The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Part 8

And, further, a French protectorate over a part of the island would certainly work disastrously for the progress of Madagascar itself. It has been already shown that during the present century the country has been pa.s.sing out of the condition of a collection of petty independent States into that of one strong Kingdom, whose authority is gradually becoming more and more firmly established over the whole island. And all hope of progress is bound up in the strengthening and consolidation of the central Hova Government, with capable governors representing its authority over the other provinces. But for many years past the French have depreciated and ridiculed the Hova power; and except M. Guillain, who, in his "Doc.u.ments sur la Partie Occidentale de Madagascar," has written with due appreciation of the civilizing policy of Radama I., there is hardly any French writer but has spoken evil of the central government, simply because every step taken towards the unification of the country makes their own projects less feasible. French policy is, therefore, to stir up the outlying tribes, where the Hova authority is still weak, to discontent and rebellion, and so cause internecine war, in which France will come in and offer "protection" to all rebels. Truly a n.o.ble "mission" for a great and enlightened European nation!

After acknowledging again and again the sovereign at Antananarvo as "Queen of Madagascar," the French papers have lately begun to style Her Majesty "Queen of the Hovas," as if there were not a dozen other tribes over whom even the French have never disputed her authority; while they write as if the Sakalava formed an independent State, with whom they had a perfect right to conclude treaties. More than this: after making treaties with at least two sovereigns of Madagascar, accrediting consuls to them and receiving consuls appointed by them, a portion of the French press has just discovered that the Malagasy are "a barbarous people,"

with whom it would be derogatory to France to meet on equal terms.[21]

Let us see what this barbarous Malagasy Government has been doing during the last few years:--

i. It has put an end to idolatry in the central and other provinces, and with it a number of cruel and foolish superst.i.tions, together with the use of the _Tangena_ poison-ordeal,[22] infanticide, polygamy, and the unrestricted power of divorce.

ii. It has codified, revised, and printed its laws, abolishing capital punishment (formerly carried out in many cruel forms), except for the crimes of treason and murder.

iii. It has set free a large portion of the slave population, indeed all African slaves brought from beyond the seas, and has pa.s.sed laws by which no Malagasy can any longer be reduced to slavery for debt or for political offences.

iv. It has largely limited the old oppressive feudal system of the country, and has formed a kind of responsible Ministry, with departments of foreign affairs, war, justice, revenue, trade, schools, &c.

v. It has pa.s.sed laws for compulsory education throughout the central provinces, by which the children in that part of the island are now being educated.

vi. It has begun to remodel its army, putting it on a basis of short service, to which all cla.s.ses are liable, so as to consolidate its power over the outlying districts, and bring all the island under the action of the just and humane laws already described.

vii. It has made the planting of the poppy illegal, subjecting the offender to a very heavy fine.

viii. It has pa.s.sed several laws forbidding the manufacture and importation of ardent spirits into Imerina, and is anxious for powers in the treaties now to be revised to levy a much heavier duty at the ports.

We need not ask if these are the acts of a barbarous nation, or whether it would be for the interests of humanity and civilization and progress if the disorderly elements which still remain in the country should be encouraged by foreign interference to break away from the control they have so long acknowledged. It is very doubtful whether any European nation has made similar progress in such a short period as has this Hova Government of Madagascar.

It may also be remarked that although it has also been the object of the French to pose as the friends of the Sakalava, whom they represent as down-trodden, it is a simple matter of fact that for many years past these people have been in peaceable subjection to the Hova authority.

The system of government allows the local chiefs to retain a good deal of their former influence so long as the suzerainty of the Queen at Antananarvo is acknowledged. And a recent traveller through this north-west district, the Rev. W. C. Pickersgill, testifies that on inquiring of every tribe as to whom they paid allegiance, the invariable reply was, "To Ranavalo-manjaka, Queen of Madagascar." It is indeed extremely probable that, in counting upon the support of these north-westerly tribes against the central government, the French are reckoning without their host, and will find enemies where they expect allies.[23] In fact, the incident which was one of the chief pretexts for the revival of these long-dormant claims--the hoisting of the Queen's flag at two places--really shows how well disposed the people are to the Hova Government, and how they look to the Queen for justice.

