Telegraphic dispatches from Vienna announce that the pacific 
solution of the Turkish, Sardinian and Swiss questions, is regarded 
there as a certainty. 

Last night the debate on India was continued in the House of 
Commons, in the usual dull manner. Mr. Blackett charged the 
statements of Sir Charles Wood and Sir J. Hogg with bearing the 
stamp of optimist falsehood. A lot of Ministerial and Directorial 
advocates rebuked the charge as well as they could, and the 
inevitable Mr. Hume summed up by calling on Ministers to 
withdraw their bill. Debate adjourned. 

Hindostan is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for 
the Alps, the Plains of Bengal for the Plains of Lombardy, the 
Deccan for the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of 
Sicily. The same rich variety in the products of the soil, and the 
same dismemberment in the political configuration. Just as Italy 
has, from time to time, been compressed by the conqueror’s sword 
into different national masses, so do we find Hindostan, when not 
under the pressure of the Mohammedan, or the Mogul,'” or the 
Briton, dissolved into as many independent and conflicting States 
as it numbered towns, or even villages. Yet, in a social point of 
view, Hindostan is not the Italy, but the Ireland of the East. And 
this strange combination of Italy and of Ireland, of a world of 
voluptuousness and of a world of woes, is anticipated in the 
ancient traditions of the religion of Hindostan. That religion is at 
once a_ religion of sensualist exuberance, and a religion of 

126 Kar! Marx 

self-torturing asceticism; a religion of the Lingam and of the 
Juggernaut; the religion of the Monk, and of the Bayadere.'” 

I share not the opinion of those who believe in a golden age of 
Hindostan, without recurring, however, like Sir Charles Wood, for 
the confirmation of my view, to the authority of Khuli-Khan.* But 
take, for example, the times of Aurangzeb; or the epoch, when 
the Mogul appeared in the North, and the Portuguese in the 
South; or the age of Mohammedan invasion, and of the Hep- 
tarchy in Southern India’; or, if you will, go still more back 
to antiquity, take the mythological chronology of the Brahman 
himself, who places the commencement of Indian misery in 
an epoch even more remote than the Christian creation of the 
world. . 

There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery 
inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an essentially different 
and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer 
before. I do not allude to European despotism, planted upon 
Asiatic despotism, by the British East India Company, forming a 
more monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters 
startling us in the Temple of Salsette.'"’ This is no distinctive 
feature of British Colonial rule, but only an imitation of the Dutch, 
and so much so that in order to characterise the working of the 
British East India Company, it is sufficient to literally repeat what 
Sir Stamford Raffles, the English Governor of Java, said of the old 
Dutch East India Company: 

“The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their 
[Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter 
formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the 
purchase money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the 
existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite 
of contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a 

capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised 
ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders.” 

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, 
strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action 1n 
Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. 
England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, 
without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of 
his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind 
of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates 

,, See this volume, p. 122.— Ed. 
> Th. S. Raffles, The History of Java, Vol. 1, p. 151.— Ed. 

The British Rule in India 127 

Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and 
from the whole of its past history. 

There have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial times, but 
three departments of Government; that of Finance, or the plunder 
of the interior; that of War, or the plunder of the exterior; and, 
finally, the department of Public Works. Climate and territorial 
conditions, especially the vast tracts of desert, extending from the 
Sahara, through Arabia, Persia, India, and Tartary, to the most 
elevated Asiatic highlands, constituted artificial irrigation by canals 
and water-works the basis of Oriental agriculture. As in Egypt and 
India, inundations are used for fertilizing the soil in Mesopotamia, 
Persia, &c.; advantage is taken of a high level for feeding irrigative 
canals. This prime necessity of an economical and common use of 
water, which, in the Occident, drove private enterprise to 
voluntary association, as in Flanders and Italy, necessitated, in the 
Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too 
vast to call into life voluntary association, the interference of the 
centralizing power of Government. Hence an economical function 
devolved upon all Asiatic Governments, the function of providing 
public works. This artificial fertilization of the soil, dependent on a 
Central Government, and immediately decaying with the neglect 
of irrigation and drainage, explains the otherwise strange fact 
that we now find whole territories barren and desert that were 
once brilliantly cultivated, as Palmyra, Petra, the ruins in Yemen, 
and large provinces of Egypt, Persia, and Hindostan; it also 
explains how a single war of devastation has been able to de- 
populate a country for centuries, and to strip it of all its civi- 
lization. 

