CHAPTER IV

AN INDIAN REFORMER (1874-1879) Never to know that you are beaten is the way to victory. To be before one's Government is an honourable distinction. What greater reward can a good worker desire than that the next generation should forget him, regarding as an obsolete truism work which his own generation called a visionary fanaticism?--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1877). Miss Nightingale was in one sense never more in office than when she was "out of office." The passion of her later life was the redress of Indian sufferings and grievances, and during the years 1874-79, and for many years afterwards, she did an enormous amount of work to that end. It was the kind of work which a Minister does, or sets his subordinates to do, when he is getting up a subject for parliamentary debate, or framing a project of legislation. The _milieu_ in which Miss Nightingale did this work was also in a sense official. Her excursions into difficult problems of Indian policy and administration were regarded by many people as unsafe and inexpedient, and this view was not confined to such officials as disagreed with her conclusions. Mr. Jowett was alternately overborne by her enthusiasm into trying to help her Indian work, and insistent upon her giving up most of it. The latter attitude predominated. Indian land questions were not her special subjects; she could never hope to know the ins and outs of them. Her sister was uniformly of the same opinion: "What _can_ you know about such things, my dear?" But, after all, how much does a minister know at first-hand of the business of a Department new to him? Generally, far less than Miss Nightingale knew of Indian business. A minister either accepts the views of his subordinates, or becomes himself a master of his subject by using access to the best sources of information. Miss Nightingale, to a considerable extent, had access to the same sources. She corresponded with successive Secretaries of State and Viceroys. She was in close touch during many years with the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Louis Mallet, who, though he did not always agree with her particular conclusions, was entirely sympathetic in her general aims, and, so far as official propriety admitted, gave her every facility for pursuing her researches. Indian Governors and ex-Governors were at her service for information or discussion. There is voluminous correspondence during these years with her old friends, Lord Napier and Ettrick and Sir Bartle Frere, and with new friends, Sir George Campbell and Sir Richard Temple. With Sir George, a frequent visitor at South Street, she was especially well pleased. "Not for years," she wrote to M. Mohl (Aug. 10, 1874), "have I seen a man in such heroic passion against oppression." Anglo-Indians, when in retirement in South Kensington, are seldom averse from imparting their views, and Miss Nightingale had a retinue of them, pleased to give her information. Those who had inside experience knew how much she had done for India, and took it as a compliment that she should notice their work and ask them for advice. "Accept my most grateful thanks," wrote General Baker, on retiring from the India Office Council (Oct. 11, 1875), "not only for your very kind letter[164] and important pamphlet, but also for one of the most complete and agreeable surprises that I have ever met with. It never occurred to me for a moment that my humble efforts for the sanitation of India were so indulgently watched by the High Priestess of the Science." Colonel Yule, the member of Council who succeeded Sir Bartle Frere in the charge of sanitary affairs, and Mr. W. T. Thornton, the Secretary for Public Works, were in frequent correspondence with her. On the special subject of irrigation, she was "coached," not only by a leading authority presently to be mentioned, but by General Rundall (ex-Inspectorgeneral of Indian irrigation), Colonel J. G. Fife, Colonel F. T. Haig, and many other experts. When she turned to Indian education, Mr. A. W. Croft, the Director of Public Instruction, corresponded freely with her. Of her private studies, there is evidence in a great accumulation of Indian Blue-books, Proceedings, Minutes, pamphlets, and other papers, of which many are annotated, abstracted, collated. She had, too, a network of correspondents in India. There were in various parts of the country Sanitary Commissioners, doctors, engineers, Irrigation officers, who wrote to her constantly, and sometimes more freely than in official reports. There were occasions--as in a dispute, once hot, now as dead as the unhappy subjects of it[165]--when her friends in the India Office had to admit that her information was earlier and better than theirs. So, then, if her friends asked why she meddled in affairs of which she could not really know anything, she only set the harder to work in mastering the voluminous information at her disposal. [164] Miss Nightingale's letter is given at p. 51 of Colonel Yule's _Memoir of General Sir