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 INDIA REFORM. 
 
 ofo3 
 
 THE 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF INDIA SINCE 1834. 
 
 " Our Indian Government, in its best state, will be a grievance. It is necessary 
 that the correctives should be uncommonly vigorous : the work of men sanguine, 
 warm, and even impassioned. For it is an arduous thing to plead against the 
 abuses of a power which originates from your own country, and which affects those 
 we are used to consider as strangers." Burke, in 1783. 
 
 " An intelligent people would not submit to our rule." 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, in 1852. 
 
 IN closing the Parliamentary Session of 1833, King William IV., 
 as usual, reviewed the measures which had been enacted. Amongst 
 them was the Act for providing for the better government of India ; 
 and of it his Majesty remarked, " I have the most confident expec- 
 tation that the system of Government thus established will prove to 
 have been wisely framed for the improvement and happiness of the 
 Natives of India." That Statute is now approaching its termina- 
 tion ; and the Prime Minister has announced the intention of the 
 Queen's Cabinet to propose to Parliament the renewal of the Indian 
 Government on the same basis as that which was established in 1833, 
 with some modifications in its details only. The question then arises, 
 was this system of Government as "wisely framed" in 1833, as 
 the King " most confidently expected ?" And has it promoted " the 
 improvement and happiness of the Natives of India ?" If it have 
 not, the ground for its renewal on the same basis, will be cut from 
 beneath the feet of the responsible advisers of Queen Victoria. For, 
 to renew what has produced unworthy or mischievous results, or 
 has confirmed and aggravated previous evils and disorders in India, 
 is to endanger the integrity of the Empire which it is their duty to 
 strengthen and protect. 
 
 The enquiry in hand, and the issue now raised by the effluxion of 
 the Charter Act cannot be better stated than in the language used 
 by the late King. It denotes, in the simplest terms, the purpose 
 of the Statute "the improvement and happiness of the natives 
 
 2067434
 
 of India ;" and by doing so, it enables the country and the legisla- 
 ture to apply to its success or failure, tests of the most infallible 
 description. For there is nothing in this world so patent and certain, 
 and easily ascertainable as good government. Its characteristics are 
 the same everywhere ; it is so plain and palpable in its results, that 
 it can be appreciated by all, regardless of creed or colour. The first 
 step in the enquiry is, therefore, to apply some of the tests of good 
 government to the Government of India, as it has been administered 
 under the system established in 1833. 
 
 I. PEACE. 
 
 Perhaps the most important of these tests is PEACE. For, with- 
 out the opportunities and the means afforded by Peace, no system 
 of government can result in the improvement and happiness of a 
 people. Unjust war, all men agree, is the greatest of human 
 crimes ; unwise war the hugest of human blunders. A war, however, 
 is neither necessary nor defensible, because passages from Grotius, 
 Puffendorf, or Vattel can be quoted in its excuse. For the soundest 
 maxims may be rashly and mischievously applied ; and in its 
 operation, government is matter of discretion, of prudence, of 
 wisdom, and foresight. The consequence of one imprudent war may 
 indeed lead to others more excusable. But when peace is the ex- 
 ception, and war the rule of a government ; when north, south, east 
 and west, it is successively engaged in hostilities when it never wants 
 quarrels to %iit in, enemies to conquer, and territories to annex, 
 men cannot, and will not, believe that such a government is wise, is 
 prudent, is just, is paternal, is unambitious, is economical ; or that 
 it is engaged in promoting the improvement and happiness of its 
 people. 
 
 Now since 1834, the Government of India, as established in the 
 preceding year, has, out of the nineteen years that have passed, been 
 for fifteen of them in a state of war. It has been at war with the 
 Affghans, with the Beloochees in Scinde, with the Mahrattas in 
 Gwalior, with the Sikhs in the Punjaub ; it is now at war with 
 the Burmese. And the peculiarity of four out of five of these wars 
 is, that they were not, like many of those which had preceded them 
 in India, internal wars wars, the excuse and defence of which are 
 that they were needful to subdue enemies who could not be avoided,
 
 nnd whose countries laid intermingled with our own territories ; but 
 external wars carried on beyond our natural limits and defensible 
 boundaries ; adding new and more warlike races to our previously 
 peaceable millions ; thereby making our Eastern Empire less homo- 
 geneous ; advancing our frontiers to unknown difficulties and embar- 
 rassments ; and subjecting the safety and security of India to the 
 whims, caprices and predatory habits of less civilized neighbours, over 
 whom it is almost impossible to establish any restraining influences, 
 and to whom religious bigotry and love of independence render 
 our rule hateful. Thus, during the last Charter Act, war has not 
 only been the chronic characteristic of the Indian Government ; but 
 war of a kind and a danger such as never was before known in 
 India. 
 
 These wars were not necessary for the safety, they have retarded 
 the improvement, and diminished the happiness of the Natives of 
 India, whilst they have exhausted the resources of the Government ; 
 but they were the natural result of the system established in 1833 ; 
 for it wanted the responsibility and the " correctives" which alone 
 keep human rulers at peace. There is now no second opinion con- 
 cerning the criminality and wickedness of the Aifgbau war. It was 
 an unprovoked attack on the independence of well-disposed neigh- 
 bours, and a revolutionary effort to change their ruling dynasty for 
 the supposed benefit of India. But its reverses and disgrace ; its cost 
 of eighteen millions sterling, and its loss of an army 12,000 strong, 
 were all thrown away on a Government without responsibility. The 
 Scinde war quickly followed the Affghan war. A desert impassable 
 for an army, and behind which were all our resources, separated and 
 defended British India from Scinde. But the Indian Government 
 resolved to obtain " command over the navigation of the Indus," and 
 under the delusion that it would lead to a great and profitable com- 
 merce with Central Asia, it coerced the Ameers into treaties they could 
 not fulfil, and conditions that were intolerable because disgraceful to 
 them. It deposed them, seized their country and their treasures, 
 became itself the victim of a miserable fraud, and in annexing Scinde 
 gained a large annual pecuniary loss ; which is a charge on the indus- 
 try of the Natives of India. It did more, however, than acquire a 
 worthless state ; it committed a great political error. By annexing 
 
 B 2
 
 Scinde, the Indian Government brought itself into contact with 
 hostile tribes, residing in mountain fastnesses, and laid itself open to 
 constant attack in its front. Worse still, it alarmed the Government 
 of the Punjaub in the very crisis and agonies of its history. 
 
 The death of the remarkable Prince, who had so long ruled that 
 country with wisdom, energy, and foresight, was followed by civil war 
 And at this juncture the Indian Government thrust itself in the way 
 of the contending factions ; and by its aggressions on their neigh- 
 bours, by its collection of troops on their frontiers, and by its occu- 
 pation of neutral territory, alarmed them for their own safety. 
 The Army in a state of revolt was led to the Sutlej to be slaugh- 
 tered by the English, and it was not till four severe general actions 
 had been fought on the south bank of the Sutlej in seven weeks, 
 that our army could venture across that river. These battles 
 cost us considerably dearer in the ratio of casualties than the 
 victory of Waterloo. Instead, however, of retiring into its own 
 territories, the Indian Government undertook the administration of 
 a country it had not conquered. Its mismanagement brought on 
 another sanguinary war ; the discomfited army again rallied around 
 its leaders, and gave employment to a British force of not less than 
 thirty-five thousand men, during the greater part of a year. At 
 length the military insurrection was put down ; the infant Prince 
 punished for our misdeeds by dethronement and banishment ; and the 
 Punjaub placed under the sole management of European officers. 
 But has this conquest made India more secure ? Not at all. It has 
 only increased the danger. On the Western frontier it is a continua- 
 tion of that of Scinde ; it lies between us and the unforgiving Affg- 
 hans ; and our army in advance (placed in the territory of subordi- 
 nate but discontented Affghan chiefs) is in a constant state of petty 
 warfare. 
 
