But it may be said that matters could be so arranged that civilians who were Indians were not posted to troublesome or frontier districts, or that they were given judicial and not executive appointments. They make, it is said, good judges. Why keep them out of duties they do well?
But have those who advocate this ever considered what it would mean? It would be the creation of a class within a class. The civilian who was an Indian would be differentiated from the English civilians; he would be ear-marked as "not for executive duties." Is that a possibility, and if it were, would not this differentiation be worse than entirely excluding them? Thecorps d'élitewould still remain English and the grievance be where it is.
Let us look facts in the face. The Civil Service of India is a peculiarly English service; it is efficient exactly in so far as it is English; when Indians enter it they must be inefficient more or less. Not only are they not good for the service, but the service is not good for them. They would be better and happier out of it, and they feel that themselves. They have gained their ambition and regret it all their lives. I have known several Indians who were civilians and all were unhappy. One was very much so. This is his story. It all happened a long time ago now, not in Burma, and I do not think any susceptibilities can be hurt by recalling it.
He was a Madrassi of the race and caste of Chettis, not the money-lending Chettis, but another branch who always seek Government service. His people were well off and he was sent to England to school; then to Wren's to study for the Civil Service, into which he passed high up, and after two years at Oxford he came to Madras and was posted to a district on the west coast. He was a nice fellow, clever, agreeable, and most people liked him. In England he had been given access to good society, and no difference had been made between him and his English fellow-students. He expected it would be the same in India. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service and would be accepted as such.
He was not. The first thing that happened was that the Club refused to admit him as a member. Now to the home-staying Englishman this may seem a small matter. It is no essential in England to a man's efficiency, or even to his happiness, that he be member of a social club. It can make no real difference to his career.
In India it is different. The Club in a country station is the centre of everything. Practically every European belongs to it. He does not go occasionally, but every day. At five o'clock, when Courts and offices close, there is a general resort to the Club, for golf, tennis, cards, billiards. Most clubs have a women's wing as well, so that the whole of society is centred in the Club. It is there that matters are arranged and informally discussed. Work is done at Court, but the preliminaries of work are often arranged at the Club; or, if not, the annoyances of work are there removed. You forget over a drink and a cigar what happened between you at Court. Women, too, use their influence at the Club, and women's influence is never negligible. The Club is the real heart of the station's life, and if a man do not belong to it he is outside the organism, so to speak. I am quite sure that no senior officer would do his work if he were outside the Club, and even a junior officer would find it difficult.
Every effort was made to elect Chetty to the Club. The other officials stood by him loyally, but it was no use. The unofficial Englishmen refused to allow an Indian to be a member of the Club. Now it is no use characterising such exclusiveness as wrong, or mischievous, or narrow, and saying it should not exist. It does exist. It always will exist. It is very strong, and it is based on instincts that are good in themselves and cannot be ignored. Club life is only possible to people of one nationality. You cannot mix in a Club. In Rangoon do not the Germans have their own club?
The unofficials threatened if Chetty were proposed to overwhelm him with black-balls, and so his name had to be withdrawn. I may say I do not think his nominal admission as a member would have made much difference. Merely allowing a man to enter a club does not admit him to the intimacy of the Club, and that alone counts. However, Chetty was refused admittance at all.
There were, of course, other troubles. An Indian who has entered the Civil Service is really in an impossible position. Socially he belongs to no world. He has left his own and cannot enter the other. And you cannot divorce social life from official life. They are not two things, but one. In the end Chetty shot himself. It was a sad end for a man gifted and likeable.
And although such an end was unusual, the causes which led to it are universal. I have known several civilians who were Indians, and, as I said before, I think they were all unhappy. They felt that fate had put them in an impossible position. If they married their fellow-country-women they by this act divorced themselves still further from European society; if they married an Englishwoman they did no better; the other Englishwomen would not receive her, and inherent differences of civilisation rendered married life difficult. I think that if individuals realised what their ambition would lead to they would choose any other walk in life than to enter an alien service. Their ideals are wrong. It is no true ideal for an Indian or Burmese to wish to be an Englishman. Fate has allotted to him a different field of usefulness quite as great in its way. An Indian gentleman may be quite as true a gentleman as an English gentleman and be not in the least like him. By blind imitation they attempt to attain virtues not inherent in them, and they ignore other virtues which are inherent and necessary to the world. They seek after impossibilities and so negative the achievement of possibilities. They deny their own natures.
It may be that this desire of Indians to enter the Civil Service has arisen from the desire to begin local self-government—a proper ambition. But the end cannot be attained in this way. Like all other edifices, local self-government is built up from below. It is built on its own foundation. You cannot begin replacing an edifice by removing the top or middle stones and replacing them with others. Self-government is not to be attained by gradually altering the roof.
Therefore the claim that they would influence Government is untenable. Government must do its work in its own way, and that is the English way. No Indian can tell what this is.
The further claim that it would satisfy the people is equally untenable. To put a native of one part of India over natives of another part of India would not please them; it would exasperate them. And even to put an official over his own people would not please those under him, though it might please his class. This is a well-known fact; and if you look below the surface it is not difficult to see the reasons. The Government is English; a native official is not English. The people have no confidence in him for that reason. They know that he is not in intimate touch with Government. In the innumerable acts of official life which are not bound by rigid rules he is very likely to be wrong. When an English official says a thing they know he speaks with authority because his mind is one with that of Government; not so with a native official. They know it and he knows it, and he knows they know it. That makes matters difficult to begin with. Moreover, they are jealous of him. When all high officials are English, natives are all together; put a native in as an official, and to the general native mind he is rather like a traitor. They have lost him and gained nothing. They are not proud of him but angry with him. He is as they are—why then should he have this power over them? It is not a power delegated by themselves but by an alien Government. This is quite a simple fact in psychology and shows itself everywhere. Does a "ranker," unless under exceptional circumstances and an exceptional personality, hold the same authority over his former equals as a class officer does? And there the difference is slight. I am sure that no greater cause for discontent among the people could be found than by having Indians as civilians.
And last but not the least, there is the domiciled European population to be considered. What effect would it have on them if a large number of Indians were admitted to the administration? The answer is quite simple and was effectually given during the agitation over the Ilbert Bill in 1885—they would not stand it.
They are not too pleased with the present state of affairs, with the great power that lies in one man's hand, that of the head of the district. They chafe at it and are continually feeling and resenting its imperfections and limitations. They only submit to it because they see no way out of it and because he is English. Were he to be often an Indian they would resent it and make their resentment felt. They would lose the feeling of security they now have and they would not submit to this; they would make government impossible. To those who doubt their power to do this I would recommend a study of the agitation against the Ilbert Bill, more especially in its latest stages. It is no longer secret history that a disaster unequalled in Indian history was only saved at the last minute by the surrender of Government.