Now, the British in East India accepted from their predecessors 
the department of finance and of war, but they have neglected 
entirely that of public works. Hence the deterioration of an 
agriculture which is not capable of being conducted on the British 
principle of free competition, of laissez-faire and laissez-aller* But 
in Asiatic empires we are quite accustomed to see agriculture 
deteriorating under one government and reviving again under 
some other government. There the harvests correspond to good 
or bad government, as they change in Europe with good or bad 
seasons. Thus the oppression and neglect of agriculture, bad as it 
is, could not be looked upon as the final blow dealt to Indian 

* Laissez-faire, laissez-aller was the formula of the advocates of free trade and 
non-intervention of the state in economic relations.— Ed. 

society by the British intruder, had it not been attended by a 
circumstance of quite different importance, a novelty in the annals 
of the whole Asiatic world. However changing the political aspect 
of India’s past must appear, its social condition has remained 
unaltered since its remotest antiquity, until the first decennium of 
the 19th century. The hand-loom and the _ spinning-wheel, 
producing their regular myriads of spinners and weavers, were the 
pivots of the structure of that society. From immemorial times, 
Europe received the admirable textures of Indian labor, sending 
in return for them her precious metals, and furnishing thereby his 
material to the goldsmith, that indispensable member of Indian 
society, whose love of finery is so great that even the lowest class, 
those who go about nearly naked, have commonly a pair of golden 
ear-rings and a gold ornament of some kind hung round their 
necks. Rings on the fingers and toes have also been common. 
Women as well as children frequently wore massive bracelets and 
anklets of gold or silver, and statuettes of divinities in gold and 
silver were met with in the households. It was the British intruder 
who broke up the Indian hand-loom and destroyed the spinning- 
wheel. England began with driving the Indian cottons from the 
European market; it then introduced twist into Hindostan, and in 
the end inundated the very mother country of cotton with cottons. 
From 1818 to 1836 the export of twist from Great Britain to India 
rose in the proportion of | to 5,200. In 1824 the export of British 
muslins to India hardly .amounted to 1,000,000 yards, while in 
1837 it surpassed 64,000,000 of yards. But at the same time the 
population of Dacca decreased from 150,000 inhabitants to 
20,000. This decline of Indian towns celebrated for their fabrics 
was by no means the worst consequence. British steam and science 
uprooted, over the whole surface of Hindostan, the union between 
agriculture and manufacturing industry. 

These two circumstances—the Hindoo, on the one hand, leaving, 
like all Oriental peoples, to the Central Government the care of the 
great public works, the prime condition of his agriculture and 
commerce, dispersed, on the other hand, over the surface of the 
country, and agglomerated in small centers by the domestic union of 
agricultural and manufacturing pursuits—these two circumstances 
had brought about, since the remotest times, a social system of 
particular features—the so-called village system, which gave to each 
of these small unions their independent organization and distinct 
life. The peculiar character of this system may be judged from the 
following description, contained in an old official report of the 
British House of Commons on Indian affairs: 

NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1853. 

French Princesa married King Leopold. It seema that 
Napoleon is eager to pick a quarrel with King Leopold, 
who has thrown himself under the protection of Russia 
and Austria, instead of sning for peace at Parit, as the 
Kings of Holland and Sardinia, and the Swiss Republic 
have done. Spain, tvo, is not looked at favorably by the 
Emperor: her royal honse is too muth allied with the 
Orleans family. not to be disliked by a Bonaparte. A 
rising, therefore, would not be suppressed by French Ia- 
tervention, and such s cising is not allogether impossible 
in Spain, where royalty has lost its dignity by the per- 
sonal behatiourof the Queen-Mother and of the Queen. 
A.C. Cc. 
The British Rate in Indian. 
Correspondence of The N.Y. Tribune 
LONOON, Friday. June 10, 1853. 

Telegraphic dispatches from Viouna announce that 
the pacifie solution of the Turkish, Sardinian and Swies 
questions, ix regarded there as a certainty. 