 What yearly amount of pecuniary burthen our recent territorial 
 acquisitions may have brought on the Indian finances, it is very 
 difficult to discover, so ill made out are the Finance Accounts laid 
 annually before Parliament ; but in each case the burthen is un- 
 doubtedly great. The revenues of the Punjaub are assumed, by the 
 Court of Directors, to be 36*1,300,000; and the average of its 
 civil charges has already reached 1,120,000 ; leaving an apparent
 
 surplus of 36180,000 per annum. But this is apparent only. For, 
 despondingly wrote the Court of Directors to the Governor-General 
 in Council, on the 3rd of June, 1852, the 180,000 " include none 
 of the charges of the regular troops, nor the expenses of barrack 
 accommodation." Now the average of military charges throughout 
 India exceeds 56 per cent of the net revenue j and in the Punjaub, 
 a newly conquered country, where there is an army, probably 50,000 
 strong, the military charges can hardly be less than one million 
 sterling ; a sum that will make the Punjaub a charge and a burden 
 of about ^800,000 a year on the general revenues of India. 
 
 Equally difficult is it to make out the actual cost of Scinde ; its 
 
 " probable" expense the Directors admit to be 480,000 
 
 Deduct Revenue . . 280,000 
 
 Probable charge or loss in Scinde . ^200,000 
 
 So, too, Sattara, which to its own Prince yielded a large surplus ; 
 it was annexed in the hope of gain to the general revenue ; its annexa- 
 tion has proved a loss. 
 
 Its expenses in 1850-1 were . . ^240,623 
 Its receipts .... 205,240 
 
 Actual loss by Sattara . . . 35,383 
 
 " We certainly were not prepared," says the Court to Lord 
 Dalhousie, in reviewing these figures, " to find that the annexation 
 of Sattara would entail a charge upon the general resources of India." 
 Those who knew the system better, were, however, less credulous than 
 the Court of Directors ; they were prepared for what has happened. 
 But scarcely at peace beyond its natural limits on the North-west, 
 the Indian Government has rushed into war beyond its natural limits 
 on the East. A mountainous country separates Bengal from Burmah, 
 across which troops cannot be marched. The Burmese have nothing 
 to do with India. They are not formidable or dangerous. There is 
 no hostile Persia beyond Burmah. There is no Russia to urge a 
 narlike people on to attack India from this side. To go to war with 
 Burmah, the Indian Government is obliged to take to the sea. Yet 
 not only is it engaged in a war with Burmah, costing 120,000 a 
 month and probably far more; but, by annexing Pegu, it indicates its
 
 intention, either of never being at peace, or of going on advancing its 
 frontiers to the borders of Siam. At the close of the war of 1 8 1 5, Eng- 
 land might as rationally have annexed Normandy, as India now annex 
 Pegu. For, as in Europe, England possesses limits which nature 
 itself which ethnology, geography, history, have all united to assign 
 to it ; so also in India. There, too, we have boundaries unmistake- 
 ably fixed by nature. But, as in the West, so in the East, these are 
 now abandoned; and besides the cost of past wars, and of the present 
 war, the Natives of India will have to bear the burthens of future 
 wars ; as inevitable as Kaffir hostilities, unless a thorough change in 
 our system be now adopted. 
 
 Applying, then, the test of Peace to the last twenty years, what 
 opportunity, what means, what chances, can a Government, occupied 
 more or less with war for fifteen of those years, have had of working 
 out the improvement and the happiness of the Natives ? No man can 
 serve two masters. No Government above all, no Foreign Govern- 
 ment, can recompense a people for the misery, the cost, and the bur- 
 then of war. War requires all the energy, all the mind, all the money, 
 a Government can avail itself of. What war during the greater part 
 of the currency of the present Charter Act has had the benefit of 
 in India, the Natives have been deprived of. They have not had the 
 energy, the mind, or the money of the Government applied to their 
 improvement or happiness. 
 
 II. FINANCES. 
 
 And the effect of this deprivation is to be seen in the state of the 
 Finances of India ; PECUNIARY PROSPERITY being the second great 
 test of good government everywhere. 
 
 In England a deficit in the Treasury is the most heinous of all 
 Government offences. No Administration can survive for three years 
 a want of equilibrium in our receipts and expenditure, no matter how 
 caused. We regard; too, other countries in Europe as comparativery 
 strong or weak according to their financial position ; and we are con- 
 tinually inferring danger to the stability of order in Austria from 
 the disorders of its Treasury. Turn to India, and what, during the
 
 last fourteen years, do we find ? Deficit deficit deficit. Here it 
 is in detail. 
 
 DEFICIT. SURPLUS. 
 
 1838-9 381,000 
 
 1839-40 2,138,000 
 
 1840-1 1, 754,000 
 
 1841-2 1,771,000 
 
 1842-3 . 1,346,000 
 
 1843-4 1,440,000 
 
 1844-5 583,000 
 
 1845-6 1,495,3/6 
 
 1846-7 , . 971,202 
 
 1847-8 1,911,791 
 
 1848-9 1,473,115 
 
 1849-50 354,187* 
 
 1850-1 631,173 
 
 In the greater part, therefore, of the twenty years of the present 
 Charter Act, the deficit of the India Government has been as 
 chronic as the state of war. In 13 years, it will be seen that it has 
 amounted, in the face of an increasing revenue, to the amazing sum of 
 1 5,54 1,470 ; all provided for, of course, by loans and debt ; agencies 
 adverse to, not promotive of, the improvement and happiness of the 
 people. 
 
 When the present system of Government was framed in 1833, 
 the military charges of India were about eight millions sterling, or 49 
 per cent of its net revenue. Twenty years of anticipated " improve- 
 ment and happiness" have now almost elapsed, and the military 
 charges now exceed twelve millions sterling, and eat up 56 per cent of 
 the net revenue. In other words, the gelar cash balances that were 
 in the Treasury in the early part of the year 1838, and the increase 
 of revenue that has concurrently been going on, have not only been 
 absorbed by military charges ; but it is those charges which have 
 produced this continuous state of deficit, and which have augmented 
 the Indian debt from .=30,000,000, as it stood when the Act passed, 
 to 3650,000,000, as it will stand when the Statute, that was to do so 
 much good to India, will expire. Out of twenty years, fifteen years 
 of war; in thirteen years a deficit of lo|- millions sterling; twenty 
 millions sterling added to the debt. These arc the first results of the 
 legislation of 1833, which arrest our path in clearing the way for 
 legislation in 1853. 
 
 * The surplus this year arises out of the accidental increase of the precarious 
 revenue from the Opium monopoly.
 