And the feelings which caused this are as vital now as then. It may be taken as an axiom that whatever Government might decree, the great British mercantile and other interests in India would refuse to allow any appreciable transfer of authority to the hands of Indians, and in face of their opposition it could not be done. That an Indian should rule Indians they would not mind perhaps, but that an Indian should rule Europeans, and that it should be to an Indian they looked for the maintenance of peace and order and for the administration of justice, criminal and civil, is unthinkable. The stability of the administration is due to its being English, and any threat to that stability would not be borne.
Besides, to what would it lead? Suppose, by a wild stretch of the imagination, all the Civil Service in India could be composed of Indians, what then? That is not self-government. The orders would still come from Downing Street, the responsibility rest with Parliament and the English people. The Government would not and could not so be Indianised; all that would have happened would be that a few hundred Indian gentlemen had been imperfectly Anglicised. Is that an ideal? Where would the three hundred and fifty million come in? No more than they do now. But in any self-government worth the name these people must come in; they must be the base on which the self-government is erected.
Government does not see its way. It must do something, and it has no idea what to do. A wise statesmanship would hold its hand till it saw clearly. But there is the danger that a hasty statesmanship may in despair do something for the mere sake of saying it is not standing still.
There is a way out of the present trouble, but I think it can be seen clearly enough that admitting Indians to the Civil Service is not that way. It might, in fact, be a very serious obstacle to following the right course.
India is lost, and will be regained by no such measures as those proposed. They will only deepen the gulf and accelerate the final rupture.
India may be regained. How could that be done?
The first point is thepersonnelof the Indian Civil Service, which holds all important offices in India, forms the Government, and fills most of the places on the Indian Council at home.
It depends, as I have said, for its success not upon the ability, but on the personality of its members. India was achieved by personality and successfully governed by personality. It is personality alone that humanises rule and makes it tolerable, that stands between the people and rigid law, and can create that sentiment which alone binds ruler and ruled together.
How can that necessary personality be restored to it?
That this lack of personality does not affect only the Indian Civil Service is a matter of notoriety. It is exactly what our generals deplored after the Boer War—that the ordinary officer had no personality. It is a matter of common remark nowadays how exactly alike all the young men are, echoing sentiments that are not theirs. It is what the Germans say of us and the Americans, who especially admire and try to cultivate personality. We once stood before the world as a nation of personalities. We do so no longer.
To what is this due? Not to natural deficiency, because all children abound in personality. It is due to what is called "education." That too is no new discovery of mine, but a matter of common knowledge and publicity. Read, for instance, Harold Gorst'sThe Curse of Education. In Paine'sLife of Mark Twain, systematic training is called "a blight." Neither is it a new thing. The Duke of Wellington said Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton—not in the schools, be it noted. Yet in those days education was nothing like so rigid as it is now. Then take the notable Englishmen of the last fifty years; how few have been University men—many not public school men. Cobden and Bright, Chamberlain, Beaconsfield, Dickens and Kipling, Stanley, Captain Scott, and other pioneers of Empire, Huxley and Kelvin, all the great captains of industry. The two most prominent members of the Government to-day are not University men. Even where notable men were University men they did not attain their stature till they had thrown off its bonds. Gladstone was, for instance, the hope of the stern, unbending Tories till he had achieved his liberty, when he could think for himself. Yet even then he only achieved political, and never spiritual, freedom. Cecil Rhodes said that University dons were as children in some matters; meaning, however, ignorant and not ready to learn, which is not a child's attitude.
Therefore the fault lies with the "education."
What is Education?
There are two things that go to the proper upbringing of a child, and though they overlap in places they are distinct and even sometimes contradictory; one is Instruction, and the other is Education.
Reading and writing, arithmetic, and all information obtained from books or lectures or teachers is instruction; the bringing out of the powers of the child's own mind is education. The object of instruction is to enable the child to better his education. In itself it has no value. The mere acquirements of reading and writing—the mere accumulation of book knowledge—are in themselves worthless. "The learned fool is the biggest fool." They are only good insomuch as they help education.
What is education? It is the drawing out of a child's mind so that it can see life as it is, not a mere mass of phenomena, but a consequence of underlying causes; it is the exercising of his faculties of right judgment to meet events as they arise; it is an ability to gauge himself and others. Education is the cultivation of personality. It is to the child what careful gardening is to the tree—a help to growth so that it can develop its potentiality. The gardener helps each tree to put forth that essential quality of its own that differentiates it from all other trees and makes it a thing of use and beauty to the world. It is not a reduction to a common type or the standardisation of growth, because while the tree must harmonise with the rest of the garden it must have an individuality of its own.
That is education, and that alone is education. Instruction is simply providing the necessary food for growth, or giving the necessary weapons or implements to obtain that food. All instruction that does not directly tend to nourish personality is worse than waste—it occupies nerve and energy that are wanted for better things.
This is simple enough, yet the world is full of fallacies on the subject. Here is one from a well-known writer: "How can you draw out of a child a love for clean collars, Greek accents, the date of Bannockburn, or how to eat asparagus."
Well, you can only draw out a child's love for these things by helping him to see that the acquisition of them is a step towards a result the child desires to reach. Now Greek accents are only useful to a child who wishes to become a Greek tutor, and the date of Bannockburn is useful to no one because it can always be looked up if necessary; therefore no children have a taste for the latter, and not one in a thousand for the former. They are not education at all, and even as instruction they are worthless. A love of clean collars and how to eat asparagus can be drawn out of children by simply making them realise that unless they have their love for these things they will expose themselves to ridicule or contempt for no good purpose. For be it noted that until you do awaken this self-respect you will not get a child to put on clean collars enthusiastically, or be careful about asparagus. Instruction in such matters is useless—you must have education.
The man or woman properly educated will desire the right things, and will seek the right way of attaining these things. His actions will spring from a real living force within him. But if you teach him to do things because he is told or because it is the custom, you injure his personality; and as there is no driving force in a law or a custom, which are bonds, you confine him, whereas you should free him. It is an admission that he must not or cannot think for himself, but must blindly follow custom. It is true that he must, not only in boyhood but all through his life, yield obedience in act to persons, governments, or rules; but he must not do so blindly. It is a principal part of education to make the boy see for himself that such subordination of act is necessary to the progress of the world, because as individuals we can accomplish no great thing; then he will do it willingly, knowing its necessity. But it is equally necessary that the boy never subordinate his judgment to others, because any rule made absolute is death to progress, and there is no authority, nor rule, nor convention that should not be broken sometimes; and as time goes on all must be modified, changed, and relaxed; the ideal of education being that all authority will become unnecessary, as people will desire what is right, and do itproprio moto. The truth will have made them free.