Last night the debate on India waa continued in the 
House of Commons, in the usual dull manner. Mr. 
Blackett charged tho statements of Sir Charles Wood 
and Sir J. Hogg with bearing the stamp of optimist 
falsehood. A lot of Ministerial and Directorial advo- 
cates rebuked the charge aa well as they could. and the 
inevitable Mr. Hume summed up by celling on Ministers 
to withdraw their bill. Debate adjourned. 

Hindostan iv an Italy of Asiatic dimonsions, tho 
Himalayas lor the Alps, the Plains of Benga) for the 
Pleins of Toinbardy, the Deccan for the Appenines, 
and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of Sictly. Tho 
aame rich variety in the products of the svil, aad the 
name dismemberment ia the political configuration. 
Just ae Italy has. from time to time, heen compressed 
by the conqueror’s sword into different natiunal masses, 
80 do we find Hindostan, when not under the pressure of 
the Mohammedan or the Mogul, or the Briton, dis- 
solved into as many independent and conflicting States 
aa it numbered towns, er even villeges. Yet, in a social 
point of view, Hindostan is not the Italy, but the Ire- 
land of the East. And this atrauge combination of 
Maly and of Ireland, of a world of voluptuousness and of a 
world of woes, is anticipated in the ancient traditions of 
the religion of Elindostan. That religion ia at once a 
religion of sensualist exuberance, and a religion of self 
torturing ascetism ;a religion of the Lingam and of the 
d uggernaut; the religion of the Monk, aud of the Baya- 

ere. 

These are not the opinion of those who believo in a 
golden sge of Hindostan, without recurring, however, 
like Sir Charles Wood, for the confirmation of my 
view, to the authority of Khuli-Khan. But take, for 
example, the times of Aurung-Zebe ; or the epoch, when 
the Mogul appeared in the North, and the Portuguese in 
the South; or the age of Mohammedan invasion, and of 
the Heptarchy in Southern India; or, if you will. go still 
nore back to antiquity, take the mythological chronology 
of the Brubweo bimeolf, who places the commencement 
of Indian misery in an epoch even more remote than 
the Christian creation of the world. 

There cnanot, however, remain any doubt but that 
the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an 
essentially differcut and infinitely moro intensive kind 
than all Hindostan had to suffer before. I donot allude 
to European despotism. planted upon Asiatic despotisin, 
by the British Euat India Company, forming a inore 
monstrouy combination than any of the divine monsters 
startling us inthe Temple of Salsette. This is ao dis 
tinctive feature of British Colonial rule, but only an 
imitation of the Dutch, and so inuch so that in order to 
characterise the working of the British East India Com- 
pany. it is auflicient to literally repeat what Sir Stainford 
Rafites, the aa eg Governor of Java, said of the old 
Dutch East India Company: 

“The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of 
gain, and viewing their subjects. with Jess regard or con- 
sideration than a West India planter formerly viewed a 
gang upon his estate, because the Jatter had paid the pur- 
chase morey of human property, which the other bad not, 
employed sll the existing machinery of deapotism to 
equeeze from the people their atmost mite of contributien, 
the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils 
of w capricious and semi barbarous Government, by work- 
ing it with all the practised iagennity of politicians, and all 
the monopolizing selfi-selfishness of traders.”’ 

All the civil ware, invasions, revelutions, conquests, 
famines. strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as 
the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not 
go deeper than its surface. England has broken down 
the entire framework of Indian society, without any 
symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of 
bis old world, with no gain of a cew one, imparts a par- 
ticater kind of melancholy to the preeeat misery of the 
Hindoo, and separates Hindostas, ruled by Britain, from 
all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past 
history. 

