THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE (_continued_).
Those who have seen Tom Taylor’s play, “The Overland Route” at the
Haymarket Theatre, have probably been amused at the representation of
the old civilians Sir Solomon Fraser, K.C.B., and Mr. Colepepper, who
are two of the principal characters of the piece. It may also be said to
afford a favourable opportunity for old Indians of seeing themselves as
others see them. Sir Solomon is the representative of the old school of
political officers, who passed the chief part of their life as residents
in native independent states. Mr. Colepepper is the hard-working old man
who finished his career in the service as a commissioner, without any
special rewards or titles, and under some mysterious liability to
Government for many thousands of pounds, certain vouchers having been
lost in the mutinies. With reference to these imaginary individuals we
will give a brief sketch of a few more of the many branches into which
the career of an Indian civilian may develop itself.
The Political Department, as it was called, in India, was for a long
time considered the most eligible and enviable line in which a young
civil officer could shape his career. There was a time when the most
promising young men were specially selected by Government, and sent off
to the famous capital at Hyderabad to graduate under the guidance of the
eminent chief Charles Metcalfe, then resident at that native court.
Residents and Governor-General’s agents were formerly to be found in
many parts of India. The resident was the officer who was supposed to
advise, or, we ought to say, imperceptibly to influence, the independent
native prince or princess to whose court he was accredited. The
Governor-General’s agent was the representative of British authority,
or, to put it more plainly, the instructor or bear-leader of those
native princes whose authority was not independent, but who needed to be
instructed or to be led according to their own individual capacity or
incapacity in exercising their own limited power and jurisdiction. The
officer employed in either position was supposed to be well-versed in
all matters connected with the etiquette and ceremonial of native
courts, and it was essential that he himself should be distinguished for
his grave and imperturbable courtesy of demeanour and speech. He was
expected to be a master of all the arts of intrigue, not so much for the
purpose of carrying on any active intrigue, but rather for the sake of
baffling those intrigues which are the life and breath of a native
court, where mine must occasionally be met by counter-mine. For the word
intrigue includes, and indeed usually consists of, the very smallest
matters, in dealing with which the political officer only keeps his
weapons sharpened in readiness to deal with any matter of real gravity
and importance. A resident formerly was almost isolated from the
fellowship of his own countrymen, save of those who constituted his own
staff or assistants. But this form of society is always mentally
unwholesome, as the chief finds no one who is prepared openly to differ
from his opinions, or to maintain any serious argument against him.
Hence the resident of the pre-mutiny period sometimes became a rather
pompous self-opiniated punctilious and artificial sort of person, who is
exemplified in Sir Solomon Fraser, K.C.B. The race of political officers
is now comparatively extinct, and the circumstances under which they
exist have been so materially altered by the introduction of railways
and the general improvement in the means of interchanging ideas with
their fellow-men, that any man who allowed himself to acquire the ways
and habits, of his fossil predecessors would probably be deemed unfit
for his post, although he will still be careful to observe the
professional courtesy and demeanour for which we ought not to fail to
give due credit to the members of the old school of politicals. Writing
as we are with reference to the province of Bengal, it may be said that
political residents are non-existent, and the few Governor-General’s
agents, who are still employed at the Court of the Nawab of Morshedabad
and on some of the frontier divisions, have been much shorn of their
honours and emoluments.
With regard to Mr. Colepepper, who has been presented in the play as the
type of the commissioner, we do not mean to say that the portrait will
be actually recognised, as there are few now left who are able to
identify the men who served their country so well and so patiently both
before and during the mutinies; but we are inclined to think that
someone has unconsciously sat for his portrait on this occasion, and we
do not feel that he has anything to be ashamed of in it. A man who has
spent his life under an Eastern sun, surrounded by Oriental influences,
must not suppose that he is like his contemporaries who have never left
the shores of England. His curious garb, his white sun-hat, his thin
white coat and trousers, present as great a contrast to the broad-cloth
garments and regulation hat of his English compeer as may be found in
their respective thoughts and feelings. And we are not at all prepared
to admit that all the mental advantage or even the physical superiority
is on the side of the stay-at-home Englishman. It may be that the man
who has served in India has attained all his Oriental learning and
practical administrative experience in addition to his natural
privileges and mental acquirements as an Englishman. He has, perhaps,
seen some things from the wrong end of the telescope; but have his
brethren in England always taken a more correct view of Indian objects?
