If the views which have been now put forward are at all sound, we may
perhaps conclude that whilst our Indian empire requires on the part of its
rulers the utmost watchfulness to guard against dangers and contingencies
which may at any moment arise, yet that with ordinarily wise government we
may look forward to a period of indefinitely long duration during which
British dominion may flourish. That sooner or later the links which
connect England with India will be severed, all history teaches us to
expect; but when that severance occurs, if the growing spirit of
philantrophy and increasing sense of national morality which characterise
the nineteenth century continue, we may fairly hope that the Englishman
will have taught the Hindus how to govern themselves. It is England's
task, as heretofore, "to teach other nations how to live." A very long
period, however, is required before the lesson can be fully learned, and
the holders of Indian securities need not fear that the reversionary
interests of their grandchildren will be endangered. Our rule in India
dates back little more than a century; and although from the first a wise
spirit of toleration and an eminent desire to do justice have prevailed,
it is only within the last thirty or forty years that any serious attempts
to elevate the character of the nation have been manifested.
The educational movement, which is silently producing prodigious changes
in India, received its first impulse from England, and the clause in the
Act of Parliament[11] which recognised the duty of educating the masses,
enabled men like Lord Macaulay, Sir Edward Ryan, and others, to lay the
foundations of a system which has since established itself far and wide.
But the Court of Directors never took heartily to this great innovation of
modern times, and it was only under the direction of English statesmanship
that the Indian authorities were induced to act with vigour in this
momentous undertaking. Sir Charles Wood's celebrated minute on education,
in 1858, laid the foundation of a national system of education, and the
principles then inculcated have never since been departed from. Some
generations will require to pass before the Oriental mind is enabled to
substitute the accurate forms of European thought for the loose
speculations that have prevailed through long centuries. But already happy
results are appearing, and in connection with the subject of this article
it may be noticed as a most hopeful sign of the future that our English
schools are turning out native statesmen by whom all our best methods of
government are being introduced into the dominions of native princes.
The administration reports of some of these gentlemen may vie with those
of our best English officers; and the names of Sir Dinkar Rao, Sir Madava
Rao, Sir Salar Jung, and others, give full indication that among the
natives of India may be found men eminently qualified for the task of
government. Wittingly or unwittingly, English officials in India are
preparing materials which some day or other will form the groundwork for a
native empire or empires. I was thrown closely into contact with the Civil
Service whilst I was in India, for I employed all my vacations in
travelling through the country, mostly at a foot's pace. Everywhere I went
I found a cultivated English gentleman exerting himself to the best of his
ability to extend the blessings of civilisation--justice, education, the
development of all local resources. I firmly believe that no government in
the world has ever possessed a body of administrators to vie with the
Civil Service of India. Nor do I speak only of the service as it existed
under the East India Company, for, from all that I have heard and
observed, competition supplies quite as good servants of the State as did
in earlier days the patronage of the Court of Directors. The truth is,
that the excellence of the result has been attributable in nowise to the
mode of selection, but to the local circumstances which call forth in
either case, in the young Englishman of decent education and of the moral
tone belonging to the middle classes of this country, the best qualities
of his nature. But in these energetic, high-principled, and able
administrators we have a danger to good government which it is necessary
to point out. Every Englishman in office in India has great power, and
every Englishman, as the late Lord Lytton once observed to me, is in heart
a reformer. His native energy will not enable him to sit still with his
hands before him. He must be improving something. The tendency of the
English official in India is to over-reform, to introduce what he may deem
improvements, but which turn out egregious failures, and this, be it
observed, amongst the most conservative people of the world. Some of the
most carefully devised schemes for native improvement have culminated in
native deterioration. A remarkable illustration of this position is
afforded by the late inquiry into the causes of the riots among the
cultivators of the Deccan. It has been one of the pretensions of British
administration that they have instituted for the first time in India pure
and impartial courts of justice. And the boast is well founded. In the
Presidency of Bombay also the Government has substituted long leases of
thirty years on what may be called Crown Lands for the yearly holdings
formerly in vogue. They have also greatly moderated the assessment. The
result has been that land in the Bombay Presidency from being unsaleable
has acquired a value of from ten to twenty years' purchase. But the effect
of these two measures upon the holders of these lands has been disastrous.
Finding themselves possessed of property on which they could raise money
with facility, they have indulged this national propensity out of all
proportion to their means; and the money-lenders in their turn drag the
improvident borrowers before a court of justice, and obtain decrees upon
the indisputable terms of the contract, which no judge feels competent to
disregard.
Another danger of the same sort arises from the short term of office which
is allowed to officials in the highest places in India. When the
Portuguese had large dominions in India, they found that their Viceroys,
if permitted to remain a long time in the East, became insubordinate, and
too powerful for the Government at Lisbon to control. They accordingly
passed a law limiting the tenure of office to five years. This limitation
seems to have been adopted tacitly in our Eastern administrative system,
and has undoubtedly been observed for more than a century. But the period
of five years is very short to enable either a Governor-General, or
Governor, or member of Council to leave his mark on the country; and there
is a temptation to attempt something dazzling which would require for its
proper fulfilment years to elaborate, but which, if not passed at the
moment, would fail to illustrate the era.
