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 EXETER HALL

Raithfu

VERSUS

BRITISH INDIA.

PART II.

LONDON :
THOMAS HATCHARD, 187 PICCADILLY.
1861 .
 LONDON :
STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN (LATE G. BARCLAY), PRINTERS,
Castle Street, Leicester Square.
 EXETER HALL v. BRITISH INDIA .

WHAT may ultimately be the fate of British India

it is only possible to conjecture ; its prospect at this

moment, however, is certainly anything but satisfac-
tory ; nor can the most sanguine of those who have
any acquaintance with its history and condition ima-

gine how it has been improved by the appointment

of an Exchequer Chancellor, by the reduction of
salaries, or by the taxation novelties which have

recently been recommended and adopted .

It is greatly to be feared, indeed , that, unless
public opinion be considerably modified, we shall
lose British India, and lose it under circumstances
of extreme humiliation and distress .

What gentlemen of the Bright- and- Potter school

may say, or have said, on this subject does not so
much signify, since they are bound to utter only
such sentiments as may be agreeable to that section
of the community which has the least interest in the
preservation of order.

But it is in the last degree discouraging to find

 4

men of known integrity, eminent ability, and in-

fluential position disregarding the most startling and
suggestive facts, which have only too frequently and
painfully forced themselves into very general pub-
licity, and grounding their propositions for East
Indian reform on the wildest and most mischievous
delusions .

It has been very frequently asserted in Parlia-

ment and elsewhere that the people of India have
changed, that they have improved, that they do not
differ materially from the people of this and of other
civilized countries, and that they deserve to partici-
pate more fully than they have hitherto done in the
government of their country.
Let any one for a moment imagine this country
governed by thirty thousand Sepoys, and two or three
hundred Mahomedan or Hindoo magistrates ; and

then consider how India, with her hundred and fifty

millions of people, has been, and still is, governed ,
and he will at once perceive that the people of India
do, indeed, differ very materially from the people of
this and of all other civilized countries .

In what have they changed ? Their manners

and customs, their religion and prejudices, their
ceremonies, their very songs (if songs they can be
called) , are precisely as they were a hundred, most
probably a thousand, years ago .
Do not the Hindoos still believe firmly in their
Pantheon of three hundred and thirty-three millions
of deities ?
 5

Do they not still, at certain seasons of the year,

flock by tens of thousands to places which they con-
sider holy on the banks of the Ganges, that they
may bathe, and carry back with them a little water
taken from the river at a time when it is considered
to possess miraculous attributes ?

The records of the judicial courts show very

plainly that they have not improved .
Within the last three years a woman has been

convicted of selling her daughter, a child nine years

of age, her and her issue for ninety years, for the
purpose of prostitution .
More recently a Rajpoot (a Hindoo of high
caste) was convicted of selling his son to Maho-
medans, the object of the purchasers --perfectly well
known to the father- being at once the most cruel,
infamous, and degrading that it is possible to
imagine .
It may be said that these are isolated cases , and
that they must have occurred in some places remote
from British influence and example. They occurred
in Patna, one of the oldest of the British settlements ;
and the magistrate who tried them is well assured

that they are by no means uncommon, but that,

owing to the reluctance of the natives to come for-
ward as evidence, much difficulty had always been
experienced in securing a conviction .
The natives, indeed , might well hesitate ; since in

such transactions persons of influence were frequently

involved, the sale of the girl was declared to be legal.
 6

by the highest East India Company's court of appeal,

and the sale of the boy was, at the instigation of his
" cautious " parent, formally registered in the judges'
court by the principal Mahomedan law-officer of the
district, a government servant with a salary of 7007.
a-year.
It would undoubtedly be unjust and absurd to
pronounce upon the moral condition of a people by
two instances of crime ; but where even two crimes

of a very revolting nature excite neither the surprise

nor the indignation of those amongst whom they are
committed, what inference more natural than that they
are common, and are not considered outrageous ?
Those who argue for the equality of the Indian
and other races must deny that these practices exist .
The dispassionate enquirer, however, will arrive at a
very different conclusion .

There is, unfortunately, only too much reason for

believing that such occurrences do not reproach, but
illustrate, the moral condition of the people of India.
From one end of the country to the other infanti-
cide is almost openly practised . Notwithstanding
the efforts of Government to prevent it, widows are

still burned upon the funeral piles of their husbands.

To suffocate a decrepid invalid on the banks of
the Ganges is considered to be rather a friendly than
a criminal act . The Hindoos consider it an extra-

ordinary advantage to die on the banks of the " holy

river ; " but should a person who has been brought

there to die happen to recover, he is held to have
 7

fatally offended the laws of his religion and caste ; no

one of his religious persuasion will eat with him, con-
verse with him, or shelter him ; he is thenceforth
.
completely and for ever rigidly excommunicated .

