CONCLUSIONS                        349
 

CONCLUSIONS

The Briton is not by nature imaginative, but he
is trusted, and no native of India the writer of this
narrative ever met—and he lived for months with
them without any European society—would have
accepted one of his own countrymen as an arbitrator
in a money case if any Briton were available. The
great majority would agree with Mr. John Stuart
Mill's dictum: " The British Government in India
is not only one of the purest in intention, but one of
the most beneficial in act ever known to mankind."
Why, then, was there a Mutiny and a Revolt ?

In the opening chapter many cogent reasons were
given for the dissatisfaction of the Brahmans with
British rule, but, powerful as was that class, it is
remarkable that in the so-called n on-regulation pro¬
vinces the personal influence of . British gentlemen
was effective in counteracting the mistrust which the
aristocracy and peasantry of Hindustan felt in the
good faith of the British Government.

On the other hand, in the North-West Provinces
and Oudh, where regulations had been introduced,
primarily in the interests of the lower classes, and
enforced, though opposed to national sentiment, the
people, with few exceptions, were hostile to their
British overlords; nevertheless, a revolt would have
been nearly impossible, had not the Hindu con¬
spirators been enabled to foment a mutiny, assisted
in their endeavours by the thoughtless acts of un¬
imaginative British officials in a Government factory
who, by manufacturing polluted cartridges, provided
a* burning grievance in the army. This was a
grievance terrible beyond all  others, since, according