The heart and mind of the one have probably been enlarged by an
enlightened sympathy for millions of new and strange people, whilst the
other has passed his life in the narrow prejudices of his own profession
or business, and in the surroundings of his own country parish. The one
may have endured the burden and heat of the sun, which has blanched the
colour from his cheeks, and left him a lean and yellow visage and
disorganised liver. But is the other very much better off who has grown
corpulent and unwieldy with too much good-living and too much old port
wine, whilst his limbs are often racked by rheumatism, if he has not
become a victim to gout and dyspepsia?
However, though there may be individual exceptions to every rule, the
mind of the British public is tolerably well made up that Mr. Colepepper
is a genuine specimen commissioner of the Indian Civil Service, and we
are content to leave them in that belief. But the title of commissioner
conveys no sort of distinct idea to the English mind. It is curious how
wanting many Indian titles are in precision, or even in affording any
suggestion of their meaning. We remember a story where a good-natured
old commissioner was sitting at dinner next the colonel of a regiment
which had just come to Calcutta from the North-West Provinces. The
commissioner casually said to the colonel, “I am the animal which is
called a commissioner in this part of the world.” The colonel was
immensely delighted. He had been accustomed to their high mightinesses
the commissioners of the North-West Provinces; and it was a strange
thing to him to find a commissioner speaking almost disrespectfully of
his own title. But there are commissioners and commissioners. The
commissioner in Bengal is the officer in chief executive charge of a
territorial division, each division containing six or seven separate
districts, with a total population of about eight or ten millions
inhabitants. There are some divisions in which for geographical reasons
the area is smaller, and the population of the division less numerous.
The commissioner is usually an officer in what may be called the prime
of Indian official life, about forty years of age, and of about twenty
years’ standing in his service. He is usually selected by Government
from the executive officers known as collector-magistrates of districts,
and the selection not unfrequently causes considerable jealousy and
dissatisfaction, especially if the selected commissioner happens to be
junior to any of the collector-magistrates in the division to which he
is appointed. The commissioner is the local representative of Government
in his own division. The Government sends its orders to him, and he
passes them on to the collector-magistrates. On the same principle the
collector-magistrates submit their reports to Government through the
commissioner. He is the chief local authority, save that the district
judges are entirely independent of him; and the judicial independent
authority thus established is the recognised constitutional
safety-valve, which is intended to provide against any injudicious or
casual stretch of authority on the part of the executive. The
commissioner is the head of the police throughout his division; but here
again there are some subtle niceties of discipline and practice. The
commissioner receives written reports from the police, through the
district-magistrate, of the progress of their investigations in all
heinous and important cases. But his power is limited. He cannot issue
direct orders to the actual police officers investigating a case, so as
to bid them arrest one suspected person or release another. He may offer
friendly advice and suggestions to the magistrate with regard to the
action of the police; and he may also, if dissatisfied with their
proceedings, make unpleasant remarks and comments. But the discipline of
the police force is regulated by a hierarchy of its own, consisting of
district-superintendents and deputy inspectors-general, and an inspector
general, who is equal in official rank to the commissioner, and in
direct communication with Government. And as the commissioner may
interfere with the police only under certain limitations, so, on the
other hand, he must be very cautious to abstain from interference with
any case the moment that it has been sent up by the police for trial
before any magisterial or judicial officer. Any interference by the
executive in the judicial trial of a case is strongly resented; but it
is open to a commissioner to set the public prosecutor in motion, or to
employ special counsel to look after the effective prosecution of a
difficult and important case. Eventually, if a particular case, or any
class of cases, becomes of such deep interest as to require the
attention of Government—or if the Government has called for a report—it
is the commissioner who has to represent the whole of the facts to
Government, and it is then open to him to express his opinion
unreservedly on the good or bad conduct of the police, and this is also
his opportunity for pointing out to Government any defects that may have
occurred in the judicial proceedings. But in this part of the business
he will do well to temper his words with discretion. If the commissioner
expresses an opinion, in his report to Government, that the magistrate
or judge who tried the case has made any serious mistake as to his facts
or to his law, this practically amounts to a proclamation of war. The
Government on receiving the commissioner’s report to this effect will
not be in a hurry to pronounce an opinion. It will probably send the
report of the commissioner to the judges of the High Court, and will
request them to inquire and report what the magistrate or judge has to
say on his own behalf. Of course the magistrate or judge in most
instances stoutly maintains that he was right, and it may be that the
judges of the High Court also take the part of the judge or magistrate,
or at all events extenuate his errors. Then the Government may either
give the commissioner an opportunity for a rejoinder, or it may proceed
to put an end to the case by passing a decision on it. The approved
Government secretariat style of decision is to find a little fault with
everybody; and the principle of decisions of this kind is simple and
obvious, because it discourages all the officers concerned from desiring
again to bring their quarrels or differences into prominence, so that
they will not come up bothering the Government again for a long time to
come. It may be observed that the Government is usually very careful to
agree as far as possible with the judges of the High Court, and to throw
over the complainant commissioner. So the commissioner probably finds,
to his annoyance, that he has taken a great deal of trouble to do his
duty, with the highly satisfactory result that he is told, like a
naughty boy, not to do it again.
