EAST INDIA (FIFfy YEARS ADMINISTRATION). 
 
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 DOCUMINTS 
 DIPT. 
 
 C 2 73b MDfl 
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME OF THE RESULTS 
 
 OF 
 
 INDIAN ADMINISTRATION 
 
 DURING THE 
 
 PAST FIFTY YEAKS 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 
 
 I9vr0t'imli to tott.?B|ou!»«(i40f Parliament h^ (frominano of i|i0 ittajedtv. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTKI) FOR, HIS AEA.IK.S'J'Y'S STATlONKlO' OF KICK. 
 
 Uv KYRK AND Sl'OTTIHWOODK. I,T1.. 
 
 ritlNTKRS TO TMK l^iNC. ^ MUST j \(i;i.l.KNT MA.IKSTi 
 
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 (M. 11)50.1 I'r'ice :\U. 
 

BRITISH EMBASSY, 
 
 WASHINGTON, iMnn m vj 14, IQiO . 
 
 r./HS6 11910 
 sir, 
 
 I am directed by His Majesty's AmbaBsador to forward to 
 
 you for the use of the library of which you are in charge a 
 
 publication concerning the Grovernraent of India which contains 
 
 authentic information as to various subjects of historical and 
 
 economic importance and which will be of interest to students 
 
 of imperial administrative systems. 
 
 I am. Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 
 The Librarian, 
 
 University of California, 
 

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2008 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/eastindiafiftyyeOOgrearicli 
 
i^v-A---*-*- 
 
 \^ 
 
 DEPT. 
 
 3IKMORANDUM Oil soiiic of the Results of Indian Adniinistratiou 
 during the past Fifty Years of British Rule in India. 
 
 In 1889 a Memorandnin was prepared under the instructions of the 
 Secretary of State for India on some of the results of Indian Administration 
 during the thirty years that had then ehxpsed since India came inider the 
 direct control of the Crown. The Memorandiun has now been revised and 
 brought np to date by inclusion of the events and changes of the past twenty 
 years. In its revised form it covers a period of fifty years. 
 
 2. Prellminari]. — At the outset it maj' be well to refer to the fact — long 
 recognised by the Home and the Indian Governments — that India is not a 
 single country with a homogeneous population. India is in truth a congeries 
 of countries, with widely differing phj'sical characteristics. It contains a 
 nuinl)er of peoples, speaking many languages, holding many creeds, observing 
 different customs, and enjoying divergent degrees of civilisation. It is 
 difficult, therefore, to speak correctly of India as a whole ; and statements 
 that may be quite applicable to some provinces do not apply to other 
 provinces or sections of the country. 
 
 At the beginning of 1858 the Indian Government had to face the 
 administrative, financial, and military troubles tliat resulted from the mutiny 
 of the Bengal Army. In 1878-80 occurred the Afghan war ; in 1885-86 
 came the third Burmese war. In 1897 a succession of tribal risings on 
 the north-west frontier culminated in the Tirah campaign. In 1904 trouble 
 occurred with Tibet; and minor expeditions have from time to time been 
 undertaken against tribes that harassed the north-Avest or the north-east 
 frontier of India. But, on the Avhole, the past 50 years have been free from 
 internal troul)les and have been less disturbed by external Avar than any 
 previous period of equal length during British dominion in India ; and the 
 Government have been able to direct their attention to the measures of 
 l^rogress and Avorks of improvement that have characterized the administra- 
 tion of India under the CroAvn. Since the changes and revisions of jurisdiction 
 effected soon after the mutiny, the onh^ additional territories that hav(> been 
 added to British India during the past 50 years have been a narroAV strip of 
 land at the foot of the Bhutan hills ; the districts of Peshin and Sibi acquired 
 after the Afghan Avar, and the kingdom of Maudalay, now forming Upper 
 Burma. The pi'ovince of Berar, though not forming part of British India, 
 has been leased in perpetuity from the Nizam of Hyderabad. Quetta and 
 some neighbouring tracts have been similarlj- leased from the Khan of Kalat, 
 and by agreement with the tribesmen the Indian Government exercise liinited 
 powers of administration in certain areas of tribal territory adjoining the 
 frontier districts of British India. With the exception of the petty State of 
 Feint, no territory has been annexed, or has lapsed to the paramount Power, 
 from any Native State in the interior of India ; while the province of Mysore, 
 Avith a larger population and revenue than belong to all the ncAv territories 
 put together — a province which had been under British administration for 
 50 years — was restored to a Native Prince of the old ruling family. The 
 pressure of scarcity or famine Avas felt in 1800 over northern India, in 1860 
 over Orissa, in 1809 and 1874 over parts of Bengal and Behar, and in 
 1877 over southern India. The famine of 1877 Avas the severest and 
 most far-reaching Indian famine Avith Avhich British administration had 
 up to then had to deal, the successive failures of crop were as complete, 
 and the area affected AA^as far greater than in the drought and floods 
 of 1709, when one-fourth to one-third of the population of northern Bengal 
 A\-as swept iiAvay. After an interval of 19 years, marked by generally 
 abundant rainfall and regular seasons, severe droughts, rivalling in intensity 
 and extent the drought of 1877, afflicted large portions of the continent in 
 1896 and 1899. In 1907 a severe though less extended drought visited 
 northern India, and has but lately passed aAvay. 
 
 4911. 1. 35. 1800.-11/1909. A 
 
 342951 
 
Administration. 
 
 3. Conslitntion of the Government. — Before the year 185S the afTairs of 
 the East India Companj- had been managed in England by the Court of 
 Directors, subject to the supreme authority of the Board of Control. In that 
 3'ear the dual Government ceased, and the control of Indian affairs was vested 
 in a Secxetary of State, responsible to Parliament and assisted by a Council 
 of persons versed in Indian affairs. In 18GI the legislatures of India -were 
 established on a new and broader footing, and in 1892 they were enlarged, 
 the elective element being recognised, aufl provision made for interpellation 
 and discussion of the budget, A great advance on the constitutional position 
 assigned to the Councils in 1892 has now been sanctioned by Parliament. 
 By the Indian Councils Act of 1909 the nund)er of members in the lmi:)erial 
 Council and in the Provincial Councils has been more than doubled, and by 
 regulations to be made under the Act the unofficial element will be largelj- 
 increased, fuller play given to the elective principle, and more extended 
 powers vested in the Councils to consider and discuss the finances and 
 administrative^ questions, and to express their opinion thereon in the form, 
 of resolutions. Changes have also been made in the fifty years in the 
 constitution of the Svipreme Government of India and in that of the 
 Local Governments. The \'iceroy's Execiitive Council, Avhich in 1858 
 consisted of four ordinary members and the Conunander-in-Chief, now 
 contains five ordinary members, of whom one is in charge of the finances. 
 Before the Mutiny the Council worked as a collective board ; now it conducts 
 its business on the lines of a modern Cabinet. Each mendjer has charge of 
 a department or portfolio, while the Viceroy controls all departments, and 
 himself usually takes charge of the Foreign department ; in this waj- a great 
 nmnber of questions are decided by the responsible member of the Government 
 and the Viceroy, while the full Council has to consider only the more 
 important matters. The Piuijab, Burma, Eastern Bengal and Assam, have 
 been formed into Lieutenant-Governorships, and the districts on the Xorth- 
 West Frontier into a Chief Commissiouership. The province of Oudh, after 
 being administered for 20 years by a Chief Conunissioner, is now nnited to 
 the adjoining province of Agra, and the two constitute a Lieutenant- 
 Governorship under the designation of the United Provinces of Agra and 
 Oudh. In ordej to transact the greatly increasing business of the coiuitrj', 
 larger powers have been conferred upon Local Govermneuts, and much 
 public duty has been tlelegated to local bodies. Further changes in the 
 same direction have been recommended by the Royal Commission upon 
 Decentralisation in India in the report which has lately been presented to 
 Parliament. 
 
 4. I)iformat'ion about India. — The basis of all good government, more 
 especially in a country subject to foreign rule, must be full and correct 
 information about the condition and surroundings and wants of the people. 
 Before 1857 there had been much investigation of Indian questions, and 
 great stores of information, some of it very valuable and interesting, had 
 been amassed. But during the past 50 years further knowledge has been 
 gained, which in variety, in detail, and in accessibility far exceeds the results 
 of previous investigations. The work of the trigonometrical, topographical, 
 cadastral, geological, and archfeological surveys can scarcely Ije said to have 
 been begun in 1857 ; these surveys have now been more or less carried oA-er 
 the whole of continental India, and the additional information gained has 
 been great and varied. 
 
 There had been countings of the people in their villages at different times 
 in several provinces, and a regular census of the English type had been taken 
 in what is now the Agra Province and in the Punjab ; but no census had been 
 attempted in other provinces. The first simultaneous census of the Indian 
 Empire was taken in 1871, and a second complete census was effected, after 
 careful preparation, in the year 1881 ; on the latter occasion most of the 
 Native States also took a censiis of their popxdation. Subsequent and still 
 more complete censuses w^ere taken in 1891 and 1901. The Government and 
 the public now possess complete statistics concerning the number of the 
 people, their distribution over different parts of the country, their physical 
 disabilities, and their migrations. Some conception of the improvement in 
 
 \ 
 
3 
 
 iafonnutioii on these topics imiy he gathered from tlie fact that previous to 
 1871 the popuhxtion of Bengal had been variously stated in official reports at 
 38 to 42 millions, whereas the census of 1871 showed the population of 
 Bengal to be 07 millions ; or to take a smaller tract, the population of the 
 tlistrict of Tirhoot had been returned in 1870 at 1} millions, whereas 
 the census or 1871 showed the population of TirJioot to be close upon 
 4i millions. The subsequent and more careful census of 1881 showed that 
 the enumeration of 1871 had not exceeded the truth. 
 
 During the years 1865 to 1880 a careful historical and statistical account 
 was compiled and puljlished for every district in India and for many of the 
 Native States ; on these accounts and on other information was based " the 
 Imperial Gazetteer of India," a most admirable and useful work, compiled 
 by the late Sir William Hunter, which has been recently republished in a 
 revised and greatly extended form. A regular system has been established, 
 and is maintained, of registering trade across the sea and land frontiers of 
 India, and on the chief internal traffic routes ; of observing the movement 
 of prices at some hundreds of marts ; of registering the rainfall and other 
 meteorological phenomena at several stations in every province ; of ascer- 
 taining from week to w^eek the condition and prospects of the crops in 
 every district ; of registering births and deaths, and recording the results 
 of epidemic and epizootic disease over the greater part of India. The 
 results of all these observations and i-egistrations are published either weekly 
 or monthly ; and there is thus given to the public, to traders, and to the 
 Government eai-ly and accurate information of much practical value, which 
 was not available in any shape fifty years ago. 
 