Now seeing this difference, how much education is there in school or college? In the classrooms there is none. All that is given in classes is instruction, which may be useful or detrimental inasmuch as it helps personality or not. Usually it is detrimental, because it substitutes "authority" for insight. The child must accept something, not because he is helped to see that it is true, but because "somebody says so." Thus his personality is destroyed.
The only education he gets is in the playing-fields. There he learns to keep his temper, play the game, and co-operate, of his volition, with others to a desired end.
That is a valuable training, but it does not go very far. He is never taught to see life as it is for himself. On the contrary, he is forbidden to do so.
And this continues now till the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, so that by the time it is over the most receptive period of life is past. Bacon went to the University at thirteen, and left it at sixteen as he found it had no more to teach him.
Further, until some thirty or forty years ago a father considered that he owed some duty to his son—to help him, to lead him, to initiate him into life.
No one can do this but a father. No one can understand his son like a father and know what it is necessary for him to learn; to no one will the son listen, or confide in, as his father. But nowadays I notice that fathers have abdicated. They consider their duty fulfilled if they pay for the boy's schooling, and everything is left to the schoolmaster. Many fathers that I know are quite stranger to their sons. Mothers, on the contrary, strive more and more to obtain influence over their sons and bring them up in the principles of women. But a man must be a man or be nothing.
There is another and very considerable difference between schools now and the schools of sixty years ago and before. In the earlier period the schoolmasters were rarely clergymen; now they are practically always so; and not only that, but boys nowadays are far more under control and influence of their masters than they were.
Now whatever good points may be claimed for Church teaching by those who believe in it, there will, I think, be no difficulty about the admission that the frame of mind, the outlook on the world, of ecclesiastics is not suitable for men who have to lead an active life. It is, in fact, the very reverse of what a man requires whose first duty it is to understand the world and to lead the world. For to the ecclesiastic the world is a bad place, it has to be borne as best it can, to be condemned not understood, and all effort is directed not to this world but to some other. Moreover, the habit of thought of ecclesiastics is fixed. They believe that not only is truth absolute, but that they possess it or some of it; the very foundation-rock of their belief is authority, and freedom of thought is disliked by them as subversive of their tenets. Their principal qualities are those of submission, patience and obedience, not merely in act but in thought.
Now boys are apt to imitate their masters, and however secular a course of education may be, if it be given by ecclesiastics the boys are certain to be a great deal influenced by their master's outlook on life. That accounts for much of the pessimism that is observable, for the "unnatural mildness" of the modern young man. If you keep a boy under ecclesiastical habits of thought till he is twenty-three, how can he ever escape into the fresh air of free inquiry? How will he ever love the world instead of despising it? And no good work was ever done except by men who loved the world; and love comes from understanding, not from aloofness.
A boy's education should be directed from an early age towards the work he is to perform in life. What department of the public service is now held to be the best served? Is it not the Navy? And naval officers are caught young and trainedad hoc; not a narrow professional training, but none the less a training with an object. The present training of Indian civilians up till twenty-three is objectless, and therefore inefficient. That in the Army the special training is begun much later may account for the complaints of army officers wanting personality compared with naval officers.
With engineers and all specialised work the training begins young.
But the Indian civilian is ecclesiastically trained till he is twenty-three. Then he has to learn his work. Could there be a greater absurdity?
What then should be done?
In the first place he should be caught young. The work of the Indian civilian is as important to England as that of the sailor; it is even more specialised and difficult. He should be trained for it from fourteen or thereabouts, not from twenty-three.
It should be determined what special qualities are necessary for a good Indian civilian. I think some of them are obvious enough.
A good physique and a liking for sport.
Good manners and a knowledge of etiquette.
Discipline in act.
Freedom and courage in thought.
Knowledge of life and humanity as they are round him.
Let us consider these.
That physical fitness is the first necessity all will allow. The climate is severe and takes a great deal out of him, especially in the hot weather; there must be exposure in the districts; the work is hard and difficult, and makes great demands upon the physique. Therefore the physique must be good.
And a medical certificate of soundness is no guarantee of this. A man may be medically quite sound and yet so prostrated by the heat as to find his temper and his work affected. His physique lies at the base of all his work, and must be good. Nothing is now done to secure this; no investigation has ever been made as to the type that endures heat the best. Yet undoubtedly there is such a type. In that extraordinary book,A Modern Legionary, it is pointed out that in Tonquin, amongst the men of the Legion, a certain type stood the climate better than the others. Whenever any special service had to be performed it was men of a certain sanguine type that were chosen. Not that they were physically stronger or braver than the others, but because even in the greatest heat they retained a certain buoyancy of temperament which the darker types lost.
I have myself noticed something of the sort in Burma and India. Of course mere personal observation of this sort proves nothing, but the subject seems to deserve investigation. That all people do not bear heat and cold alike is undoubted. In the Russian campaign of 1812 it was the Italians who stood the cold best of all Napoleon's troops.
Anyhow, the cadet should have not merely a sound physique but a buoyant physique, and that cannot be ensured under the present system.
Then he should be made a good sportsman; for the Indian civilian no training is more necessary than this. I do not mean only a cricketer or football player; neither of these games is of much use out in the East. I mean a rider who is also fond of horses; a shot who is also interested in birds and animals.
There is in all sportsmen of this kind a quality which no one else has. I cannot define it. It comes, I think, from association with people out of his own rank in one pursuit, from having to go to them for knowledge he has not got himself and thereby recognising their value, from a subtle sympathy with nature as not apart from man, nor a setting for man, but another manifestation of the same Life that is in man. Nothing is more valuable in enabling a District Officer to keep his mind sweet. Official work is all concerned with the faults and shortcomings of others, wherein you are judge and they are culprits. Official work divides; it insensibly leads you to believe that all men are liars and robbers, and are trying to deceive you. Throw it aside, and go out to shoot, stopping in the villages talking of sport and village affairs, and the whole aspect of life changes. You wash off your priggishness; you cease to imagine yourself first cousin to the Deity; you return to your humanity, and with the first snipe you miss to your extreme fallibility.
Then there is ability at languages. Now although some men may develop an excess of ability to learn languages, all people have that ability to a certain extent when young or they could not learn their own language.