It is impossible to think, without some degree of

horror, upon the suffering which a person who has
been brought to die on the banks of the Ganges may
have to endure. He might entertain hopes of recovery

and prolonged life ; to whom would he dare to express

them ? He may be tormented by a raging thirst ;

there is no one to moisten his parched lips with a

little water, although a vast river is flowing at his
very feet. He
He may be in agony which a change of

position would alleviate ; but there is no one to help

him to turn. He has elected to die on the banks of

the holy river ; he has been conveyed there by his

own friends, and at his own request, his funeral pile
has been prepared, and now interference would be
sacrilege. There, close to him, sit his friends, and

there they will remain until their provisions are ex-

hausted , when they will either depart, leaving their
sick friend to his fate, or put an end to his sufferings
by filling his mouth and nostrils with mud taken from
the banks of the river, and then complete the cere-
mony which they came only to perform.

The history of India has, it must be confessed ,

but few attractions for the general reader ; it is, never-
theless, not wholly devoid of interest . It describes
no struggles for freedom ; no transition from a
barbarous to a civilized state ; none of those circum-
 8

stances, in fact, which render history interesting and

instructive ; but it presents to the reader the singular
phenomenon of a vast population arrested, as it were,
on the very threshold of civilization, submitting,

during a long series of ages, sometimes to foreign,

sometimes to native tyranny and oppression , suffering,
at every change of dynasty, all the horrors of barbarous

warfare, without making the faintest effort to favour

or obstruct the changes on which their most vital
interests were so deeply involved .
In the numberless dynasties which preceded the
establishment of the British rule, the condition of
the people remained always unaffected .
During the last hundred years it has been
materially improved . The people have now- what
they never had under native rulers - complete se-
curity for life and property, magistrates really anxious
to administer justice, safe and profitable investments
for money, and many other advantages of a mild,
equitable, and responsible government .
But what can laws or government do against the
far-reaching operation of general principles . " Let
fanciful people do what they will, it is very difficult .
to disturb the system of life." The people of India
are as indifferent to their present form of govern-

ment as they have ever been to any other ; they still

cling with unabated reverence to the usages of their
forefathers , still hoard and secrete their money, still

prefer the laws of their religion and caste, and still

fail to perceive the advantages of honesty and truth.
 9

They are evidently an inferior race. It is much to

be doubted if they are to be improved by any means .

It is certain that more harm than good has been
done by the religious and political missionaries of
Exeter Hall .
It is remarkable that Tamerlane and Aurunzebe,

and a host of others equally savage, governed India

with much ease and considerable profit. They

did not perceive in their subjects all, or indeed any,

of those excellent qualities which their Saxon succes-
sors have no one knows how- contrived to discover.

They were content to take matters as they found

them, and their government, not, perhaps, altogether
exemplary, was not wholly destitute of advantages .
It was, to be sure, always despotic, frequently
cruel and oppressive, but it was very easily and
cheaply maintained -very easily understood. Its

officials, invested with responsibility and power, if

not respected , were, at any rate, feared by the people.

In civil suits, as well as in criminal cases, the judges
were, no doubt, very frequently bribed ; but, when

they were not bribed , they decided without delay on

the supposed merits of the case.
The Anglo- Indian Government has none of these
advantages. It is so complicated that no intellect
can understand it, and so elaborate that no revenue

has hitherto been able to support it. Its officials ,

destitute of power and responsibility, are not feared ,
and consequently not respected, by the people. Civil
suits and criminal cases are decided after extra-
 10

ordinary delay, and on principles the nature of which

have yet to be discovered .
A judge, with all the facts of a case fresh before
him, with all the advantages of local knowledge, and
of observing the demeanour of witnesses during
examination , is not allowed to decide on the guilt or
innocence of a prisoner, nor to deliver judgment in
any civil suit that has been brought before him, but
must transmit a written statement of the proceedings
to what is termed the Sudder Court, by the judges
of which alone can sentence be pronounced .

A long series of those judgments, delivered , it

must be supposed, only after much painful delibera-
tion , appeared in a talented and deservedly influential
newspaper, published in the neighbourhood of Cal-

cutta : a single one may be given as a fair specimen

of the judicial wisdom of the highest East India
Company's court of appeal.
Two men, having a feud with a third, go out with
heavily-loaded bludgeons, and beat him to death.

