No one in the present day would like it to be that of conqueror and conquered. We did not conquer India for the sake of conquest. We entertained no such design. We acquired it in spite of ourselves because circumstances, or, as some would rather put it, an all-guiding Providence was stronger than we were. And having thus won it, as it were, almost against our will, we have no desire that our relationship with the people should be that of conquerors to conquered, of master to servant. A more evident wish is that a paternal relationship should subsist between us, that we should be in a position of a wise, kind-hearted father looking after his children. But however appropriate this relationship may be in the case of young colonies, who really are the sons of the fatherland, it is scarcely fitted to the case of India. Our method of government is often paternal, sometimes even grandmaternal; but the people are not our children, except by adoption. Nor, again, are they our brothers. They may be very distant cousins, but it is at least unscientific to call them Aryan brothers.
Our relationship with the people of India should not be that of conqueror and conquered, and it cannot strictly be paternal or fraternal, but it can be, and it should be, that of manly comradeship. When we talk of having conquered India, it would be ungenerous of us to forget that it was with the aid of Indian soldiers, and it is with their aid that we now hold it, while we furnish the cohesive power which enables the Indian people to hold together and hold India, not only for us, but for themselves. On many a hard-fought battle-field Indian soldiers have proved themselves true comrades. No officer who has served with Indian troops in time of war looks upon the native officers as anything else but comrades. There is no civil official who, at the end of his period of service, does not look back upon his time in India without recollections of many an affectionate friendship formed with a chief, a great landholder, or a high native official. Even those faithful Indian
