Such extracts might be supplemented by a hundred others, recorded by British officers, whose task it has been, through the forty-two years since annexation, to efface the scars of the old wounds of the Punjab, and to bring back to the long-devastated province happiness, prosperity, and peace. But these will suffice to point the moral to those in India and in England who try to persuade the world that the British rule is harsh and oppressive, and who would make the greatest glory of our race, in the enlightened government of Hindustán, a matter for reproach and shame. Those who run may read, and the letters of light in which our Indian work is written can be seen by all eyes save of those who will not see. Anarchy, famine, and rapine have been replaced by orderly and just administration, under which every man enjoys his own in peace, none making him afraid. Where, out of twelve shillings' worth of produce, the Sikh Government took six from the peasant as rent, the British Government takes only two or one. The
treachery was a principal cause of the second Sikh War. The little peculiarities of administration recounted by Mr. O'Brien are venial in native eyes, and are common to almost every native administration, and I speak with experience, having been intimately associated with the administration of at least 100 native States in North and Central India. Diwán Sáwan Mall was on the whole a beneficent and wise governor, and though corrupt he was not oppressive. He turned what was a desert into a rich, cultivated plain. The people still revere his memory. His son Karm Náráin was also beloved, but Mulráj was hated. Popular sayings represent popular sentiment, and it was common to hear that Múltán was blessed with sáwan (the month of rain), Leiah with karm (kindness), while Jhang, the district of Mulráj, was desolated by mula (an insect that destroys the corn).