The commissioner is also the chief revenue authority throughout his
division, the collectors being his subordinates in this capacity, whilst
he himself is directly subject to the control of the Board of Revenue.
In most parts of Bengal, the collection of the ordinary Land Revenue
gives no trouble. The instalments of the Government Revenue are paid in
with a punctuality which would gratify any Government under the sun.
This is one of the fortunate results of the much-abused permanent
settlement in Bengal, the very mention of which is so like a red rag to
a bull with some persons, that we shall say no more about it, except to
observe that there are some other well-informed persons who believe that
if there had been no permanent settlement in Bengal in 1793, there would
have been no British authority left in India in 1883. According to the
true British method of procedure, the Government being now fully secure
in its own share of the Land Revenue from the land-owners, has so
altered and modified the laws which it made for the protection of the
land-owners in the collection of their rents that it leaves them to
collect them as best they may. The latest device is to compel the
land-owner to sue his defaulting tenants in the civil courts, as they
are pleasantly called, so that the Government derives a large indirect
revenue through its stamp laws, an _ad valorem_ stamp being required on
the institution of a suit; whilst the costs of the case are a heavy
addition to the tenant’s rent if the suit is decided against him, as it
must almost always be decided from the nature of things. But this is all
the result of pure benevolence and the well-meaning but possibly
misguided kindness of those philanthropists who have constituted
themselves the champions of the poor tenant, with no very complete
understanding of the poor tenant’s real wants and necessities. Be this
as it may, the commissioner and the collector have now very little
trouble in the collection of the Government land revenue in Bengal.
Occasionally a landed estate, as it is officially called, is sold by
auction for non-payment of revenue; and if the owner of the defaulting
estate is dissatisfied, he appeals to the commissioner to quash the
auction sale. But it is very seldom that an estate is sold at auction,
except with the wish and knowledge of the owners. An auction-sale
conveys a clear and indefeasible title on the purchaser, who can thus
afford to pay a much higher price for the property than if he attempted
to buy it privately, for where there are many shareholders in an estate
it almost passes the skill of the most able legal conveyancer to devise
a perfect title exhaustive of all previously existing rights and
encumbrances. With regard to the other revenue duties of a commissioner,
they are more easily enumerated than they can be described or made
intelligible. He has to provide for the management of the estates of
minors, lunatics, and others, which have come under the control of the
Court of Wards. He has to keep an eye on the great gains or losses
arising from alluvion and diluvion along the banks of the huge rivers
which sweep through Bengal, changing their courses and washing away
their banks, not merely by a few yards, but sometimes by miles at a
time. The commissioner has to look after the excise revenue of the
districts under him. He must take thought regarding the application of
the stamp laws, and be prepared to explain to the Board of Revenue the
reason why the stamp revenue increases in one district and decreases in
another district. This is sometimes a rather difficult task, as the
collector in whose district an increase is shown blandly attributes it
to the abundance of the harvest; whilst, unfortunately, the collector of
the district in which a decrease appears also attributes the decrease to
the abundance of the harvest; and though it is perfectly possible that
there may be some truth in each of these explanations, it will not do
for the commissioner to send up both explanations to the Board in their
conflicting nudity and crudity. The commissioner has also to superintend
the collection of that very curious tax which is known under the name of
the license-tax. It is the only existing form of direct personal
taxation, and is apparently called the license-tax because the
Government was not permitted to call it an income-tax. A previous
Government had taken much credit to itself for the abolition of the
income-tax, and neither political party in England is now willing to
allow itself to be connected with the re-imposition of the income-tax.
