erial adventure the conquering race must abide by a moral code. A
lie was a lie whether its victim be black or white. The European must
respect the powers and rights of the Hindu as he would be compelled by
law to respect them in his own State. "If we are not able," he said, "to
contrive some method of governing India well which will not of necessity
become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for
their eternal separation, but none for sacrificing the people of that
country to our constitution." England must be in India for India's
benefit or not at all; political power and commercial monopoly such as
the East India Company enjoyed could be had only insofar as they are
instruments of right and not of violence. The Company's system was the
antithesis of this. "There is nothing," he said in a magnificent
passage, "before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless
prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites
continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting." Sympathy
with the native, regard for his habits and wants, the Company's servants
failed to display. "The English youth in India drink the intoxicating
draught of authority and dominion before their heads are able to bear
it, and as they are full grown in fortune long before they are ripe in
principle, neither nature nor reason have any opportunity to exert
themselves for the excesses of their premature power. The consequences
of their conduct, which in good minds (and many of theirs are probably
such) might produce penitence or amendment, are unable to pursue the
rapidity of their flight. Their prey is lodged in England; and the cries
of India are given to seas and winds to be blown about in every breaking
up of the monsoon over a remote and unhearing ocean." More than a
century was to pass before the wisest of Burke's interpreters attempted
the translation of his maxims into statute. But there has never, in any
language, been drawn a clearer picture of the danger implicit in
imperial adventure. "The situation of man," said Burke, "is the
preceptor of his duty." He saw how a nation might become corrupted by
the spoils of other lands. He knew that cruelty abroad is the parent of
a later cruelty at home. Men will complain of their wrongdoing in the
remoter empire; and imperialism will employ the means Burke painted in
unforgettable terms in his picture of Paul Benfield. He denied that the
government of subject