They are tried and convicted , on evidence as clear

and conclusive as the nature of Indian morality
would admit of, and on their own full and voluntary

confession, and are very justly sentenced to be

hanged .
The Sudder judges, to whom the proceedings of
the trial are, in due course, transmitted , return them
to the district judge, remarking, " We do not find in
the proceedings of this case any evidence of the
prisoners ' intention to kill. Your finding, therefore ,
 11

must be manslaughter, and the sentence consequently

must be one of imprisonment only."

That such judicial displays are the rule, and not

the exception, may very safely be inferred from the
observation made by the Lord Chancellor during
the Parliamentary inquiry into East Indian affairs
in 1852 , “ That , in all the proceedings referred from
the Indian law courts to the Privy Council, he had
always observed a deplorable want of knowledge of
the commonest principles of law."
As in the administration of the laws, so in the
general business of the country, may be observed the
constant, pernicious, and paralysing interference of
66
superior power.
It is impossible to give any intelligible description
of the administration of British India. The principal
parts of its machinery are, a Secretary of State, with
a Council in London , a Governor-general, a Governor,
two Councils and an Exchequer Chancellor in Cal-
cutta, a Governor and a Council at Madras , a

Governor and a Council at Bombay, a Governor of

the North-west Provinces, many boards, many com-
missioners, and a host of officials, whose mere
designations would fill a goodly-sized volume, spread
broadcast over the whole country.

How power and responsibility are proportioned

between them , how any plan is originated and
executed, where the function of one official ends

and that of another begins, it is simply idle to

conjecture .
 12

Whether a country is to be annexed , or a barrack-

kitchen to be whitewashed, a correspondence covering
reams of paper, occupying hundreds of clerks, and
lasting hundreds of days, is an inevitable preliminary
consequence.
The simple conveyance of letters frequently costs
ten times as much as the matter which has occasioned

the correspondence.
Any payment, however trivial, if not expressly
provided for by a distinct paragraph in the Pay
regulations, must be referred for the consideration
.

of the " highest authority," i . e. the Governor-general

of India in Council. The Pay regulations are so

diffuse, conflicting, and obscure, that even a most

obvious and ordinary transaction may give rise to
a distracting and voluminous correspondence , during
which, perhaps , a most just claim is most unjustly
denied .

The heads of the various departments have not

the slightest discretionary power ; they are expressly
forbidden to incur even the most trivial expenditure ,

without being able to justify it by the quotation of

an existing general order ; and even when that
condition has been fulfilled , the most frivolous
objections are frequently made, sometimes to the
application of the order, sometimes to the con-
struction of the order itself.

A childish jealousy of local responsibility, an

inordinate desire to control even the pettiest details
of every portion of the empire, and the constant
 13

contemptible dread of frauds and unnecessary ex-

penditure, have led to the formation of a complicated
system of checks , counter- checks, certificates, and
declarations , which neutralises the talents and quells
the energy of the public servants, renders necessary
the entertainment of enormous , permanent , and

ruinously costly establishments, but which, failing

utterly to secure the object in view, actually multi-
plies the very evils it was intended to repress .

Some few years ago the big drummer of an

irregular native regiment was taken ill upon the line
of march, and it became necessary either to abandon
the big drum, or to find some unusual means for its
conveyance . The latter alternative was adopted .
Here was one of those innumerable contingencies
which, not having been provided for by a general
order, could only be settled (as it was, after some
twelve months' correspondence) by the appearance

of a paragraph in general orders , announcing that

" The Right Honourable the Governor-general of
India in Council had been pleased to sanction the
payment of three annas (fourpence-halfpenny) for
the conveyance of a big drum from Deyrah to

Rajpore."
The Government of India is unfortunately con-

vinced that questions of expenditure can be honestly

decided only by those who have no personal interest
to advance by their decisions .

It thus comes to pass that the purchase and con-

demnation of military stores, the selection or rejection
 14

of elephants, camels, and cattle for the commissariat

department, the fitness or unfitness of public build-

ings , the amount of cash balances at the various
treasuries, and a vast number of other similar matters ,
are referred for the consideration and report of a
committee of regimental officers.
The officers of those committees are not selected ,

but are nominated according to their position on the

roster for ordinary military duty. They may be
very ill-informed ; they may be profoundly ignorant
with respect to the matters referred for their con-
sideration : Government, however, is perfectly satis-
fied, if they have no personal interest to influence
their decision .