 5. Employment of Indians in the Public Service. — In pursuance of the 
 policy announced in Her Majesty's proclamation of November 1858, in accor- 
 dance with Acts of Parliament, and in fulHlment of the just aspirations 
 of the educated and leading classes, much effort has been made to associate 
 natives of India with the government of their own conntrj'. In the 
 Council of the Secretary of State for India two Indian gentlemen hold seats 
 In the Viceroy's Executive Council the Law Member is a distinguished Indian 
 lawyer, who had m-eyiously held the iuiportant post of Advocate-General of 
 Bengal. The unofficial members of the Ijegislative Councils are for the most 
 part Indian gentlemen, who by the system of election pursued are repre- 
 sentatives of local Ijodies or other definite sections of the community. 
 The highest judicial triljunals in India are the High Courts at Calcutta, 
 Madras, Bombay, and Allahabad, the Chief Courts at Lahore and Rangoon, 
 and the Judicial Commissioners' Courts in the minor provinces. Eleven 
 Indians now occupy seats in the four 1 ligh Courts, and four are judges in the 
 Chief Court of the Punjab and the Judicial Commissioners' Comas elsewhere. 
 The superior officers of the civil administration are drawn chiefly from the 
 Civil Service of India, which consisted, in January 1909, of 1,2-14 persons, 
 of whom 65 were Indians. Fifty years ago there were no Indians on the 
 Bench of any Supreme or Chief Court, or in the Legislative Council, or in 
 the Civil Service. 
 
 Some further explanation is required in regard to the Civil Service of 
 India, the main instrument through which the administration of the country 
 in its superior offices, is carried on. The total strength of 1,244 just 
 mentioned, when divided over the total population of British India, 
 232,000,000, gives a very small proportion of representatives of European 
 administrative power to the needs of the country. But the proportion is in 
 reality much smaller than appears from this figure. There are certain 
 offices —at present amounting to 061 — which are classed as superior appoint- 
 ments reserved for the Civil Service of India ; besides these 20 represent 
 temporary appointments and occasional deputations, making 687 in all. 
 In order to fill these superior appointments it is necessary to provide a 
 supply of officers in training in inferior posts, and for this purpose 268 posts 
 are provided. The total number of cadre posts is thus 955. The difference 
 between this number and the total strength of the service represents the 
 necessary allowance for leave vacancies (always large when the exhausting- 
 nature of the duties in a tropical climate is considered), and for men of the 
 hrst and second years of service, during which an officer is considered to bo 
 in training and not fully competent to occupy a cadre post. 
 
 A2 
 
In 1880 a strong Commissioa was appointed by liord Dnfferin's 
 Government to consider the question of the further employnieut of 
 Indians in the superior aflniinistrative grades of the public service. The 
 result of their deliberations, to which effect was given in J 891, was to 
 mark off in the cadre of the Civil Service of India, as then constituted, a 
 considerable number of offices, to place them on a separate list, under the 
 designation of "listed posts," and to declare them open to thf> Provincial Civil 
 Service, the great body of public servants of Indian race or domicile through 
 whom the detailed work of administration is carried on. Up to the present 
 51 superior offices have been listed, and are held by officers of the Provincial 
 Civil Service. They are consequently excluded fi'om the 001 posts mentioned 
 above as reserved for the Civil Service of India. They include 17 headships 
 of districts and 20 district and sessions judgeships, all posts of the highest 
 importance. The number of " listed posts" is gradually being increased, as 
 opportunity occurs,. 
 
 The Provincial Civil Service in 1008 comprised 2,203 subordinate 
 judges and magistrates; of these 2,007 were natives of India, and of 
 the remaining 190 the greater number were Eurasians or domiciled 
 Europeans. With the development of the country the administrative staff 
 has greatly increased. These new posts have fallen in the great majority 
 of cases to inhabitants of the country. Except ii> the highest branches of 
 control the proportion of Europeans has been reduced until their numbers 
 have become relatively insignificant. '^I'his change has been largely 
 brought about by a ride adopted in 1879 that appointments made in 
 India carrying a salary of Rs. 200 a month and upwards shoidd ordi- 
 narilj^ be reserved for natives of the country, and that no apj)ointnient 
 might be made in contravention of the riile without special sanction. While 
 Europeans have thus been excluded from all posts except those specially 
 reserved to them, Indians, as already pointed out, have been admitted to a 
 very considerable share in the higher offices. They manage by far the 
 greater part of the business connected with all branches of the revenue, 
 and with the multifarious interests in land. They dispose of the greater 
 part of the magisterial work. 'J'he duties of the Civil Courts, excepting 
 the Courts of appeal, are almost entirely entrusted to Indian judges. It 
 has been stated on good authority that, with possibly the exception of 
 England, in no coimtry in Europe are the salaries of judicial and executive 
 officers equal to those received by members of the Provincial Civil Service. 
 
 0. Decentralization — The past fifty years have brought a great increase in 
 the multifarious duties devolving upon the Governments and their officers 
 in India. Probably the administrative, judicial, revenue, and executive 
 business to be performed has more than doubled. The due transaction of 
 these affairs has required, and will continue to require in an increasing 
 degree, the delegation of power and responsibility by the Supreme Govern- 
 ment to Local Governments, and by Local Governments to subordinate 
 authorities. Much has already been done in this direction, by the enlai-ge- 
 ment of the financial powers of the Local Governments and by the creation 
 of municipal and other local bodies. Litigation has been kept within bounds 
 by restricting second appeals, and by barring all appeal in petty criminal 
 cases and in civil suits concerning moveable property of small value when 
 such siiits are decided by selected Judges. A large quantity of magisterial 
 business has been entrusted to Indian honorary magistrates, whose judgments 
 on the Avhole give popular satisfaction ; while the management of local roads, 
 streets, hospitals, schools, and other improvements has heen made over to 
 local bodies, constituted imder legislative enactments. There is scope for 
 further progress in the same direction, especially in the development of 
 genuine self-government bj' local bodies. In this way alone the vastly 
 increased work of the country can be done without material addition 
 to the strength or cost of the superior Civil Service, and with more satis- 
 faction to the influential classes, who thus find themselves admitted to an 
 increasingly larger share in the government of their own country. 
 
 Legislation. 
 
 7. The Indian Legislatures, as they now exist, are the creation of two 
 Acts of Parliament (the India Councils Acts) passed in 1801 and 1892. These 
 
Acts have uow been modified by tbe ludian Councils Act of 1909, to which 
 reference has ah-eady been made. The constitution of these botlies has 
 liitherto been such as to secure to the Government a majority. It has 
 now been decided to dispense with an official majority in the enlarged 
 Provincial Councils, while retaining it in the Imperial Council. The influence 
 of these councils and the interest attaching to their proceedings have 
 greatly grown since they wei-e first constituted. Their procedure secures 
 free expression for the views of the non-official community, not only on 
 particular ineasures of legislation, but also, in the course of the annual 
 discussion of the financial statement, on the general state of the country 
 or of the province. The Councils in their re-constituted form will excite 
 still wider and keener interest, as they will effectually associate the people 
 with the Government in legislation and in the actual work of administration. 
 
 llie Codes.— Concerning the general character of Indian legislation, the 
 the authority of Sir Henry Maine may be cited : — " The progress of India in 
 " the simplification and intelligible statement of law has l)een greater than 
 " that of any western country, except perhaps the German Ihnpire. . . . 
 " Down to a comparatively recent date, the influence of courts of justice for 
 " good ill India was much iliminished by the nature of the law which they 
 " administered, and of the procedure which they were compelled to follow. 
 " . . . British India is now in possession of a set of codes which approach 
 " the highest standard of excellence which this species of legislation has 
 " reached. ... In force, intelligibility, and in comprehensiveness the 
 " Indian codes staiul against all competition. These codes are wholly the 
 " growth of the peri(jd during which India bas been governed by 
 " the Crown. . . . British India has a penal code and codes 
 " of criminal and civil procedure. It has a code of substantive civil law. 
 " British India has . . . thus become one of the ftnv countries 
 "... in Avhicli a man of moderate intelligence, who can read, 
 " may learn on any point emerging in practical life what is the law 
 " which should regulate his conduct." 
 
 -e>^ 
 
 8. Otlier Lmos. — Not only have codes of general operation, like those 
 mentioned in the foregoing quotation, and like the Evidence Act, been 
 enacted ; but the revenue laws, the forest laws, laws concerning tenant-right 
 and other rights in land, and laws relating to municipal and local self- 
 government, harbour trusts, paper currency, and such like subjects have all 
 been enacted or revised during the last fifty years. By such laws as the 
 Indian Christian Marriage Act, the special Marriage x\cts for.the Parsi and 
 Muhammadan communities, the Criminal Tribes Act, and the Act for 
 the preveMion of the murder of female infants, remedies have been applied 
 to disabilities and evils that have come to light. Periodical additions to or 
 revisions of the great codes have been enacted so as to bring the law into 
 harmony with the growing needs of the community, and to prevent excessive 
 accumulation of case law ; while Acts have been passed for the repeal of 
 obsolete enactments, so as to prevent the undue burdening of the statute book. 
 Projects of law are published and discussed in English and in the vernacular 
 languages for months, sometimes even for years, before they are passed into 
 law, and advice is sodght from all provinces, classes, and races interested. All 
 opinions or suggestions are considered bj^ Committees nominated l)y the 
 Councils, and no effort is spared to exhaust every source of information or 
 opinion. When a Bill becomes law, it is usually published in English and 
 in the vernaculars for some time before it comes into force. An enactment 
 of universal operation like the Penal Code is published at a cheap rate in 
 about 15 different vernacular languages, and the annual issue runs into 
 thousands of copies. 
 
 9. Legislation for special tracts. — Roiuid the frontiers of India, and in 
 some of the hilly regions of the interior, are races and tribes who in 
 civilization and civic pi'ogress are far behind the majority of their fellow- 
 subjects, and some of whom still observe customs that are plainly irrational 
 and immoral. To such peoples the body of Indian statute law cannot usefully 
 be applied ; and so by an Act of Parliament passetl in 1870, power was given 
 to the Government of India to enact regulations for regions to which the 
 
 A3 
 
G 
 
 Secretary of State might make that Act applicable. A list of " Scheduled 
 Districts " brought under that Act was i)ublished in 187-A, and as occasion 
 arose other tracts have been similarly treated. A limited number of regu- 
 lations have been passed under these powers, such as the Fi-outier Regulation 
 for Assam, and the Frontier ('rimes Regulation of the Punjab and the North- 
 West Frontier Province, whereby crimes arising out of tri])al feuds and 
 vendettas in the border districts can be referred for trial and sentence to a 
 council of tribal elders. ]n many cases the regulations make parts of the 
 ordinary Indian law applicable to the special tract concerned, with reservations 
 and exceptions suitable to the condition of the country. This course has 
 been lai-gely followed in the Upper Burma regulations. 
 
 Ji STicE AND Police. 
 
 10. Indian Judges and Magistrates. — The improvement that has taken 
 place in the administration of justice is partly due to the siuiplitication and _ 
 codification of the law. Another important factor in this improvement has 
 been the advance made by the great majority of Indian Judges and Magis- 
 trates in education, in legal training, and in nprightness of character. 
 Nine-tenths of the original civil suits, and more than thi-ee-quarters of the 
 magisterial business of the country, come before Indian Judges and ]\Iagis- 
 trates. Fifty j^ears ago few of these ofHcers knew I'^nglish, none of them 
 had obtained a University degree, and hardly any had enjoyed any legal 
 training. At the present time Civil Judges know English as a matter 
 of course, and many are University graduates in arts or law, while in 
 most provinces all salaried magistrates appointed in recent years are men of 
 education. The average salaries paid to Indian Judges and Magistrates have 
 everywhere increased ; in some provinces they are double what they were 
 50 3'ears ago. Thej- compare favourably with the scale of ofHcial salaries in 
 Continental I'^urope. With the improvement in education aud in salary has 
 come a much higher standard of probity and sense of duty. In old days 
 public officers of this class were often accused or suspected of corrupt 
 motives. At the present time, such accusations against these officers 
 are rare. 
 