 10 
 
 III. MATERIAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Of course, a system of government which in the last twenty years 
 has gone on increasing its military expenditure from eight to twelve 
 millions sterling, and thus adding to its debt, has had little to spend 
 on what are, in such a country as India, the next evidence of good 
 government PUBLIC WORKS. Lord Auckland, the first Governor- 
 General after the enactment of 1833, commenced his administration 
 by recognising the construction of roads, bridges, harbours, tanks, and 
 irrigation works, as a primary duty of the Indian Government. But, 
 having recognized the duty, his Lordship immediately proceeded to 
 disable himself from discharging it, by beginning that career of warfare 
 which is still going on. So, that out of a net revenue exceeding 21 
 millions sterling, the rate of government expenditure on public works 
 has, according to Mr. Campbell,* been 2i per cent, or less than 
 500,000 a year, spread over a country as large as Europe ; for 
 British India contains an area of 1,294,602 square miles. And 
 of this half million, by far the greater part is spent on the favoured 
 and no doubt very important North- Western Provinces. They yield 
 a net-revenue of four and a half millions sterling, and of it have seven 
 and a half per cent spent on improvements. Whilst on Madras, with 
 a net revenue of nearly four millions, only one half per cent is so laid 
 out ; though in Madras the land assessment falls far heavier on the 
 cultivators than in any other part of India, though the soil pants for 
 moisture, and though whole rivers of fertilising waters run to waste 
 for want of irrigation works. Bengal contributes more than eight 
 millions sterling net, and receives one per cent back in the construc- 
 tion of roads, &c., and Bombay the same per centage on its net 
 revenue of ^62,300,000. Here stands the account for 1849-50; the 
 year in which there was a small surplus. 
 
 BENGAL 
 N. W. Pitov. 
 MADRAS 
 BOMBAY. 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 SQ. MILES. 
 
 NET REVENUE. 
 
 8,500,000 
 4,500,000 
 3,779,000 
 2,337,000 
 
 PUBLIC WOHKS. 
 
 41,000,01)0 
 23,000,000 
 22,000,000 
 10,405,000 
 
 225,000 
 85,000 
 140,000 
 120,000 
 
 92,200 
 348,000 
 14,919 
 24J43 
 
 And of these sums so debited against public works, some portion 
 is, it must be borne in mind, spent on barracks and purely military 
 
 * Modern India. Mr. Campbell is a writer favourable to the existing Indian 
 administration, but in the statistical papers just put into circulation by the Court 
 of Directors, the total average expenditure on public woiks, during fourteen 
 years, amounts to the sum of 271,604.
 
 11 
 
 undertakings. The figures, too, include the cost of superintendence ; 
 which has sometimes wasted 70 per cent, of the outlay. 
 
 IV. CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 But, in spite of war, deficit, and want of roads, bridges, harbours, 
 and public works, in spite of this, the CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 
 may have improved during the last twenty years ? Try the Act of 
 1833, then, by this test. There can be none better or surer. In India, 
 however, it is necessary to recollect, the British Government is more 
 than the Ruler and Governor of the people ; it is their Landlord also. 
 Thus it is doubly bound to them. It has its duties as Proprietor, 
 as well as its obligations as Administrator to perform ; it has Tenants, 
 as well as Subjects to look after, to care for, and to protect ; it acts 
 directly, as well as indirectly on the cultivation and on the cultiva- 
 tors of the soil; and it is immediately, as well as mediately re- 
 sponsible for its state and their condition. Remembering this, 
 first let us go to our oldest provinces, where there is what is called 
 a permanent land settlement ; permanent, however, only to the middle 
 man ; fluctuating beyond even Irish fluctuation, to the cultivator. 
 " In the fertile districts of Lower Bengal," says a thoroughly well-in- 
 formed writer in the Calcutta Review, No. XII. 
 
 " So bountifully intersected by noble rivers fed by tributary streams 
 and rivulets, which spread perennial verdure and luxuriance over 
 fields and plains, and constituting links of communication, stimulate 
 and promote the alacrity and bustle of traffic, there is to be found 
 a community leading a life such as to call forth sympathy and 
 commiseration. The community we allude to, is that of the Bengal 
 Rvot. The name is familiar here as one expressive of an ignorant, 
 de'graded, and oppressed race." 
 
 " To whatever part of Bengal we may go, the Ryot will be found, 
 ' to live all his days on rice, and to go covered with a slight cotton 
 cloth.' The profits which he makes are consumed in some way or 
 other. The demands upon him are almost endless, and he must 
 meet them one by one. This prevents the creation of capital, and 
 prolongs the longevity of the Mahajani [or usurious money-lending] 
 system. The districts of Bengal are noted for fertility and exuber- 
 ance of crops ; and if the Ryots could enjoy freedom and security, 
 the country would exhibit a cheering spectacle. But their present 
 condition is miserable, and appears to rouse no fellow feeling, no 
 sympathy, in those by whom they are surrounded. The monthly 
 expense of a Ryot is 1| to 3 rupees ;* and if he has a family, it must 
 be proportionately higher. We do not believe that there are in all 
 
 * A rupee may be reckoned as 2 shillings of English money. 
 C
 
 12 
 
 the districts five in every hundred, whose whole annual profits exceed 
 one hundred rupees ! 
 
 " In many instances the earnings of a Ryot are not sufficient for his 
 family ; and his wife and sons are obliged to betake themselves to 
 some pursuit, and assist him with all they can get. He lives gene- 
 rally upon coarse rice and dholl ; vegetables and fish would be 
 luxuries. His dress consists of a bit of rag and a slender chudder ; 
 his bed is composed of a coarse mat and a pillow ; his habitation, a 
 thatched roof and his property, a plough, two bullocks, one or two 
 lotahs and some bijdhan. He toils ' from morn to noon, from noon 
 to dewv eve ;' and despite this he is a haggard, poverty-smitten, 
 wretched creature. This is no exaggeration; even in ordinary seasons, 
 and under ordinary circumstances, the Ryots may often be seen 
 fasting for days and nights for want of food.' 
 
 "The inability of the Ryot to better his degraded condition, in 
 which he has been placed by the causes we have named, is increased 
 by his mental debasement. Unprotected, harassed and oppressed, 
 he has been precluded from the genial rays of intellectuality. His 
 mind is veiled in a thick gloom of ignorance." 
 
 And the consequence of this condition of the Bengal Ryot, is, to 
 quote the language of the Court of Directors, (3 June, 1852), "there 
 has been a diminution in the total receipts from land in the old 
 provinces of Bengal since 1843 44." 
 
 Such are the results of the Zemindary system. Turn next to 
 Madras, where the Ryotwary prevails. There, the India Government 
 does not place the cultivators at the mercy of great speculators in 
 land and farmers of taxes, with power to rack, torment, and sell them 
 off ; and render them the slaves of money-lenders. There, it acts the 
 part of landlord directly ; annually fixing the rent of the minute 
 portions into which the soil is subdivided ; annually collecting these 
 petty sums from its yearly patch-work settlements. And what are 
 the results there? "The Madras men with whom I have talked," 
 writes Mr. Campbell,"* candidly admit that at the present time the 
 state of things is most unsatisfactory that the people are wretchedly 
 poor, the land of little value ; that the difficulty is to get people to 
 cultivate it on any terms, and that the cultivation is kept up by 
 forcing, by government advances, &c. &c." And what are these, " &c. 
 &c." too common place to name ? Cruelties at which humanity shud- 
 ders ; and of which the Madras Petition lately presented to Parlia- 
 ment gives the following example as occurring in the year 1850. 
 