It will perhaps be asked, Have we any diplomatic standing-ground for friendly intervention on behalf of the Malagasy? I think there are at least two considerations which--altogether apart from our commercial and political interests in the freedom of the country, and what we have done for it in various ways--give us a right to speak in this question. One is, that there has for many years past been an understanding between the Governments of France and England that neither would take action with regard to Madagascar without previous consultation with each other.[24]

We are then surely ent.i.tled to speak if the independence of the island is threatened. Another reason is, that we are to a great extent pledged to give the Hova Government some support by the words spoken by our Special Envoy to the Queen Ranavalona last year. Vice-Admiral Gore-Jones then repeated the a.s.surance of the understanding above-mentioned, and encouraged the Hova Government to consolidate their authority on the west coast, and, in fact, his language stimulated them to take that action there which the French have made a pretext for their present interference.[25]

In taking such a line of action England seeks no selfish ends. We do not covet a foot of Madagascar territory; we ask no exclusive privileges; but I do maintain that what we have done for Madagascar, and the part we have taken in her development and advancement, gives us a claim and imposes on us an obligation to stand forward on her behalf against those who would break her unity and consequently her progress. The French will have no easy task to conquer the country if they persist in their demands; the Malagasy will not yield except to overwhelming force, and it will prove a war bringing heavy cost and little honour to France.

May I not appeal to all right-minded and generous Frenchmen that their influence should also be in the direction of preserving the freedom of this nation?--one of the few dark peoples who have shown an unusual receptivity for civilization and Christianity, who have already advanced themselves so much, and who will still, if left undisturbed, become one united and enlightened nation.

It will be to the lasting disgrace of France if she stirs up aggressive war, and so throws back indefinitely all the remarkable progress made by the Malagasy during the past few years; and it will be hardly less to our own discredit if we, an insular nation, jealous of the inviolability of our own island, show no practical sympathy with another insular people, and do not use every means that can be employed to preserve to Madagascar its independence and its liberties.

JAMES SIBREE, Jun.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The single act which led to the revival of these long-forgotten claims upon the north-west coast, was the hoisting of the Queen's flag by two native Sakalava chieftains in their villages. These were hauled down, and carried away in a French gun-boat, and the flag-staves cut up.

[12] This last claim must be preferred either in perfect ignorance of what the 1868 treaty really is, or as an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the newspaper-reading public.

[13] It is true that during these seventy years various edicts claiming the country we issued by Louis XIV.; but as the French during all that time did not attempt to occupy a single foot of territory in Madagascar, these grandiloquent proclamations can hardly be considered as of much value. As has been remarked, French pretensions were greatest when their actual authority was least.

[14] See "Precis sur les Etabliss.e.m.e.nts Francais formes a Madagascar."

Paris, 1836, p.4.

[15] For fuller details as to the character of French settlements in Madagascar, their gross mismanagement and bad treatment of the people, see Statement of the Madagascar Committee; and _Souvenirs de Madagascar_, par M. le Dr. H. Lacaze: Paris, 1881, p. xviii.

[16] The italics are my own.

[17] See also letter of Bishop Ryan, late of Mauritius, _Daily News_, Dec. 16.

[18] See _Daily News_, Nov. 30 and Dec. 1; _La Liberte_, Nov. 29, and _Le Parlement_ of same date. Both these French journals speak of an "Act by which the Tananarivo Government cancelled the Treaty of 1868" (_Le Parlement_), and of its being "annulled by Queen Ranavalona of her own authority" (_La Liberte_). It is only necessary to say that no such "Act" ever had any existence, save in the fertile brains of French journalists, and it is now brought forward apparently with a view to excite animosity towards the Malagasy in the minds of their readers.

[19] _E.g., The Manchester Guardian_, Dec. 1st., 5th., and 6th.

[20] Almost all Malagasy words for military tactics and rank are of English origin, so are many of the words used for building operations, and the influence of England is also shown by the fact that almost all the words connected with education and literature are from us, such as school, cla.s.s, lesson, pen, copybook, pencil, slate, book, gazette, press, print, proof, capital, period, &c., grammar, geography, addition, &c.

[21] See _Le Parlement_, Dec. 15, and other French papers.