But as some sort of direct taxation was deemed necessary, and is
admittedly necessary, in order to reach the rich trading classes, it was
introduced under the name of a license-tax, whilst it is only a
disguised and deformed income-tax, utterly failing to produce the amount
which would be derived from a well-administered income-tax, and only
tolerated because the taxpayers subject to it are well aware that almost
any change in the law is likely to add to the amount of their taxation.
The original income-tax was abolished when it had begun to work, quite
smoothly, in Lower Bengal, and the chief defects of the law had been
eradicated and cured. Its ghost, the license-tax, now reigns in its
stead, and people who pay the license-tax receive a license to do
nothing, or, in some cases, to carry on the business for which they have
to pay another license-tax under the local municipal laws.
The commissioner of a division has his head-quarters at one of the
principal stations of the districts subject to his authority; but he is
expected to make at least one tour of inspection in the course of the
year, so as to visit all his districts. In some divisions the railways
now make travelling easy, and his visitations can be made at any time
that suits his convenience. But there are some divisions in which there
are no railways, and even the local roads are hardly passable except at
certain times of the year. In some parts the broad rivers afford the
only means of communication, and he has to travel by boat or steamer.
The commissioner’s visit of inspection in remote districts is one of the
important events of the year. The officials, with their usual
hospitality, make every effort to welcome and entertain him. The
principal native residents of the district come in from their country
residences with a large band of their retainers to pay their respects to
him, and to represent their wishes, and also their grievances. He has to
inspect the public offices and to satisfy himself in many matters of
detail, such, for instance, as the amount of treasure contained in the
collector’s treasury, and the number of stamps, including postage
stamps, which are or ought to be in the collector’s custody. He has to
visit all the local schools and pose as an amateur examiner in history
and mathematics and the vernacular languages. He must inspect the local
jail and lunatic asylum; not interfering in their management, as they
are under special departments, but recording in the visitor’s book his
opinion on what he sees, and on what he conceives to be wanting for the
improvement of these establishments. He must inspect the old
burial-grounds, and see that due care is taken of the monuments and
tombstones of the otherwise long-forgotten dead. The opportunity of his
visit will probably be taken to hold a public meeting to encourage
subscriptions in support of some local charitable institutions, such as
hospitals and dispensaries, or for the construction of some new work of
public utility, such as a new road or bridge. And if any local feuds or
factions exist, either among the English residents or in different
sections of the native community, he is expected to act as a
peace-maker, and to devise a _modus vivendi_ for the future.
The duties of a commissioner are almost as varied and numerous as it is
possible to imagine, but he must also fully appreciate the doctrine
lately enunciated by Mr. Gladstone regarding the duties of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is not sufficient that he shall deal
with all the work that comes to his hand, but he must have time to look
about him, and seek for and make work, and initiate those reforms and
improvements for which there is such ample opportunity in almost every
condition of civilised society. He must be prepared for disappointment
as well as encouragement in his endeavours to do good. Sometimes his own
subordinates fail to support or adopt his proposals, or a zealous and
active subordinate who gladly and eagerly carried out his plans is
removed to some other sphere of usefulness, whilst his successor is a
man who cares for nothing but his own ideas and abhors all unnecessary
responsibility. Sometimes the Government discredits and discountenances
his well-meant proposals, and he is graciously informed that local
knowledge is always wrong—a curious paradox at first sight, but not by
any means devoid of truth when analysed from the broader Government
point of view. On the whole, the life and work of a commissioner is, or
ought to be, exceedingly enjoyable to a man of active mind and body; but
when mental and bodily activity are impaired, it only remains for a
commissioner to retire like Mr. Colepepper to his native country to
spend the remainder of his days in dignified repose.
There are still several positions in the life of a civilian which may be
worthy of more than passing notice. When an officer has elected to join
the judicial branch of the service, he in course of time becomes the
judge of a district, an officer of much authority and dignity, and not
badly remunerated. The position of a judge has one feature in it which
makes it highly commendable, especially in contrast with that of the
collector-magistrate, who has elected the executive branch. The latter
officer has many masters, and his time is never his own, and even his
private house is not sacred against the invasions of emergent business.