It is needless to observe that a series of ill-considered changes, a
constant succession of new laws to be followed by amended laws in the next
session, attempts to change manners and practices (not immoral in
themselves) that have prevailed for centuries, all tend to make a
government, especially a foreign government, odious. But there is one
other rock which it is above all essential to avoid when we are
considering the problem how best to preserve the duration of British
government for the benefit of India. Every ardent administrator desires
improvements in his own department; roads, railways, canals, irrigation,
improved courts of justice, more efficient police, all find earnest
advocates in the high places of government. But improved administration is
always costly, and requires additional taxation. I fear that those in
authority too often forget that the wisest rulers of a despotic government
have always abstained from laying fresh burdens on the people. It is, in
fact, the chief merit of such a government that the taxes are ordinarily
light, and are such as are familiarised by old usage. New taxes imposed
without the will, or any appeal to the judgment, of the people create the
most dangerous kind of disaffection. But if this is true generally, it is
especially true in India, where the population is extremely poor, and
where hitherto the financier has not been enabled to make the rich
contribute their due quota to the revenue of the country.
It has been said by some that we have not yet reached the limits of
taxation in India, but to them I would oppose the memorable saying of Lord
Mayo towards the close of his career. "A feeling of discontent and
dissatisfaction existed," in his opinion, "among every class, both
European and native, on account of the constant increase of taxation that
had for years been going on;" and he added: "The continuance of that
feeling was a political danger, the magnitude of which could hardly be
over-estimated." The Earl of Northbrook quoted and fully endorsed this
opinion in his examination before the House of Commons in the present
year.[12]
But although this constant aim at improvement among our English
administrators too often leads to irritating changes, harassing
legislation, and new fiscal charges on the people, causes are at work
which tend to eliminate these obstacles to good and stable government. In
our experimental application of remedies to evils patent on the surface,
our blunders have chiefly arisen from our ignorance of the people.
Institutions that had been seen to work well in Europe might, it was
thought, be transplanted safely to India. Experience alone could teach
that this is often a grievous error; but experience is being daily
afforded by our prolonged rule, and by our increasing acquaintance with
the habits, wants, and feelings of the people. The tendency also to change
and improvement, which I have before observed upon as leading to
ill-considered measures, operates here beneficially, for there is never
any hesitation in a local government to reverse the proceedings of its
predecessors when found to work injuriously for the community.
But the most cheering symptom of future good government in India is the
increased disposition of British rulers to associate natives of character
and ability with themselves in high offices of administration. Parliament
so long ago as 1833 laid down the principle that no native shall by reason
of his religion, place of birth, or colour, be disabled from holding any
office. Her gracious Majesty also in 1858 proclaimed her will "that so far
as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be impartially
admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be
qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge."
Many obstacles have hitherto prevailed, chiefly arising out of the vested
interests of a close Civil Service, to prevent full operation being given
to a policy so solemnly laid down. But it is no breach of official
propriety to announce that Lord Cranbrook has earnestly taken up the
proposals of the present Viceroy to clear away the difficulties which have
hitherto intervened, and has sent out a despatch to India which it may be
fairly anticipated will meet the aspirations of educated natives, and will
greatly strengthen the foundations of British government in the East.
It will thus be seen that several factors are at work which cannot fail,
under the continued rule of the British Government, to have most
beneficial effects on the national character of India. A system of
education is being established which is opening a door for the
introduction of all the knowledge accumulated in Europe, and which sooner
or later must greatly dissipate that ignorance which is at the bottom of
so many obstacles to good government in the East. Equality before the law
and the supremacy of law have been fully brought home to the cognisance of
every inhabitant of India, and they form a striking contrast, fully
appreciated by the Hindus, to the arbitrary decisions and the race
prerogatives which characterised their former Mahomedan rulers. Continuous
efforts at improvement are witnessed in every zillah of India, and if they
sometimes fail in their operation it is still patent that the permanent
welfare of the people is the constant aim and object of Government.
Moreover, the ready ear tendered to any expression of a grievance, the
minute subjection of every act of authority in India, from the deputy
magistrate up to the Governor-General, to the scrutiny of the Home
Government, secure to the meanest inhabitant of India a hearing, and
inspire the consciousness that he also is a member of the State, and that
his rights and interests are fully recognised. The association of natives
with ourselves in the task of government, which has been commenced in the
lower branches of the judicial administration with the greatest success,
and which is now about to be attempted on a larger scale, as I have before
noted, is also a fact of the greatest gravity. On the whole, after very
close attention to Indian administration for nearly forty years, of which
about twelve were spent in the country itself in a position where I was
enabled to take an impartial view of what was going on around me, I am of
opinion that a bright future presents itself, and, if I could see my way
more clearly on the very important questions of caste and of the future
religion of India, I should say a brilliant future, in which perhaps for
centuries to come the supremacy of England will produce the happiest
results in India.