 Not only has there been great improvement in character and attainments 
 in these branches of the public service but a large nmnber of Indian 
 gentlemen in most provinces have evinced their fitness for employment as 
 honorary magistrates. Fifty years ago an honorary magistrate here or 
 there discharged a little judicial business ; last year there were more than 
 3,000 honorary magistrates, who deal with a gTeat quantity of petty magis- 
 terial business in towns and nu'al tracts ; their decisions give satisfaction in 
 the main ; their procedure is fairly correct, and manj^ of them take real 
 interest in their public duties. 
 
 11. Judicial machinery. — Fifty years ago there were two superior Courts 
 sitting in each Presidency capital, a Supreme Court and a Sudder (or 
 Central) Court. The Supreme Courts had no appellate powers, but exercised 
 original jurisdiction over residents in the three Presidency towns, aud, in 
 certain cases, over European British subjects outside those limits. I'he 
 Sudder Courts had no original jurisdiction, but were the highest Indian 
 Courts of Appeal from local tribunals thi-oughout the country beyond the 
 limits of the tliree Presidency towns ; and they also exercised general powers 
 of supervision over those local tribunals. Under the present system each 
 province has one High Court, Chief Conrt, or Judicial Connnissioner, Avith 
 complete jurisdiction over the province, and full control over all Conrts, 
 criminal and civil. All civil suits and important criminal trials are now, 
 save in a few exceptional districts, in the hands of special judicial officers, 
 who have no direct concern with the execiitive administration or the police 
 work of the comitry. Burma is now the only large province in which the 
 administration of civil justice, and the trial of impoi-tant criminal cases, are 
 still to some extent in the hands of officers who are also charged with the 
 executive, police, and revenue work of the country. Minor criminal cases 
 are still tried in all provinces by officers who exercise executive and revenue 
 
functions, and the District Magistrate is everywhere, outside the Presidency 
 towns, responsible for the police, revenue, and executive business of his 
 district, as Avell as for the control of all subordinate magistrates within his 
 jurisdiction. This union of judicial and executive functions has existed from 
 time immemorial in the East, and in a certain stage of civilisation has 
 advantages. It has also the merit of superior economy. Where unity of 
 control is necessary for the maintenance of order, the existing system will 
 probably continue for many years to come ; and elsewhere financial 
 considerations may impede the creation of a stipendiary magistracy apart 
 from the executive staff. 
 
 12. Civil Litigation. — The extension of trade, the simplification of 
 procedure, the increased promptitude in the action of the Civil Courts, the 
 improved personnel of the Courts, and the establishment of additional 
 tribunals have resulted in a great increase of the business coming before the 
 Civil Courts. Approxhnately there were in 185G about 730,000 civil suits 
 instittited in British India, while in 1907 the number was 1,867,995. To deal 
 with this increased business the number of Indian Civil Judges has been 
 increased in all provinces. There is now little room for further improvement 
 in the promptitude and regidarity with Avhich the Courts in most provinces 
 act. Their action, in fact, has been too effective in the frequent case in which 
 the debtor is an ignorant and improvident agriculturist, and the creditor a 
 money-lender striving to enforce iisurious claims against the debtor's land. 
 Of late years the Legislatures have been concerned with the protection of the 
 agricultural classes from the effects of indebtedness, and in the Punjab and 
 elsewhere have placed restrictions on the sale of land by private transfer or 
 in execution of decree. Special enactments have also been passed for the 
 relief and protection, in other respects, of encumbered lantlholders and 
 indebted petty proprietors in nearly every province, with results highly 
 beneficial to many old families and multitudes of petty landholders. 
 
 13. Police. — The Police Department is still, as lieretofore, a weak point in 
 the administration. Many circumstances contributed to prevent it sharing in 
 the advance which other departments of the pid)lic service have made during 
 the last generation. Uncongenial work, indifferent pay and prospects, and 
 other incommodities narrowed the field of recruiting, and the force, in numbers, 
 training, intelligence and morale, became to an increasing degree unequal to 
 the requirements of a progressive country. Its defects in these and other 
 respects were forcibly described by the Police Commission which reported 
 in 1904, and proposed a large scheme of reforms at a cost of over one million 
 sterling a year. Effect is now Ijeing given to their reconnnendations. But, 
 notwithstanding admitted defects, the police system and practice have un- 
 doubtedly made considerable advance during the past fifty years. The Criminal 
 Procedure Code carefully defines the powers of the several grades of police 
 officers, and narrowly restricts the circumstances under which the police can 
 arrest and the time for which they may detain suspected persons without 
 l^ringing them before a magistrate. The organization and discipline of the 
 force are carefully provided for by law, and since 1861 there has been in every 
 district in India a chief police officer who is separate from the judicial staff, 
 and who, subject to the control of the District Magistrate, directs and 
 manages the police and their work throughout the district. Before 1861 the 
 police were (lirectly under the magistrates who tried cases brought before 
 them by the police. Under the organization of 1861 material improvements 
 were made in the status, the wages, the education, the discipline, and the 
 behaviour of the force. In every province the position of the indigenous 
 village watchman has been improved, his duties are defined, and regular 
 remuneration has been secured to him ; this has been done by laws which as 
 far as possible leave the village policeman a member and a servant of the 
 village community, subject to the legitimate control of the village elders. 
 In cities and towns the urban watchmen have been incorporated under the 
 Police Act, and formed into town police with duties confined to their 
 i-espective towns. One of the difficulties in the way of reform is that the 
 bidk of the people are as yet in imperfect sympathy with the police ; though 
 
 A4 
 
in time of trouble, and at seasons Avhen extreme pressure falls upon the 
 local force, respectable townspeople and villagers accept an<l faitlifully 
 discharge the duties of special constables without pay or reward. The 
 sanitary and other mnnicipal regulations, the Excise, Forest, and Infanticide 
 Acts, and other special laws have also laid upon the police many (hities which 
 were unknown thirty years ago. Railways, too, have made it easier for 
 robber gangs to travel long distances to and from the scenes of their c-rimes, 
 and have given rise to new forms of robbery. Ciang robbery of the old 
 Indian type has gieatty abated everywhere during the past hfty years. But 
 against cattle theft, housebreaking, and simple theft the police ai'e only 
 moderately successful, and tliese crimes are not diminishing. Much of the 
 housebreaking, house trespass, and theft is of a very petty kind ; and in 
 petty cases sufferers are allowed to choose whether they will or will not invoke 
 police aid. Often a sufferer prefers to accept a small loss rather than incur 
 the journej'S and loss of time inseparable from a police proseciitiun. 
 
 14. Criminal Com-ls. — The number of Criminal Courts (in most of which 
 the presiding Magistrates are Indians) has considerably increased, and sufferers 
 have to travel shorter distances to seek relief from wrong. The Penal Code and 
 the Criminal Procedure Code have made.the law clear in criminal matters ; the 
 working of the subordinate Courts has much improved under the constant 
 supervision of the superior tribunals ; and criminal justice is now administered 
 more promptly than Avas iisual in 185G. An important factor in the improve- 
 ment of both Civil and Criminal Courts has been the advance in education, 
 which has resulted everywhere in a better, more educated, and more trust- 
 worthy class of Indian advocates, whose influence is felt by the (Jourts, and 
 from whose ranks the Indian Judges are often recruited. Ever since 1S61 
 the law has required that sessions trials shall be conducted with the aid of 
 either assessors (who assist but do not bind the judge) or juries. It is not 
 ahvays possible to empanel an efficient juiy in the country districts, and the 
 law leaves it to the Local Government to prescribe the jury oi- the assessor 
 sj^stem as it thinks fit. In the older and more advanced provinces the jury 
 system is extensively used. The residts of cj'iminal trials and appeals are 
 fairly satisfactory and are improving. The average length of criminal 
 sentences has decreased, and the average amount of fines has fallen, while 
 the proportion of fines realized to the total fines imposed has largely 
 increased. 
 
 15. Jails. — During the fifty years a vast improvement has taken place in 
 Indian jails. The earlj' Indian jail sj'stem was insanitary, demoralising, and 
 non-deterrent. From time to time the position has been exhaustively 
 examined h\ special Conunissions, their reconunendations have been the sid^ject 
 of legislation, and have beenbroiight into operation by the Local Governments 
 xmder the close supervision of the Supreme Government. In 1894 a Prisons 
 Act for the whole of India was enacted by the Viceroj-'s Legislative Comicil, 
 which took the place of the several provincial laws then in force, and thereby 
 secured uniformity, so far as possible, in the matter of jail ndes and 
 discipline. In every province central jails for long term prisoners, district jails 
 for short term prisoners, and lock-ups for persons imder detention pending 
 trial have long been established ; while Port Blair, in the Andaman islands, 
 is constituted a penal settlement with ample staff for the safe custody, employ- 
 ment, and care of all convicts under sentence of transportation. All new jails 
 are constructed on the separate cell system, and sanitary and other improve- 
 ments are year by year made in the older jails. Prison scales of diet have been 
 revised ; hospitals and appliances for employing prisoners healthfully and to 
 advantage have been greatly improved ; a regular good conduct system has 
 been introduced ; and in most provinces reformatories for the reception of 
 juvenile ofi'enders have been established. The result of these measures has 
 been that much better discipline has been maintained in prisons ; escapes from 
 prison and risings in jails are comparatively rare ; though each prisoner 
 costs more than he did thirty years ago, yet he now earns more by his 
 labour in jail ; and the death-rate in Indian prisons came down to 18 per 
 mille in 1907 as compared with a prisons death-rate of 55 per mille 
 in 1880, and as compared with 90 per mille, which was the 
 
of the death-rates of eight provinces in 1863, the earliest year 
 for which complete statistics are available. Of late the number of prisoners 
 punished with \vhipping has been greatly reduced ; in 1879 there were 
 21,933 prisoners ^\•hipped for breach of jail regulations, while in the year 
 1907 only 058 were whipped. Relative to the population of the country 
 there has been a decrease in the total number of prisoners confined in Indian 
 jails ; the daily average number w^as 97,000 during the last four years as com- 
 pared with 121,000 in the year 1878, after the great famine of southern India. 
 These figures are exclusive of about fourteen thousand convicts under 
 transportation at the Andamans, a considerable proportion of whom are now 
 on ticket of leave, and maintain themselves by free laljour at the settlement. 
 
 Land Rf:venue axd Surveys. 
 