These committees, as none but the members of

the Council of India could fail to perceive, occasion a

vast deal of unnecessary trouble, delay, and expense,
prevent the advantage which the state would derive

from the intelligence and honesty of the heads of the

various departments and their deputies, and actually
place an enormous annual expenditure at the disposal
of fraudulent contractors and other native subordi-

nates, who, as may well be supposed, do not hesitate

to take the fullest advantage of their position.
But in nothing has the rash, unwarrantable inter-
ference of Government been more conspicuous and

fatal than in the management and operations of the

army .
Anonymous letters from discontented and muti-

nous Sepoys have been received , considered, and

 15

publicly noticed ; commanding officers have been

censured, frequently most unjustly, for disregarding
the laws and the prejudices of caste, and have been
punished as well for suppressing as for concealing a

mutiny in their regiments . A brigadier, cut down

by mutinous troops whilst endeavouring personally
to enforce a rational and legitimate order, has been
summarily dismissed from his appointment .
The peculiar circumstances under which he ac-
cepted a command in India, and his distinguished
character as a soldier and a governor, were insuf-
ficient to shield Sir Charles Napier from a public
rebuke for having, under very critical circumstances ,
somewhat overstepped the narrow limits of his
power.
In times of peace, the Commander-in -chief is not
permitted to direct the ordinary reliefs of his army ;
and, in the field , his plans must be made subservient
to the advice and suggestions with which he may be
favoured by gentlemen who, under the designation of
" Political Agents, " represent a distant Governor and
a Council.
No one could read the accounts of the earlier

campaigns against the Mahratta and Mysorean

powers without positively admiring the ingenuity
with which the Councils of Madras and Bombay,

through their " Political Agents," contrived to avoid

every possible advantage, and to occasion every pos-
sible disaster, difficulty, and disgrace.
The Council of Bengal has shown a similar, and ,
 16

from its superior position and opportunities, a stili

more surpassing fertility.
Lord Macaulay has related , in his usual brilliant
and perspicuous manner, how, immediately after its
first establishment, it contrived to bring the British
power in India to the very brink of ruin . Its sub-
sequent conduct has been uniformly in accordance
with its earlier proceedings .
Whether the first expedition to Affghanistan was
ordered by the Imperial or the Indian Government,
or whether it was a wise or a foolish undertaking,
it is now unnecessary to enquire . That it proved so
disastrous illustrates in a very remarkable manner

the proverb, that truth is sometimes stranger than

fiction .

The Affghan chiefs were naturally very impatient

of the British control ; but they saw how hopeless
would be any attempt to put an end to it by force of
arms. They were, however, not long in discovering
that inordinate love of negotiation, that rage for
doing something when nothing was to be done, for
which the political agents of the East India Company
have been so unenviably distinguished ; and of that
they had very little difficulty in sufficiently availing
themselves . What may have been the nature of the
negotiations will now, perhaps, be never discovered ;
its terrible results have acquired a truly mournful
notoriety .

The military stores and reserve commissariat

supplies were taken from a place of security to where
 17

they would be easily captured and destroyed by the

enemy. The British troops were removed from their
commanding and impregnable position in the citadel,

first , to an intrenched camp , surrounded and completely

commanded by the neighbouring heights , and sub-
sequently were marched bodily into a formidable pass,
where they were slaughtered with perfect ease,
security, and completeness . They could have main-
tained their position at Cabul without difficulty, or
could have retired from it without disaster ; their
annihilation could have been brought about by

nothing short of Anglo -Bengalce political agency.

Three years after the Cabul tragedy, very sufficient
reasons had been discovered for coming to some
understanding with the Sikh government and its
army.
The Sikh authorities had behaved with very pro-

voking insolence to our troops , and had, contrary to an

express agreement, obstructed their progress across
the Punjab in the preceding year, and had , moreover,
attempted to form with the Ameers of Scinde an

alliance very hostile to the British interests .

Their government was at that time completely
disorganised, there were several rival aspirants to the
throne . The army, turbulent, overgrown , irregularly
paid, and only kept together by its own fears of
separating (for it had, for some time, subsisted by

plunder, and was execrated by the people for its

wanton cruelties and excessive insolence), threatened,
C
1
 18

and sometimes annoyed, the protected Sikh states, and

the British frontier possessions .
Without at all interfering with the general affairs
of the country, the British Government would , under
the circumstances, have been fully justified in sug-

gesting such a reduction of the Sikh army as would

admit of a considerable, and certainly a very desirable,
reduction of its own.

And could there have been a better opportunity

for suggesting and, if need be, enforcing so desirable
an arrangement ? The Governor- general had been
for some time on the Sikh frontier with his army of
observation, and had been joined by the divisions
just returned from the second Cabul expedition , under
Generals Pollock and Nott.

It was perfectly obvious, to every one who wit-

nessed the insolent, swaggering demeanour of the
Sikh troops , during the review with which they on
this occasion favoured the Governor-general, that

peace with such fanatical and detestable braggarts

could not possibly be long maintained .
The Government of India, however, impressed
apparently with a very different conviction , retired its
army from the frontier, sent it into cantonments, and
effected a considerable reduction in that part of it
which is alone effective in the hour of need ,

Had a different course been adopted , the affairs

of the Punjab would then have been placed upon a
somewhat satisfactory footing, the hurried , ill-con-
 19

ducted , expensive, and bloody campaigns of 1845

and 1848 would have been anticipated, and the war,
had the Sikhs chosen that alternative, might have
been made to pay its own expenses, and, perhaps,
somewhat to relieve the overburdened finances of the
Indian Government.

