Produced by Ron Swanson
_Rulers of India_
EDITED BY
SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.I.: C.I.E.: M.A. (OXFORD): LL.D.
(CAMBRIDGE)
THE EARL OF MAYO
London
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
[_All rights reserved_]
[Illustration: MAP OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE]
[Frontispiece: Mayo. _Collotype. Oxford University Press._]
RULERS OF INDIA
THE EARL OF MAYO
BY SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.I.: C.I.E.: M.A.: LL.D.
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS: 1891
Oxford
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGES
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-16
II. THE MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-79
III. THE ACTUAL PROCESS OF VICEREGAL GOVERNMENT . . . 80-97
IV. LORD MAYO'S DEALINGS WITH THE FEUDATORY STATES . 98-118
V. LORD MAYO'S FOREIGN POLICY . . . . . . . . . . . 119-135
VI. LORD MAYO'S FINANCIAL REFORMS . . . . . . . . . 136-157
VII. LORD MAYO'S MILITARY POLICY . . . . . . . . . . 158-170
VIII. LORD MAYO'S INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION . . . . . . 171-186
IX. THE END . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187-201
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203-206
_NOTE_
The orthography of proper names follows the system adopted by the
Indian Government for the _Imperial Gazetteer of India_. That system,
while adhering to the popular spelling of very well-known places,
such as Punjab, Lucknow, &c., employs in all other cases the vowels
with the following uniform sounds:--
_a_, as in wom_a_n: _a_, as in f_a_ther: _i_, as in pol_i_ce: _i_, as
in intr_i_gue: _o_, as in c_o_ld: _u_, as in b_u_ll: _u_, as in
s_u_re: _e_, as in gr_e_y.
THE EARL OF MAYO
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The _Life of Dalhousie_ dealt with the last accessions made to the
British dominions in India under the East India Company. The present
volume exhibits a memorable stage in the process by which those
dominions, old and new, were welded together into the India of the
Queen.
Between the two periods a time of trial had intervened. Northern
India, drained of its European regiments in spite of the protests of
Dalhousie, seemed during the agony of 1857 to lie at the mercy of the
revolted native troops. The Mutiny left behind it many political
lessons, and two historical facts. These facts were that the Sepoys
in whom the East India Company gloried as its chief strength had
proved its chief danger, and that the ruling princes of India, whom
the Company always regarded as a main source of danger, had proved a
source of strength.
I say the ruling princes of India. For besides the reigning families
there were certain ex-ruling Houses {8} who furnished leaders and
rallying-names to the revolt. The Muhammadan lapsed dynasties were
represented in the Mutiny by the titular majesty of the King of Delhi
and his sons. The great Hindu power, the Marathas, who seemed
destined in the last century to build up an indigenous Indian empire
out of the wreck of the Muhammadan dynasties, stood forward against
us in the persons of Nana Sahib the adopted son of the deposed
Peshwa, and his military follower Tantia Topi. The lesser ex-ruling
Houses, whose states had come under the British Government on failure
of direct male heirs, supplied an equally vindictive and a more
heroic leader in the Rani or pensioned princess of Jhansi. But the
great body of the reigning Feudatories in India held aloof from the
Mutiny. Many of them cast in their lot with us in our hour of direst
need. The story of the loyal Punjab Chiefs who helped us to retake
Delhi is known to all Englishmen. But the succour, the shelter, the
aid, rendered by scores of the Native Princes throughout India, find
but a passing mention in history. Of the 150 principal Feudatories
and Chiefs, we can count the disloyal ones on the fingers of one
hand. Local leaders, like Koer Singh the Behar landholder, were
mostly bankrupt or ruined men.
One result of the Mutiny of 1857 was to profoundly modify the
attitude of the British Government to the Native Princes. The East
India Company had regarded them as semi-foreign allies; of whom the
more powerful were to be bound tightly by treaties {9} and overawed
by subsidiary troops; while the weaker should be absorbed into the
British dominions whenever a just occasion arose. This system of
annexation was 'the one clear and direct course' deliberately laid
down by the East India Company's Government in 1841. When the Queen
assumed the direct control of India, her first act was to reverse
that policy. In solemn words she assured the loyal Princes and Chiefs
of her desire to maintain their rule over their own States. The
Feudatories became thenceforward an integral part of the British
Empire of India, with a clearly defined position, intermediate
between the Sovereign and the native nobility in our own provinces.