But it is an ability that quickly departs unless kept alive. The way Greek and Latin are taught is a sure way to destroy any ability for learning a language a boy may retain. Grammar should never be taught. No child learns its own language by grammar, and, in fact, grammar only applies to dead languages, not to living. That has to some extent dawned on modern educators, but I see that French grammar and regular and irregular verbs are taught to those learning French. Did Loti and Maupassant learn French grammar? I wonder. If not, why should anyone else? But schoolmasters are a hard lot, and there is no one who so absolutely refuses to learn as he who makes a profession of teaching. Why should not Hindustani be made the school language for Indian cadets?
Then come good manners. I do not mean only good English manners—those manners which enable you to pass in a meeting of cultivated English men and women—but much better manners than those. They are concerned with your conduct to your equals; but the only good manners that will be of much use to you in the East are those deeper manners which are equal to all occasions and can show an equal courtesy to a ploughman as to a peer, to an old Subadar hero of a hundred fights, to a headman and to a coolie. Some of it is, of course, convention and must be learned, like the right thing to do when an old soldier offers you the hilt of his sword, or a Burman lady brings you some fruit; but most of it, I think, simply comes from a frame of mind. If you recognise that the common humanity that binds you is eternal and that the difference of rank or race or age is a temporary difference that will pass, I do not think you will quite want for good manners. Orientals are particular about manners, and they do not respect a man who has none, or who has his own and not theirs.
Discipline in act is, I think, enough taught now, but freedom of thought is woefully to seek. It is banned by theology, and ecclesiastics naturally do not teach it.
As to knowledge of life, that can only come in the living. But it will not come unless you find the world worth studying and your own life worth living. If this world is bad, then it is not worth study, and if the only object of your life here is to fit you or unfit you for life in some spirit world, then you will not care much to fit yourself for this world.
Finally, it would appear too as if civilians should go out to India much younger than they do now. Twenty-three is far too old to begin a totally new life. For it must be remembered that life in India is a totally new life to which men have to get accustomed. No matter how you are trained in England, nothing will enable you to know India but being in India. The real education cannot begin until the student lands in the country in which he is to do his life's work. Everything he may learn at home is preliminary only. Language, people, work have all to be learned after arriving. However good the material provided may be, it is, when it lands, simply so much raw material. It has to learn everything. I do not think the age of twenty is at all too young to begin such a training; in fact I think nineteen would be better.
But we are now come to what should be done after arrival in India, and that will require a new chapter.
Having got the young civilian out to his province he should be thoroughly trained before being put to work, not given six or nine months to look round and then put to do work he cannot understand.
If he came out to India at twenty, he could well afford eighteen months or two years of real training.
During the cold weather he should be with some District Officer, accompanying him in camp, observing how he works, getting an insight into the mechanism of Government; during the hot weather he should be in the hills. By thus keeping him out of the great heat at the beginning he would become slowly acclimatised. Now he is plunged straight out from England into the Indian plains.
As to the training he should receive, that is not very difficult to suggest. First and foremost comes the language, of which a good colloquial knowledge should be required. It can only be acquired by talking to the people. A teacher is useful to explain difficulties encountered by a pupil in trying to talk, but no teacher can teach a language. In fact, languages cannot be taught—they can be acquired. The ability of the ear and vocal organs to recognise and reproduce strange sounds comes only with constant practice; and it must be practice with the people, for educated men talk differently from peasants in India as elsewhere. All Acts should be learned by first clearly understanding the principles that underlie them, the object sought to attain, and the method by which it is hoped to attain it. That is the only way to really understand an Act or Code. The detailed knowledge can be filled in later. In order to enable this to be done Government would have to frame introductions to their Codes and Acts. And such introductions would be most valuable not only to learners but to Government itself. Suppose, for instance, an introduction were written to theVillage Manualexplaining exactly what the village organism is and that the Act and Rules were intended to preserve and strengthen this organism; it would be immediately apparent that as they are now they really injure and destroy it. This would lead to a complete recast of theManual—a most necessary work. And so with the other Acts and Rules. Now they are issued in a perfectly naked state that would be almost immodest had they any real life in them. But there is never any intention or life manifest, only dead formulæ. Such introductions would also be most valuable in keeping an Act up to date. A law may fairly fulfil its intention when issued, but as circumstances change it would become obvious that the Act was out of date. If however you don't know the intention of the Act, how are you to judge its relevancy?
Further, such introductions would prevent the abuse of certain sections. Did, for instance, the Government of India intend sections 109, 110, of the Criminal Procedure Code to be used as they are in Burma now? I doubt it. But Burma can always say: "How was I to know the intention? There are the sections. Why shouldn't I use them as I think fit?"
How would the imprisonment sections of the Civil Procedure Code be justified? What object are they supposed to attain? No one knows. It can't be to deter a man from being ruined—that is not necessary; it can't be to make him pay—the distraint sections are for that; it can't be to render him a better citizen—gaols don't do that. What are they for, then? To pander to the creditors' desire for vengeance? It can only be that. I would like to see Government avow it.
Then the young civilian should get an insight into the customs of the people and learn to understand what these customs mean. Nothing is more absurd than the way ceremonies are misinterpreted, not merely by the casual observer, but by what is called "science." A whole theory of "marriage by capture" has been built on ceremonies that are symbolical, not of an absurdity like that, but of certain facts of human nature common to all marriages in all periods all over the world. The Nairs of Malabar have been credited with the most extraordinary forms of polyandry on the strength of ceremonies which were adopted as a protection to deceive the Brahmins. Human nature is, in its essentials, always the same. If the learner is helped to look under ceremonies he will see this. A knowledge of ceremonies has its value, like a knowledge of clothes has; but as clothes are used for good reasons—sometimes to hide the form, sometimes to accentuate parts of the form—so are ceremonies. And ceremonies may and do persist long after the human need has left them.
Further, he should know something of the economic state of the people. I think that a District Officer should be acquainted with the principal industries of his district, so as to be able to give help if need be. Generally speaking, the help he can give is protection from rash innovations. The cultivator neither in India nor in Burma is blind to his own interest, nor is he ignorant. He has behind him an experience of thousands of years, which have taught him a great deal about the capability of crops and soils. But he is quite willing to learn more, only he must make sure first. He cannot afford to experiment. His system will give him a living, and a change may mean starvation. He cannot run the risk. Prove to him that a new crop will grow and will fetch a decent price, and he is eager to cultivate it; but nothing less than ocular proof will do. That is, of course, right. He has common sense.
Unfortunately, not everyone has so much sense, and there are continual attempts being made to get him to make experiments he cannot afford. He should be protected against these. I can remember two such attempted booms in Upper Burma, both engineered by Government—one was cotton, and one was coffee or tea planting.