There have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial 
times, bnt three departments of Government; that of 
Finanee, or the pl r of the interior: that of War, or 
tbe v of the exterior: and. finally, the department 
of Public Works. Climate and territorial conditions, 
especially the vast tracts of desert, extending from the 

Part of a 

personal influence and minote acquaintance with 
the situation and concerns of the people render him the 
best qualified for this charge. The *uraum keeps the ac- 
counts of enitivation, and registers wrerything connected 
with it. The éailier and the tofze, the duly of the former of 
which consists in gaining information ef crimes an i of- 
fenses, and in escorting and protecting persons traveling 
from one village to another: the province of the latter 
appearing to be more immediately confined to the viliage 
consisting, among other duties, in guarding the crops and 
Raniating in measuring them, | @ boundary-man, who 
preserves the limits of the village. or gives evidence re 
specting them in cases of dispute. The Superintendent of 
Tanks and Watercourses distributes the water for the pur- 
poses of agriculture. The Brahmin, who pertorms the vil- 
age worship. The schoolmaster, who is seen teaching the 
children in a village to read and write inthe sand. The 
calendar brahmin, or astruloger, &c. These officers and 
eervanis generally constitute the establishment of a vii- 
lage; but in some parts of the country it is of less extent, 
some of the duties and functions above described being 

sunited in the same person , in others it exceeds the above: 

named number of individuals. Under this simpte form ot 
municipal government, the inbabitunta of the country 
have lived from time immemorial. The boundaries of 
the villages have been but seldom altered; and thongh the 
villages themselves have heen sometimes injured, and 
even desolated by war, famine or disease, the same naine, 
the same limits, the same interests, and even the same 
families have continued for ages. The inhabitants gave 
themee}ves no trouble about the breaking up aud divisions 
of kingnoms; while the viliaga remains entire, they esre 
not to what power it is transferred, or to what soversign it 
devolves; ita internal economy remains unchanged he 
potail is still the head inhabitant, and still acts aa the petty 
Judge or magistrate, and collector or rentor of the vil- 

lage.” 

“These small stereotype forms of social organisia have 
been to the greater part diagolved, and are disappearing, 
not 60 wuch through the brutal interference of the Brit- 
ish tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as to the 
working of English steam and English free trade. 
Those family-communities wero based on domestic in- 
dustry, in that peculiar combination of hand-weaving, 
band-spinning and band-tilling agriculture which gave 
them self-supporting power. English interfereuce hay- 
ing placed the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in 
Bengal, or sweeping away both Hindoo spinoer and 
weaver, dissolved theve small semi barbarian, semi-civ- 
ilized communities, hy blowing up their economical 
basis, and thus produced tho greatest, and to speak the 
truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Agia. 

Now, sickening aa it must be to human feeling to wit- 
ness those myriads of industrious patriarchal and inof- 
fensive social organizations disorganized and dissolved 
into their units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their | 
individual members losing at the same time their an- 
cient form of civilization, and their hereditary means of 
subsistence, We muet nol forget that these idyllic village- 
communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had 
always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, 
that they restrained the human mind within the 
emallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool 
of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, 
depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. We 
must not forget the barbarian egotiam which, concentra- 
ting on some miserable pateh of land, had quietly wit- 
nessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration of unspeak- 
able crueltieg, the massacre of the population of largo 
towne, with no other consideration beatuvcd upon thom 
than on natural events, itself the helpless prey of any 
aggressor who deigned to notice it at all, We must not 
forget that this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetatire 
life, that thia passive sort of existence evoked on the 
other pert, in contradistinction, wild, aim)ces, unbounded 
forces of destruction and readered murder itself a reli- 
gioua rite in Hindostan. We muat not forget that these 
Jittle communities were contaminated by distinctions 
of caste and by slavery, that they eehlacaied man 
to extemal circumstances instead of elevating min 
the roverei of circumstances, that they trans- 
formed a self-developing social stato into never chang- 
ing natural destiny, and thus brought about a bru- 
talizing worship of natare, exhibiting ite degradation in 
the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on 
his knees in adoration of Kauaman, the monkey, aod 
Sabbala, the cow. 

Engiend, it is trac, in causing a social revolution ia 
Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and 
was stupid iu her manser of enforcing them. But that 
is pot the question. The question is, can mankind fulsil 
ice destiny without a fundamental rerulution in the social 
state of Asia? .If not, whatever may have been the 
crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of his 
tory in bringing about that revolution. 

en, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumb- 
ling of an ancient world may have for our personal feel- 
ings, we have the right, in point of history, to exclaim 

with Goethe: 
“ Belite diese Qual uns qualen 
Ds sie onsre Lust vermehrt, 
Hat nicht myriaden Seelen 
Tiaris Herrechaft aufgezehrt F" 
Kast Marx. 