 16. Land Eeveiivc.—'nie land revenue system and the laws regarding 
 land tenures closely concern tlie welfare and the interests of the mass of the 
 population of India. During the past fifty years revised settlements of the 
 land revenue demand have been made for long tei-ms of years, on moderate 
 and equitaljle principles, over nearly the whole of India outside the per- 
 manently settled districts. At these settlements there have been made 
 careful surveys of all holdings and records of all rights in the land. The 
 periodical settlements of the land revenue us#d to occupy from four to ten 
 years in each district, and to cost Rs. 400 per square mile, while they involved 
 considerable harassment to the people. Now, by reason of the care taken in 
 inaiutaining the village records, and in consequence of improved pi'ocesses, 
 the resettlement of a district occupies from one to three years, costs Rs. 100 
 per square mile, aud involves comparatively little harassment to the people. ^ 
 Since 1856 the cultivated area has more than doubled in thinly peopled tracts 
 like Biirma and Assam ; it has increased by 30 to 60 per cent, in the Central 
 Provinces, Berar, and parts of Bombay ; even in the thickly peopled province 
 of Oudh it has increased 30 per cent. In the Punjab and Sind great tracts 
 of once barren land have been brought under tillage by means of State canals. 
 The extension of railways and roads has i)rovided outlets for surplus agri- 
 cidtural produce, and has caused a general rise of prices in remote districts 
 that were alisolutelj' landlocked fifty years ago. New staples, such as jute, 
 tea, coffee, and ground-nut, have been largely grown for export, while the 
 exports of rice, wheat, cotton, and oilseeds have greatly increased. In this 
 way vast sums of money have reached the agricultural classes, who have 
 been able to raise their standard of living and to pay their land revenue more 
 easily than before. Imprisonment, sales of land outside the permanently 
 settled districts, and other harsh processes for the recovery of arrears of 
 revenue, are now comparatively rare, and at the same time the lantl revenue 
 is paid punctually. The total increase in the gross land revenue during the past - r 
 fifty years has been 60 per cent., measured in rupees ; though, as the gold 
 value of the rupee has fallen from 24(/. to 16d., the increase, if measured in 
 gold, is less than 6 per cent. Taking the increase at 60 per cent., it has been 
 concurrent with a very much greater increase in tlie value of the gross 
 agTicultural yield in consequence of the extension of cultivation, of the rise 
 in prices, of increased irrigation facilities, and of the introduction of 
 new staples. For instance, in the Punjab the amount of the land reveniie, 
 stated in rupees, has increased by 80 x^er cent, in the 50 years. But as the 
 cultivated area has increased by 100 per cent., the assessment per acre is 
 actually diminished. As wheat has risen in value by 100 per cent., a given 
 money assessment now represents a very much smaller portion of the produce / 
 than in 1858. The famous land settlement of Hindustan made by the y 
 Emperor Akbar was based on one-third of the gross produce of each field. 
 The present assessments of the Punjab represent from iVth to -j^fth of the 
 gross produce. Eighty years purchase of the land revenue is a connnon 
 price for land in that province. 
 
 In ]3ritish India at large the present land revenue represents an average 
 charge of less than 2.s-. per acre of the cultivated area. In the year 1850 
 the land revenue was above one half of the total public income of tlie 
 country ; now it is less than one-fourth. The basis of the pul)lic income 
 
 4911. B 
 
 o 
 
10 
 
 is broader than it was, while, as above explained, the land revenue assess- 
 ments represent a smaller portion of the produce of the soil than was formerly 
 the case. 
 
 17. Tenant-r'ujht. — By the ancient custom of India the occupiers of the 
 soil had the right to retain their holdings, so long as they paid the rent or 
 revenue demandaljle from them. In soutliern India, where most of the land 
 is held by petty occupiers direct from the State, this custom has been 
 respected from the beginning of British rule ; and in l)oth the permanently 
 and temporarily settled districts of northern India a considerable degree of 
 protection lias now been given to the tenants or ryots. Up to 1859 tenant- 
 right had not been adequately safeguarded by law, and for the great Province 
 of Bengal the Court of Directors reported in 1868 that "the riglits of the 
 " Bengal ryots had passed away siih silentio, and they had become, to all 
 " intents and purposes, tenants -at-will." Since 1858 laws have l)een passed 
 which make the petty occupiers of Madras, Bombjiy, Burma, and Assam 
 proprietors of their holdings, subject to the payment of a moderate land 
 revenue ; and the petty proprietors are protected against future enhance- ' 
 meuts of land revenue on account of improvements effected by themselves. 
 For nearly eveiy other province in India laws have been jjassed securing 
 tenant-right to all occupiers of any standing, prohibiting eviction or 
 enhancement of rent save by consent or by decree of Court on good cause 
 sliown, and granting the ryots'power to bequeath or sell their tenant-right. 
 
 The extent and character of the tenant-right declared or created by these 
 laws vary in the different provinces ; tenant-right is strongest in the Central 
 Provinces, wliere the old land tenures were not verj- unlike the petty 
 proprietorships of Bombay ; it is less important in the Punjalj, where the 
 bidk of the land is occupied by proprietary brotherhoods, and the holdings of 
 rent paying tenants are comparatively snudl, and it is weak in Oudh, where 
 the position of the talukdars or superior proprietors was exceptionally strong, 
 and had l)een confirmed by the British Government. The position of tenants 
 or occupiers in every province is better and more secure than it was fifty 
 3'ears ago. In permanently settled Bengal the Tenancy Act of 1885 has 
 greatly strengthened and improved the position of the ryot ; and the cadastral 
 svirvej' which is being carried out in the province shows that the great bulk 
 of the ryots enjoy tenant-right mider the law. Thus Lord Cornwallis's 
 intention in favour of the ryots, promulgated more than lOO years ago, has, 
 so far as changed circumstances permitted, been at last carried into effect, 
 for the rights of the occupiers of the soil have been in great part secured ; 
 and this has been done Avithout injustice to the Bengal landlords, Avliose 
 gross rental has increased four or five fold during the century, and has in 
 manj- tracts more than doubled during the past fifty years. 
 
 18. Snrveijs. — Before 1858 the Great Trigonometrical Survey had been 
 organised, and there had been collected in India a valuable staff of surveyors, 
 who were engaged in surveying the countrj^ for topographical and revenue 
 purposes. During the past fiftj^ years the system of great triangles, on wdiich 
 all the Indian surveys are l)ased, has been carried over the whole country and 
 extended to Candahar and Cabul on the north and far down the Malay 
 peninsula on the south. The topographical branch of the survey has com- 
 pleted the survey of all India, including the Native States, with the exception 
 of portions of Buraia and certain tracts in Madras. Detached parties of 
 topogi'aphical surveyors have also mapped large portions of the Himalayas, 
 the wild tracts on the north-western and north-eastern frontier, and as occasion 
 has presented itself, surveys have been made in territories beyond the limits of 
 the Indian Empire. For administrative purposes more detailed surveys showing 
 the boundaries of villages and estates have also been made, and for the purpose 
 of preparing the cadastral record of holdings, on which the land assessment 
 is based, cadastral surveys showing every field in every village have been 
 made in the temporarily settled provinces, and are being made in permanently 
 settled tracts of Bengal and Madras. For the whole of continental India the 
 maps and geographical nuxterial are more complete and accurate than are 
 possessed by some more advanced nations. Through the operations of the 
 survey an accurate knowledge of the tides on the Indian coast has been 
 acquired. 
 
11 
 
 The geoloo-ical survey luis, since the Mutiny, been carried over the greater 
 part of India ; the rocks and formations have been mapped and described, 
 while special investigation has been made of tracts known or believed to 
 contain coal, earth-oil, gold, or other minerals. The marine survey has 
 contimied its work ; the Indian coasts and harbours have been surveyed, and 
 charts and soundings have been published. The archaeological survey has 
 been reorganised and placed on a isermanent footing ; its investigations 
 and publications have thrown light on the history of India, and have 
 facilitated the work of preserving the beautiful and interesting buildings left 
 by dynasties and peoples who have passed away. 
 
 Heads of Revenues. 
 
 19. Salt Tax. — From time immemorial a tax on salt has been a source of 
 revenue in India, and it has 1:»een held that at the present time it is the only 
 impost which falls upon an Indian of moderate means who neither holds land 
 nor goes to law, nor consumes liquor or opium. It represents an average 
 annxial payment of 2}2d. per head. In 1858 the salt tax was Rs. 2i- a maund 
 (about 82 lbs.) in Bengal, one rupee a maund (including cost of maniifacture) 
 in Madras, 12 annas in Bombaj", and Rs. 2 a inaund in Northern India ; in 
 1859 the rates were raised to Rs. 3, Re. 1, and Rs. 21 respectively, and 
 in 1861 they were again raised to Rs. 3} in Bengal, Rs, li in Madras, and 
 Rs. 3 in Northern India ; in 1865 the Bombay rate was raised to Rs. 1^- 
 per maund. The rate of Rs. 3} per maund had been applied in Bengal as 
 long ago as 1837. The duty was levied at seaports on imported salt, it was 
 levied on British India salt at the coast or other salt sources, and on salt 
 brought from Native States it Avas levied liy means of an internal customs 
 line 2,000 miles long, winding round the Punjab, the North-A\'est Provinces, 
 and the Central Provinces. At this line diities were levied on all salt j^assing 
 eastwards, and also on all sugar passing westwards. 
 
 Between the years 1870-78 arrangements Avere made with Native States 
 owning salt sources, whereby the Chiefs, in consideration of large annual 
 payments, allowed the British Crovernment to control and tax the manufacture 
 of salt within those States. Railways were made to the salt sources, and so 
 the Government were enabled to tax all salt passing thence to British India, 
 by keeping small preventive establishments at the places of production. The 
 way was thus opened for the abcjlition of the inland customs line, and for the 
 equalisation of salt duties all over India. As a necessary step towards this 
 end, in 1878 the salt duty was raised in Madras and Bombay, and reduced 
 over the rest of India ; and in 1882 the duty w^as fixed at a uniform rate of 
 Rs. 2 a maund all over India, except in Burma, where a low rate of three 
 annas or about ! rupee was maintained. The inland customs line was 
 abolished, Avherebj^ the people and the trade along a broad belt of country, 
 2,000 miles long, were relieved from much harassment, and inland transit 
 duties on sugar of an oppressive nature ceased. These measures resulted in 
 a large increase of the consumption, the quantity of duty-paid salt consumed 
 in 1888 being 50 per cent, in excess of the figure for 1868. In 1888 it was 
 found necessary to raise the salt duty from Rs. 2 to Rs. 2|- per maund, in 
 order to meet financial difficulties mainly caused by the fall in the gold price 
 of silver, and at that rate it remained till 1903. In 1903 it was reduced 
 to Rs. 2 the maund, in 1905 to Rs. 1|- the maund, and in 1907 to Re. 1 the 
 maund. 
 
