Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1122 page)

What the future of our self-governing and really great colonies may be it is hard to say.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen would be a “Federation” of the whole British Empire,
with a central Parliament in which all the colonies should get representatives, with perfect free trade between the whole, and with animperial army and navy to which all should contribute payments. But where and when shall we find the statesman great and bold enough to propose it?

Our Indian Empire must be treated to a Qur few lines by itself. It is not a colony but a Indian
“Dependency of the Crown.” The extension Empire’
of our rule over the whole Indian peninsula was made possible, first by the exclusion of any other European Power (when we had once beaten off the French there), and secondly by the fact that the weaker states and princes continually called in our help against the stronger.
From our three starting-points of Calcutta,
Madras and Bombay, we have gradually swallowed the whole country; though some states keep their native princes, these are all sworn subjects of King George as “Emperor of India,” just as in feudal times a great feudal
Earl was a sworn subject of his King. Our rule has been infinitely to the good of all the three hundred millions of the different races who inhabit that richly peopled land.

Until 1858 the old “East India Company,” ^growth founded at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, was the nominal sovereign. Its early conquests had been made over the unwarlike races of
Bengal and of the South; next, in the reign of George III, over the gallant robbers who

swarmed over the central plains and were called Mahrattas. Early in Victoria’s time we had to meet those magnificent fighters the
Sikhs of the Punjaub, and the fierce Afghans of the north-western mountains. Both gave us from time to time terrible lessons; but
British patience and courage triumphed over all. As we conquered them, so we enrolled in our Indian army all the best fighting men of these various races; of that army the Sikhs are now the backbone; but the Afghans have still to be kept at bay beyond the northern mountains. They are the “tigers from the
North”; and, if our rule were for a moment taken away, they would ‘ sweep down and slay and enslave all the defenceless dwellers on the plains.

In 1857 our carelessness and mismanagement of this vast Empire, together with the religious fear inspired among the Indians by the introduction of European inventions such as steam and railways, brought about the most serious danger that ever threatened British India, a mutiny in our Indian army. The instigator of the revolt was a man who claimed to be the representative of the old Mahratta rulers; the rebels took Delhi, the oldest capital city of
India, and set up a shadow of an Emperor.
They perpetrated terrible cruelties upon defence-less Englishwomen and children. But Southern
India remained perfectly loyal and quiet; so did several of the old native princes; while the gallant Sikhs and the Ghoorkas of Nepaul came to our help in crowds. British troops were poured in as fast as possible, though in those days that was not very fast. The siege of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow were the greatest feats that were performed; and the names of John Lawrence, John Nicholson,
Colin Campbell and Henry Havelock became forever immortal. When the mutiny was finally put down in 1858 the Crown took over the sovereignty from the East India Company,
which ceased to exist; and, twenty years later,
Queen Victoria was proclaimed “Empress of India.”

Another “Eastern” state, much nearer home, came to us in 1882, Egypt. It was sorely against the will of our statesmen that it came. Egypt had, till 1840, been a province of the Turkish Empire, and had since that date been most shockingly misgoverned by a series of Mahommedan rulers, called Khedives.
When, in 1869, the canal was cut by French engineers through the Isthmus of Suez, which separates the Red Sea from the Mediterranean,
and when a new route to India for the largest vessels was thus opened, it became of the firstimportance to us to keep this route safe and open. France at first shared with us the
“Protectorate” of Egypt which was then rendered necessary; but, when an insurrection of natives broke out in 1882, the task of suppressing it fell to us alone, and, when it was over, the sole Protectorate of Egypt became ours also. These were comparatively easy tasks, for the native Egyptian was not a good fighting man; but, as in India there is always a “tiger from the North” to be feared, so in
Egypt there was always a “lion from the
South.” By this “lion” I mean the fierce tribes of the desert which is called the “Soudan,” and of the Upper Nile Valley; they are
Mohammedans by faith and of mixed Arab and negro race. These wild men were always ready to spring upon the fertile valley of the Lower Nile. Our Ministers at home too often turned a blind eye to these dangers,
and their blindness cost us the life of the gallant general, Charles Gordon. It was not till 1898 that these “Soudanese” were finally subdued; and the Soudan is now governed by us as a dependency of Egypt.
The justice and mercy which these countries had not known since the fall of the Roman
Empire is now in full measure given to them by the British.

This great expansion of the British Empire during the last ninety-five years has not come about without a great deal of jealousy from the other European powers; and this jealousy was never more real or more dangerous than it is to-day. But the one European war which we have fought since 1815 had nothing to do with the expansion of our Empire.