In this year, 1843 , occurred the Scinde cam-

paign , which presents a singular contrast to every
other undertaken by the Anglo- Indian Government
since the time of the Marquis of Wellesley.

One can imagine the civility with which Sir

Charles Napier listened to the advice of the Bombay
" Political Agent," and the grim smile with which he
received the three young civilians, kindly sent by the
Council of Bengal to assist him : the former he duly
thanked , the latter were desired to occupy themselves
in copying a number of old and perfectly harmless
letters . Having thus disposed of his friends, invariably
the most difficult part of a British commander's duty
in an Indian campaign, he had full leisure to attend
to the enemy : he very speedily brought the campaign
to a successful close, and settled the country in a way
upon which it has, as yet, been found very difficult to

improve.
The Gwalior campaign followed close upon the con-
quest of Scinde. Here, whilst the " Political Agents "
are, as they imagine, negotiating, an attack is made

on the British army, and Lady Gough, and the other

ladies of the Commander-in- chief's camp, are the

first to receive the enemy's fire .

 20

In the Sutlej campaign, Anglo- Bengalee political

agency again distinguishes itself. Half an hour before
the battle of Moodkee, it was not known whether the
Sikhs had or had not crossed the river Sutlej in force,
and it was not ascertained, until after another action
.
had been fought, the result of which was for some

hours terribly uncertain, that they had for three

weeks been in a strongly-intrenched position , within
nine miles of Ferozepore, in which was a British
garrison, and an Anglo- Bengalce political agent.
But it is needless to detail any further the de-
plorable eccentricities of British Indian warfare ; the
policy system or practice, or whatever else it may be

termed, of delaying a just war until the enemy

has made every possible preparation to encounter it,
and then sending an army into the field, under a
general encumbered with " Political Agents ," is only
too obviously absurd . It has, nevertheless , been
persevered in with a dogged obstinacy which forms
the single consistent point in the character of the
Government of British India , as at present consti-
tuted .
In a country like India, inhabited as it is by a
variety of half-civilized races, and liable to sudden ,

unforeseen, and serious emergencies , local responsibility

is peculiarly essential . The long-continued efforts to
govern without it have very frequently proved dis-
astrous, and, if persevered in , must, if only from the
ruinous expense they occasion, ultimately prove fatal.

What could be more shocking, more revolting to

 21

every principle of common sense, than the spectacle

of the Governor-general running to one council for
advice, and to another for a bill to enable him to
authorize the local officials to meet the terrible emer-

gencies of the Sepoy rebellion ?

And what were the results of these Anglo - Bengalee

constitutional proceedings ? A gentleman , for no other

reason, apparently, than because he was a Company's
officer, and had formerly been a native infantry
adjutant -general, was brought from Madras to Cal-
cutta to advise the Government as to what was to be

done eight hundred miles off, at Delhi ; and a despatch

was sent to the Commander-in-chief, who, with a
small force of three thousand men , had just taken up
a position before the strong fortress of Delhi , then
occupied by forty thousand mutinous Sepoys, directing
him not to execute any prisoners he might make, but
to send them under escort for trial to Allahabad, four
hundred miles distant, and through a country vio-

lently agitated by rebellion .

In the meantime, the want of troops had been

obvious even to the members of the Council , and

steamers had been sent to bring them from wherever

they could be spared ; but, when the first of those
troops, so urgently required, and so anxiously expected,

had arrived, they were detained for some days on

board their ships in the river , as no arrangements had
been made for sending them up the country, nor even
to receive them on shore at Calcutta.

Sir Colin Campbell had no sooner landed in India

 22

than he found himself involved in a serious and acri-

monious discussion with the members of the Council,

who, so at least it is believed , proposed to send one

of their own body to the disturbed provinces, either
as dictator, or to be to Sir Colin Campbell what
Fabius Maximus was to Minutius in the second Punic
War.

But although they were not suffered , on this

occasion, so openly to insult Her Majesty's Govern-
ment , they could not, unfortunately, be prevented from
actively interfering with the management of the Sepoy
campaign. They sent one of their body to command
at Allahabad, they harassed the military commanders
with unnecessary instructions and impracticable sug-
gestions, and they decreed that gentlemen of the civil
service should accompany and direct the movements
of every column sent to act against the rebels.

