besides, that “the attention of Lord Minto was earnestly fixed upon objects of European as well as Indian interest, arising out of the war which raged in the Western hemisphere.” As a result of that interest, an expedition was sent from India, at the cost of India, to reduce the Portuguese possession of Macao in Chinese territory. The expedition failed, owing to the refusal of the Chinese to permit the British to occupy Macao, but this failure was “more than redeemed by the success which attended the employment of the resources o fBritish India in the furtherance of objects of greater importance to the nation.”

Isle of France. It was reserved for Lord Minto’s administration to effect the extirpation of the remains of French colonial possessions in the Eastern hemisphere, “that had so long been suffered to inflict humiliation and injury upon the subjects” of Great Britain. It was this motive and this excuse which actuated Lord Minto to attempt the conquest of the Isles of France and of Java. The expedition was successful, and though the Isle of Bourbon was subsequently restored to France when peace in Europe was declared, the Isle of France, or the Mauritius, is still subject to Great Britain as one of her Crown Colonies, quite apart from India.

The Muluccas. The Muluccas, Batavia, and other Dutch possessions, including Java, were also captured at this time by Indian expeditions sent out by Lord Minto. Under the Treaty of 1844 the Dutch possessions were restored to Holland.

Ceylon. In 1796, Ceylon was taken from the Dutch, as being identified with the Republic of France, by an expedition fitted out from Madras. For a short time it was subject to the government of Fort St. George, but in 1798 was annexed as a Crown Colony of the British Government.

Eastern Archipelago; Straits of Malacca and Singapore. According to the terms of the treaty of 1814, made with the Dutch, the latter’s settlements in the East were restored to them, but “no provision was made for the continued observance of those compacts which had been formed by the English while occupying Java, with the independent Native States.” The Dutch consequently did as they pleased with the latter, and “extended their chains of supremacy over all the native princes, whom it was their interest to control — an invariable article of their engagements being the exclusion of all other European ships from their ports.” This policy excited the resolve of the British Government to strengthen and preserve its own connection in the Archipelago so as to preserve the free passage of the Straits of Malacca, the other great thoroughfare to the China Sea. The Governor of Bencoolen was accordingly appointed “Agent to the Governor-General of India, in charge of British interests” to the eastward of the Straits, and in “anticipation of the sanction of the British Government,” Singapore, the key to all maritime activities in the China Sea, was occupied.

Siam and Cochin-China. In November of the year 1821, the British-Indian Government sent a mission to Bangkok, capital of Siam, to open commercial intercourse with that country and Cochin-China. Failing to obtain its designs in Siam, the mission proceeded to Cochin-China and there obtained permission from the King of that country to trade in the principal ports on the same terms conceded to the Chinese.

Burmah. The first war with Burmah occurred in 1824, was conducted with Indian troops, and paid for from the Indian exchequer. It resulted in the annexation of Arakan, Tenaserim and other parts of Burmah to the British Dominions.

Malacca. In 1831, a revolt in Malacca was put down by an expedition of Indian troops sent there, resulting in the annexation of Nauring to Malacca.

The China Consular Representatives. The East India Company bore the whole expense of diplomatic intercourse with China as long as it enjoyed the monopoly of British trade with that country. The Company made the profit and the Indian people paid the expenses. The monopoly ceased in 1834, and thenceforth it was decided that Great Britain should pay two-thirds, India one-third of the cost of the superintendents of trade who were to represent diplomatic interests in China. In 1876, the arrangement was revised, and India paid a fixed contribution of £15,000 a year, reduced in 1891 to £12,500. This was put upon the ground of the opium trade with China, which has now been discontinued.

Aden. India bears the whole charge, civil and military, for Aden, which is not an Indian port but an Imperial dependency, from which the rest of the Empire, including Australia, derive more benefit than India.

The Zanzibar and Mauritius Cable. The Government of India pays one-half the subsidy for this cable, although Sir David Barbour, the Finance Minister at the time, objected to incurring this expenditure, because in his opinion, “the duty of protecting commerce on the high seas should devolve upon England.”

The Red Sea Telegraph. India contributed one-half the £36,000 annuity which was payable until 1908 for this useless cable.

In conclusion, we cite the words of Mr. Thorburn, page 350 of his book, “The Punjab in Peace and War”:

“The Government of India in their foreign proceedings are irresponsible and in pursuit of the chimera of high politics, sometimes a mere mount for vaulting ambitions, they plunge lightheartedly into adventures and wars which may benefit a few individuals, but injure the people of India collectively. When things go wrong in India, hardly a voice is raised against the wrong-doers; officers may not speak, the press has little information, and if it had more, is timid, the line between treason and criticism being finely drawn; and as for the masses—their horizon is the evening meal, and the next instalment of the revenue demand.

“We give the following instances:

1. Lord Lytton’s Afghan Wars—‘India bleeds silently.’
2. In 1890, our wars of pinpricks cost six or seven million pounds sterling. Once more, ‘India bleeds silently.’
3. An agent trails his coat in Chitral, a war follows, India pays and the agent is knighted and promoted.
4. The events of August 23, 1897, take place beyond the Khyber Pass, a serious war follows. Once more, India bleeds,—this time, happily, not quite in silence.”