The other nations have realized that this
Empire was founded on trade, that it has to be maintained by a navy, and that it has resulted in good government of the races subject to us. So, though they have envied us and given us ugly names, they have, on the whole, paid us the compliment by trying to copy us, to build up their navies, to increase their manufactures, to plant colonies and to govern subject races well. Some people think that they have not succeeded in this last object so well as ourselves. But all European nations are now keenly interested in trade rivalry;
whether this will end peaceably or not remains still to be seen.

All civilized nations, except ourselves and the Americans, have also set themselves to arm and drill all their citizens, so as to fit themselves for war on a gigantic scale at any moment.
If ever a great war breaks out in Europe, the nation that is most ready with its fleet and itsarmy will win; in the greatest war of the nineteenth century (that of 1870 between France and Germany) it needed only a telegram of two words to put the German army in motion in a few hours. On the other hand, all the great mechanical inventions of recent years,
railways, telegraphs, enormous guns, iron ships, airships, have made war, not only much more terrible, but infinitely more expensive;
and, so, each nation will naturally shrink from being the first to start a war, for defeat will spell absolute and irretrievable ruin. But I
don’t think there can be any doubt that the only safe thing for all of us who love our country is to learn soldiering at once, and to be prepared to fight at any moment.

The one European war which we fought in the nineteenth century was the “Crimean
War.” England and France fought Russia,
on behalf of Turkey, in 1854-6. The Turkish
State was believed to be crumbling, and certainly the Turks were real barbarians, who governed their provinces very badly; and,
being Mohammedans, they denied all justice to their Christian subjects. Russia claimed to protect these subjects, but every one knew that she only did this in order to swallow as much of the Turkish Empire as she could.
All other powers dreaded Russia, a half bar-barous state of vast size, and full of very brave,
if very stupid, soldiers. Some people think that the cunning Frenchmen led England by the nose into this war, and that it was no business of ours. It was fought in the peninsula of the Crimea, on the northern coast of the
Black Sea. There were some terrible battles,
those of the Alma, of Balaclava, of Inkermann, in the autumn of 1854; then the war settled into a long siege of Sebastopol, during an awful winter, in which the sufferings of our army in the trenches before the city were terrible. In the end Russia had to own herself beaten, and Turkey, whom people called the
“Sick Man of Europe,” was propped up again.
Though many of his other provinces have revolted from him, he is still alive, and now even in a fair way to recover his health, and to govern more decently than before.

One point I have left till the last. When your great-grandfathers were young, the fastest method of travelling was in a stagecoach with four horses at ten miles an hour,
or in a private (and very expensive) post-chaise which might perhaps do twelve miles an hour.
When they wanted to light their candles (and they had nothing else to light) they had to strike a spark with a bit of steel on a bit of flint. The navy was built of oak instead ofsteel, and moved by sails instead of steam.
Letters cost two pence apiece for the smallest weight and the smallest distance; a single sheet letter from London to Edinburgh cost
Is. Id.

Look round you and see in what a different
England you now live. Gas was first used in the streets of London in 1812; but gas already is going, and electric light is taking its place. The first railway was opened in 1829
between Liverpool and Manchester; already people are wondering when the first service of passenger airships will begin to cut out railways for long journeys, as electric tramways and motor cars have begun to cut out horses and railways alike for short ones. The first steamship began to ply on the Clyde in 1812;
it was of three horse-power and moved at five miles an hour; the
Mauretania
, of 30,000
horse-power, now crosses the Atlantic in less than five days. During the Great War a system of wooden signals from hill top to hill top, worked by hand, would carry a message from Dover to London in about an hour; now the electric telegraph flashes messages round the world in a few minutes. By another kind of wire, the telephone, a man in London can talk to a man in Paris, and they can hear each other’s voices and laughter. The dis-covery of chloroform in 1847 has reduced human suffering to a degree which we can hardly conceive; and the other improvements in medicine and surgery have saved and prolonged countless useful, as well as many useless, lives.

The Secret of the Machines.

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit —
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,

We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.

Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,

And a thousandth of an inch to give us play,
And now if you will set us to our task,

We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift

and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and

heat and light,
We can run and jump and swim and fly and dive,

We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?

If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,

You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.

Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?

You can start this very evening if you choose,
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
Of thirty thousand horses and some screws!

The boat-express is waiting your command!
You will find the
Mauretania
at the quay,
Till her captain turns the lever ‘neath his hand,

And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.

Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head

And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,

And plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down

and quake
As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake!

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,