But the judge has but one master, the High Court. He goes to his court
at a fixed hour, and leaves it also at the appointed time, and he
regulates these hours according to his own convenience. His business is
carried on solely in his court; when he leaves his court his work is at
an end. It would be considered both unbecoming and irregular for any
suitor or pleader to seek to follow him to his own house. The duty of a
judge is not so difficult as some people suppose. It is a well-known
truism that in almost all law-suits the difficulty is to ascertain the
real facts of the case. If the facts are found, the application of the
law to those facts is a comparatively simple process. In the court of a
district judge there are pleaders of good ability and considerable legal
acquirements, who are not likely to allow him to be misled as to the
law, however much they may strive to twist the facts of a case in favour
of their client. The greater part of a judge’s work consists in hearing
appeals from the decisions of the native judges subordinate to him, so
that he has only to deal with the written evidence on the record, the
effect of which has been usually well-weighed and represented in the
decision of the subordinate judge. The judge, therefore, can easily
master the leading facts of a case as set forth in the decision of the
lower court, before he begins to hear the arguments of the counsel who
appear to impugn or to support that decision. A case may be more or less
complicated, but for a man of ordinary capacity and common sense it is a
pleasant intellectual entertainment to listen to the arguments of the
contending pleaders. Most of the leading pleaders can speak English
well, and state their cases and arguments with a lucidity which might
meet with the approval of Matthew Arnold. It only remains for the judge
to prepare and pronounce his decision; and if he is a prudent man he
will write out his decision in the quiet and privacy of his own study.
This is the more necessary because the judge’s decision in its turn may
become the subject of appeal to the High Court, and it therefore behoves
a judge to try to make his decision impregnable.
The most difficult part of a judge’s duty consists in trying criminal
cases at the sessions. When an accused person is committed by a
magistrate on a charge of murder or any other offence with which the
magistrate cannot deal finally, he is tried by the sessions judge and by
a jury of his countrymen. The prosecution is usually conducted by the
Government pleader, whilst the accused retains the services of the best
counsel that he can afford to pay. The judge records the evidence in
English with his own hand, being himself the interpreter of the actual
words in the native language in which it is delivered, whilst
simultaneously a native clerk records, or is supposed to record, the
actual words spoken by the witness. This imposes a severe task on the
judge. He has to listen to what the witness says in the vernacular, he
has to interpret and record its meaning in English, and he has to
consider the effect of each successive question and answer on the whole
of the witnesses’ evidence. This triple mental operation is very severe,
and imposes too hard a strain upon the judge. When the evidence for the
prosecution and the defence is completed, and the counsel on either side
have exhausted their eloquence, the judge has the pleasure of summing up
the evidence and directing the jury in their vernacular language, a
rather arduous task, but we have heard many men do it with much credit
to themselves. Perhaps some of our judges in England would not be quite
at ease if they had to sum up the evidence and address an English jury
in French, or in dog-Latin; but the suggestion may convey to the reader
some idea of the difficulty to which an English judge in India is
subject. Finally, the judge records his decision elaborately in English,
in case the prisoner, if convicted, should appeal to the High Court
against his sentence.
From the ranks of the district judges the best men are selected for a
seat in the High Court of Calcutta. It is not very easy to select the
best men, and the process of selection is uncertain, because the
patronage is exercised nominally by the Viceroy, who has the least
actual knowledge of the merits of individual officers, and must
therefore be guided by the advice of others. We are prepared to admit
that usually the best men are selected, but on every occasion there are
several men who consider their own claims superior to those of the
officer selected. The position of a judge of the High Court is certainly
a very enviable one. It may be said to combine almost the highest amount
of official dignity with no inconsiderable degree of otium. In the usual
routine of the court work two judges sit together, and constitute what
is called a bench. When two judges are sitting together it follows as a
matter of course that one of them takes the leading part in the conduct
of the case which is before them. Where two men ride on one horse, one
must ride behind the other. As a matter of practice, where several cases
come before them on the same day, they take the conduct of the cases
alternately; but sometimes, where one judge is of a more masterly
temperament than the other, he practically assumes the management of
every case, whilst the other judge acquiesces in the arrangement. This
leads to a powerful development of what has been called the power of the
cypher. One judge, Mr. A., is a masterly man, and he scores as 1. The
other judge follows his lead, and he therefore scores as 0. But 1 and 0
count ten, and in practice the working power of a bench thus constituted
is far more effective than that of a bench where the two judges are
antagonistic to one another and are disposed to take conflicting views
of a case. It is therefore easy to conceive that whenever a judge is not
disinclined to subordinate his own mental powers to those of his
colleague, he can pass his time on the bench without any great strain on
his intellectual faculties. He may be supposed to be taking copious
notes of the arguments, but as a fact he is inditing an overland letter
to his absent wife or his children in England. When the case is ripe for
decision, and the arguments of counsel are at an end, a brief conference
with his colleague satisfies his conscience, and he is prepared to sign
his name in concurrence to the decision more or less elaborate which his
colleague is ready to compose. The hours during which the High Court
sits are not very long or exhausting. The judges usually take their
seats at 11 o’clock, and after a sitting of three hours the court
withdraws at 2 o’clock for lunch, the contending counsel gladly
following their example. It is nearly 3 o’clock before the judges resume
their seats on the bench, and by the time that the clock has rolled on
to 4, it begins to be a question whether, on the conclusion of a
particular case, there is sufficient time to take up and finish a new
case, and so it not unfrequently happens that about 4 o’clock the judges
retire to their carriages and are driven home to take their rest. At all
events, 5 o’clock is the appointed hour for their rising, be the case
finished or unfinished; so that it may be taken that about five hours of
work is considered a good day’s average sitting. Each judge is
accustomed to take one day in the week at home for the purpose of
writing out his decisions, and for certain administrative and
consultative functions. It not unfrequently happens that a judge, on
arriving at court, finds that his colleague on the bench is disabled by
indisposition from attending court, so that he is obliged to go home
again for the day, unless it so chances that another judge on another
bench is casually indisposed, and then the two odd men may combine and
make up a sort of scratch bench between them for the day.