 Salt is now far cheaper in India as a whole than it was 50 years ago, or 
 at any earlier stage of Indian history. Not only is the present rate of duty 
 the lowest on record, but the cheapness and facility of transport which 
 the extension of railways has secured was iu former days unknown. Between 
 1903 and 1908, the period covered by the recent reductions of duty, the 
 consumption of duty-paid salt increased ))y 22 per cent. The average annual 
 consumption, reckoned on the population of all India, is now 12 lbs. per head, 
 or approximately double what it was 50 years ago. Salt is a bulky article, 
 and most parts of India are hundreds of miles distant from salt sources. 
 For instance, at Nagpore, in the middle of India, 500 miles from the Bombay 
 salt sources, salt used to be retailed at 11 lbs. per rupee, when the duty was 
 
 B2 
 
12 
 
 T?s. 3 a maiind ; the raihvaj- was opened to Xagpore in ]860, and Avithin a 
 year the ruling price of salt at Nagpore was 19 lbs. per rupee. The present 
 price at Nagpore is 30 lbs. per rupee, which approximates to the not excessive 
 price of a halfpenny the pound. The effect of railways on the price of salt 
 in Eastern Oudh and Kohilkiuid has Ijeen qnite as marked. In old days 
 those territories obtained their salt with diflicnlty and at great cost from 
 Rajpntana, which was distant two months' journey by pack bidlock, carael, 
 and cart. Noav, salt is delivered by rail in any quantity desired, and at a 
 l^i'ice which, inclnsive of the duty, does not greatly exceed the retail price of 
 table salt in England. In the year 1861 the net salt revenue was 
 l\s. 39,410,000, Avith a duty averaging lis. 2| ; in the year 1880-87 it Avas 
 Rs. 61,710,00(», AA^ith a uniform rate of Rs. 2. In 1902-03, the last j^ear of 
 the Jiigher rate of Rs. 2i, it was Rs. 83,790,000. In 1907-08, Avith a uniform 
 rate of Re. 1 a maund, or one-fifth of a penny per lb., it Avas Rs. 50,000,000, 
 or 3,333,000L 
 
 20. Opium. — The opium revenue is raised on opium sent from India to 
 China and other coimtries, partly by a monopoly in Eastern India and partly by 
 an export duty in Western India. The chief changes in the administration of 
 this revenxie during the past fiftj^ years have been the enhancement of the 
 export duty on Bombay opium ; conventions Avith Native States, Avhereby, for 
 a ]il:)eral payment, they imite Avith the Indian exchequer to safeguard the 
 duty on opium grown in Native States ; the increase of the price paid to 
 poppy cultiA'ators for all produce delivered at the Bengal opium factories ; the 
 formation of a reserve opium stock in Calcutta, Avhereby the amount of opium 
 sold monthly can be steadily maintained from year to year, instead of 
 fluctuating A'iolently from season to season according as the croj) is good or 
 bad ; and lately an arrangement Avith the Chinese Government for the 
 gradual contraction of the export trade. By this arrangement, Avhich took 
 effect from January 1908, the export of opimn fi'om India was reduced from 
 the hitherto existing standard of 00,000 chests to 01,900 chests in 1908, has 
 been further reduced to 50,800 chests in 1909, ami Avill be reduced to 51,700 
 chests in 1910. Eurther reductions after 1910 Avill be made if China has, 
 in the interval, effected a proportional reduction in its own production and 
 consimiption of opium. The area under poppy cidtivation in Bengal is 
 similarlj- being reduced, and restrictions have been placed on the export of 
 opium grown in Native States. A serious decline in the opium revenue in 
 the immediate future is therefore inevitable. In 1880-81 the net opiimi 
 revenue Avas Rs. 84,000,000, equivalent at the exchange of the day to about 
 7,000,000?. Of recent years, owing to the increased cost of producing oj)imu 
 in India and the competition of Chinese opimn Avith the imported Indian 
 article, the receipts have greatly decreased. For 1909-10 the estimate is for 
 a net revenue of little over 3,300,000Z., and in succeeding years the revenue 
 from this soiu'ce Avill be progressively diminished. 
 
 21. Customs. — The scope and rates of the import duties have varied 
 during the 50 years in accordance Avith financial needs. Before the Mutiny 
 there Avas a general tax on imports at the present rate of 5 per cent. In 1859 
 the rate AA'as raised to 10 per cent, to meet in part the financial difiiculties 
 consequent on the Sepoy mutiny. In 1804 it A\'as loAvered to 71 per cent., 
 and in 1875 to 5 per cent. Between 1875 and 1879 various changes in the 
 tariff AA'ere made Avith the object of reducing the number of articles taxed 
 and exempting cotton goods from taxation, and in 1882 the prosperous state 
 of the finances enabled the Government to abolish the remaining import 
 duties. Special import duties on arms, salt, opium, and alcoholic liquors, 
 and an export duty on rice, Avere retained, and to these in 1888 Avas added an 
 import duty on petroleum. In 1893 the heaA-y burden thrown upon the 
 finances by the fall of exchange made it necessary to reimpose a general 
 duty of 5 per cent, on imports. Cotton piece goods and yarns Avere at first 
 exempted, but in 1890 it Avas foimd necessary to subject imported piece goods 
 to a customs duty of 3|- per cent., a corresponding excise duty being imposed 
 on simihir goods manufactured in Indian cotton mills, in order to deprive the 
 tax of any protective character. Since 1890 the changes made in the tariff 
 have been unimportant, but, by reason of the groAving trade of the countrA% 
 the yield of the duties has risen from about 3,000,000/. to 5,000,000/. 
 
13 
 
 22. Excise. — Before 1858 the excise revenue on spirits, liqnors, and 
 dnigs was raised under the farming system, which the British Administration 
 had inherited from the Muhammadan riders of India, and under which there 
 Avas practically no regulation or control of consumption. During the jjast 
 fifty years this system has been changed, and in most cities, towns, and 
 l^opulous tracts all spirits passed into cousnmption pay a still-head duty, or 
 an import duty per gallon, according to strength ; only a limited nmnber of 
 shops are licensed, and illicit stills are put down as far as possible. The 
 farming or contract system survives only in sparsely x>eopled tracts, where 
 administrative supervision is difficidt. The great bulk of the revenue is raised 
 under the still-head duty system which is worked with the object of securing 
 the maximum of revenue with the minimum of consumption. Under the 
 l^resent system liquor is much dearer to the consumer than it was under the 
 old system, and the duty on every gallon of spirit consumed is much higher. 
 The excise reveniie has risen sevenfold since 18G0, and now amounts to about 
 G,500,000L The consmnption of liquor and the excise revenue paid per head 
 of the poi)ulation are considerable in some of the great cities and tOAvns, 
 while in the rural tracts both are for the most part very small. Owing to the 
 improvement in wages and in industrial employment the classes which 
 consume intoxicating drinks and drugs are able to spend more than they did 
 fifty years ago, but they pay much more for, and contribute a higher revenue 
 on, what they consume than thej^ did under the old system. The present 
 system is not without its critics, wdio allege that it is morally ineffective, if it 
 does not actively promote the alcoholic habit among a naturally abstemious 
 population. Against this it is urged that the present system does not do 
 more than provide reasonable facilities for obtaining liquor to the classes 
 which have always been accustomed to consume it ; that it embodies the 
 policy of levying a maxinnun revenue from a minimum consumption ; and 
 that the greater part of the recorded increase of revenue is due to heavier 
 taxation and to the suppression of illicit distillation and other like practices. 
 
 23. Income Tax. — Fifty years ago the trading and professional classes 
 contributed little or nothing to the national burdens, and the Court of 
 Directors reported in 1858 that "nearly two thirds of the revenue of India 
 consisted of the rent of land." In 1860 a tax was introduced on trading and 
 professional incomes, and incomes derived from investments. Since that 
 time, with short intervals, during which the impost was foi'egone, an income 
 tax in one shape or another has formed part of the fiscal system of India. 
 Under the present law no incomes below Rs. 1,000 a year are taxed, 
 and incomes from land or agricidture, being otherwise taxed, are exempt ; 
 incomes betAveen Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 2,000 a year pay aljout 2 per cent., and 
 incomes of Rs. 2,000 a year and upwards pay five pies in the rupee, equal 
 to 2'6 per cent, or 6^ pence in the pound sterling. The total number 
 
 of income tax payers is about 250,000, and the total yield of the tax about X^ 
 1,500,000L It shouhl be remembered that the assets of India are mainly 
 agricultural, aiul that agricultural profits are exempt from the tax. 
 
 24. Stamp Duties, — Stamp diities before 1858 were levied mainly on 
 litigation and on legal documents, and they yielded in the year 1859 a 
 revenue of less than 750,000L In the j'ear 1860 the stamp law was revised 
 and i^laced more nearly on the system followed in England. Duties w^ere 
 imposed on trading and connnercial documents. Since that year the rates of 
 duty have been periodically revised, and the original scale of duties has been 
 reduced in many respects. These duties now yield a net revenue of about 
 4,300,000L, of which seven-tenths are levied from litigants in courts of 
 justice and three-tenths on trading and other documents. The judicial stamp 
 revenue may be regarded in the light of payment for service rendered by 
 the costly judicial establishment rather than a tax in the proper sense of the 
 word. 
 
 Forests. 
 
 25. Forest Conservancy. — In 1858 a beginning had been made in the 
 direction of preserving the State forests and securing a forest revenue in 
 parts of Burma and Madras. There were great areas of forests, copse, and 
 waste belonging to the State in every province in India, but little attempt 
 
 B3 
 
14 
 
 had been made either to prevent wasteful destruction of forests, to promot e 
 reproduction, or to secure supphes of timber, firewood, or other forest 
 products for the use of future generations. Since 1858 the forest s,ystem 
 begun by Sir 1). Brandis in Pegu and Tenasserim has been extended to every 
 province in India ; forest laws have been enacted for every province, a staff 
 of trained forest olficers has been organised ; 92,000 square miles of State 
 forests have been marked off as forest reserves, which are to be husbanded 
 and managed as public properties for the benefit of the countiy at large and 
 of the people living in their vicinity. Fire is excluded from these forests; 
 systematic working for timber, for fire-wood, and for other purposes has been 
 introduced ; tribal and other rights or claims in the forest reserves have been 
 bought up or adjusted ; plantation and reproduction of timber and firewood 
 are being scientifically conducted. Meanwhile, a considerable forest revenue 
 has been fostered. The total forest revenue of British India now averages 
 about 1,800,00()L, and the net forest revenue aliout 800,000L, after paying 
 all charges for forest conservancy and working. The advantages, present 
 and prospective, of scientific forest management are so clear that the larger 
 Native States, notably Mysore and Travancore, have organised and are , 
 maintaining a forest administration of their own on the systeni adopted in 
 British India, and are raising a considerable forest reveniie. Some of the 
 smaller States have leased their more valuable forests to the British Indian 
 Foi'est Department, to be worked on scientific principles. 
 
 Post Office a\d Telegraphs. 
 
 26. Post Ojjice. — Before 1858 a postal system on the English model, with 
 a uniform low stamp fo^; all distances, had been introduced into India, and 
 since that year the postal system has l)een greatly extended and improved. 
 In 1856 there were 36,000 miles of postal route, now there are nearly 160,000 
 miles ; in 1856 there were 750 post otfices and boxes, now there are about 
 70,000 ; then 33 millions of letters, packets, and newspapers passed yearly 
 through the post office, now the number exceeds 800 millions. At the same 
 time the post office has undertaken a vast amount of new woi'k connected 
 with money remittances, parcel insurance, savings banks, and other public 
 requirements. The extent to which Indians of all races use the post office 
 has increased amazingly. A letter now travels safel.y for a half-anna (|tl.) 
 stamp, and a post card for a quarter-anna (farthing) stamp, over a distance of 
 3,000 miles from Quetta in Baluchistan to Bhamo near the border of China by 
 road, railway, ocean, and river. The Indian postal charges are not intended to 
 yield a large surplus revenue as in great Britain, and the net revenue is kept 
 at the modest figure of about 100,000Z. 
 