 " That at the dittum [the fixation of rent] settlement of the pre- 
 vious year, on their [the Ryots] refusal to accept the dittum offered 
 
 * Modern India.
 
 13 
 
 to them by the Tehsildars of six different talooks, because it included 
 lands that had been relinquished, and others which were not liable 
 to assessment ; and because the lands bearing assessment were then 
 re-measured with new ropes, shorter by one cubit than the legal 
 measure ; some of them were compelled, by imprisonment and 
 corporal punishment of various kinds, to put their names to the 
 dittums ; and when others ran away from their talooks to avoid the 
 like treatment, the curnums of the villages forged the names of those 
 who had absconded to the dittums that were assigned to them ; 
 they who remained complained to the collector, who said the dittums 
 should not be altered, and refused redress ; and when the jumma- 
 bundy came round, on their refusal to pay the excess of the assess- 
 ment, the houses of the Ryots were stripped of their roofs ; their 
 ploughs, ploughing cattle, grain seed, and forage for their grazing 
 cattle, were seized by attachment and sold by auction ; some Ryots 
 were arrested as security for the balance still unpaid from the pro- 
 ceeds of the auction ; the houses of others were broken into and 
 plundered by the peons, who were paid batta from the proceeds of 
 the sales ; their herd cattle were not permitted to graze ; and their 
 families prohibited taking water from the tanks and wells for domes- 
 tic purposes." 
 
 Nor is even this all: " The abuses of the whole system/'* (again 
 we quote from Mr. Campbell,) " and especially that of remissions, is 
 something frightful ; the opportunities of extortion, peculation, 
 chicanery, and intrigue of all kinds are unbounded ; while the re- 
 liance of the Madras collector on informers by no means mends the 
 matter." So bad indeed is the system, he adds, that "if the collector 
 were one of the Prophets, and remained in the same district to the age 
 of Methuselah, he would not be fit for the duty." This is the state of 
 things actually affecting this the system under which now exist seven- 
 teen out of the twenty-two millions of people in the Madras Presi- 
 dency ; contributing nearly four millions sterling to the Government, 
 which thus treats it and them. 
 
 In Bombay, where a sort of composite system prevails, things are 
 not much better. " The receipts* have fallen off, and the country 
 generally speaking is not prosperous." The cost of collection is 
 enormous ; not less than 55 per cent. ; the surveys are partial and 
 incorrect ; settlement there is little or none ; while whole classes are 
 exempted, others are squeezed and oppressed to make up, if possible, 
 yearly falling off receipts. 
 
 Mr. Saville Marriott passed nearly half a century in the Civil Ser- 
 vice of Bombay, terminating his career in its highest office, that of 
 * Modern India.
 
 14 
 
 the Council of the Presidency, and, in 18 1C,* he thus summed up 
 the fruits of his minute observation and wide experience, in almost 
 every province of Western India : 
 
 " In elucidation of the position that this country (India) is verg- 
 ing to the lowest ebb of pauperism, I would adduce a fact pregnant 
 with considerations of the most serious importance ; namely, that of 
 late years a large portion of the public revenue has been paid by 
 encroachment upon the capital of the country, small though that 
 capital is in itself. I allude to the property of the peasantry, which 
 consists of personal ornaments of the precious metals, and jewels, 
 convertible, as occasions require, to profitable purposes and accom- 
 modation in agricultural pursuits, most frequently in the shape of 
 pawn till the object has been obtained. I feel certain that an exami- 
 nation would establish that a considerable share of this and other 
 property, even to cattle and household utensils, has been for ever 
 alienated from its proprietors to make good the public revenue. In 
 addition to this lamentable evidence of poverty, is another of equal 
 force, to be seen in all parts of the country, in the numerous indivi- 
 duals of the above class of the community wandering about in search 
 of the employment of hirelings, which they are glad to obtain even 
 for the most scanty pittance. In short, almost everything forces to 
 the conviction that we have before us a narrowing progress to utter 
 pauperism." 
 
 "Where Rent and Taxation are thus destroying Capital defined by 
 Political Economy to be the fund for the employment of Labour 
 weir indeed might Mr. Marriott add, when examined before a Par- 
 liamentary Committee in 1848, that the condition of the cultivators 
 was " very much depressed, greatly depressed, and I believe 
 declining." 
 
 The Bombay Government receives a revenue of 500,000 a-year 
 from its Collectorate of Guzerat ; and after an absence of fourteen 
 years, Mr. Giberne returned to it, as Judge, in 1840. Everywhere, 
 he told the Commons' Committee on Cotton Cultivation in 1848, he 
 remarked deterioration, and amongst all classes : 
 
 " I did not see so many of the more wealthy classes of the natives. 
 The aristocracy, when we first had the country, used to have their 
 gay carts, horses, and attendants, and a great deal of finery about 
 them ; and there seemed to be an absence of all that. * * * * The 
 Ryots all complained that they had had money once, but they had 
 none now." 
 
 And in a private letter dated 1849, " written by a gentleman high 
 in the Company's Service," and quoted in a pamphlet-f published in 
 1851, the decay of Guzerat is thus described : 
 
 * " India : The Duty and Interest of England to inquire into its Slale," p. 12. 
 t " Letters on the Cotton and Roads of Western India," p. 15.
 
 If) 
 
 "Many of the best families in the province, who were rich and 
 well to do when we came into Guzcrat, in 1807, have now scarcely 
 clothes to their hacks .... Our demands in money on the 
 Talookdars are more than three times what they originally paid, 
 without one single advantage gained on their parts. Parties from 
 whom they have been compelled to borrow at ruinous rates of in- 
 terest enforce their demands by attachment of their lands and vil- 
 lages ; thus they sink deeper and deeper in debt, without the chance 
 of extricating themselves. What then must become of their rising 
 families ?" 
 
 In the North- West, however, things are not so bad. But why? Be- 
 cause, there alone the revenue administration has to some extent fol- 
 lowed native footsteps, recognized native rights, and is carriedon through 
 the ancient native village system, swept away in Bengal and Madras. 
 But even there, where the assessment does leave to all a profit, so de- 
 fectively has it been carried out, that some have a very small, if others 
 have a larger one. And already the revenue even there is declining. 
 "If," wrote the Court of Directors, on the 3rd of June, 1852, 
 " the amount received from the new territory be deducted from the 
 last two years, there will appear a deterioration in the land revenue 
 from the old territory of the North-Western Provinces, as compared 
 with the first average, of 80,000, and in 1849-50, there was no 
 improvement as compared with that average." All, therefore, is not 
 so bright as it seems even in the North- West ; superior as it is to 
 the rest of India. 
 
