avi) ON CONTACT WITH INFERIOR RACES, 673

into contact with the white race. It is clear that they 1857.
not have been inspired with either love or respect by Zr. 53.
Wha they have seen of the English. There must be a fierce
Spirit, of resentment, not unmixed with contempt for the
fling clas, pervading the native mind. From the moment
that T had satisfied myself that a feeling of alienation was
“onstantly increasing with both the natives and the English
(We had “some striking evidence to this effect before our
Committee in 1853), I made up my mind that it must end
0 trouble sooner or later. It is impossible that a people
Tan Permanently be used for their own obvious and conscious
degradation. The entire scheme of our Indian rule is based
pon the assumption that the natives will be the willing
struments of their own humiliation. Nay, so confident are
We in thig faith, that we offer them the light of Christianity
nd a freg press, and still believe that they will not have
wit enough to measure their rights by our own standar,

“Chance has thrown me in the society of some ladies who
have lately returned from India, where they were accusfomed
 to barrack life, their husbands being officers in native
"iments, I find the common epithet applied to our fellow-“whiecty
 in Hindostan is nigger. One of these ladies took
“ome credit for her condescension in allowing a native officer,
"Wswering to the rank of a subaltern, to sit down in her pre-%uce
 when he came for orders to her husband. All this
Wight have been borne, though with difficulty, if the
English with whom the natives came in contact displayed
®Xalted virtues and high intellectual powers. But I fear the
traits most conspicuous in our countrymen have been of a
very different character. A low morale and an absence of
"ental energy have been the most conspicuous faults of the
British, officers, and the business of the regiments has more
"nd more fallen into the hands of the natives. What is now
TY