One province, for
instance, has a native ruler with whom England has nothing
whatever to do except that, by right of treaty, she sends a
political agent to his court, supported in some cases, and in
others not, by a certain number of soldiers. This Resident is
expected to confer with and advise the Rajah, and keep him and his
officials from outrageous courses. Especially are they prevented
from warring upon neighboring States. In extreme cases, when
counsel and remonstrance avail not, the government has had either
to depose the ruling Rajah and substitute another, as in the
recent affair of the Rajah of Baroda, or to confiscate the
province and merge it in the Empire, as in the case of the King of
Oude. But what must be borne in mind is that no two native rulers
govern alike. Laws and customs prevailing in one province are
unknown in another. Land is held by one tenure in one place, and
by an entirely different system in another. India is therefore not
one nation, but a vast conglomeration of different races and
principalities, each independent of the other, differing as much
as France does from Germany, and much more than England does from
America. Add to this the fact that the people of any one district
are not a homogeneous community, but subdivided into distinct
castes, which refuse to intermarry or even to eat with one
another, and a faint idea of the magnitude of the Indian question
will begin to dawn upon one.
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