The gentlemen of the civil service so employed

are not to be blamed if, acting in accordance with

their instructions, and to the best of their ability, they

should have been the unconscious means of furnishing
to the enemy the earliest and fullest information of
the movements and destruction of our troops .
Left to themselves , the military commanders would
very soon have crushed the Sepoy rebellion, and have
restored something like order to the country. As

it was, however, they found Messrs . Brown , Jones ,

and Robinson , of the Council, far more formidable
enemies than either the infamous Nanah, the intelli-

gent Moulvee, or the energetic Tantia Topee.

 23

In whatever way the Government of India be

regarded, whether in its political, its military, its
judicial, or its financial capacity, its utter inefficiency
and imbecility are alike conspicuous.
Its civil service has been pronounced incompetent

by one whose opinion on such a subject is entitled

to the highest respect. Its two armies have suffered
humiliating disasters, and have both disappeared
under circumstances disgraceful alike to their Govern-
ment and themselves . The resources of the country,
known to be varied and vast, are wholly undeveloped ,
the finances in extreme disorder, and the people,
not long ago so remarkable for their timidity and
docility, have become insolent, and are becoming
turbulent.
It would, indeed, be unreasonable to suppose
that Haileybury and Addiscombe should have failed
to furnish an average number of able and well-
educated men ; but, since the time of Warren
Hastings , there have been in India no opportunities
for the exercise of ability, integrity, or zeal.

The Sepoys had not the shadow of an excuse for

even discontent. They had not only obtained every
privilege which, on the score of their religion or their
caste, they had either solicited or demanded , but had

been granted others which they could hardly have

ventured to hope for, such as the exemption from
flogging, and from any other punishment for insub-
ordination and mutiny than dismissal from the
Company's service .
 24

They have resented, with extreme and most

offensive insolence , an accidental and trivial offence

against a prejudice, or a law of their caste ; they

have refused to take any share in the work of the
trenches before an enemy ; they have behaved with
the most shameless and conspicuous cowardice ; they
have frequently repudiated the authority of their
officers and their Government ; they have been
rewarded with " sweetmeats," decorated with medals ,
and enriched by donations and pensions ; and they
have mutinied, not because they had the shadow of
a grievance, but because they had been taught, by the
senseless proceedings of the Government, to consider
themselves the real masters of India.

In the atrocities which they perpetrated they dis-

played only the ordinary characteristics of their race, —
ferocious and cruel, when unopposed ; abject cowards,

when resolutely confronted .

Wars , everywhere serious and costly undertak-
ings, have been undoubtedly of frequent occur-
rence in India. Had they, however, been declared as
soon as they were known to be inevitable, and con-
ducted on those principles which are recognised as
sound and just by all the world , except the members
of the Council of India, and the worthies of Exeter
Hall, they would never have seriously embarrassed
the finances of the country.

The patronage which has been so fatal to the

Sepoys is now seen conferred on the cultivators of

the indigo plant. Unhappy wretches ! when it is all

 25

too late, when, terrified and bewildered , they are

looking back from the jungle, into which they have

been driven at the point of the bayonet, and see
the glare of the flames which are consuming their
houses and their property, they will , perhaps , under-
stand that those who have encouraged them to rebel

are powerless to protect them from the consequences

of rebellion .

There has long been a paltry feud between the

civil service and the indigo planters. Mr. J. P. Grant
and his colleagues may soon, perhaps, congratulate
themselves that, if they have utterly ruined their
friends, they have not altogether failed to injure their
enemies .

When the indigo question has been disposed of,

the gentlemen of the Council will have no difficulty
in finding other fields on which to display their
political and pious benevolence . Natives are em-
ployed in large numbers on the construction of the rail-
ways ; it will be easy to persuade them that they are
the victims of European tyranny and forged con-
tracts .

In the meantime, however, let it be hoped that

those who have power or influence may be induced
to consider whether it be wise or just, or even what
the world calls expedient, to continue a system of
government which has shown itself so fertile in creat-
ing difficulties, disasters, and disgrace, which has, for

more than half a century, squandered a magnificent

revenue in uselessly employing vast herds of the
 26

worthless descendants of the former barbarous rulers

of India, and in vain attempts to educate and convert

the equally worthless progeny of those descendants ,
but which has left the well- disposed , industrious, and
tax-paying millions without even roads on which to
convey the produce of their toil to the markets or the

ports.
Since the time of the Marquis of Wellesley, the
Governors-general of India have been utterly power-

less to improve the condition of the people or the

country. They have, with one exception, been merely
the agents of Exeter - Hall piety, or of Leadenhall-
Street economy .