 But it is on India as a whole that attention must be fixed ; and how 
 sad the condition of the cultivator is in Bengal, with a population 
 of 40 millions, how far worse it is in Madras with its 22 millions, 
 and how bad it is in Bombay with its 10 millions, the evidence 
 thus briefly produced (to be followed hereafter by detailed exami- 
 nation) will give some general idea of. It is not merely cultivation 
 that is depressed ; it is society itself that is being gradually de- 
 stroyed. The race of native gentry has already almost every where 
 disappeared ; and a new danger has arisen that in another gene- 
 ration or two, the cultivators* will not be worth having as subjects. 
 
 * It will seem from the following extract of a reply made by Governor 
 Higginson, who knows India well, to an address from the inhabitants of Falcq in 
 the Mauritius, that in his opinion, the condition of the natives of India will be 
 " immeasurably " improved by their settling in that island, and their working as 
 negroes in sugar plantations. 
 
 " It is very gratifying to me to learn that the measures which have been adopted 
 to secure a more adequate supply of labour here, met with your approval. In
 
 16 
 
 For moral debasement is the inevitable consequence of physical 
 depression. This prospect may be deemed " satisfactory " by the 
 persons responsible for it. But to India it is ruin and destruction ; 
 to England it is danger and disgrace. 
 
 V. LAW AND JUSTICE. 
 
 The state of the LAAV, the forms of legal procedure, and the 
 ADMINISTRATION of JUSTICE these form another test by which to try 
 the legislation of 1833. And these, in the case of that Act, are a 
 special and peculiar test. For Law Reform was not only declared 
 to be one of its most prominent objects ; but it contained large and 
 costly provisions to advance that priceless object. " I believe," said 
 Mr. Macaulay, the ministerial orator in passing the Act of 1833 
 through the House of Commons ; " I believe that no country ever 
 stood so much in need of a Code of Laws as India ; and I believe 
 that there never was a country in which the want might be so 
 readily supplied." And what Mr. Macaulay so strongly believed 
 to be so needful, and so confidently held to be so easy of execu- 
 tion, he afterwards tried to furnish. For, as member of the Law 
 Commission established under the Act of 1833, he prepared a 
 Code of Criminal Law. That Commission was appointed in 1835, 
 the year after the passing of the Charter Act. The statute is now 
 on the point of expiration. Twenty years have nearly elapsed. 
 But India still awaits the fruits of its labours. The Code pre- 
 pared by the Commission was first submitted to the Supreme 
 Government in May 1837; it was sent back for revision; it was 
 returned in the October following. It was then sent home to the 
 Court of Directors and the Board of Control ; it was next returned 
 to India with Home observations and criticism. Calcutta considered 
 it once more, and sent it back to London ; and finally, after eleven 
 years' deliberation, it reached India in 1848. And it has been lying 
 snug and dusty on the shelves of the Council ever since. The Act 
 
 the absence of a native population to cultivate our soil, our attention should be 
 directed not only to obtaining a sufficiency of labour for our more immediate 
 wants ; but also to the more valuable and permanent benefits to be gained by 
 inducing the natives of India who now come here and carry their earnings back 
 after a few years to settle in the Colony ; and from my own experience of both 
 Countries I can affirm that by adopting this as their future home, they will by 
 their own industry, improve their social and physical condition immea- 
 surably beyond what they can ever hope to attain in their own country."
 
 of 1 833 has not therefore produced that Code of Laws, " the want 
 of which might be so readily supplied ;" instead, it has imposed on 
 India an enormous cost under this head, hitherto without result. 
 
 Mr. J. B. Norton of the Madras Bar, in his recently published 
 Pamphlet, The Administration of Justice in Southern India, states 
 the Salary alone of the Law Commissioners to have already reached 
 the enormous total of 1/0,000; but without any advantage what- 
 ever to the Natives of India. 
 
 " Possibly a considerable amount of useful information has been 
 collected; and certainly sundry very heavy blue books have been 
 brought forth a proposed Criminal Code proved an abortion, and 
 was strangled at its birth. What few Acts have been produced, are 
 drafted in the loosest and most unlawyerlike fashion, so that almost 
 upon every occasion when they have become the subject of discussion 
 in the Supreme Court, a "coach and horses" have been easily driven 
 through any given section : but, up to the present time no Code, 
 worthy of the name, has been prepared for all India ; although it 
 might have been imagined, that to any man wishing to illustrate his 
 name, and hand it down immortal to Posterity, such an object would 
 have been sufficient incentive to his ambition, even if he were not 
 lured by the additional bait of \ 0,000 per annum, paid monthly, 
 and with the strictest regard to punctuality. But the truth is, the 
 office, from which so much has been expected, has been a mere job. 
 From Mr. Macaulay down to Mr. Bethune, we have never had a 
 lawyer of any practice appointed. Theoretical men, having influence 
 with the Ministry of the day, have been from time to time nomi- 
 nated. They have come out here at a comparatively advanced age, 
 with the world before them where to choose, totally ignorant of the 
 character and habits of the Natives, of their existing Laws and innu- 
 merable customs, and consequently unable to form any correct 
 estimate of the wants and exigencies of the country. 
 
 " During the few months which Mr. Jackson, the Advocate 
 General of Calcutta, filled the office, he succeeded in pushing 
 through a small but important body of Laws ; and we have now 
 unquestionably a ripe and able lawyer of large practice at the helm 
 but although there can be little doubt that Mr. Peacock's drafts 
 will be workman-like, it remains to be seen whether he will not be 
 overwhelmed with the enormous amount of knowledge which he 
 must necessarily acquire, before he can safely proceed to legislate for 
 a country to which he is a stranger ; and whether the habits of the 
 Special Pleader will yield to the more enlarged requirements of the 
 Legislator : but the appointment of a practical lawyer is an instal- 
 ment of what is due to us ; we must take the good the Gods provide 
 ua, and be thankful for it. 
 
 " But it is not after all, the state of the substantive Law, defective 
 as that is, which is the main subject of just complaint ; it is the 
 miserable system under which it is at present administered; and the
 
 18 
 
 Still more frightful prospect which awaits this Unhappy country, if 
 the British Legislature will still turn a deaf ear to our necessities. 
 It is to the awful results of this feeble and insufficient system of 
 judicial administration, the utter inability of the Judges to control 
 the proceedings before them ; the unnecessary swelling of the records, 
 the prolongation of trials, and the increased repetition of litigation, 
 which arise from the want of power in the Bench, and are permitted 
 to reign unchecked, that we have all along pointed ; for which 
 we emphatically demand a speedy and effectual remedy ; certain that 
 if it be not extended to us now, we may look in vain for it for the 
 next five and twenty years, unless indeed in the mean time, the evil 
 should have become so intolerable, as to rouse even the unenergetic 
 listless Ilindoo to such an extent, as to endanger the continuance of 
 our rule in India." pp. 127-8-9. 
 
 Then, as to the actual state and administration of civil law. In 
 the Regulation Provinces there is nothing worthy of the name of 
 law; but, to a system unworthy that sacred name, are appended cum- 
 brous legal forms and a legal tax. To enter into the courts of what 
 is called justice, it is not only necessary that you should have a plaint, 
 but money to pay (not lawyers but) the government. So that to all the 
 Company's subjects who cannot commence the search of justice by 
 paying a tax to the government, the doors of the courts are closed ; 
 for them there is neither law nor justice. And having money, what, 
 when admitted, do they find ? Judges, as Mr. Campbell confesses, 
 a scandal to the British name. 
 