William Erskine Baker_ (privately printed 1882). [165] There is a reference to this subject--of Famine mortality--in a letter from Mr. Gladstone quoted below, p. 292. Yet, all the while, she was "out of office." The conjunction of circumstances which gave her much immediate power at the War Office, through Sidney Herbert, and afterwards in the earlier stages of Indian sanitary reform, was no longer operative; and there was now disproportion between her expenditure of effort and the immediate effect which it produced. In this part of her life's work Miss Nightingale suffered from some confusion of aim. Her official connections, though they gave her the advantage of some good information, interfered with the effect of her work as a publicist. Her work as a publicist made her distrusted in some official circles. She would perhaps have done better to confine her exertions to the influencing of public opinion by more consistent and sustained writing. The pity of it is, as we shall learn presently, that the book which she designed as a permanent contribution to the Indian question was never completed in her life-time. Still, in spite of all, Miss Nightingale's work as an Indian Reformer, which absorbed many hours of every day in her life for twenty-five years, was not without effect. In various specific matters she exerted some influence at the time; whilst her personal influence and her writings did something to form the public opinion which made later reforms possible. II Miss Nightingale's primary interest in India was in connection with sanitation, and I shall give one or two instances of her resumed activity in this field before passing to the larger sphere into which that interest came necessarily to be absorbed. From time to time she still intervened, and not without success, to promote the health of the Army in India. Thus, on July 21, 1874, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Napier of Magdala, wrote to her, enclosing a Minute which he had "been obliged to write in defence of the soldiers," as improvements to barracks and in other respects were "delayed year after year." The Minute, he explained, was Private and Confidential, but he wished that the facts which had called it forth could be used in some legitimate way. "I cannot help telling you, dear Miss Nightingale, as I know you love the soldiers as well as you did in the Crimea when you broke down the doors of red tape for them, a scene which I hope to see embodied in marble before I die." On receipt of this letter, Miss Nightingale called a meeting of _her_ Indian Council--Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland. Sir Bartle made inquiries about the Minute, and found that the Government of India had not yet communicated it to the India Office. He prepared the ground by informing the Secretary of State of the fact that such a Minute had been written. He suggested to Miss Nightingale that, without using any private and confidential information, it would be possible to draw up a statement upon measures urgently needed for the further improvement of the health of the soldiers in India. With the help of Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland this was done; and Miss Nightingale in Council sent a dispatch to the Secretary of State. In Disraeli's second Administration Lord Cranborne (now become Marquis of Salisbury) had resumed his former place at the India Office:-- (_Miss Nightingale to Lord Salisbury._) LEA HURST, _Oct._ 28 [1874]. DEAR LORD SALISBURY--As you were so very good, when you were kind enough to acknowledge my paper on "Life or Death in India," as to _ask_ me (where permission was all that I could have expected as most gracious on your part) to submit any facts or suggestions to you, I venture without troubling you with more apology to lay before you the following:--(1) The grasp of the Famine is now relaxed, though to make it relax has cost a vast expenditure with very little return except in lives. Other lives seem now to be in jeopardy from the economy consequent upon this noble and never to be regretted expenditure, viz. soldiers' lives. There is no greater extravagance than extravagance in lives. The Crown Prince of Germany said two months ago[166] (a very remarkable doctrine for him) that we could add to the strength and numbers of organized armies by sanitary works, and that money well employed in these will as much contribute to military force as money spent on fortifications and on direct military organizations. A great deal has been done already in India, and great results to our Soldiers' health have followed; but does not much more remain to be done before the results of 2 or 3 favourable years (for there was little cholera) can become permanent? Does not experience show that, as the greatest saving in outlay is that which can be effected in the cost of the military defences of the country, so it is the truest economy not to stay your hand in improving the military stations and their surroundings until every station in India has been