In order to secure the perpetuation of their power and dignity in
their own families, Her Majesty gave up a cherished principle of the
preceding Mughal Empire; namely, that in the Feudatory States which
directly owed their existence to the Imperial throne, the succession
to the government of the State depended on the Emperor's pleasure.
This principle which the East India Company had enforced for its own
aggrandisement in the absence of natural male heirs, the Queen in
1858 deliberately renounced for ever. The right of adoption and of
succession to the government of the Feudatory States of all classes,
was placed on the same firm basis as the right of adoption and of
inheritance to private property. The Native Chiefs became as deeply
interested as the landed proprietors in our own provinces in the
stability of the Queen's rule. For henceforth they held alike their
{10} governments and their estates under charters granted by the
British Power.
This important change in the status of the Feudatory Princes carried
with it increased responsibilities both on their part and on the part
of the Suzerain. It became the duty of the Suzerain, in subjecting
fifty millions of Indians to permanent feudatory rule, to secure, by
a closer supervision, that such rule should prove a blessing and not
a curse to the people. It became the duty of the Chiefs to co-operate
more cordially with the Suzerain Power to give that good government
to their subjects, which was the fundamental postulate of the new
order of things. The changed status of the Feudatory Princes
gradually evolved its practical incidents, not always without
friction, during the ten years after India passed to the Crown. Those
years were years of consolidation. To Lord Mayo, as we shall see,
fell the more beneficent work of conciliation: the task of infusing
into the old sense of self-interest new sentiments of loyalty, and of
awakening new conceptions of solidarity between the Feudatory Chiefs
and the Suzerain Power.
* * * * * * *
But Lord Mayo's work of conciliation was not confined alone to the
princes, it embraced also the peoples of India. One of the most
historical sections of the community, the Muhammadans, had gradually
sunk into the degeneracy incident to an ex-ruling class. The
educational and administrative measures of the fifteen years
preceding 1869 accelerated their {11} downward progress, and
practically cut them off, throughout large parts of India, from any
fair share in the public employments which were once their almost
exclusive birthright. Lord Mayo had been deeply impressed both in
Russia and in his native Ireland by the political dangers arising out
of such an excluded class. The measures which he initiated formed an
important step towards reconciling the Muhammadans to our system, and
of adapting that system to their needs. For this task of
conciliation, conciliation alike of the princes and peoples of India,
Lord Mayo had special gifts. For, to use the words of the Earl of
Derby, 'it was with him not a matter of calculation, but the result
of nature.'
* * * * * * *
In regard to the foreign policy of India, Lord Mayo arrived at a
juncture when the pre-existing methods had come to their natural
termination. Lord Dalhousie's annexation of the Punjab in 1849, by
throwing down the Sikh breakwater between British India and
Afghanistan, brought closer the boundaries of Russian and English
activity in the East. Our Asiatic relations with Russia passed
definitely within the control of European diplomacy, and during the
next twenty years the Indian Foreign Office pursued a policy of
_laissez faire_ towards its transfrontier neighbours on the
north-west. This policy, deliberately adopted and justified at its
inception by the facts, had manifestly ceased to be any longer
possible, shortly before Lord Mayo's arrival. The dangers of
isolation were {12} become greater than the risks of intervention.
The task set before Lord Mayo was to create a new breakwater between
the spheres of English and Russian activity in Asia.
We shall see how he accomplished this task by a cordon of allied
States along the north-western frontier, and by securing the
concurrence of Russia to the system of an intermediate zone. Lord
Mayo's foreign policy formed the true historical complement of Lord
Dalhousie's annexation of the Punjab. Instead of the old Sikh
breakwater on the Indian edge of the passes, he constructed a new
breakwater on their further side, against movements from Central
Asia. 'Surround India,' he said, in words which I shall again have to
quote, 'with strong, friendly, and independent States, who will have
more interest in keeping well with us than with any other Power, and
we are safe.' On the basis thus established by Lord Mayo in 1869, the
modern policy of British India towards Central Asia has been built
up.
* * * * * * *
In his internal administration Lord Mayo had to encounter two
imperative, and at first sight, irreconcilable necessities. The one
was the necessity for consolidation, the other was the necessity for
decentralisation. The new India which Lord Dalhousie had conquered
and annexed, could only be made a safe India by rendering the
resources of each part available for the protection of the whole. It
could no longer be mainly held from the sea-board. {13} Its security
depended on a network of strategic positions, several of them a
thousand miles inland, which had to be firmly connected by railways
with each other and with the coast. Lord Dalhousie clearly discerned
this, and in his far-reaching scheme of empire, consolidation formed
the necessary complement of conquest.