Whilst the ordinary daily work of a High Court judge is not very severe,
the judges are indulged in a much longer vacation, and they have many
more holidays than any other class of Government officials. We do not
grudge them their holidays, and we are of opinion that many Government
officers would be much more competent to work with full mental and
bodily vigour if they had a few more holidays and enforced periods of
rest. The judges of the High Court have an annual long vacation
extending over a period of two months, from about the beginning of
September to the beginning of November, when the season, especially in
Calcutta, may be said to be most unhealthy and unfavourable to the
English constitution. The High Court also closes for a week or ten days
at Christmas, and for a similar period at Easter. The native Hindoo and
Mahomedan holidays, which come on fixed or variable dates, are
religiously observed in the High Court. An eclipse of the sun or moon,
if visible, becomes the occasion for a holiday, out of deference to
native feeling. We are sorry to say that there is a growing tendency to
mutilate and diminish the holiday privileges of the judges. It was
formerly open to them to combine a month’s privilege leave, under the
Service Leave Rules, with the long vacation of the court, so that they
got a holiday of three months, which enabled them to pay a flying visit
to England. Sundry old gentlemen at the India Office are said to have
taken offence at the sight of several High Court judges making their
appearance in London for a few days, and actually entitled to their full
pay whilst thus absent from duty. This was the real _gravamen_ of the
offence. It has always been a sort of principle in connection with leave
of any kind to mulct the delinquent of his official salary, and so
starve him into a return to his duty. It was, therefore, deemed to be an
infringement of this principle that a judge should be seen walking about
London with his pockets full of rupees, just as if he were in the
streets of Calcutta. We are not able to give the precise history of the
official communications between the India Office in London and the
Government of India at Simla. But it may be easily understood with how
much virtuous zeal and good-will the authorities at Simla set themselves
to work to give effect to the suggestions of the India Office. The
Viceroy and his Councillors, and the secretaries at Simla, are not in
the habit of taking any holidays. What are holidays to them when they
are living in a cool and healthy climate, drawing salaries which were
fixed on a scale suitable to a warmer temperature? Their only avowed
relaxation is found in the interval of the moves from Calcutta to Simla,
and from Simla back to Calcutta, when their offices are temporarily
closed, and their travelling expenses are defrayed by Government. The
financial secretary and his department always go to Simla, and they
never feel the beam that is in their own eyes, however diligently they
espy the motes when an ordinary toiler in the hot plains wants his
travelling expenses paid. So it has come to pass that between the
parsimony of the India Office, where the scale of salaries is
notoriously so low, and the unsympathising sternness of the Indian
Government at Simla (sometimes called Capua), the poor judges of the
High Court have been shorn of many of their leave privileges; and, even
worse, a reduced rate of salary has now been assigned to them. At the
end of the last century, we believe, some of the judges of the old
Supreme Court went to court in palanqueens, with a stately retinue of
sontaburdars, and chobdars, and khidmudgars, and hookahburdars, and
chuprassies, and peadahs. Perhaps the time is not remote when we shall
see the impoverished High Court judge making his way along Chowringhee
Road in a tram-car, and taking a dirty hired palkee to convey him from
the nearest point of the tramway to the entrance of the court-house. The
leading barristers of the court make an income of £10,000 a year, and
will probably give an occasional lift in their carriages to the poor
judges who can no longer afford to keep a carriage and horse of their
own. Sometimes briefless young barristers may be seen walking early to
court, to spend the day in the bar-library, and tramping back again at
sunset to their homes. They will hereafter probably find themselves in
the honourable company of some of the under-paid judges of their court,
who desire to combine exercise with economy.