put in the most healthy state practicable? In the meantime, if it is necessary to check outlay, should not the check be exercised on things that can stand over for a few years? (2) For in reality points connected with the soldier's health cannot stand over. The man is dead or invalided--the man, the most costly article we have; and you have to replace him with another costly article. Is not every neglect or miscalculation on this point sure to add to the national expenditure a far higher amount than would be the capitalized cost of the improvements? The improvements required now at many Stations are the following.... [a detailed list, under various heads of kind and place]. (6) To you it is needless to say that this relates to one half only of the Indian Army (_i.e._ that under the direct control of Lord Napier of Magdala), and that Madras and Bombay have (between them) at least an equal proportion of unsupplied wants, for they have not had five years of Lord Napier's wise and humane advocacy. (7) In India it is always possible to fall into the mistake of spending money uselessly. Fortunately, however, there is a way out of it in the appointment of Mr. Clark, the great Calcutta Municipality Engineer, who has drained and water-supplied Calcutta, to go out and do a similar scheme for Madras.... [detailed suggestions for further instructions to Mr. Clark]. [166] The Crown Princess had seen Miss Nightingale on August 8, 1874. (_Lord Salisbury to Miss Nightingale._) ARLINGTON STREET, _Nov._ 4 [1874]. DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--I assure you we are not blind to the importance of the objects which you advocate, nor are we the least inclined to interpose any unnecessary delay in their prosecution. The difficulty, of course, is money. It is perfectly true that, if the remedies were as certain of their effect as the existence of the evils is certain and serious, we might obviate the difficulty of the money by borrowing without stint. But the consideration which withholds the Indian Government from such a course is the very fact that the remedies are by no means absolutely certain. Take the case of Peshawur for instance. A great deal of money has been spent there already, and a great deal more will be spent; and yet, if I am to believe the reports which I receive from trustworthy authorities, when all the money is spent, it will still be a very unhealthy station, and a very small improvement upon the death-rate will ultimately be the result. I heard Sir George Clark the other day state in Council that one of the new stations in Rajpootana,--I forget which it was,--had become decidedly more unhealthy since remedial measures recommended by the sanitary authorities had been adopted. There may be something of prejudice and something of timidity in these apprehensions. I do not wish to give to them more weight than they deserve. But it is obvious that in sanitary action we are still groping our way, and that we are far from having arrived at that point of certainty at which it would be safe, on account of any particular series of undertakings, very heavily to pledge the future industry of the Indian people. You must always bear in mind that at this moment our expenditure treads very closely upon the heels of our revenue, and that we absolutely do not know where to turn in order to obtain any great increase of revenue. But if we borrowed very largely, a great increase of revenue would be absolutely necessary to meet the interest of the new debt. However great the value of the improvements, we cannot afford to be bankrupt, and a new productive Indian tax seems as distant as the philosopher's stone. I do not say all this to indicate that we shall slacken in our efforts towards sanitary improvement, or fail to push them forward as fast as we possibly can. But I want you to believe that financial considerations are of some importance; and I feel sure that we should only hinder sanitary improvement, and prevent sanitary truths from being heartily accepted, either by statesmen or by the public at large, if we associated them with a disregard of those financial exigencies upon which such enormous interests depend. We must not let it be said, or even suspected, that sanitary improvement means reckless finance.... But I think the best answer I can give you to the details of your letter is to send it out to the Viceroy, and ask him to let me have a confidential and unofficial report of his intentions in each of these cases. I am sure he feels the importance of these matters as strongly as any one; but I repeat that no one can thoroughly appreciate the difficulties of his position in respect to them who does not understand the extreme anxiety that is connected with the management of Indian finance. No time was lost, for on January 2, 1875, Lord Salisbury forwarded to Miss Nightingale, with a private note, the reply which he had received from the Governor-General:-- (_Lord Northbrook to Lord Salisbury._) CALCUTTA, _Dec._ 11 [1874]. I am much obliged to you