[22] Among the many unfair statements of the Parisian press is an article in _Le Rappel_, of Oct. 29, copied by many other papers, in which this Tangena ordeal is described as if it was now a practice of the Malagasy, the intention being, of course, to lead its readers to look upon them as still barbarous; the fact being that its use has been obsolete ever since 1865 (Art. XVIII. of English Treaty), and its practice is a capital offence, as a form of treason. The Malagasy Envoys are represented as saying that their Supreme Court often condemned criminals to death by its use!

[23] See Tract No. II. of the Madagascar Committee.

[24] See Lord Granville's speech in reply to the address of the Madagascar Committee, Nov. 28.

[25] The Admiral, so it is reported on good authority, congratulated the Queen and her Government on having solved the question of Madagascar by showing that the Hova could govern it. He also said that France and England were in perfect accord on this point, and on the wisdom of recognizing Queen Ranavalona as sovereign of the whole island. See _Daily News_, Dec. 14. This will no doubt be confirmed by the publication of the official report which has been asked for by Mr. G.

Palmer, M.P.

THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF THE WORLD.

PART THE FIRST.

I.

I suppose there are few students of man and of society to whom the present religious condition and apparent religious prospect of the world can seem very satisfactory. If there is any lesson clear from history it is this; that, in every age religion has been the main stay both of private life and of the public order,--"the substance of humanity," as Quinet well expresses it, "whence issue, as by so many necessary consequences, political inst.i.tutions, the arts, poetry, philosophy, and, up to a certain point, even the sequence of events."[26] The existing civilization of Europe and America--I use the word civilization in its highest and widest sense, and mean by it especially the laws, traditions, beliefs, and habits of thought and action, whereby individual family and social life is governed--is mainly the work of Christianity. The races which inhabit the vast Asiatic Continent are what they are chiefly from the influence of Buddhism and Mohammedanism, of the Brahminical, Confucian, and Taosean systems. In the fetichism of the rude tribes of Africa, still in the state of the childhood of humanity, we have what has been called the _parler enfantin_ of religion:--it is that rude and unformed speech, as of spiritual babes and sucklings, which princ.i.p.ally makes them to differ from the anthropoid apes of their tropical forests: "un peuple est compte pour quelque chose le jour ou il s'eleve a la pensee de Dieu."[27] But the spirit of the age is unquestionably hostile to all these creeds from the highest to the lowest. In Europe there is a movement--of its breadth and strength I shall say more presently--the irreconcilable hostility of which to "all religion and all religiosity," to use the words of the late M. Louis Blanc, is written on its front. Thought is the most contagious thing in the world, and in these days pain unchanged, but with no firm ground of faith, no "hope both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the vail," no worthy object of desire whereby man may erect himself above himself, whence he may derive an indefectible rule of conduct, a constraining incentive to self-sacrifice, an adequate motive for patient endurance,--such is the vision of the coming time, as it presents itself to many of the most thoughtful and competent observers.

II.

In these circ.u.mstances it is natural that so thoughtful and competent an observer as the author of "Ecce h.o.m.o" should take up his parable. And a.s.suredly few who have read that beautiful book, so full of lofty musing, and so rich in pregnant suggestion, however superficial and inconsequent, will have opened the volume which he has recently given to the world without high expectation. It will be remembered that in his preface to his former work, he tells us that he was dissatisfied with the current conceptions of Christ, and unable to rest content without a definite opinion regarding Him, and so was led to trace His biography from point to point, with a view of accepting those conclusions about Him which the facts themselves, weighed critically, appeared to warrant.

And now, after the lapse of well-nigh two decades, the author of "Ecce h.o.m.o" comes forward to consider the religious outlook of the world.

Surely a task for which he is in many respects peculiarly well-fitted.

Wide knowledge of the modern mind, broad sympathies, keen and delicate perceptions, freedom from party and personal ends, and a power of graceful and winning statement must, upon all hands, be conceded to him.

What such a man thinks on such a subject, is certain to be interesting; and, whether we agree with it or not, is as certain to be suggestive. I propose, therefore, first of all to consider what may be learnt about the topic with which I am concerned, from this new book on "Natural Religion," and I shall then proceed to deal with it in my own way.