 " When a Collector is old enough, he is made a Judge. It seems 
 to be considered that if, at this time of life a man is fit for anything, 
 he is fit for a Judge ; and if he is fit for nothing, better make him a 
 Judge and get rid of him. The judicial department being in a less 
 satisfactory state than any other, is less sought after, and, the ill 
 effects of mismanagement being less immediately startling, the prin- 
 ciple that, in a choice of evils, any man will do for a Judge seems 
 to have become established. Some who mismanage their districts 
 are said to be promoted to be Judges against their will." 
 
 Judicial proceedings are rendered intricate by the multiplication of 
 technical forms, by the rigid exaction of nice, obscure, puzzling, 
 pedantic, and expensive rites and ceremonies ; in short, intricacy and 
 obscurity are intentionally created. The courts indeed profess to give 
 every man the law of his own religion or country, or where the liti- 
 gants are of different tribes, according to the custom of the country 
 or the law of the defendant. But on this variegated basis a large and 
 complicated legal system of constructions, undigested and unarranged, 
 lias been reared, and it is left to the administration of men not
 
 19 
 
 educated as lawyers ; but laymen, who, grasping at the shadow 
 lose the substance of justice ; who have no equitable jurisdic- 
 tion to mitigate the harshness of legal forms ; who scarcely speak or 
 understand the language of the country, and who, consequently, are 
 quite unable to discriminate as to the value of testimony. The re- 
 sult is petty suits, and the plaints of the poor and helpless repelled 
 by expense ; opening for fraud, perjury and forgery ; a number of 
 appeals such as no other country on the face of the world can fur- 
 nish ; a complete revolution of the rights and institutions of the 
 country; and, adds Mr. Campbell, " a lamentable demoralization of 
 the people." 
 
 For fifteen years has the criminal law, as administered by the 
 Company's courts, been condemned by Government itself. It 
 is just as fit for the Christian people of this realm as for the Hindoo 
 subjects of the Queen in India. Its foundations are Mahomedan ; 
 and, though' in the case of Hindoos the opinion of the Mahomedan 
 assessor attached to the court, may be dispensed with, the effect is 
 not to introduce a better system of law, but to place the criminal at 
 the mercy of the judge's discretion without any law at all: the 
 judge being, as a general rule, quite incompetent to exercise any 
 discretion, and wholly innocent of a knowledge of any law, Christian, 
 Mahomedan, or Hindoo. 
 
 VI. POLICE. 
 
 If there be little or no criminal law, there is, however, a POLICE. But 
 it has, we quote the declaration of 1252 British and other Christian In- 
 habitants of Calcutta and Lower Bengal in their Petition to the House 
 of Commons, " not only failed to effect the prevention of crime, the ap- 
 prehension of offenders, and the protection of life and property ; but it 
 has become the engine of oppression and a great cause of the corruption 
 of the people." In a population of forty millions scattered over an 
 area larger than France, there are ten thousand police ; and of the 
 practical bearing of the system on the condition of the people, the 
 Petitioners give the following illustration : 
 
 " That in case of the apprehension of an offender, and in order to 
 prosecute him, it is necessary for the injured party and his wit- 
 nesses to go before the magistrate, but this may be a journey of 
 from fifteen or less, to fifty miles or more, in consequence of the 
 extent of this district, and when arrived at the magistrate's office, he 
 may be detained days or weeks from a variety of causes ; that in
 
 20 
 
 fact a magistrate's compound in the Lower Provinces often presents 
 the spectacle of hundreds of persons thus kept in detention for weeks ; 
 and if the offence is of a grave character, or beyond the jurisdiction 
 of a magistrate, he and his witnesses may be required to take a second 
 journey of the same distance to the sessions, and be there detained 
 days or weeks waiting for a trial. At the sessions also, hundreds of 
 persons are constantly detained at great distances from their homes. 
 That to avoid these inconveniences, the population render little or 
 no aid to the police for the enforcement of the law, but on the con- 
 trary they are generally averse to do so, and hence has arisen a 
 practice which is a great reproach to the police system, namely, that 
 witnesses generally and prosecutors often are made prisoners, kept 
 under arrest, and sent to the magistrate, and afterwards to the ses- 
 sions in actual custody. That from this state of the law and police 
 result the following among other evils ; persons robbed deny the 
 fact of a robbery, or if they complain, the persons who could be wit- 
 nesses deny all knowledge of it, the immediate interests of these 
 classes being arrayed by reason of the state of the law and jurisdic- 
 tion against the objects of law and justice. Often under these 
 circumstances the native policeman to do his duty employs the 
 means of terror, and torture is believed to be extensively practised on 
 persons under accusation, and the injured party for not assisting him 
 becomes an offender. All the evil passions are thus brought into 
 play, and ingenuities of all kinds, both by people and police, are 
 resorted to. Another result is the constant device of proving a true 
 case by witnesses who knew nothing about the matter ; justice is 
 supposed thus to be satisfied, but convenient perjury becomes 
 familiar, and perjury loses its criminal character among the people. 
 Thus, and in a thousand other ways, the law and police operate to 
 corrupt the people and spread corruption ; moreover the very cir- 
 cumstances which repel the honest, attract those who have revenge 
 to gratify, rivals to injure, enemies to destroy ; and for these and 
 other dishonest purposes the police and criminal courts are re- 
 sorted to, and police and law under the present system are terrible 
 evils. 
 
 "That a further aggravation of evil results from some powers pos- 
 sessed by the native police, which practically are magisterial, such 
 as the power of receiving confessions, and in all cases of taking 
 (though not on oath) the deposition of witnesses, which powers are 
 exercised by the serjeant (Jemadar) in the absence of his immediate 
 superior (the Darogah), and thereby practically the course of 
 criminal justice takes its direction from them, and thus the police 
 control the magistrate's functions, instead of his superintending and 
 controlling the police." 
 
 In Madras (perhaps fortunately) no attempt has been made at a 
 regular police ; but, though the extortions and cruelties suffered in 
 Bengal from its police are unknown in Madras, great and serious 
 crimes, particularly gang robberies, flourish in that Presidency. In
 
 21 
 
 Bombay the police, much the same as in Madras, is reported by the 
 authorities to be hi a state of " comparative torpor ; " and in con- 
 sequence violent crimes are very prevalent. In one Presidency there 
 is, we see, a police more oppressive to the people than the criminals ; 
 in the other two Presidencies there is so little police, that there is an 
 excessive amount of the most heinous offences. Tried then by the 
 tests of law, justice, and crime, the Legislation of 1833 has not 
 resulted in " the improvement and happiness of the natives of India." 
 
