Volume 76 — THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.[35] (continued 2)

This species of tyranny will of course be most felt among the feeblest, and is, consequently, likely to be more grievous in Bengal than among the hardier population of Upper India. But wherever the Anglo-Saxon goes, he will carry with him his instinctive contempt for tribes of a dusky complexion; and where this is not counteracted by the imposed courtesies of official life, or checked by the presence of a sufficient controlling authority, it will ever be ready to break out in a manner injurious to the interests and feelings of those subject to his power.

Our future rule will, it is evident, become daily more and more European in its tone, and there will consequently be an increasing call upon those engaged in its direction to watch over the conduct of the dominant race, to restrain its arrogance, and to see that the equality announced in the laws does not evaporate in print, but is something real and substantial, to be felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday intercourse of life.

If this can be accomplished by legislation, the new Commissions and Councils will not have been created in vain; but if their labours end in merely adding to the existing tomes of benevolent enactments, without effectual provision for their enforcement, then we cannot but fear that our projected measures of improvement, being all of a European character, will add little to the happiness of our subjects on the banks of the Ganges, and be regarded by them merely as ingenious contrivances for extending our own power, and completing their subjugation.

206