for sending me Miss Nightingale's letter to you, and although at the risk of answering it imperfectly, I will not delay putting down what occurred to me till another mail--especially as one never can feel secure of one's time in India. First, I beg you to assure Miss Nightingale that I am not likely so much to forget my training under Sidney Herbert at the War Office as to feel indifferent about the health of the soldier in India. She knows as well as I do how much has been done of late years and how satisfactory the result has been, as is shown by the death and sickness returns, and admitted by the Army Sanitary Commission and Sir William Muir (the doctor) in evidence recently given before a Parliamentary Committee. Miss Nightingale is evidently more anxious for the future than dissatisfied with the past. The best thing I can say to reassure her is that in the face of the financial difficulties of last year I left the expenditure upon military public works untouched. It stands for the year at something more than a million, which is as much as we can afford and nearly as much as can be properly supervised. The year before, although most anxious to show a budget which would justify me in discontinuing the Income Tax, I gave an addition of £100,000 to the sum allotted to military public works at the request of Lord Napier. So much for my personal disposition and what I have done hitherto. As to what remains to be done, I know there is much.... I quite agree in principle with Miss Nightingale's views as to the relative importance of different sorts of works, and we should be guided by the same considerations as far as possible. But there are practical considerations which must interfere with their universal application. For instance, in many places in India owing to a want of labour we can only go on at a certain rate unless at a very greatly increased cost. Again, it is better for many reasons to carry out all the necessary works at one station at the same time, and these works may very probably include some which in themselves may not be so much wanted as other works at other stations. Subject to these qualifications, barracks, hospitals, water-supply, and drainage should come first, and recreation-rooms, &c., follow.... Miss Nightingale has evidently carefully studied some of the details of our requirements, and is not very far out in her list of works. She will be glad to hear that it is not very different from that of the works the Commander-in-Chief has lately brought to our notice, so that their relative importance is sure to be well weighed. Lord Napier takes the liveliest interest in all the military public works, and having nothing to do with finding the money, is pretty sure to have no scruple in pressing us hard. Some of the works mentioned in the list I know myself, so I will make one or two remarks ... [detailed observations]. I am very glad to hear that Mr. Clark is well enough to come out to India again. When he has done his work in Madras I think we may very probably ask him to advise us as to the water-supply of some stations. I was much taken with the apparent simplicity and economy of a plan which he showed me. As regards Miss Nightingale's observations on the subject of recreation-rooms and the sale of spirits in canteens: the soldiers are uncommonly well off in India generally for recreation-rooms and take advantage of them largely. The reason for selling spirits at canteens is, I believe, that if not sold men would buy noxious spirits in the bazaars. No head of the Army in India has ever recommended that the sale should be prohibited. The temperance movement is spreading widely among the troops in Bengal. By the last returns there were between 5 and 6 thousand members of the Temperance Society in the British Army in Bengal (including women and children). I have been struck generally with the good conduct and respectable appearance of British soldiers in India, and think we may well be proud of our army. I have written on, as the subject is one in which I have for a long time taken a personal interest, and Miss Nightingale may be glad to know that I have not neglected it here. I can promise you that, so far as our funds will permit, every attention shall be paid to the health of the British and the Native Army in India. Such intervention, as is disclosed in the foregoing documents, was repeated from time to time in connection with various sanitary measures, and was not without effect in keeping those matters to the front. A parliamentary debate, even sometimes a mere question in Parliament, has effect upon bureaucracy. In the times with which we are now dealing, "Members of Parliament for India" were few. "I could have kissed Lord Cranborne," exclaimed Miss Nightingale once, "for saying that in the approaching elections for a Parliament which is to decide on the destinies of 180 millions, the future representatives who are to represent India as well as us had only in two instances in their addresses mentioned the existence of India."