There is one other position or grade in the Civil Service which we must
not omit to describe. A seat in the Board of Revenue is the object of
ambition set before commissioners and all executive officers as the
reward of their persevering labours and acknowledged merit.
Unfortunately it is a haven which few are destined to enter and to be at
rest. In the good old days, forty years ago, there were two Boards, each
Board consisting of three members. One Board was styled the Board of
Land Revenue, the other was the Board of Customs, Salt, and Opium. Each
Board had its own separate office and establishment, and its senior and
junior civilian secretaries. In those good times there was a chance for
many men of arriving at the dignity of a seat in one of the two Boards.
But a wicked man was found, whose name must not be even mentioned, who
proclaimed to the world that “Boards are screens,” and so the days of
Boards were numbered, and the screen which for so many long years had
served as a cover to the multitudinous sins of Government (yes, of
Government, and not of the Board itself) was ruthlessly torn down. The
Board consists now only of two members, who are expected to carry on the
work for which six men were formerly needed, and their four secretaries
have been reduced to two. Nor is this the only change. The Board is now
a Board only in name. The two members take charge of separate
departments, and each member carries on his work independently, and
without consultation with his colleague, except in some few special
matters which it is needless to enumerate. One member takes the Land
Revenue Department, which provides him with plenty of employment. The
other member takes what is absurdly called the Miscellaneous Land
Revenue Department, which includes the Excise, Customs, Salt and Opium,
Stamps and Stationery, and License-Tax Departments, with a few odds and
ends from the Land Revenue (proper), such as the acquisition of land for
public purposes, and the partition of landed estates. Occasionally the
two members sit together to hear appeals, when there is a probability
that the decision of a commissioner will be reversed, as the concurrence
of both members is required to set aside the decision of such an
experienced officer as a commissioner.
An appeal before the Board is usually supported by the most able counsel
in the capital; and where the litigants are wealthy it is not uncommon
to see the Advocate-General and two or three of the leading members of
the High Court bar arrayed on one side, whilst on the other side the
Government Solicitor-General and several other barristers are retained
regardless of expense. Some serious dispute regarding land has arisen,
and though the intrinsic value of the _causa belli_ may be but small, it
is a point of honour which neither side can yield. In former days the
rival parties would doubtless have fought for it with their bands of
armed retainers; but in more peaceful modern times it is safer, though
not less expensive, to retain a small army of lawyers. The case has
probably been locally investigated by a deputy collector, reinvestigated
and decided by a district collector, whose decision has been disputed
before the commissioner, and now the final appeal lies to the Board of
Revenue. This is merely a sample of the kind of cases which sometimes
come before the members of the Board. In less important cases, or in
cases between less wealthy and potent litigants, the services of counsel
are almost invariably engaged, and several of the native pleaders who
devote themselves to practise before the Board are almost unrivalled in
their knowledge of all the details of revenue law, and also in the
clearness and precision with which they state the facts and the points
of their case. The appellate duties of the Board are much more important
than is generally known or understood, and as in very many cases each
member sits singly his labour is ordinarily quite as severe as that of
any two judges of the High Court when sitting together as a bench.
The greater part of the Board’s work is carried on by correspondence,
partly with commissioners and partly with Government. The new letters
are served up daily to each member in boxes, with all the important
papers connected with each question. Lucid notes and suggestions are put
up by the secretary subordinate to the member, so that the order to be
issued can usually be passed with comparatively little difficulty,
especially if the secretary is a man of practical experience and sound
ability. There is, therefore, a smooth as well as a rough side to a seat
in the Board. The member can, if he pleases, dispose of much of his
correspondence in the quiet solitude of his own house. He is practically
master of his own hours, and of his time for going to office and for
leaving it. Sometimes a member spends the whole day at his office, and
an instance has been known where a very zealous member actually took up
his abode at the Board, so as to work uninterruptedly on some difficult
subject on which he was engaged. On the other hand there have been
members who only visited their office fitfully and carried on the
greater part of their work at home. The members of the Board are also at
liberty to make tours of inspection into the interior, and, in fact,
they are authorised and encouraged by Government to make such tours, and
occasionally they are expressly deputed by Government to visit a
particular district to inquire and report upon some difficult question.