TURKEY AND RUSSIA 

page of the New-York Daily Tribune with Marx’s 

article ‘“The British Rule in India” 

The British Rule in India 131 

“A village, geographically considered, is a tract of country comprising some 
hundred or thousand acres of arable and waste lands; politically viewed it resembles a 
corporation or township. [ts proper establishment of officers and servants consists of 
the following descriptions: The potail, or head inhabitant, who has generally the 
superintendence of the affairs of the village, settles the disputes of the inhabitants, 
attends to the police, and performs the duty of collecting the revenue within his 
village, a duty which his personal influence and minute acquaintance with the 
situation and concerns of the people render him the best qualified for this charge. The 
kurnum keeps the accounts of cultivation, and registers everything connected with it. 
The tallier and the totie, the duty of the former of which consists [...] in gaining 
information of crimes and offenses, and in escorting and protecting persons traveling 
from one village to another; the province of the latter appearing to be more 
immediately confined to the village, consisting, among other duties, in guarding the 
crops and assisting in measuring them. The boundary-man, who preserves the limits of 
the village, or gives evidence respecting them in cases of dispute. The Superintendent 
of Tanks and Watercourses distributes the water [...] for the purposes of agriculture. 
The Brahmin, who performs the village worship. The schoolmaster, who is seen 
teaching the children in a village to read and write in the sand. The calendar-brahmin, 
or astrologer, &c. These officers and servants generally constitute the establishment of 
a village; but in some parts of the country it is of less extent, some of the duties and 
functions above described being united in the same person; in others it exceeds the 
above-named number of individuals. [...] Under this simple form of municipal! 
government, the inhabitants of the country have lived from time immemorial. The 
boundaries of the villages [...] have been but seldom altered; and though the villages 
themselves have been sometimes injured, and even desolated by war, famine or 
disease, the same name, the same limits, the same interests, and even the same families 
have continued for ages. The inhabitants gave themselves no trouble about the 
breaking up and divisions of kingdoms; while the village remains entire, they care not 
to what power it is transferred, or to what sovereign it devolves; its internal economy 
remains unchanged. The potail is still the head inhabitant, and still acts as the petty 
judge or magistrate, and collector or renter of the village.” 

These small stereotype forms of social organism have been to 
the greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much 
through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the 
British soldier, as to the working of English steam and English 
free trade. Those family-communities were based on domestic 
industry, in that peculiar combination of hand-weaving, hand- 
spinning and hand-tilling agriculture which gave them self- 
supporting power. English interference having placed the spinner 
in Lancashire and the weaver in Bengal, or sweeping away both 
Hindoo spinner and weaver, dissolved these small semi-barbarian, 
semi-civilized communities, by blowing up their economical basis, 

* “Report of the Committee of the House of Commons” published in 1812, 
quoted from Th.S. Raffles’ The History of Java, Vol. 1, p. 285.— Ed. 

6* 

and thus produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, the only 
social revolution ever heard of in Asia. 

Now, sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those 
myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organiza- 
tions disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a 
sea of woes, and their individual members losing at the same 
time their ancient form of civilization, and their hereditary 
means of subsistence, we must not forget that these idyllic 
village-communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had 
always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that 
they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible 
compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving 
it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and 
historical energies. We must not forget the barbarian egotism 
which, concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had 
quietly witnessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration of 
unspeakable cruelties, the massacre of the population of large 
towns, with no other consideration bestowed upon them than 
on natural events, itself the helpless prey of any aggressor 
who deigned to notice it at all. We must not forget that this 
undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this pas- 
sive sort of existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinc- 
tion, wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered 
murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget 
that these litthe communities were contaminated by distinctions of 
caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external 
circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of cir- 
cumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state 
into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about 
a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in 
the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his 
knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the 
cow. 

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, 
was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her 
manner of enforcing them. But that is not’the question. The 
question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental 
revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have 
been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of 
history in bringing about that revolution. 

Then, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumbling of an 
ancient world may have for our personal feelings, we have the 
right, in point of history, to exclaim with Goethe: 

The British Rule in India 133 

“Sollte diese Qual uns qualen 

Da sie unsre Lust vermehrt, 

Hat nicht myriaden Seelen 
Timur’s Herrschaft aufgezehrt?”*