[167] Miss Nightingale's private letters and printed articles did something to fill the gap. She had the ear of the great personages; they knew how much she knew, and they respected her devotion and sincerity. They listened to her, and her letters often produced the kind of stimulating result that sometimes follows a parliamentary intervention. She showed the correspondence with Lord Salisbury and Lord Northbrook to Sir Bartle Frere. "That Caesar," he wrote (Jan. 16, 1875), "should at once sit down and write six sheets of quarto letter paper, to show he is taking proper care of his Legions is satisfactory; as proving that your letter moved him and that the subject greatly interested him." "The result is just what I expected," wrote another Anglo-Indian, on the occasion of a later intervention by Miss Nightingale. "They treat me with contempt, but they don't ignore you. The first thing the Governor did on seeing your letter was to sit down and write a full exoneration of himself to the Secretary of State. The second, I have no doubt, will be to call for his officials and hurry on the work." [167] Letter to Madame Mohl, Oct. 31, 1868. III As Public Health Missionary for India, Miss Nightingale made the state of the town of Madras a text for constant exhortations. Madras ranked at that time second for unhealthiness among the great cities of India (Delhi being first[168]). Whereas the death-rate in Calcutta and in Bombay was falling, in Madras it was rising.[169] Miss Nightingale, like every other sanitary expert who had examined the facts, ascribed the high rate of mortality to the deplorable state of the drains; and there were Indian officials, both in London and in India, who turned to her in the hope that she might be able to stir up the higher authorities to insist on something being done. Her friend, Mr. Clark, had devised a scheme; either it should be carried out, or a better one should be substituted. On this subject there is a long correspondence amongst her Papers; and as her principal correspondent was Lord Salisbury, it is not devoid of dry humour. Lord Salisbury confessed that the subject was beyond him; all he could clearly ascertain was that there were as many different opinions as there were persons professing to understand it; but he had good news for his correspondent. The next Governor of Madras was to be the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke had a curious passion for details. He might be expected, it seemed to be suggested, to take to drains like a rat. So Miss Nightingale waited, and presently Lord Salisbury was sent to the Constantinople Conference on the Eastern Question. At Madras nothing had come of the Duke's love of detail; and as soon as Lord Salisbury returned to England, Miss Nightingale returned to the charge. Lord Salisbury sent her memorandum of suggestions to the Duke, and in due course forwarded to her the Duke's reply (of July 24, 1877). The Governor was studying the question closely, and Lord Salisbury hoped that Miss Nightingale would be pleased. True, there was delay; but then, as he had previously written to her, "The period of growth of all projects in India, in point of length, savours much of the periods of Indian cosmogony." "I think you will be satisfied," he now wrote (Aug. 22), "that the Governor of Madras is giving his mind very heartily to the question; and that his previous experience, and the kind of observations into which his singular taste for detail has guided him, have given him some special qualifications for coming to a right decision." And then came what in a postscript to the High Priestess of sanitation might be thought a "blazing indiscretion," if it were not obviously a piece of teasing: "I was much impressed at Constantinople with the advantage of having no drains at all, but keeping dogs instead." I am afraid that from the moment of the receipt of this letter Miss Nightingale's opinion of Lord Salisbury fell; but she was not to be shaken off, and, in consultation with Dr. Sutherland (with hints, too, from an Indian official), she sent a reasoned reply to Lord Salisbury, to his jest about the Constantinople dogs (erroneously called scavengers) and all. She had the advantage of knowing all about Constantinople, and the merits of its natural drainage. As for Madras, she thought that there had been "consideration" enough (it had lasted for more than 20 years), and that the Secretary of State ought to insist on action, in which connection she sent various proposals. Lord Salisbury's reply to Miss Nightingale did not appear to be promising. "The indecision of the Madras Government," he said (Sept. 19), "is partly due to the fact that various authorities have to be consulted, and no orders from the Secretary of State will prevent those authorities from differing. But the real difficulty," he added, "is money." It was all that the Madras Government could do to find money for "imperious necessities." The implication was that the protection of the public health was not an imperious necessity. A