 Of the miscellaneous work performed by the post office the business of 
 money orders and of savings banks is the most important. In 1858 the 
 Government had opened no savings banks for the public. Now there are over 
 8,000 savings banks, with about 1,200,000 depositoi's, of whom nine tenths 
 are Indians, and the total value of deposits is about 10,000,000L Monej^ 
 orders to the amount of about 25,000,000Z. a year are annually issued. 
 
 27. Tele(iraphs.-^lii 1857 there Avere 3,000 miles of single telegraph wire 
 in India, and a few score of telegraph offices. There is now a total length 
 of 69,000 miles of line, with 270,000 miles of Avire ; there are 7,000 telegraph 
 offices, and 12 million messages annually pass over the wires. The fee for a 
 short message, irrespective of distance, which may reach 3,000 miles, is four 
 annas (equal to 4cZ. in English money), or about one eighth of the rates charged 
 in 1856. The telegraph receipts yield a sm-plus after meeting all current 
 charges for maintenance and working (exclusive of charges for new 
 construction), varying from 2 to 3 per cent, on the capital outlay of about 
 6,600,000L 
 
 Hospitals, and Sanitation. 
 
 2S. Hospitals. — From the early days of British nde in India continued 
 effort has been made to carry to the people and to the homes of India the 
 benefits of scientific surgery and medicine, and to help the Indians to use 
 
15 
 
 their own indigenous drugs to the best advantage. In 1857 there were 142 
 civil hospitals and dispensaries, at which 671,000 sufferers were treated 
 during the year; in ]907 there were in British India 2,514 institu- 
 tions ot this kind, at which 412,400 in-patients and 24,470,000 out-patients 
 were treated. The number of Indian practitioners who have been trained 
 in modern surgerj- and medicine is now more than twenty times as 
 large as it was in 1857. Vaccination has been greatly extended ; the 
 earliest year for which accurate information is available is 1877, and in thai 
 year 4,027,000 persons were successfully vaccinated. The number of 
 vaccinations has increased steadily in all provinces, until now there are 
 annually between eight and nine millions of successfid vaccinations. In 
 some cities and districts the niuuber of yearly vaccinations is nearly equal to 
 the births ; and in all provinces there has been a clear diminution in the 
 prevalence and in the severity of sifiall-pox. 
 
 29. Sanitation. — In 1858 nothing had been done for sanitary reform 
 outside a very few large cities and cantonments ; and no attempt had been 
 made to ascei'tain the facts regarding death and disease over the countrj*. 
 During the past 50 j^ears a system of registering deaths, causes of death, and 
 births has been gradually extended over nearly the whole of India. In some 
 provinces and in most large towns the registration is noAV fairly correct ; and 
 a valuable body of information is being collected concerning the mortality 
 and diseases of the popvdation in different tracts. Sanitary reform is being 
 attempted in all cities and towns that have any kind of municipal organi- 
 zation, and during the last 20 years real progress has been made in the 
 maritime capitals and other important centres. The construction of water- 
 works, by means of funds borrowed from the Government, has been a 
 successful feature of municipal administration. More than 80 municipal 
 towns are now furnished with water supply systems, many of which are on 
 a large scale and constructed in accordance with the most approved modern 
 methods. But in most towns, and even in the cities of Calcutta, Bombay, 
 and Madras, insanitary conditions still cause nuich preventable disease and 
 death. The necessity for improving the conditions under which the people 
 live, especially in the larger towns, has of late been emphasised by the 
 calamitous epidemic of plague which has ravaged India since 189C. Liberal 
 grants in aid from general revenues are now made to municipal bodies for 
 this purpose, and great attention and trained intelligence are being applied 
 to the sanitary problems of Indian urban life with, it may be hoped, good 
 residts in the inunediate future. In rural tracts sanitary reform is neces- 
 sarily more backward, and progress is impeded by the inadequacy of local, 
 revenues, the insufficiency of the stafp at the disposal of the local authorities, 
 and by old-seated habits and prejudices on the part of the rural population. 
 It cannot be said that any marked reduction has bfeen yet effected in the 
 recurrence of cholera or in the prevalence of fever, though small-pox has 
 been perceptibly checked, and fevers mitigated by supplies of cheap quinine 
 from the Government cinchona plantations. For the direction of sanitary 
 officers Sanitary Commissioners or Boards have been established in every 
 province. The detailed executive management of sanitary matters in rural 
 India is vested in district and village authorities constituted on a popular 
 basis, and representative in an increasing degree of public opinion. As these 
 bodies grow in experience and their finances improve, they are found more 
 ready to promote measures for the improvement of the public health. There 
 are signs that even among the rural population popidar ai)athy to sanitary 
 improvement is giving way to a perception of its advantages. 
 
 Education. 
 
 30. Education. — The educational policy dictated by Sir Charles Wood's 
 Despatch of 1854 was beginning to take effect when Her Majesty assumed 
 the Government of India. In 1882-83 a careful inquiry was undertaken by 
 a Special Commission into the educational system and progress of every 
 province. The result of that Connnission was a renewed enforcement and a 
 farther extension of the educational principles and policy prescribed in 1854. 
 
 B 4 ■ 
 
16 
 
 Three Universities had been estabHshed in IS')?, and a few imdergnidnates 
 had been attracted ; Education Departments had been formed in the larger 
 provinces ; and a system of giving grants in aid to schools had l)epn begun, 
 'fhe educational statistics of 1858 are not complete, but apparently there 
 Avere then about 13 colleges, while the schools of all grades known 
 to the Educational Department contained about -100,000 scholars. The 
 earliest year foi- which complete statistics are available is 1865 ; and 
 the figures of that year can be compared with recent statistics. In that 
 year there were 26 colleges and college departments with 1,582 mider- 
 graduate students ; in 1907 there were 179 colleges and college depailnients, 
 with 26,000 undergraduates on the rolls. In 1865 the returns showed 19,201 
 schools of all grades with 619,260 scholars, while in 1907 there wei'e 165,473 
 schools with 5,708,000 scholars. The total educational expenditure was 
 about Rs. 3,940,000 in 1858. and Us. 6,710,000 in 1865; while in 1907, 
 the total expenditure was lis. 60,00(),006 or 4,000,000/., of which about 
 1 ,000,000L came from school fees, 800,000?. from private sid)scriptions or 
 endowments, and the remainder from the public revenues, national and local. 
 
 Normal schools for training men and women teachers have been 
 established in every province ; while a staff of inspecting officers visit and 
 examine all schools on the departmental lists. The proportion of children 
 passing the scA'eral standards has continued to increase ; and the numbers 
 reaching and attending secondary schools have steadily advanced till, in 
 1907, there were 687,926 boys and 66,341 girls on the rolls of secondary 
 public schools of a general kind, besides about 160,000 in special schools or 
 in advanced private schools. Medical colleges and schools furnish yearly an 
 increasing nujnber of graduates and certificated j^ractitioners, who do duty 
 at hospitals and dispensaries, or serve in the Army Medical Department, or 
 find useful and lucrative careers in private practice. A valualjle association 
 founded by the Marchioness of DufFerin, and siipported by Indians of all 
 classes, employs women doctors for work in women's hospitals and in Indian 
 homes, and disseminates knowledge of medicine, surgery, and nursing among 
 the women of the country. Engineering and other technical schools and 
 classes ha^'e increased, while a large number of apprentices receive technical 
 teaching of the best kind at the workshops attached to the railway lines. 
 Schools of art have been established at a few centres, but the nundoer of 
 students is not large ; the teaching of drawing and surveying is, however, 
 being extended in most provinces. The number of law students is everywhere 
 large in comparison with the attendance at other special institutions ; but 
 the law is a popular profession with the educated classes in India, and 
 there can be no question but that the present generation of trained lawyers 
 have done much to improve the administration of justice in India. Much 
 of the educational progress of the past fifty years has been due to the efforts 
 of private persons, missionaries, and others, who from motive of charity and 
 public spirit coniKict or endow schools, Avhich earn grants in aid from the 
 public funds « without these private agencies, the progress, more especiallj^ 
 in secondary schools, could not have been nearly so gi'eat. The adminis- 
 tration of educational funds and the control of schools, subject to supervision 
 by inspectors, are now mostly in the hands of local pidilic bodies, the 
 members of which are elected by or nominated from among the taxpayers. 
 
 Until recent times the curriculum of Indian schools and colleges was 
 almost entirely literary, and was open to the objection that it tended to 
 produce a larger number of graduates in " Arts " than could be absorbed 
 into the public service or the learned professions, and that it made no 
 provision for the requirements of commerce, agriculture, or the scientific 
 professions. This defect still exists, but in a less degree, and its removal is 
 only a question of time. The educational curriculmn has been greatly 
 enlarged. Facilities for alternative branches of study have been greatly 
 increased. What is equally important, these studies are fast becoming 
 popular and attract students in increasing numbers. 
 
 31. Literature and Newspapers. — One residt of the spread of education 
 has been a great increase in the number of books, magazines, aad newspapers 
 published in India. Fifty years ago there were a few vernacular newspapers, 
 with a small circulation, mostly at or near the Presidency towns. In 1907 
 
17 
 
 there were 2,57.1 printing presses at work, and 753 newspapers and 1,062 
 periodicals were registered. Many of these are unimportant journals of an 
 ephemeral character with a circulation of a few liiuidreds only, and the 
 number with a circulation exceeding 2,000 copies is still small. But in 
 the larger centres the habit of political discussion through a daily press is 
 now established, and every year marks its extension and increasing attraction. 
 In the year 1858 hardly any vernacular books were pidolished save a few 
 educational or religious works and occasional reprints of old dramas, stories, 
 and poems. In 1907 the register of publications for British India showed 
 8,G19 books and nu^gazines published within the year, of which more than 
 80 per cent, were in vernacular langiiages. Though the quality of this 
 literary activity leaves something to be desired, its range and diversity are 
 interesting as evidence of the ferment of new ideas, and the play of novel 
 and incongruous forces, in present day India. 
 
 Finance. 
 