The Marquis of Cornwallis was sent out by

Exeter Hall to relieve the natives of Bengal from the

sufferings which they were supposed to be enduring

from European tyranny and oppression . The lands
were to be restored to their original possessors . Two
parties claimed the title of original possession :
neither could prove its claim . The Ryots, or culti-

vators, pleaded generations of uninterrupted pos-

session ; the Zemindars, who were to the Ryots
what the worst of the agents were to the Irish
cottiers in Ireland's worst times, represented them-
selves as hereditary possessors, in virtue of Govern-
ment grants ; and, as might be expected from the
pious wisdom of Exeter Hall , their claim was admitted ;
the British Government merely stipulating for power

to protect the cultivators from any encroachment

on their rights.
 27

Never was a political measure more uncalled for,

more unjustifiable, or more unfortunate in its results .
The Zemindars, wholly unable to relinquish their
habits of odious and extravagant profligacy, were,

under the strong rule of a British Government,

compelled to borrow the money which formerly
they would have plundered ; and, in the course of a
few years, they were nearly all of them dispossessed .
Under a new class of proprietors, who had ob-
tained the lands for about one-fourth of their value,
between whom and their tenants Government had

no power to interfere, and to whom mercy and

forbearance were utterly unknown, the unhappy
Ryots were very soon reduced to the miserable,

abject condition in which they are still to be found,

and from which it seems quite impossible to release
them .

The vast extension of cultivation , and the enormous

increase in the value of produce which have taken
place in Bengal during the last sixty-eight years, have
been very generally, but rather too hastily, ascribed to
the perpetual settlement of the land-tax . It should
be considered that, in the meantime, the original

Zemindars have been utterly ruined , and that the

peasantry have been reduced to a condition very
little better than that of absolute slavery. The
influence of security for life and property on all

industrial undertakings , and which was unknown in

India until the British power was firmly established
there, should also be taken into consideration .
 28

One thing is absolutely certain , by the alienation

of the rich and productive province of Bengal, a loss

was inflicted on the British Indian revenue which

may now be safely and moderately estimated at

450,000,0007 . sterling.

The confidence and alacrity with which Lord

William Bentinck undertook to relieve the financial
embarrassment of the Government, and to improve

the condition of the people of India, have not been

very well justified by results .
His proceedings were certainly sufficiently simple.
He first reduced the pay of every Government servant
in the country, and then further reduced all military
pay issued within 200 miles of each of the Presi-
dency capitals ; he abolished flogging in the native
army, and prohibited the practice of burning widows
on their husbands ' funeral piles .
His indiscriminate retrenchments of pay were at

least as injudicious as they were unpopular ; the

relief they produced was not perceptible ; they could
have been justified by nothing short of absolute
necessity, by there being no other means of meeting
a financial pressure which had been occasioned, not
by excessive ordinary expenditure, but by a series of
protracted and ill-managed campaigns.
The folly and injustice of suddenly bringing
three-fourths of the officers of the army within the

demoralizing influence of poverty, in a country where

poverty is more than usually irksome, have been only
too frequently illustrated by the humiliating facts
 29

which the military courts of request have forced into

publicity.
Flogging has long since been re-introduced into

the native army ; and although it may have been

right to prohibit, it has been found impossible to
prevent, the horrible practice of the suttee.
Influenced by the same motives, and fettered by
the same restrictions , Lord William Bentinck's suc-

cessors have done nothing to develope the resources

of the country, to improve the condition of the
people, or to increase the efficiency of the Govern-
ment ; but everything that could have been done

they have done to gratify the morbid caprice of

Exeter- Hall piety, and to satisfy the miserable
cravings of Leadenhall - Street economy ; and the
result is the strange , complicated, ruinously costly
system of administration which does not permit a
governor to govern, a judge to judge, or a com-
mander to command ; which, with all the advantages

of energy, intelligence , and vastly superior power,

creates or increases those difficulties which other

governments meet and overcome ; which is re-

proached by mutiny and military disasters, by re-

bellion and financial difficulties, and even by the

famine which is now raging, from the calamities of

which thousands might have been easily and " profit-
ably " secured ; which, having nothing to recommend,
and everything to condemn it, is nevertheless not.

only to be continued , but enlarged .

 30

The Secretary of State for India proposes to

replace the Legislative Council by a legislative as-
sembly of European and native gentlemen, whose
proceedings are to be controlled by the Governor-
general and his Council .
No one should now be deceived by the wretched
clap - trap of governing India through the affections of
its people .