rank heresy, this, in Miss Nightingale's eyes. In sending on Lord Salisbury's letter to Dr. Sutherland, her comment was: "And they call _me_ a dangerous man!" To which Dr. Sutherland replied: "So you are! They tell you a thing can't be done, and you won't believe them! It is all nonsense that the Municipality cannot find money to drain with, and no number of letters can make it sense." Lord Salisbury's action was, however, more favourable to Miss Nightingale than his letter, for it was presently announced in the Madras papers that the Secretary of State had ordered drainage works of some sort to be carried out at once. If this were so, the words "at once" were interpreted with some reference to "the periods of Indian cosmogony." The scientific drainage of Black Town, the most thickly populated quarter of Madras, was begun in 1882; that of the remainder of the town was in progress twenty-five years. [168] In view of its selection as the new capital of India, the "sanitary regeneration" of Delhi is at last to be taken in hand. (_See_ the _Times_, April 22, 1913.) [169] In 1871 it was 28.96 per 1000; in 1874, 37.1. In some parts of the town, the rate was as high as 80 per 1000. IV Miss Nightingale's interest in details of sanitary reform was gradually merged into larger questions. Recurrent Indian famines gave a new turn to her thoughts. "I have been doing sanitary work for India for 18 years," she explained in a letter to Lord Houghton (Nov. 27, 1877); "but for the last four have been continually struck by this dreadful fact: What is the good of trying to keep people in health if you can't keep them in life? These ryots are being done to death by floods, by drought, by Zemindars, and usurers. You must live in order to be well." This indisputable proposition appealed strongly to her emotions. "My mind," she wrote to Mr. Chadwick (Sept. 14, 1877), "is full of the dying Indian children, starved by hundreds of thousands from conditions which have been made for them, in this hideous Indian famine.... How I wish that some one would now get up an agitation in the country--as Mr. Gladstone did as regards Bulgaria--which should say to the country, _You shall_, as regards Indian famines and the means of preventing them, among which Irrigation and Water Transit must rank foremost; if we had given them water, we should not now have to be giving them bread." Miss Nightingale had reached this conclusion by herself in 1873, and it was strongly confirmed in the following year. In February 1874 she was moved to write to Sir Arthur Cotton, "the greatest living master," as she truly called him, "of the Water Question." Her letter--the letter of one enthusiast to another--greatly delighted the old Anglo-Indian. "If," he wrote (Feb. 4), "fifty years of hard work and contempt had produced no other return but a letter from you, it would be an honour beyond what I deserve. The plot is now rapidly thickening, and I have not the smallest doubt that your having taken up this great subject will turn the scale. It is impossible for any person not resident in India to conceive the strength of the prejudice in the minds, not only of the civil officials, but of multitudes out of office on both the points of irrigation and navigation in India. I am assured that there is not a single person in high office now in India who is not in his heart opposed to them both. But we have arrived at a most remarkable crisis now, first in the occurrence of this most terrible famine, and, second, in the revolution in the India Office. Lord Salisbury will think for himself in spite of an Indian Council composed--with only the exception of Sir B. Frere--of men of incurable old Indian bias." Sir Arthur Cotton's inventive genius has left a permanent impress upon India; but he was now _en disponibilité_, and he was one of those enthusiasts who, when out of office and unable to carry on their plans, conceive the world to be in wilful conspiracy against them. Moreover, in urging the case for canals, he overstated it by too uncompromising a criticism of railways. During ensuing years Sir Arthur Cotton was one of the most voluminous of Miss Nightingale's correspondents. She was fully alive to the faults of manner which hindered the acceptance of his ideas, and from time to time she pleaded with him for more moderation and less asperity. She herself was sometimes blamed, by Mr. Jowett and others, for over-emphasis. She would laughingly wonder in reply what they thought of Sir Arthur Cotton who gave the public "strong alcohol," in comparison with which anything of hers was but "watered milk." She had not far pursued her researches into the Irrigation question before she perceived that it was intimately bound up with the Land question. Who was to pay for irrigation? Were the ryots willing to pay a water-rate? Could they pay it? Were not the Zemindars rapacious? Was not the cultivator at the mercy of the usurers? Sir George Campbell was full of such subjects, and Miss Nightingale proceeded, with his assistance, to master