 VII. EDUCATION. 
 
 Measure the system of 1833 by the wand of EDUCATION, short 
 as we may choose to make it, and the result is worse still. So paltry 
 an item of expenditure is Native Education, that it does not even 
 constitute an item in the yearly Finance Accounts laid before Parlia- 
 ment. It is, therefore, impossible to say what per centage of a net 
 revenue of twenty-one millions sterling, is spent on this means of 
 promoting the improvement and happiness of the Natives. But thia 
 is well known, that, whereas in Hindoo times every village com- 
 munity had its school, our destruction of village societies or munici- 
 palities has deprived the Natives of their schools, such as they were, 
 and has substituted nothing in their stead ; except perhaps in the 
 North Western Provinces. For the ten millions of people in the 
 Bombay Presidency, there is a grant of 12,500 a-year for their 
 education. In the town of Madras there is a Collegiate Institution 
 languishing on .3000 a-year. This absorbs one half of the 
 educational allowance for that Presidency, containing a population of 
 twenty-two millions. The other half has never been laid out ; and 
 " there is not," say the people of Madras, in their Petition to 
 Parliament, "a Government school over all the 140,000 square 
 miles, comprising the Madras territories." In short, out of these 22 
 millions of people the Indian Government yearly educates 160 ! And 
 when in Bengal the richer natives do send their sons to England for 
 education, the young men, returning competent for, are refused 
 Government employment on the same terms and on the same rank 
 as Europeans. Within the last five years a Hindoo young gentleman 
 carried off several medical prizes at University College, and received 
 the diploma of M.D. The Court of Directors, and individual 
 Directors were applied to by some of the most eminent of the 
 retired public servants of India to give Dr. Chutterbutty a com-
 
 22 
 
 mission as Surgeon in a Native Regiment, but the request was 
 refused. And by gentlemen, too, who, it stands in evidence, have at 
 home spent out of Indian Taxation during the last twenty years, the 
 enormous sum of 53,000 in public banquets and more select house 
 dinners. It is not by such educational expenditure, or by such treat- 
 ment when native gentlemen do educate themselves, that " the im- 
 provement and happiness of the natives of India" can be promoted. 
 
 VIII. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OF THE NATIVES. 
 
 And the insufficiency of this Test of Education naturally brings 
 us to another, viz. the EMPLOYMENT OF NATIVES. In our earlier 
 Indian career, Natives were employed in the most important and 
 confidential posts of our Government. Our regiments were officered 
 by Natives ; in many places we had Native agents and represent 
 atives; everywhere we were then obliged to make use of native 
 talent. But in those days Indian patronage was not valuable, and 
 Indian salaries were at least moderate. But, gradually this use of 
 native ability was displaced, and every post of profit, of trust, of 
 value transferred, at enormous addition to the cost of Government 
 to Englishmen ; until at last it became part and parcel of our 
 established policy. The legislation of 1833, however, attempted to 
 remedy this monstrous injustice, by enacting that none should be 
 excluded from any office by reason of religion, place of birth, descent, 
 or colour. But so far from the enactment having remedied the 
 wrong, " this provision," was according to Mr. Campbell, " a mere 
 flourish of trumpets and of no practical effect whatever as far as the 
 natives are concerned." Indeed, according to him, it has been pre- 
 judicial rather than advantageous to native employment; "for," he 
 adds, " the only effect has been to open to Europeans offices origin- 
 ally intended for natives." 
 
 The division between the Covenanted and Uncovenanted services 
 is still kept up ; though the covenant itself is absurd and ridiculous, 
 now that the East India Company has nothing to do with trade. And 
 the purpose for which it is maintained is to draw an artificial line by 
 means of which the Natives may continue, however educated, able, 
 and competent, to be excluded from all high and lucrative employment. 
 The Act of 1833 declares that religion, birth, and colour shall not 
 exclude any man from any office. But the Government of India refuses 
 to allow any native, Hindoo, Mahomcdan, or Farsec, admission into
 
 23 
 
 its covenanted service. Thus, it defeats by a rule of its own, the 
 provision of the legislature of 1833, which particularly aimed at 
 promoting " the improvement and happiness" of the natives of India, 
 by employing them in the public service ; and by their employment, 
 reducing the cost of Government. Some few thousands 3000 or 
 4000 out of 150,000 millions do indeed get small posts, worth on 
 an average some ,sG30 a year. But any real share in Government 
 administration, trust, and responsibility, is denied the people of India. 
 Yet, in Lord Grey's work on the Colonial Administration of Lord John 
 Russell's Government,* he is found boasting, how, on the Gold Coast 
 of Africa, the Governor summoned its chiefs into council ; and how, 
 out of " this rude Negro Parliament," England is there creating an 
 African nation. 
 
 " I am persuaded I do not overrate the importance of the establish- 
 ment of this rude Negro Parliament, when I say that I believe it has 
 converted a number of barbarous tribes, possessing nothing that 
 deserves the name of a Government, into a Nation, with a regularly 
 organised authority and institutions, simple and unpretending, but 
 suited to the actual state of society, and containing within themselves 
 all that is necessary for their future development; so that they may 
 meet the growing wants of an advancing civilisation." 
 
 ]3ut in India, a people "learned in all the arts of polished 
 life, when we were yet in the woods,"-)* less favoured than the Fantees 
 of Cape Coast Castle, are proscribed as a race of incompetent, help- 
 less incapables, and condemned to everlasting inferiority in lands 
 which their forefathers made famous. 
 
 IX. POPULAR CONTENTMENT. 
 
 Are then the people of India content with the working of the 
 legislation of 1833 ? It would be strange if they were ; and 
 they are not. They do not rebel ; they do not resist ; they 
 do not rise against the Indian Government ; as do the Natives in 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 258-G. 
 
 f " This multitude of men Joes not consist of an abject and barbarous populace ; 
 much less of gangs of savages like the Guaranies and the Chiquitos, who wander 
 on the waste borders of the Amazon or the Plate ; but a people for ages civilised ; 
 cultivated in all the arts of polished life when we were yet in the woods. There 
 are to be found chiefs of tribes and nations an ancient and venerable priesthood, 
 the depositories of their laws, learning and history ; a nobility of great antiquity 
 and renown ; a multitude of cities ; merchants and bankers, individuals of whom 
 once vied with the Bank of England, whose credit often supported a tottering 
 state ; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics ; millions of the most 
 diligent, and not least intelligent tillers of the earth." Burke un Fox's ludiu 
 Bill.
 
 24 
 
 adjoining States still governed by their own Princes. For, under 
 British rule the power of the Government is too strong and well 
 organised for a successful resort to these violent modes of manifesting 
 public opinion. But now that the opportunity has arisen now that 
 there is a chance of improvement, they petition Parliament. And 
 what say their petitions? That they are happy and prosperous? 
 That they are satisfied with the results of the Act of 1833? That 
 they regard its renewal with contentment and hope ? Nothing of 
 the sort. The very reverse. Listen to the language that comes 
 from Madras : 
 
 " That the grievances of your Petitioners arise principally from 
 the excessive taxation, and the vexations which accompany its collec- 
 tion ; and the insufficiency, delay, and expense of the Company's 
 courts of law ; and their chief wants are, the construction of roads, 
 bridges, and works for the supply of irrigation ; and a better pro- 
 vision for the education of the people. They also desire a reduction 
 of the public expenditure, and a form of local government more gene- 
 rally conducive to the happiness of the subject and the prosperity of 
 the country ; and to these main points your Petitioners beg the con- 
 sideration of your honourable House, respectfully applying in behalf 
 of themselves and their countrymen for those remedies and reforms 
 which, in the wisdom of your honourable House, may be deemed 
 expedient and practicable." 
 
 The people of Madras complain that the whole framework of 
 society has been overthrown to their injury, and almost to their ruin. 
 