The cotton boom was very rigorously pressed upon us from England because I believe someone in authority had promised to "take his coat off" to make it succeed. But Burma is not a good cotton country, and the long staple will not grow. Moreover, if it could be grown with irrigation it would not pay nearly so well as rice. Therefore the cultivator will have none of it.
Tea and coffee planting is only suitable for capitalists, not for peasants; and as a matter of fact coffee won't grow north of about 12° north latitude. So these booms fizzled out, but they created a good deal of trouble first.
Indeed, most of my experiences were putting dampers on enthusiasts, Government or other, who wanted something grown, and who were ready to affirm that if it would not grow it ought to grow and must be made to grow, and sell afterwards as well. I remember a correspondence I had with a gentleman in Lower Burma on the subject of a fibre-producing plant which is grown in small patches near the villages of my district to serve as string. This gentleman heard of the plant and wrote to me a glowing account of the future before it, strongly urging me to advise my people—nay, to force my people—to grow it in large quantities for export. I wrote back that if he was so interested in the matter he should come up to my district and enter into contracts with the villagers to grow it for him. They would, I knew, do it at a certain price which I gave, and I offered to help him in every way. He, however, indignantly refused. He was not a trader, and the villagers should grow it on speculation. As it happens, I have a considerable knowledge of fibre plants gained before I entered Government service, and as I knew there was no certain market for this fibre I let well alone.
But most of all, I think a young officer should learn that it is not only for the people's pleasure but for his own pleasure and for the good of Government that he should encourage the amusements of the people. Nothing will give him more influence than this, make him better known, or cause his official work to go so easily.
It is a continual complaint among the people now that life is so dull. Our administration has not only taken all the adventure and picturesqueness out of life, but it has been disastrous to sport. Boat-racing, for instance, which used to be a great sport all along the Irrawaddy, is now nearly dead, and amateur dancing troupes which used to be common in the villages are nearly all defunct. I believe they arealldead. Now this is a disastrous state of things. Man wants play as well as work, and if he can't get amusement he will do things he shouldn't. The principal reason given for this decay is that unless some high official will interest himself in sports and give them his encouragement, no one will get them up. Therefore, when I was in Sagaing I instituted a regatta in the October holidays. It was no trouble to me. Directly I said I would like to have races there were plenty of well-known Burmans ready to do all the work with pleasure and enthusiasm.
The riverside villages caught up the idea. They pulled out their old racing canoes and did them up anew. Crews were put into training, and for weeks all the talk was of times and spurts and the merits of this crew and that. Sagaing didn't know itself.
The races duly came off in the glorious full-moon week of October, when all Courts are closed for ten days and everyone has holidays. Many crews came, and their friends and relatives came, and their supporters and backers, and they brought their wives and sisters with them. In the evenings we had boat races, at night we had pagoda festivals and dances and illuminations.
All went well till the final great event, which was a race between our champion boat and a boat sent over from Mandalay to challenge us.
There was immense excitement about this because the Mandalay boat was said to be a swagger boat; but then so was ours, a very swagger boat. Mandalay bet on their boat. Sagaing laid their rupees on the Sagaing boat; and the banks on both sides the mile-wide river were thronged with spectators. Then a catastrophe occurred. Just before the race our steersman was discovered drunk and happy upon the beach. How this happened I don't know. Why the crew ever allowed him to be separated from them I can't think; and his own explanation threw no clear light on the subject. He said in self-defence that the enemy in disguise had lured him into a toddy shop and "must have hocussed the toddy, for I only had a couple of cups, yet see me now," and there was great indignation. Whether in consequence of his defection or not I don't know, but we lost. Mandalay just romped away from us, and not only secured the prize, but was declared to have carried off a "cart-load" of rupees won in bets.
However, notwithstanding that disaster the meeting was a great success, and now, after ten years, that is the principal event I remember of my three years' administration. It stands out in my memory, and I think that probably if the people ever remember me at all it is as the convener of the first regatta for many years.
There was an amusing sequel to this defeat by Mandalay. For months afterwards whenever I had an insolvent case in my Court the debtor attributed his failure to this race. The district was "stony broke" in consequence, at least so the insolvents in my Court said. The conversation would run as follows:
The Judge(myself). Well, I have read your schedule, and you are five hundred rupees out. How is that? Explain.
Debtor. I am a honest man, your Honour, and never in debt before.
Myself. No doubt. How did it happen this time?
Debtor. Well, your Honour will remember that last October your Honour got up boat races here.
Myself. Certainly.
Debtor. And Mandalay sent us a challenge.
Myself. Well?
Debtor. Naturally I believed inourboat. (Note the "our"—his and mine). I was sure it must win, and for our [his and my] credit I wagered all I could get on it.
Myself. Hum!
Debtor. We lost.
Myself. There was always a possibility of that.
Debtor(indignantly). Not with a fair race. But they drugged our steersman. I call it a swindle, but I had to pay, and consequently am now insolvent and in your Honour's hands.
Was there any truth in this? There was no truth, of course. These debtors became insolvent through the action of two or three newly arrived firms of money-lenders. That was clear enough. Possibly they had a rupee or two on the boat race, but that would hardly affect matters. They made this appeal to try to get at me—the man—behind the law in which I was encased. They will do anything to achieve that. Like all human beings they are terrified at law and want to touch humanity, no matter what it does. They can bear from a man what they cannot from a law. This is manifest all through one's official life. People, for instance, will not come to see you in Court, but come to your private house. That is to try to get at the humanity they know you possess. That is what they want—your personality; for it will understand; whereas a law—what can it know of anything?
Then there are the dancing troupes for girls. What other amusements have girls but these troupes? They love them. Many girls have told me that it was the practising for the dances which gave a meaning and an interest to their girlhood. It taught them what lessons could never do—grace and elocution and style. It collected the villagers together; it gave a village something to be proud of. There should be such troupes in all big villages, and when the village system is restored there will be no doubt a renaissance of these and other amusements.
Again, why should not there be village teams of football? The Burmans like the game immensely, and play it well. But of course for village play the rules would have to be greatly simplified. They are too scientific now. It should be a game.
Thus it seems to me a District Officer should be educated to be the head of his district in all ways, not merely its judge or its schoolmaster. His other work must be lightened. Much of the work he does should not be done at all. All interference with the village should cease. If the suggestions I have to make in a later chapter as to self-government were adopted, the District Officer would soon feel the relief. He now seeks for work to do. He should try to avoid work as much as he can. "Don't interfere, except where you must," should be his rule. Now it is the other way about. And Government should regard him quite differently from what it does now. It should trust him, and not law. He must work within law, but not by law. When he has something to decide he should consider what is the right and proper thing to do, and then see if he can legally do it. If not, he must modify his order till it is within law. Now he looks to the law to tell him what to do. That is bad. Laws are bonds, not guides. They cannot give you motive force. They tell you what not to do, and that is all.