the intricacies of Land tenure in various parts of India, and especially of the "Permanent Settlement" in Bengal. One subject led her on to another, and she became deeply interested in the questions of representation, land, education, usury. She became, in short, an Indian Reformer, or an Indian Agitator, at large. V Her immediate effort, however, was thrown into the advocacy of Irrigation. In view alike of the poverty of India, and of the ever present danger of famine, she held that it was the duty of the Government to promote Irrigation in every way--by great works as well as small, by wells and tanks as much as by great and small canals--by encouraging private capital as well as by making great national grants and loans. The Indian tax-payer was poor, it was said to her; the way to make him less poor, she replied, was to irrigate his land. Miss Nightingale began her Irrigation campaign with an appeal to Lord Salisbury, and she approached him on a point which she thought would be common ground. She knew that he was of a scientific turn of mind, and hoped he would agree with her that the first thing needful was to obtain complete and trustworthy statistics. She sent him some tentative figures as to the cost of irrigation works already carried out, and the financial results accruing therefrom, confessing, however, that she had experienced great difficulty in obtaining the figures. "I have been too long on the search for such returns myself," he replied (May 10, 1875), "not to sympathise with your distress." He proceeded at some length to enumerate "the difficulties in the way of a really rigorous exhibit," and to state the questions which seemed to him still unsolved with regard to irrigation in general; for instance, "Is irrigation," he asked, "the creation or merely the anticipation of fertility? Does it make vegetable wealth, which but for it would never have existed, or does it crowd into a few years the enjoyment of the whole productive power of the soil?" Meanwhile he had her figures submitted to critical annotation at the India Office, directed various Papers to be sent to her, and promised to see whether fuller returns could be obtained. As nothing definite resulted, Miss Nightingale suggested the appointment of a Committee or Commission to investigate and report. The suggestion elicited a characteristic reply from Lord Salisbury. "As for a Commission," he wrote (Nov. 1, 1875), "I doubt its efficiency. Commissions are very valuable to collect and summarize opinion, and they are often able to decide one or two distinct issues of fact. But they are too unwieldy for the collection and digestion of a great variety of facts and figures. With the best intentions, their work is slow and _routinier_, and in their report they gloss over the weak places with generalities.... As a rule, administrative force is in the inverse proportion of the number of men who exercise it. One man is twice as strong as two; two men are twice as strong as four. Boards and Commissions are only contrivances for making strong men weak." From time to time she jogged Lord Salisbury's elbow, asking whether he had yet been able to obtain trustworthy figures, and beseeching him to initiate a great irrigation policy. "Do not for a moment imagine," he wrote (Feb. 27, 1876), "that I have forgotten the question. The more I go into it, the deeper the mystery appears. Every one who has a right to entertain an opinion on it vindicates that right by entertaining a different one from his neighbour. General Strachey and Sir Barrow Ellis have been engaged upon the matter for years. Both of these assert with confidence that one set of statements is true, while the Government of India, backed by Mr. Thornton, our excellent Public Works Secretary, assert it with no less confidence to be false.... When I am able to get a little light I will let you know; but as long as my oracles flatly contradict each other, I am not likely to get nearer certainty than I am now." As Lord Salisbury was disinclined to a Committee of experts, she begged him to procure returns from India, and she drew up a model form of inquiry, on which particulars might be asked of the extent of cultivated land in each district, the amount of land under irrigation, the cost of annual repairs, and so forth, and so forth. Lord Salisbury took the suggestion into consideration, and some returns were called for, but nothing came of it for the time. Miss Nightingale then tried to obtain information in another way. There were, she was told, masses of data in the India Office itself, which only needed analysis and tabulation to yield valuable results. Lord Lawrence had introduced to her Mr. Edward Prinsep (late Settlement Commissioner, Punjab) as a man likely to be helpful in such work. She made friends with him; Sir Louis Mallet gave facilities, and Mr. Prinsep began making researches on Miss Nightingale's behalf. Unfortunately for her success, she had the correctitude to ask Lord Salisbury's permission. Lord Salisbury referred her request to