 32. Finance. — The fifty years now under review began when the financial 
 difficulties caused by the sepoy mutiny were at their height ; between the 
 years 1857 and 1862 those troubles caused a great excess of expenditure over 
 revenue, and an addition of 42,1 00,000/. to the public debt of India. In the 
 year 1861-62 equilibrium was practically restored to the finances. For the 
 purpose of the present remarks it will be best to compare the financial 
 results of the pre-mutiny period with those of the last 30 years. During the 
 20 j^ears i)revioas to the mutiny there had been 14 years of deficit and six 
 years of surplus, yielding a net deficit of 16,393,000L, and an addition of 
 15,900,000/-. to the debt. During the 30 years ending 1907-08 there have 
 been 21 years of surplus and nine of deficit yielding, in the aggregate, a net 
 surplus of 24,000,000/. This rc&ult has been attained after meeting all 
 famine relief expenditure out of the revenue of the year, and providing from 
 the same source large amounts for protective railways and irrigation works 
 and further sums for productive public works which are ordinarily constructed 
 by borrowed capital. The debt of India on the 31st March 1908 amounted 
 to 246,034,071/., of which 157,481,074/. was sterling debt, and 88,552,997/. 
 rupee debt. Of this total 177i millions have been incurred for railways and 
 30 millions for irrigation works. The interest on this portion of the debt is 
 charged to these particular services, and as they both show large net profits, 
 no charge for interest on this account falls on the taxpayer. The piiblic debt of 
 India, apart from capital thus invested, is therefore only 38J millions, as against 
 51 millions before and 93 millions after the mutiny period, and the charge for 
 interest falling on the revenues is quite inconsiderable. This fortunate result 
 has been achieved by means of a steady and substantial surplus of revenue 
 over ordinary expenditure, which is utilised on profitable public works, and the 
 reqiusite surplus has of recent years become more easy of attainment by reason 
 of the increasing profits derived from railways and irrigation. A t the end of the 
 mutiny period the rupee debt bore interest at rates ranging for the most part 
 from 4 to 5|- per cent., and it was difficult to borrow money in England for 
 India imder 5 per cent. Now-a-days the monetary credit of India compares 
 favourably with that of many European States. 
 
 33. Income and Expenditure. — The gross revenue of India expressed in 
 rupees, without reference to the fall in the gold value of the rupee, has more 
 than trebled in the fifty years. In 1856-57 it was Ks. 317,000,000, and in 
 1906-07 Rs. 1,084,()00,0()0. But many items are included in the present 
 revenue of India which are not found in the comparatively simple budgets of 
 pre-mutiny India, and which are of the nature of commercial receipts : as, 
 for instance, the eai-nings of railways, irrigation, and forests. Confining the 
 comparison to revenue derived from taxation (including land revenue and 
 opium), the receipts have more than doubled. They were Rs. 290,000,000 in 
 1856-57 against Rs. 649,000,000 in 1906-07. But, large as the increase is, 
 it is almost wholly due to the growth of revenue under old heads. The only 
 new revenues are the income tax and provincial rates, and against these may 
 be set the reductions which have been made within the period in the sain 
 
 4911. C 
 
18 
 
 duty and in inland transit dues. Municipal and other local taxes, which are 
 not shown in the public revenue, have, it is true, been imposed since the 
 Mutiny ; but the proceeds are expended entirely by local bodies on local 
 olijects, such as roads, harbours, schools, hospitals, and town improvements. 
 
 Tlie gross expenditure similarity shows a very large inci-ease on the 
 pre-nmtiny standard. In ISSG-St it was Hs. 318,000,000 ; in 190G-07 
 Rs. 1,073,000,000. Excluding from the latter figure charges of a commercial 
 nature, such as the working expenses of railways, canals, forests, posts, and 
 telegraph, which have practically no counterpart in the l)udget of fifty years 
 ago, there is still an increased expenditure of about Rs. 480,000,000, or 
 32,000,000?. This increase is due partly to larger outlay on public works, 
 partly to the increased Army charges, and partly to the silver dilliculty 
 described in the next following paragraph ; l)ut it is mainly due to the 
 growing recpiirements of a civilized and improving administration. The 
 pension list has increased ; the land revenue administration is more elaborate ; 
 there are many moi'e courts of justice and more police ; the expenditure on 
 education, on hospitals, on forest administration is many fold larger than it 
 was in 1850 ; the standard of wages has risen ; the average salaries paid to' 
 educated Indian officers of all ranks have more than doid)led, while the 
 salaries of but few European Civil officers have increased, though the value 
 of salaries paid in silver has fallen for the purpose of savings or expenditure 
 in Euroi^e. In order that the administi'ation of India should be improved in 
 accordance with the growing requirements of the present time, very much of 
 this inci'eased expenditure was absolutely unavoidable. Special commissions 
 or inquiries have been frequently instituted to check and reduce expenditure, 
 and in this way economies have been effected or increase checked. The 
 guardians of the Indian exchequer are constantlj^ occupied in resisting 
 proposals for additional expenditure, even though such proposals are shown 
 to be in themselves reasonable and beneficial. But, with all this, the cost of 
 a civilised government tends to increase, as is seen in England and other 
 coimtries of Europe, and the tendencj- is exceptionally strong in India, 
 where such a government is of comparatively recent growth. 
 
 34. Currency dificidiy. - -T)m-'mg the period the task of administering the 
 finances of India was rendered exceptionally difficult hy reason of the fall in 
 the value of silver as compared with gold. Ever since India has been a 
 dependency of Great Britain, a considerable expenditure on its account has had 
 to be incurred in England. In the early days of the East India Company 
 some of the payments thus made arose out of the trading monopoly and 
 territorial revenues enjoyed by the Company. But the present expenditure 
 of the Indian Government in England is of another kind. It is on 
 accoxnit of interest on so nmch of the public debt as was borrowed 
 in England ; in payment of interest and annuities on account of rail- 
 ways purchased liy the Government from the guaranteed companies ; 
 on accoimt of stores, arms, and materials of all kinds for the public 
 departments ; on accoxint of charges incTirred in England for the British 
 force in India ; and on account of pensions to retii'ed public servants 
 and soldiers. About 18 millions sterling has, in these ways, to be spent 
 in England on account of the Indian Government, and this has to be paid in 
 gold, while the Indian revenues are raised in silver. 
 
 For nearly a hundred years, up to 1871, ten rupees of Indian money 
 could on the average be exchanged for one pound sterling of English 
 money. And at that rate Rs. 180,000,000 would suffice to cover India's 
 yearly liability of 18 millions sterling in England. But since 1871 silver 
 has been practically demonetized in Europe ; and the relative value of 
 silver, as compared with gold, has greatly declined. From 1873 onwards the 
 progressive fall in the gold value of the rupee was a source of increasing 
 endiarrassmeut to the finances of India. It occasioned unexj)ected deficits, 
 obliged the Government to retain and sometimes to increase taxation which 
 it was anxious to I'emit, to stint expenditure of the most necessary kind, to 
 restrictpublic works, and to refrain from imdertaking much required improve- 
 ments by means of borrowed capital, both on account of the apprehensions of 
 the money market and the risk of contracting fresh gold obligations. In 
 1893, by which time the rupee had fallen to a point representing little more 
 
19 
 
 than half its former vahie, the Indian mints were closed for the unrestricted 
 coinage of silver. In succeeding years measures were taken to make a gold 
 standard effective by accumulatiug a reserve in gold, and by introducing gold 
 into tiie currency at the ratio of a pound sterling to 15 rupees. The rupee, 
 while still legal tender for any sum, has now becouie a token coin repre- 
 senting 16 pence of f]nglish money- a tender value much in excess of its 
 intrinsic worth. Since 1896 the fluctuations of silver have ceased to disturb 
 the finances of the country. The inaintenance of the standard in seasons 
 when the export trade is bad, and the mercantile demand for bills of exchange 
 on India is slack, will, as recent experience has shown, not be free from 
 difficulty. But, beyond question, the currency reform of 1893 has greatly 
 ameliorated the financial position of the Indian Government, and has 
 coincided with much commercial prosperity and industrial growth. From 
 1896 onwards the external and internal trade of India has increased beyond 
 precedent ; the revenues have mounted up year l>y year, taxation has been 
 very substantially reduced, and, notwithstanding considerable additions to 
 the public expenditure for police, education, and other urgent administrative 
 requirements, large surpluses have been secured. 
 
 35. Financial Systcyn. — Before 1858 the absolute control of all the 
 finances throughout India, down to the smallest detail, was in the hands of 
 the Supreme Government. Not even a messenger on a rupee a week could 
 be permanently engaged without the sanction of the Govemior-General in 
 Council ; and detailed projects for even small and urgent Avorks had to be 
 submitted to the Government of India. There were no Budget estimates 
 published annually ; and, though expenditure was vigilantly restricted, and 
 accounts were carefully audited, detailed grants of money were not fixed for 
 each head of service, against which grants of expenditure could be checked and 
 Ijrought to account. By Act of Barliament in 1858 the entire control of the 
 revenues both in India and elsewhere is vested in the Secretary of State i}i 
 Council ; but as a matter of practice he delegates a large portion of this 
 power to the Government of India under rules and regulations laid down 
 from time to time. 
 
 In 1860 Mr. James Wilson introduced the system of annual budget 
 estimates, Avith sanctioned grants for each sub-head in every province and 
 district. Under his system, which with certain modifications of detail is still 
 in force, budget estimates for the Emj)ire are compiled from the sanctioned 
 estimates for each province and department ; and the final estimates are 
 made pidjlic before the beginning of the j^ear, together with the accounts 
 and revised estimates of the two proceeding years. The budget estimates 
 of each year are laid before and discussed in the Legislative Council, whose 
 sanctioti is necessary to measures for the reduction or increase of taxation. 
 Every department and official is rigorously bound to keep expenditure within 
 the sanctioned grant, or to report at once for orders if imforeseen circum- 
 stances, such as failure of crops, famine, or war, prevent the fulfilment of 
 the sanctioned estimates of revenue, or necessitate excess outlay beyond the 
 sanctioned grant. Behind the control of the Ciovernment of India is that of 
 the Secretary of State for India in Council, who has laid down the principle 
 that without his sanction no new office carrying a salary of more than 400?. 
 a year can be created, no serioiis departure from the sanctioned budget 
 estimates permitted, and no large scheme involving fresh expenditure 
 launched. 
 
 36. Provy'inclal Finance. — As the business of the administration increased, 
 it was found increasinglj^ difficult for the Supreme Government to exercise a 
 detailed control over every item of expenditure throughout the Empire. 
 Although the Budget system imposed a strict limit on expenditure during 
 any year, yet at the end of each year the Local Governments were constantly 
 pressing that more funds should be devoted to administrative and other 
 improvements in their provinces. Lord Mayo's Government in 1870 decided 
 that Avider financial responsibilities and powers might advantageously be 
 delegated to the Local Governments ; they transferred to the provincial 
 authorities the entire management of certain heads of civil expenditure, 
 allotted to each Local Government fixed grants to pay for. those services or 
 departments, and left it full discretion to spend those grants to the best 
 
 c: 2 
 
20 
 
 advantage, subject to budget rules and to the reservatiou of the powers of the 
 Secretarj" of State. At the same time a more complete control was delegated 
 to Local Governments over expenditure from all funds raised for local 
 ]nirposes. It was found that this partial provincializatiou of the finances 
 saved much correspondence and friction, conchiced to efficient administration, 
 and led the Local Governments to introduce impoi-tant economies and 
 improvements that might otherwise have been indefinitely postponed. 
 
 Since 1870 the provincial system has been carried much further. The 
 control of all expenditure has been delegated to the Local Governments. At 
 the same time, the interest of the provincial authorities in the development 
 of the revenue has been secured by the tlelegation to them of the manage- 
 ment of all heads of provincial revenue, and by allotting to them shares of 
 that revenue instead of a fixed money grant, to meet the provincial expendi- 
 ture. As the provincial finance system now stands, the Supreme Government 
 keeps under its own control the opiimi, salt, customs, post office and telegraph, 
 tributes, mint, and currency receipts, and also the expenditure under those 
 heads, on the army and military works, on political relations, on the public 
 debt, and on railways. The administrative control of other heads of revenue ' 
 and expenditure devolves on the Local Governments. In round figures, 
 and exclusive of railways, the Supreme Government keeps the control over 
 49,000,000Z. of expenditure, including payments in England, while to the 
 TiOcal Governments is delegated the control of 23,000,000/. 
 