He should be trusted far more than he is. He should not be made to "fall into line." He should be judged not by his acts, but by the result of his acts, or his refusals to act, that is, by the state of his district. He should not be transferred when it can be helped, but be encouraged to make long stays in a district. He will do so if you give him a free hand so that he can take a personal interest in his work and people. The secret of success is personality.
I think if the young men sent out were trained on these or some such lines there would soon be a very different feeling between people and Government from what there is now. There would be a mutual understanding and respect which are now lacking.
There is a further suggestion I have to make as regards District Officers, not for their training, but for regulating their relations to the Government above them. They should be consulted prior to all legislation that affects their districts.
It will, of course, be said that they are now so consulted. Drafts of new Acts or amendments of Acts are sent round for comment and criticism, and so District Officers are consulted.
I don't call that consultation; even if it come within the dictionary meaning of the word it does not come within its spirit.
Take a concrete case: Suppose a new Village Act to be drafted and sent round to District Officers for criticism, how can any one officer criticise it effectively, or make useful suggestions, except by chance? His experience is confined to one, or two, or three districts; the Act is for the Province. He may make suggestions to suit his district; he cannot tell if they will suit others. He has no idea why certain provisions are included. He has no certain basis for constructive criticism. Very often he won't criticise at all. He says: "What is the use? It's only sent to me as a matter of form." Besides, as I have pointed out, the opinions of a number of individuals taken one by one differ greatly from the opinion of the same number sitting together and discussing various points of view before framing an opinion.
But what Government wants is the collective opinion of its District Officers, and not many varying views. It would have far more confidence in such an opinion, and be more careful in disregarding it. Why should not District Officers meet once a year to discuss pending questions, to consider new Acts, to suggest changes in old Acts? Their proceedings would, of course, be private, and not for publication. Officers should be encouraged to speak out. It would be a great help to all of them, and I think it would give Government a sense of security it has not got now.
The Indian Civil Service is the principal service in India; it furnishes men for the executive, the magistracy, and judicature, the revenue administration; and its members constitute not only the Local Government, but, excepting for the Law member and one or two others, the Council of the Government of India. Therefore it is in every way the most important service to have in harmony with the people. It is not, however, the only service manned by Englishmen, and it is very necessary that the other services also should be efficient. These are the Forest Department, the Engineer Department, and the Police. Of the first two I have nothing to say. They are technical departments, and although of course I have had a good deal to do with them, only a member of their own department would have the specialist knowledge to criticise them. I believe they are dissatisfied, but how far their grievances can be rectified I don't know.
With the police it is different. Though a separate department, they work in close touch with the District Magistrate, who is, in fact, their legal head. He must be intimately acquainted with their working, and with his Superintendent of Police personally in order that work in the district may go easily.
The first requisite for a good police-officer is a knowledge of the language. It is even more necessary for him than for the civilian. It is an absolute essential. And in the men of my day it was an essential that was fulfilled for the most part. Whether it will be so with the men enlisted under the new system of competitive examination in England is more doubtful. The men of former days entered the service younger, and the receptivity of their minds for acquiring languages had not been destroyed by "education." It is, I think, a pity that a competitive examination has been made the entrance-gate to the police. Such examinations prove nothing good in those who pass them. They may be good men, but preparation for examination has not increased that goodness.
I do not believe in competitive examinations. For instance, take the Indian Police; what qualities are required in a good Superintendent of Police? They are ability to command, facility in two languages at least, tact, a knowledge of human nature. What does an examination select him for? Ability in any of these? No, but for a retentive memory of written words such as Greek or Latin, for dry rules such as grammar, for memory of dry and useless facts such as history as it is taught, for mathematics. Is there any obvious connection between these two sets of qualities? There is none whatever. Has experience shown that ability in the first argues ability in the second? Experience shows the reverse.
Neither is the athletic ability for which marks are given to Rhodes scholars any test whatever of anything but itself. Without wishing for a moment to infer that athletic ability argues a deficiency in mental ability, I would ask how many of the leaders the world has known were great athletes? Nelson, or Lord Roberts, or Napoleon, for instance. Whenever ability of muscle and of brain have occurred together it has been incidental, not causal. Muscular ability is a good thing, but there are better things.
Success in competitive examinations proves one thing only—that the candidate has a good memory for words. It very frequently follows that he is unable to go beneath words, and that he puts his trust in words and papers and formulæ because the habit of mind set up by examinations tends to this.
There is no sense in these examinations for anyone, except perhaps for those about to be tutors of the same things. Men of action and scholars are different in grain and the test for one usually eliminates the other. That there are a few exceptions only demonstrates that human nature cannot be confined within hard and fast rules. But there can be successful generalisation.
Competitive examinations are a fetish which Government worships because it is afraid of taking the responsibility of appointing officers on its own initiative. It is afraid of the charge of nepotism. But it would not be nepotism to give the sons of its officers, Civil and Military, first chance of appointments in the Police. It would be a graceful recognition of the fact that when a man has spent his life in India he has lost touch with England and cannot get his sons placed at home, therefore he deserves consideration for them from the Government he has served. I do not believe in heredity in such matters because there is no evidence in its favour; but I do believe in early associations and traditions. Now the traditions and associations of the sons of officers who have served in India are with India.
I believe that a much sounder way would be to appoint sons of officers who have served in India. They have Indian traditions, and, what is more, having as children learned the language it soon returns to them.
I know this as a fact. Some twenty-five years ago in Upper Burma a young police-officer was sent to the same station with me in Burma. He came direct from India, but had been born and brought up in Burma till he was seven, when he went to England to school. From England, at eighteen or nineteen, he went to India—the Punjab, I think—and was appointed to the Police there. When Upper Burma was in need of officers he was sent to Burma on promotion. On arrival he did not remember a word of Burmese, but it came rapidly back to him. When sitting with me when I was talking to the Burmese he would continually say to me, "Didn't you say so-and-so?" and "Didn't he answer so-and-so?" Without learning it, his memory recalled the language to him, and in a month or two he was talking it well and with a good accent.
There remain the Subordinate Civil Service and the Lower Grades of the Police, all or nearly all of whom are native to the Province.
In another book, writing on this subject, I said: "I read and hear continually that many of our native magistrates and judges and police are corrupt. I am told they take bribes, that they falsify cases, that they make right into wrong. I wish to say that I have no belief in such charges. Exceptions there may be, but that the mass of our Burman fellow-officers are honest I have no doubt." All my experience has tended to support that view.