the Revenue Department, who in a solemn minute represented the serious precedent that would be set by allowing an outsider to delve in official archives, and Mr. Prinsep had to discontinue his researches. "You are doubtless aware," Sir Louis Mallet told her dryly, "that in the India Office opinions diametrically opposed are usually entertained on every subject which is discussed." There was only one certainty, he added, that any decision taken at one time would be reversed at another. Ultimately a good deal of information was collected by a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Works in India (1878) and by Famine Commissions. Returns, such as Miss Nightingale asked for, are now regularly made. Some irrigation works were carried out during these years,[170] but no great forward policy in that direction was instituted. The "forward policy" presently adopted was of a very different sort. The thoughts of the politicians were absorbed in other things; the opinions of the bureaucrats were divided, and there was stringency in Indian finance. If the experts could not agree on the proper basis of estimating the results of irrigation, still less were they at one on the kind of irrigation work that was desirable. Every one was agreed in favour of irrigation "in principle"; but as soon as it became a question of detail, whether in finance or in engineering, there were as many opinions as there were experts. One school said, "Borrow the money and the land will be so enriched that the ryot will be able to pay increased taxation." Another school retorted, "But he will be squeezed out of existence first; therefore, retrench all round, and wait for better times." Or, if the financial difficulty were overcome, engineering difficulties were raised. One school said, "Make navigable canals," but that meant fulness of water in them. Another said, "Make canals primarily for irrigation," but that meant depletion. And so the controversy continued, with no decided impulse from the men in office. Famines came and went; some works were carried out as a form of "relief"; no great preventive policy was established. [170] _E.g._ the "Buckingham Canal," connecting the canals N. and S. of Madras (made as a Famine Relief work, after being "under consideration" for a quarter of a century). Miss Nightingale celebrated this tardy achievement in an article in the press: see Bibliography A, No. 99. Miss Nightingale was much disheartened, but she persevered. She corresponded with everybody of importance whom she could hope to influence. With Lord Lytton, who had succeeded Lord Northbrook as Viceroy in 1876, she was not acquainted; and Lord Beaconsfield she never approached, except on another matter, and then without any encouragement on his part.[171] In April 1878 Lord Salisbury became Foreign Secretary, and was succeeded at the India Office by Mr. Gathorne-Hardy (Lord Cranbrook), Mr. Edward Stanhope becoming Under-Secretary. Mr. Stanhope came to see her (June 1878); and in the following year she sent him the figures of mortality in the last Indian famine, which she had compiled with great labour from various sources of information, and correspondence ensued. She saw and corresponded largely with Sir James Caird, the English representative on the Famine Commission. She tried to incense Lord Houghton on the subject of Indian grievances. She saw and corresponded with Mr. Fawcett. She saw Mr. Bright. She kept up a large and regular correspondence with officials in India. She supplied materials for lectures in England; and, with skilled assistance, she had some maps drawn and engraved, to show the principal works which might be constructed. These maps did service at lectures; and Miss Nightingale also wrote repeatedly in newspapers and magazines--heralding "water-arrivals,"[172] pointing out districts which famine had not visited owing to previous irrigation, and others where similar works might be expected to prevent famine in future; comparing the cost of relief and prevention; urging the importance of extending education; calling attention to oppression in forms of land-tenure and by money-lenders; and generally seeking to arouse public interest at home in the life and sufferings of the voiceless millions in India. [171] In 1879 the Registrar-General retired, and Miss Nightingale wrote to Lord Beaconsfield urging the claims of Dr. Farr to the post. As the greatest of English statisticians, and as the senior in the Registrar-General's office, he would have been the right man, but Lord Beaconsfield gave the appointment to Sir Brydges Henniker. Dr. Farr thereupon retired from the Public Service. In the following year he was made C.B. (at Miss Nightingale's instance, through Sir Stafford Northcote). [172] The title of an article by Miss Nightingale in _Good Words_. For it, and other Indian writings, see Bibliography A., Nos. 82, 84, 90, 92, 97-100. The piece by Miss Nightingale which attracted most attention was an article on "The People of India" in the _Nineteenth Century_ for October