Even the pious worthies of Exeter Hall must

begin to suspect that their underpaid missionaries

have but little influence on people who , themselves

the poorest of the poor, utterly despise poverty, and
listen with stupid amazement and incredulity to
arguments against a future state of uninterrupted
sensuality.
The framers of a new constitution for India
should remember that laws are, after all, only a

general concurrence of society in certain prescribed

rules of action, and a resolution to punish those who
will not abide by them.
Of all the amiable enthusiasts who have ever

made British India an object of their consideration ,

or a theme of their eloquence, is there one who can
show - will even Major Sykes or Mr. Layard under-
take to suggest - by what means the opinions and
wishes of the people of India, with respect to political
measures, are to be even approximately ascertained,
and how effect shall be given to laws amongst

people who, if not constitutionally dishonest and

 31

untruthful, have been for ages habituated to consider

false swearing and forgery justifiable means of attain-

ing their ends ?

In this age of joint-stock associations and limited

liability, it may be useless to protest against the
mockery of a representative government which it is
proposed to establish, and which it seems must be

supported by increasing the tax on salt, and by taxing

tobacco ,-one a great necessary of life , the other the

chief-too frequently the single- luxury and solace

of a people so poor, that they may be said to inherit

poverty and acquire insolvency ; so ignorant and

superstitious , that when -- perhaps after a long, weary,
and expensive pilgrimage - they have thrown a few
poor flowers and plaintains into the Ganges, con-
sider that they have done all that could have been

done to propitiate the god of plenty, and to secure a

bountiful yield in the coming spring.
The Secretary of State for India has, it must be
supposed, considered the probable effects of the
measures which he has now proposed . He cannot
fail to perceive that, however necessary and salutary
the reduction of the native army may have been, it
will, nevertheless, by cutting off a considerable source
of employment, add to the distress which the in-
creased taxation must occasion .

Gang robberies will speedily become frequent - a

general feeling of insecurity and discontent will spread
over the country. In some parts the villages will be
 32

deserted, in others the collection of the taxes will be

openly resisted, and , when order has been restored by
the troops, another million or two will have been
added to the Government debt.

If the history, the condition, and the wants of the

people of India were but fairly considered , if the grea
facts of British -Indian history were not wilfully and

perversely ignored , the whole system of irresponsible

councillors and functionless officials would at once
and for ever be swept away.

The British Indian Empire was acquired and

has been maintained by the sword , and by the sword
alone can it be continued . Its government , however
it may be complicated or obscured , is after all the
dominion of race over race, and must needs be des-

potic ; all that irresponsible councillors and legislative

assemblies can do is to occasion vexatious delay,
unnecessary labour, and ruinous expenditure.
The people of India are plainly destitute of those
qualities which are universally considered the essential
elements of a constitutional government .

The machinery of a Government perfectly adapted

to their wants, their understanding, and their poverty
is already, and has long been, in existence . It is

necessary only to remove those impediments which

morbid piety and false economy have been permitted
to create, and it would at once start into regular and
harmonious action .

It is abundantly evident that the finances of India

 33

must be immediately and materially relieved . Ex- .

penditure must be diminished , or the revenue must
be increased.

Any one who even cursorily considers the peculiar

circumstances of the country, its vast extent, its
varied climate and produce, its population, composed
of numerous races, distinct as to language, manners ,
customs, and religious belief, but all equally poor,
ignorant, and superstitious, would at once perceive
that taxation has already been carried far beyond its
justifiable limits ; that it is foolish and dangerous to
reduce the salaries of public servants in a country

where they are subjected to so many irksome priva-

tions, and to temptations which only the highest
integrity could resist .

There is a plan which is calculated to restore the

affairs of India to a satisfactory condition , to bring

expenditure within a moderate revenue, to relieve the

people from the more intolerable burdens of taxation ,
and to give them as much happiness as they are
capable of receiving from any political system ; but
who will venture to propose it ? since it involves
nothing less than the complete destruction of the
whole system of irresponsible councils. It would
place the governors of provinces and the commis-

sioners of districts in the position now held by

members of the Council, only that they should be
held responsible for the consequence of their advice.
It would simplify public business , and, whilst it
neglected no rational precautions, would rely with
Ꭰ
 34

all rational confidence on the integrity, ability, and

zeal of the public servants.

It would enable the Governor-general to proceed

at once with public works which are absolutely ne-

cessary to develope the resources of the country, and
to improve the condition of the people. Power and
responsibility , being properly distributed , there would
be little to fear from either domestic excitement or

foreign aggression .
Whether, in order to attract capital and to en-
courage commercial undertakings , it will be necessary
to surrender important Government rights, is a point
for anxious but future consideration .
The remarks of an obscure and unskillful writer

are not likely to turn a Secretary of State from his

course . They will, in this case, have fully obtained

their object, if they are so fortunate as to attract the

attention and excite the curiosity of some one whose
opinions are entitled to respect .

10 SE 61

STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN, Printers, 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.