Everyone in the world requires looking after, requires check and supervision, requires that protection between himself and harm that only a watching eye can give, and in Burma, for the Burmese officials, these safeguards hardly exist.
It must be remembered that official Burma has no Press to criticise it, no native society to give it tone, no organised community to help the individual in the right path. He has many temptations, and a fall is easy.
I do not believe in the general charge that Burmese are corrupt. That occasional cases of undue influence should occur is natural if you consider the circumstances under which they serve. They are not, like the English officers, independent of their surroundings in social matters. They have, for company's sake, to associate with the pleaders, the merchants, the headmen, and others within their charge. Their families are with them, and they are interested in the happenings of the town or village, and are concerned in it. They are inevitably influenced in many ways, which we do not appreciate. They know things which we do not. In cases that come before them they often know of events behind the scenes which lead up to the final happening which comes into Court. It is useless to say that they should not be influenced by anything but the evidence on the record; they cannot help being influenced. They have, for instance, known of A being a trouble to his parents long before the charge which they have to try, and that is in their minds; or they know B to be a good character, and that his accusers are doubtful people. It has happened to me, not once but many times, that on appeal I have read a judgment of a Burmese Subordinate Magistrate which puzzled me, because, though not contrary to the evidence, there has evidently been in the writer's mind something more than the evidence. In such cases I have usually inquired personally from the magistrate what it was he knew before passing orders on appeal, and I have sometimes taken further evidence on that point so as to get the record straight. It is easy to say that magistrates should not be affected by anything but the recorded evidence, just as it is easy to say that a magistrate should be blind. Magistrates are human beings—fortunately.
But, of course, the standard might be higher. This raising of the standard can, however, only be attained by raising the standard of independence in the people, and our rule tends to decrease this. Under self-government it will rise. It is self-government and its consequent publicity which have purified Courts in England. Look at Judge Jeffreys and his time. We are not people to adopt too Pharisaic an attitude.
Elsewhere I have commented on the failure of the "educated" native to make a good official, and I need not repeat myself. The education we give is not good for them, but until a national system of education is instituted I don't see what we can do. The subordinate service, as long as it is subordinate, cannot attract the best men, because the prospects are poor.
As to the rank and file of the police I have this to say—they are unsatisfactory, and the Police Commission did not get at the real causes. Do Commissions ever get at real causes? Are they not merely excuses to give "face" to Government? What is the use of examining innumerable witnesses none of whom have probed the subject? Answers to difficult questions are not got by asking, but by personal experience: by a man or men capable of understanding what they see and finding out the causes.
Pay has something to do with the poorness of the material, but in Burma at least it is not the principal cause. That cause is that the police are disliked, and they are disliked because they are part of a legal system which is disliked and disapproved of. The police are considered almost as enemies of the people. To rehabilitate the police and get really good men into it the whole criminal system requires amendment. When the people like and admire the Courts they will like and will enter the service of those Courts. Now they will do neither. A popular Government may be a good Government; an unpopular Government cannot possibly be so.
Further, it is said that the Burman takes badly to discipline and will never, therefore, make a good policeman nor soldier.
That he takes badly to discipline is true, but what is the reason? That he is essentially different from other people? That is absurd. The reason of it lies in his past history, his environment and education.
When we took Upper Burma it was hardly an organised nation at all. It was only a mass of villagers which acknowledged a king over all. There was no national army—because no need for one—and no large industries. The Burman has been a free man and he has the religion—or want of religion—of a free man. He has never had priests to rule him, to force on him reverence and obedience as virtues, to destroy his individuality. Therefore he has lived free. And nowadays, although he is lectured enough on his want of discipline, the advice is given in the wrong way and apropos of the wrong subject.
He ought in the opinion of his critics to be a good policeman or a good soldier, or a good employé for the rice merchants in Rangoon, and he is not. Therefore he is lectured on his want of discipline. "That is to say," thinks the Burman, "I am lectured and abused in order that I may be a more useful tool in the hands of a foreign Government, or a more profitable servant to a foreign merchant—who will reap the benefit."
That is what he thinks and rightly thinks, for the advice is so prompted and so meant.
He has yet to learn that discipline in act is necessary to enable him to attain his own ideals, to create and maintain his own self-government, and to establish industries that will compete with the foreigner's. He must himself establish organisms in order to succeed.
The Burman is afraid of discipline, partly because it is new to him, and partly because he is afraid that by surrendering independence of act he will surrender independence of spirit.
This can only be got over by a true education, by making the boy see for himself that only in union is strength, and that he must learn to act with others, and therefore under leaders. He will see this fast enough if it is carefully shown him when young. He will accept it also if it is clearly demonstrated to him that obedience in act does not infer surrender of his soul. It is the latter he is afraid of, and wisely. Tell him that not only may he think for himself, but that he is bound to do so, while at the same time subordinating private opinions to a common end, and you will get discipline as much as you like. It is a matter of common sense, and he has plenty of that.
The mechanical obedience to masters and spiritual or material pastors because they have been "set in authority" over us should never be taught. They have not been set in authority. They may deserve obedience if they are leaders in the right way, and we should co-operate with them there by serving them towards an end good for both. Get the boy to understand that. Then you get that willing and intelligent obedience which is worth all the mechanical obedience in the world. This is true in all walks of life. If you wish to read of a startling example, read of how the Revolutionary troops of France, as soon as they had gained a little experience, met and overthrew the wooden and lifeless battalions of Prussia, which had been drilled to death.
There must be life and intelligence, and a purpose in obedience as in all else for it to be a virtue. In itself obedience is not an end, it is only justifiable as a means to an end. It must arise from the exercise of will, not from its atrophy or from surrender to the will of others. You obey because you wish to obey, not because you are forced to do so.
That is the true education in discipline.
But all this can only come with local self-government, local patriotism, and a national education. They are what make a nation.
When thepersonnelof the Government of India from the bottom to the top has been reorganised on a basis of understanding of the people, it will begin to revise its laws, and the first will be its Penal Law, its Criminal Courts and Procedure.
To do this with any success it will be necessary first to study the causation of crime, because until you know how it is caused you cannot possibly frame any system of prevention that is likely to do less harm than good.
This is a subject that many men have been studying for some years past, but very little progress has yet been made. The old shibboleths that crime results from a desire for crime and that the only cure is savage punishment still hold good with all Governments, though quite discredited outside official circles. It is a most fascinating subject, and as it is one I have worked at for many years I may be excused for devoting a somewhat large space to it here.