The author of "Natural Religion" starts with the broad a.s.sumption that "supernaturalism" is discredited by modern "science." I may perhaps, in pa.s.sing, venture to express my regret that in an inquiry demanding, from its nature and importance, the utmost precision of which human speech is capable, the author has in so few cases clearly and rigidly limited the sense of the terms which he employs. "Supernaturalism," for example, is a word which may bear many different meanings; which, as a matter of fact, does bear, I think, for me a very different meaning from that which it bears for the author of "Natural Religion." So, again, "science" in this book, is tacitly a.s.sumed to denote physical science only: and what an a.s.sumption, as though there were no other sciences than the physical! This in pa.s.sing. I shall have to touch again upon these points hereafter. For the present let us regard the scope and aim of this discourse of Natural Religion, as the author states it. He finds that the supernatural portion of Christianity, as of all religions, is widely considered to be discredited by physical science. "Two opposite theories of the Universe" (p. 26) are before men. The one propounded by Christianity "is summed up," as he deems, "in the three propositions, that a Personal Will is the cause of the Universe, that that Will is perfectly benevolent, that that Will has sometimes interfered by miracles with the order of the Universe" (p. 13). The other he states as follows:--"Science opposes to G.o.d Nature. When it denies G.o.d it denies the existence of any power beyond or superior to Nature; and it may deny at the same time anything like a _cause_ of Nature. It believes in certain laws of co-existence and sequence in phenomena, and in denying G.o.d it means to deny that anything further can be known" (p. 17). "For what is G.o.d--so the argument runs--but a hypothesis, which religious men have mistaken for a demonstrated reality? And is it not precisely against such premature hypotheses that science most strenuously protests? That a Personal Will is the cause of the Universe--this might stand very well as a hypothesis to work with, until facts should either confirm it, or force it to give way to another, either different or at least modified. That this Personal Will is benevolent, and is shown to be so by the facts of the Universe, which evince a providential care for man and other animals--this is just one of those plausibilities which pa.s.sed muster before scientific method was understood, but modern science rejects it as unproved. Modern science holds that there may be design in the Universe, but that to penetrate the design is, and probably always will be, beyond the power of the human understanding.

That this Personal Will has on particular occasions revealed itself by breaking through the customary order of the Universe, and performing what are called miracles--this, it is said, is one of those legends o which histories were full, until a stricter view of evidence was introduced, and the modern critical spirit sifted thoroughly the annals of the world" (p. 11). These, in our author's words, are the two opposite theories of the Universe before the world: two "mortally hostile" (p. 13) theories; the one "the greatest of all affirmations;"

"the other the most fatal of all negations," (p. 26) and the latter, as he discerns, is everywhere making startling progress. "The extension of the _methods_ of physical science to the whole domain of human knowledge," he notes as the most important "change of system in the intellectual world" (p. 7). "No one," he continues, "needs to be told what havoc this physical method is making with received systems, and it produces a sceptical disposition of mind towards primary principles which have been of steam locomotion and electric telegraphs, of cheap literature and ubiquitous journalism, ideas travel with the speed of light, and the influences which are warring against the theologies of Europe are certainly acting as powerful solvents upon the religious systems of the rest of the world. But apart from the loud and fierce negation of the creed of Christendom which is so striking a feature of the present day, there is among those who nominally adhere to it a vast amount of unaggressive doubt. Between the party which avowedly aims at the destruction of "all religion and all religiosity," at the delivery of man from what it calls the "nightmare" or "the intellectual wh.o.r.edom"

of spiritualism, and those who cling with undimmed faith to the religion of their fathers, there is an exceeding great mult.i.tude who are properly described as sceptics. It is even more an age of doubt than of denial.

As Chateaubriand noted, when the century was yet young, "we are no longer living in times when it avails to say 'Believe and do not examine:' people will examine whether we like it or not." And since these words were written, people have been busily examining in every department of human thought, and especially in the domain of religion.

In particular Christianity has been made the subject of the most searching scrutiny. How indeed could we expect that it should escape?

The greatest fact in the annals of the modern world, it naturally invites the researches of the historian. The basis of the system of ethics still current amongst us, it peremptorily claims the attention of the sociologist. The fount of the metaphysical conceptions accepted in Europe, until in the last century, before the "uncreating word" of Lockian sensism,