So upon the whole the members of the Board lead a pleasant and
well-employed life individually, although they often enjoy collectively
the abuse and enmity of those who are under their authority; and, on the
other hand, the Government usually takes advantage of the Board’s
intervention to give them the discredit of anything that does not turn
out satisfactorily, and to appropriate to itself the credit of anything
that has been done well. So that the Board still continues to fulfil its
old mission as a convenient screen.
The public generally may be said to mistrust the Board, partly from its
now suspected title, and partly because it has no proper appreciation of
those very ponderous publications which are known as the Board’s annual
reports. The Board prepares and submits to Government an annual report
on each principal subject that comes under its control. There is the
annual report on the Land Revenue. There are annual reports on the
Excise Department, on the Customs Department, on Salt, on Opium, on
License-Tax, on Stamps, on Stationery, on the Shipping Office, and
whatever other miscellaneous subject is susceptible of an annual report.
Parliamentary Blue Books are light and cheerful reading in comparison
with most of the Board’s reports, but fortunately they find very few
readers. Nevertheless annual reports may be said to represent the
circulation of the blood in the whole official community. Every official
throughout the country contributes his quota to them. The Board’s
reports may be compared to Aaron’s rod, as they swallow up the reports
of all their subordinates, and reproduce them for the edification of
Government. For weeks, and even for months, some unfortunate clerks in
the Board’s office are toiling in the preparation of the rough drafts
and the figured statements which form the basis of the Board’s reports.
The drafting clerk has the report of the previous year as his immediate
model, and his chief duty is to incorporate in his draft the principal
new facts and opinions which he can glean from the new reports of the
officers subordinate to the Board. From time to time the clerk consults
the secretary as the work progresses, and the day comes at last when the
secretary takes the draft into his own hands, and polishes it up into a
presentable shape. He then sends it off to the printer for a
broad-margined proof, and in this shape it at last comes before the
member of the Board, who has to read and revise it, and put in a few
patches of adornment—or technical bunkum. When the report is thus
complete, it is submitted to Government. When it has reached Government
it is carefully analyzed by a secretariat clerk, who prepares the draft
of a resolution on it. The Government secretary next dresses up the
resolution and adds a few pungent remarks, and submits it for the
approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. The Lieutenant-Governor is expected
to read the resolution which issues under his authority, and it is to be
hoped that he always does so. The Government resolution is then
communicated to the Board, and the Board pass it on with a copy of their
report to their subordinates, many of whom are anxiously looking out for
it in the hope of official praise, and in dread of some inconvenient
censure. And thus the report on each subject circulates throughout the
whole framework of the official body; and subsides to rest until the
coming of another year sets it again in motion. Each annual report may
well bear the same motto, “_Adscribar numero, reddarque tenebris_.”
We have very nearly exhausted the catalogue of the various official
duties to which a civilian may be required to devote himself in the
course of his career. There are a few miscellaneous appointments
connected with the post-office and the sea-customs, and opium and survey
and registration, and there are the much-prized but very laborious
offices which the secretaries of Government fill. But we will not weary
our readers with further details. The Civil Service, as a body, are a
hard-working and not over-paid set of men, considering the heavy
responsibilities which are imposed upon them, and the great power which
they have to exercise. There are very few men, save a few prudent
bachelors, who are able to save anything like a competence from their
incomes. A man with a wife and rising family soon finds his means
consumed by the expenses of two establishments, one in India and another
in England, and perhaps a third in the hills. There is no lack of
youthful candidates who are induced to enter the service by the prospect
of early independence and a secured income, which tempts some of them
into early matrimony. But now that competition has introduced into the
service so many men of a very high average ability, it may safely be
said that almost all of them would have done as well for themselves in
any of the liberal professions in England, if they could have afforded
to wait at home till their opportunity came. It has been said that in
some social points the men of the new school are not equal to those of
the old school, but we doubt if this is susceptible of proof. There may
be this difference between them. The hard-bargains of the old _régime_
were chiefly their own enemies; the hard-bargains of the new _régime_
sometimes manage to make themselves enemies by their own conceit and
indocility. But we have every reason to believe and hope that the new
race of men have already been found to be no unworthy successors to the
traditions of the old service, and that they are a body of men in whose
character and services the English nation may place full confidence.