Lord Mayo came to India after the long strain which succeeded the
Mutiny had passed away, and it fell to him to give a more complete
development to his illustrious predecessor's views than had up to
that time been practicable. Indeed, before his arrival, it was become
apparent that under the then existing system, an adequate rate of
progress in railway extension could only be attained by an outlay
which exceeded the resources of Indian finance. Under Lord Mayo's
orders a new system of State Railways was inaugurated--a system which
has filled in the gaps left in the railway map of India as
contemplated by Lord Dalhousie, and which is now bringing about an
era of railway development throughout India such as Lord Mayo himself
would scarcely have ventured to hope for.
During the five years preceding Lord Mayo's first year of rule,
1869-70, only 892 miles of new railway had been opened.[1] During the
five years which followed 1869-70, no fewer than 2013 additional
miles were opened.[2] The old system of {14} Guaranteed Railways had
from its commencement in 1853 opened only a total of 4265 miles
during the seventeen years ending 1869-70. Under the new system of
State and Guaranteed Railways inaugurated by Lord Mayo, the total
rose to 15,245 miles in 1887-88.
[Footnote 1: Parliamentary Abstract, 1865-66 to 1869-70, inclusive.]
[Footnote 2: _Idem_; 1870-71 to 1874-75, inclusive.]
* * * * * * *
But while Lord Mayo strongly realised that the public safety in India
demanded consolidation, he perceived that financial solvency depended
on decentralisation. Up to his time the expenditure of the most
distant provinces was regulated from Calcutta. In the greater India
handed down by Dalhousie this task had grown beyond the power of any
single central bureau. The result was an annual scramble by the
Provincial Governments for the Imperial grants, and a chronic
inability on the part of the Central Government to estimate its real
income and expenditure for either the current or the coming year. In
the proper chapter the disastrous consequences of this state of
things will be duly set forth. It suffices here to state that the
measures devised by Lord Mayo and his counsellors put an end to that
state of things for ever.
By those measures he re-organised the finances of India on a broader
basis of Provincial independence and Provincial responsibility,
subject to a clearly defined central control. He awakened in each
Local Government a new and keen incentive to economy--the incentive
of self-interest. He found chronic {15} deficit; he left a firmly
established surplus. At the same time he reformed relations of the
Provincial treasuries with the Central Government so as to secure
that the Budget estimates should thenceforth be a trustworthy
forecast of the resources of the year. All this he accomplished
without impairing the efficiency of the central control, or depriving
the Central Government of any power which it could really exercise
with advantage.
But great as was the immediate success of his financial measures, he
looked forward to still more important results in the future. He felt
that the problem of problems in India is to bind together the
Provinces in a true and not a fictitious unity; not indeed as
homogeneous portions of a nation, but as integral parts of an empire.
To accomplish this, he perceived that an ordered freedom must be
accorded to the Provincial Governments in matters of local
administration, as well as a strict subjection enforced from them in
matters of Imperial policy.
Lord Mayo believed that the best training for any large measure of
self-government in India was to be found in the management of local
resources. He declared, as we shall see, that his financial policy
would, 'in its full meaning and integrity, afford opportunities for
the development of self-government:' 'the object in view being the
instruction of many peoples and races in a good system of
administration.' He denied that his policy was a policy of
decentralisation in any destructive sense. {16} On the contrary, he
regarded it as a powerful impulse towards consolidation on the only
basis possible for a vast empire--the basis of Provincial initiative
and Provincial responsibility subject to a firm central control.
* * * * * * *
In narrating the principal measures of this viceroyalty, I have
freely used my larger _Life of Lord Mayo_, published fifteen years
ago. But I would express my obligations to the authorities in the
India Office for the facilities now afforded me, especially by the
Political Department, for tracing the subsequent history of those
measures in the official records, and thus enabling me to estimate
their permanent results. I would also express my gratitude to members
of the family: especially to the Countess Dowager of Mayo, not only
for materials originally supplied,[3] but also for valuable
suggestions during her perusal of the proof-sheets of the present
volume, and for the portrait which forms its frontispiece.
[Footnote 3: _A Life of the Earl of Mayo, fourth Viceroy of India_, 2
vols. 2nd edit. 1876.]
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