 " That notwithstanding this decided testimony to the superiority 
 of the village system as regards the prosperity both of the revenue 
 and the cultivator, the Court of Directors ordered the village system 
 to be superseded by the Ryotwar, as before stated by your Peti- 
 tioners ; and, with a professed view to remedy the evils attending it, 
 issued orders which declared that the labour of the Ryot should be 
 henceforward free from compulsion ; that private property in lands 
 on this side of the Peninsula should be acknowledged, and that the 
 over-assessment should be reduced ; but, however well intentioned 
 those orders may have been, Ryotwar is still the curse of the country, 
 the over-assessment continues unaltered, the Ryots are compelled to 
 cultivate at the pleasure of the Tehsildar, and the acknowledged right 
 of private property in no way prevents the oppression of the owner, 
 nor his gradual and sure pauperization. That while your Petitioners 
 apply to your honourable House for a return of their old revenue 
 system on the broad ground of justice to the cultivators, they beg to 
 point out a few particulars in which the change will be advantageous 
 to the Government : 1 . It will be relieved from the loss and cor- 
 ruption entailed by the Ryotwar system ; 2. It is secured from all 
 loss arising from unequal land tax ; 3. The rent will not depend upon
 
 25 
 
 the correct assessment of the cultivation ; and, 4. The charge of col- 
 lection will be considerably decreased ; yet even were there no imme- 
 diate advantage likely to accrue to the Government, your Petitioners 
 would represent that a lighter and more reasonable assessment, 
 coupled with the removal of the vexations and oppressions accompany- 
 ing the present mode of collection, would ensure a much larger cul- 
 tivation and thereby the revenues of the State would be improved ; 
 and that the people of India are therefore entitled to seek and to ob- 
 tain from the paramount authority of the Imperial Parliament the 
 necessary and equitable redress of the weighty and multiform griev- 
 ances brought upon them by the introduction of the system under 
 which they groan ; and their claims to the mode of redress they have 
 pointed out are rendered still stronger by the fact, that a settlement 
 by villages nearly resembling that which your Petitioners seek for 
 themselves is actually now in full operation in the north-western pro- 
 vinces under the Bengal Presidency, where the leases are held on a 
 term of thirty years duration." 
 
 They complain that salt, the only condiment for their tasteless 
 rice, and without which neither they nor their cattle can live, is a 
 Government monopoly. 
 
 They complain that not only are they taxed for their shops in 
 towns, and for stalls and sheds on road-sides ; but for each tool and 
 implement, of their trades ; nay, for their very knives, " the cost of 
 which" they tell Parliament, " is frequently exceeded six times over 
 by the Moturpha [Tax] under which the use of them is permitted." 
 
 They complain that in order to raise revenue from ardent spirits, 
 the Government is forcing drunkenness on them ; " a vice," they 
 add, " forbidden by Hindoo and Mahommedan law." 
 
 They complain, that spread over 140,000 square miles in the 
 Madras Presidency are only 130 post-offices ; that throughout that 
 extent of country there are scarcely 3000 miles of roads practicable 
 for bullock carts ; that these roads are mostly without bridges, im- 
 practicable in wet weather, and tedious and dangerous in the 
 dry season. They complain of the state of the Law, of the 
 Police, and of almost every department of administration which can 
 contribute to good government ; and they earnestly entreat to be heard 
 personally, on their complaints, before Parliament. 
 
 So, also, the Bombay Petitioners. They express their belief 
 ' that it will be found easy by your honourable House to devise a 
 constitution for India which, while it shall contain all the good 
 elements of the existing system, shall be less cumbersome, less ex- 
 clusive, less secret, more directly responsible, and infinitely more 
 efficient and more acceptable to the governed."
 
 They object to the cost of the present system : 
 
 " Your Petitioners submit that the cost of administration in India 
 is unnecessarily great, and considerable reductions might be made, 
 without the slightest detriment or injury to any one save the patrons 
 or expectants of office, by abolishing sinecure offices, and retrenching 
 the exorbitant salaries of many highly-paid officers, whose duties are 
 so trifling, or involve comparatively so little labour or responsibility, 
 that they might with advantage be amalgamated with other offices, 
 or remunerated in a manner commensurate with the nature of the 
 duties to be performed." 
 
 They claim a greater share of employment for the people of India 
 in the conduct of their own affairs : 
 
 " Your Petitioners respectfully submit that the time has arrived 
 when the natives of India are entitled to a much larger share than 
 they have hitherto had in the administration of the affairs of their 
 country, and that the councils of the local governments should, in 
 matters of general policy and legislation be opened, so as to admit of 
 respectable and intelligent natives taking a part in the discussion of 
 matters of general interest to the country, as suggested by Lords 
 Ellenborough, Elphinstone, and others." 
 
 Equally strong and decisive is the Bengal Petition: 
 
 " It might appear paradoxical to deny its prosperity in the face of 
 the vast increase which has taken place in the foreign commerce ; but 
 it is undeniable that, contemporaneously with this increase, crimes 
 of a violent character have increased, and law and police are also 
 regarded as affording little security either for rights of persons or 
 property. Hence the limited application of British capital to agri- 
 culture and mines, and the limited employment of British skill in 
 India (the former being confined to a few valuable articles, such as 
 indigo, for the cultivation of which the soil and climate are so 
 superior as to afford the profits almost of a monopoly, silk, and a 
 few others), and hence also small capitals can rarely be employed in 
 India. The planter or capitalist in the interior never or rarely leaves 
 his capital when he himself quits the country in consequence of its 
 insecurity, and from this cause results the high rate of interest of 
 money. Landholders pay twenty-five and thirty per cent., and the 
 ryot or cultivator is in a worse relation than of servitude to the 
 money-lender. Your Petitioners therefore think that inquiry ought 
 to be instituted by Parliament into the state of the country, in order 
 to provide some probable remedy for the evils adverted to." 
 
 If contentment, therefore, be a test of good government, the Act 
 of 1833 has signally failed. 
 
 X. HOME CONTROL. 
 
 Another test yet remains. The Act of 1833 was proposed as a 
 substitute for a Constitution. If we cannot, it was then argued by
 
 27 
 
 Mr. Macaulay, on behalf of Lord Grey's Government, safely entrust 
 the people of India with popular rights and privileges, we will at 
 least have a constituency at home bound by their own interests to 
 watch over and protect them ; a constituency which, to use his 
 exact words, "shall feel any disorder in the finances of India in 
 the disorder of their own household affairs" Has this anticipation 
 been realized has this intention been fulfilled ? No ; disorders there 
 have been for fifteen years in the finances of India ; but those 
 disorders have not been felt in the "household affairs" of the pro- 
 prietors of East India stock. Despite Indian deficits, English divi- 
 dends of ten and a half per cent have been regularly maintained, 
 and "well and truly paid." And thus India has lost that English 
 security for good government which Mr. Macaulay announced it 
 was a design of the Act of 1833 to establish. 
 
 But it is unnecessary, in this general summary, to pursue the en- 
 quiry further. Enough has been sketched, though in outline only, 
 to make rational, benevolent, and patriotic men hesitate when asked 
 to consent to a renewal of the Act of 1833 ; enough has been stated 
 to make them doubt whether the present system of government is 
 even capable of improvement ; enough, we believe, to convince all 
 impartial men that a new plan of Indian administration must be 
 cast.
 
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