It is more than twenty-five years ago that my attention was first attracted to the causation of crime. I was a young magistrate then, trying my first cases; very nervous, very conscientious that I should fulfil all the legal requirements as laid down in the Codes. It had never occurred to me then that there was any gulf between justice and law—I supposed that they were one, that law was only codified and systemised justice; therefore, in fulfilling the Law I thought that I was surely administering Justice.
I was trying a theft case. I cannot remember now what it was that had been stolen, but I think it was a bullock. The accused was undefended, and I, as the custom is, questioned him about the case, not with the view of getting him to commit himself, but in order to try to elicit his defence, if any. He had none. He admitted the theft, described the circumstances quite fully and frankly, and said he was guilty. I asked him if he knew when he took the bullock from the grazing ground that he was stealing it, and he answered "Yes." I asked him if he knew that the punishment for cattle theft was two years' imprisonment, which practically meant ruin for life, and he replied that he knew it would be heavy.
Then I asked, "Why did you do it?"
He moved uneasily in the dock without answering, looked about him, and seemed puzzled.
I repeated the question.
Evidently he was trying to remember back why he had done it, and found it difficult. He had not considered the point before, and introspection was new to him. "Why did I do it?" he was saying to himself.
"Well?" I asked.
He looked me frankly in the face. "I don't know," he said. "I suppose I could not help it. I did not think about it at all; something just made me take it."
He was convicted, of course, and I forgot the case.
But I did not forget what he had said. It remained in my mind and recurred to me from time to time, I did not know why. For I had always been taught that crime was due to an evil disposition which a person could change, only he would not, and I had as yet seen no reason to question this view. Therefore the accused's defence appealed to no idea that was consciously in my mind. I did not reflect upon it. I can only suppose that, unconsciously to myself, these words reached some instinct within me which told me that they were true. And at last from the very importunity of their return I did begin to think about them, and, consequently on them, of the causation of crime in general. A curiosity awoke which has never abated, has indeed but grown, as in some small ways I was able to satisfy it.
What causes crime? Is it a purely individual matter? If so, why does it follow certain lines of increase or decrease, or maintain an average? That looks more like general results following on general causes than the result of individual qualities. Why is it not curable? It should have been cured centuries ago. Why does punishment usually make the offender worse instead of better? If his crime were within the individual's control, its punishment certainly would deter. It does not. Any deterrent effect it may have is rarely on him who is punished, but on the outside world, and that is but little. So much I saw very clearly in practice, and every book I read on the subject confirmed this. The infamous penal laws of England a hundred years ago did not stop crime; flogging did not stop garotting, it ceased for other causes. I began to think and to observe.
Some three years later my attention was still more strongly drawn to this subject.
I was then for a short time the Governor of the biggest gaol in the world, that in Rangoon. It was crowded with prisoners under sentence for many different forms of crime, from murder or "dacoity"—that is gang robbery—to petty theft.
The numbers were abnormal, and they were so not only here, but in all the gaols of both the Upper and Lower Provinces. The average of crime had greatly risen.
Why was this?
The reason was obvious. The annexation of the Upper Province six years before had caused a wave of unrest, not only there, but in the delta districts as well, that found its expression in many forms of crime. There was no doubt about the cause. But this cause was a general cause, not individual. The individual criminals there in the gaol did not declare the war. That was the consequence of acts by the King of Burma and the Government of India controlled by the English Cabinet, and was consequent on acts of the French Government. Therefore half of these individuals had become criminals because of the disagreements of three Governments, two of which were six thousand miles away from Rangoon.
There is no getting out of that. In normal times the average of convicts would have been only half what it was. The abnormality was not due to the convicts themselves.
Thus if A and B and C were suffering punishment in the gaol the fault is primarily not theirs. A special strain was set up from without which they could not stand and they fell.
But if this is true of half the prisoners, why not of the other half? There was no dividing line between the two classes. Political offences apart, you could not walk into the gaol and, dividing the convicts into two parts, say: "The crimes of this half being due to external causes, they must be pardoned; the crimes of the other half being due to their own evil disposition, they must continue to suffer." There was no demarcation.
Therefore, general causes are occasionally the cause of crime. Here was a long step in advance.
Again, four years later I was on famine duty in the Upper Province, and the same phenomenon occurred. There was an increase in certain forms of crime. Thefts doubled. Other crimes such as cheating and fraudulent dealings with money decreased. Here was again a general cause. Half of those thieves would have remained honest men all their lives, been respected by their fellow-men, and, according to religions, have gone to heaven when they died, but for the famine.
The causes of the famine were want of rain acting on the economic weakness of the people reared by the inability of government. Thus, had rain fallen as usual, had the people been able to cultivate other resources, had government been more advanced and experienced, half these thieves would not have been in gaol; and no one knew which half, for thefts of food did not increase. There was, in fact, no reason they should, as Government provided on the famine camps a subsistence wage for everyone who came.
On the other hand, certain individuals were saved from misappropriating money, or cheating in mercantile transactions, because there was little money left to misappropriate and not much business. If they lived honestly and went to heaven, the chief cause would be the failure of rain that year, not any superior virtue of their own. But no one knew who these individuals were who were so luckily saved.
But when you have acknowledged this, what is becoming of the doctrine of individual responsibility for crime? If a man has complete free-will to sin or not, if crime be due to innate wickedness, how does want of rain bring this on? And where is the common sense or common justice in punishing him for what is really due to a defective climate? He cannot control the rain. Manifestly then, as regards at least half of these thieves, there was no innate desire to steal, because that could not be affected by the famine. Had they desired to be thieves they would have been so in any case. The truth is that they did not desire to be thieves, but when the famine increased the temptation, and, through physical weakness, decreased their power of resistance, they fell. They sinned—not through spiritual desire of evil, but through physical inability to resist temptation.
But if this is true of half, why not of the whole? There is no line of demarcation. If true of some crime, why not of all? The doctrine of a man's perfect free-will to sin or not to sin as he pleases is beginning to look shaky. It will be as well to consider it.
What is free-will?
There is no necessity to discuss the meaning of "free"; we all know it; there is nothing ambiguous about it; but with "will" it is different. There are few words so incessantly misused as this word "will." Philosophers are the worst offenders, and the general public but follow their blind lead; yet unless you know exactly what you mean by it how can you use it as a counter of your thought?
What doeswillmean? "Where there's a will there's a way"—what does this mean? Does it mean wish? If, for instance, you are poor and stupid, can any quantity of wish make you rich? If you are weak will it make you strong? If you have no ear will it make you a musician? If you are a convict can it liberate you? That is absurd.