 Neither the Secretary of State in Council nor the Government of India are 
 divested, by the provincial finance system, of responsibility for the finances 
 or for the administration of provincialised revenues and departments. By 
 the budget rules, under provisions enacted by the Legislature, and by means 
 of constant reports, they maintain control over the proceedings of the Local 
 Governments. They reserve the right of modifying the provincial finance 
 arrangements either periodically or when special need arises. 
 
 37. Paper Carreiicy and Mbit. — The three Presidency banks had a note 
 circulation which in 1860 was hai'dly current outside the cities of Calcutta, 
 I^ombay, and Madras. In the year 1862 the private note circulation ceased, 
 and the Government introduced a paper currency on the basis of complete 
 convertil:)ility into silver. There are now eiglit circles of issue, each of which 
 gives in exchange for money notes ranging from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10,000 in 
 value. The five rupee note is legal tender in any place in British India. 
 Other notes can be cashed up to any amount at the circle head-quarters ; 
 and they can be obtained or cashed in moderate quantities at most of the 
 district treasuries in the circle. The value of the currency notes in circulation 
 in March 1908 amounted to 31,300,000L The service performed by the 
 note circulation is more considerable than the foregoing figures might 
 imply ; for the returns show that from April 1907 to March 1908 
 120,000,000?. worth of notes were issued by the Currency Department for 
 cash, while 110,000,000Z. woi'th were cashed at currency offices and agencies. 
 The Currency Act allows a part of the gold and silver received for notes to 
 be invested in Indian Government securities or in sterling securities of the 
 United Kingdom up to a maximum of 8,000,000?. The intei'est yielded by 
 this investment amounts to 270,000?. a year, wJiile the expenditure of the 
 Currency Department amounts to 110,000?. a year. 
 
 Before the ^^ear 1858 there were three mints in British India. By reason 
 of the railway communications and of improvements in mint processes and 
 machinery, it was found possible to close the Madras mint and to do the work 
 of the country with two mints. The Indian mints now work as well and as 
 economically as the present state of scientific knowledge permits, and minor 
 improvements or economies are Ijfeing introduced Irom year to .year. Tlie 
 total value of the silver coined in British India from 1859 to 1908 inclusive 
 has been 3,853 millions of rupees. Since 1893 tiie Indian mints have been 
 closed for the unrestricted coinage of silver. Silver is purchased bj'' the 
 Government and coined into rupees as may be required. The profits resulting 
 from this coinage are not treated as revenue, but are paid into a special fund, 
 called the Gold Standard Reserve, the greater part of which is ordinarily held 
 in sterling securities. 
 
21 . 
 
 Public Wokks. 
 
 38. In the time of the East India Company certain great roads were 
 constructed, the Ganges canal was dug, the Jumna canals were reopened, 
 and improvements were matle in some of the old works on the Madras coast, 
 but the progress effected with works of material imj)rovement in India has 
 been far greater during the last 50 years than during all the previous 
 centuries combined. 
 
 39. Railways. — In 1857 the Indian Government had opened 3U0 miles of 
 railway, which carried during the year 2 million passengers and 253,000 tons 
 of goods. On the 1st April 1909 there were 30,983 miles of open railway, 
 which carried during the year 330 million passengers and over 61 million tons 
 of goods. The rates charged for passengers on these railways are as low as 
 one-fifth of a penny per mile for passengers, and under one-halfpenuy per 
 ton per mile for goods. The gross earnings of the Indian railways in 1908 
 were approximately 30,000,000Z. ; and it has been estimated that the producers, 
 traders, and passengers of India benefit to an amount corresponding to 
 100,000,OOOL a year by reason of the cheapness of railway over the old modes 
 of travelling, exclusive of the saving of time between a rate of 10 to 20 miles 
 a day and a rate of 400 miles a day. The railway service gives emploj^ment 
 to 525,000 persons, of whom over 508,000 are Indians. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to refer here to the incalculable benefit done by 
 railways which in time of need carry food from prosperous districts to famine 
 stricken provinces ; or to the impulse given to production and trade when 
 railways carry to the seaports surplus products that Avould otherwise have 
 found no market, and might have rotted in granaries ; or to the enormous 
 addition to the military strength of the country, when troops and material 
 can be moved to the frontier, or to anj' scene of disturbance, at the rate of 
 400 miles instead of 10 miles a day, and at one-sixth of the old cost. Railways 
 have now been made on the main routes in British or Native territory ; 
 the system of military railways on the north-west frontier is practically 
 complete, and several lines which do not paj' commercially have been con- 
 structed for the protection of tracts specially liable to visitation by famine. 
 But some large tracts of country have still to be opened up, maiiy railways 
 require feeder lines, and the grooving traflic of the trunk lines demands 
 improved facilities which will entail heavy capital outlay. The capital 
 expenditure on railways during the last five years has exceeded that of any 
 previous period of eq\ial length, yet even at the present accelei'ated rate the 
 development of railway communications is regarded by many as less rapid 
 than the country requires. The hinderance to a quicker expansion has 
 been, and still is, mainly financial. 
 
 The actual capital outlay on Indian railways open to traffic amounted at 
 the close of 1908 to 274,000,000L ; and during that year the net earnings 
 amounted to 4'33 per cent, on the capital outlay. In the previous year, 
 when traffic was more active, they amounted to 5"86 per cent. Before 1900, 
 by reason of the rights of the guaranteed railways to one half of the surplus 
 earnings above 5 per cent., and Ijy reason of the liability to pay guaranteed 
 railway interest in gold, the working and interest account of Indian railways 
 showed a loss to the Indian exchequer. Since then the guaranteed railways 
 have been acquired by the Government, and the railways as a whole have 
 become increasingly profitable. During the four years ending 1907-08 the 
 net annual gain to the State from this source was approximately 2,000,0()0L 
 
 40. Canals. — After railways the most important public works of the past 
 fifty years have !)een the canals and other irrigation works, wherebj' water is 
 carried to the tields in parts of the country where the climate or character of 
 the agriculture require it ; embankments whereby flood waters are kept from 
 devastating the fields ; and navigation canals. In their Report of 1858 the 
 Oourt of Directors adverted to : — 
 
 The Cauvery and Godavery irrigation works then partly open. 
 The old .Tmnna canals, which had been reconstructed and reopened. 
 The Siud canals. 
 
 The Ganges canal, which had been just opened. 
 The Baree Doab canal, on which work had been begun. 
 The Kistna and Palar irrigation system, which had been begun. 
 The tank systems of Madras and other provinces. 
 
 C 3 
 
99 
 
 At that time the total area irrigated from all the canal systems was less than 
 1,500,000 acres, exclusive of tank irrigation. Since then over 30,000,000L of 
 capital, besides large sums from yearly revenue, have been spent on irrigation 
 works. All the canal systems mentioned above have been finished or greatly 
 extended ; and there has also been large expenditure on other works of the 
 first magnitude. Among them are the Sone and Orissa canals in Bengal ; 
 the T^ower Ganges, the Agra and the Betwa canals in the United Provinces ; 
 the Periyar and Kurnool canals in Madras ; the Is'ira canal in Bombay ; the 
 Sirliind, the Chenab, and the Jhelum canals in the Punjab ; the Jamrao canal 
 in Sindh. Of these works, perhaps the most remarkable, and certainly the 
 most profitable, are those which have been constructed in the arid plains of 
 the Punjab and Sindh, which have converted a once waterless and desert land 
 into prosperous agricultural colonies and immense granaries of wheat and 
 other products. 
 
 The direct return yielded by the dift'erent works varies greatly. For 
 instance, on the Sindh canals and on the Chenab and Jhelum canals in 
 the Punjab, depend the revenue, the food, and the very life of the province ; 
 for of the whole cultivated land 98 per cent, depends upon canal water, and 
 less than 2 per cent, of the yearly harvest is raised without irrigatioji. In 
 Madras the Cauvery, Godavery, and Kistna irrigation works yield a direct 
 return of irrigation revenue varying from 15 to 22 per cent, on their capital 
 cost. The canals in the United Provinces pay 9 per cent., and in the Punjab 
 over 13 per cent, on their capital cost all round. The Orissa, the Sone, and 
 the Kurnool canals yield little or no net revenue, but in years of di'ought they 
 safeguard great areas of crop and secure a large supply of food. Even in 
 provinces where canal irrigation is popular and long established, thei'e are 
 great variations in the extent to which water is utilized ; for instance, in 
 1907-08, a year of severe drought, o^- million acres took water from the 
 canals of the United Provinces against an average of 21 million acres in 
 ordinary years. 
 
 For the year 190G-07 the total area that received water from all public 
 irrigation Avorks in India was 22,225,000 acres. For the same year the net 
 revenue on all irrigation works for which capital accounts were kept gave a 
 dividend of 8 per cent, on a capital expenditure of 32,500,0()0L In an 
 ordinary year the value of the crops secured by State irrigation works is 
 estimated at between -40 and 50 millions sterling. In a year of drought or 
 famine the money value of the benefit conferred by these works is very much 
 greater. Nine-tenths of the irrigation fi'om the gi-eat canals, most of the 
 protection afi'orded by embankments, nearly all the navigation canals, and 
 about two-thirds of the irrigation from minor sources, are due to works which 
 have been carried out during the past 50 years. 
 
 The next 20 years will witness the completion of other irrigation schemes 
 which in magnitude and boldness will surpass the achievements of the past. 
 Their inception is largely due to the report of the Conimission appointed in 
 1901 to inquire into the possibilities of extending irrigation in India. The 
 Connuission found that, subject to further professional examination of 
 particular schemes, some 30 millions sterling could be usefully expended in 
 the course of years on new irrigation. The programme Avhich they pro- 
 visionally outlined was accepted in principle, and has been actively taken 
 in hand. Part of the expenditure may not be directly remunej-ative, 
 as it will be concerned with tracts where the means of irrigation are 
 poor. But the major portion of the programme, especially that which 
 deals with the full utilisation of the great rivers of the Punjab, should 
 be highly profitable. When these schemes are completed, the arid plains of 
 Sindh, and of the Punjab from the Indus on the west to the Junma on the 
 east, will be converted into a vast irrigated tract and unfailing granarj-. 
 The " triple canal project," which is one of these schemes, is now under 
 construction. It will pass the surplus water of the Jhelum river into the 
 Chenab river, while the latter river, thus re-enforced, will give water to a second 
 canal, which in its turn, passing under the Uavi river, Avill feed a third canal 
 in the lands between the Ravi and the Sutlej. It is estimated that at a capital 
 cost of between six and seven millions sterling some 2,000,000 acres of 
 land will be l}rought luider cidtivation by this utilisation of the Jhelum, 
 without taxing the intervening rivers which have already their allotted work. 
 This is onlv one of a series of schemes which in the near future will transform 
 
23 
 
 the conditions of vast tracts in Upper India, and provide new outlets for the 
 population. 
 
 41. Tioads. — During the earlier part of the period luider review a large 
 expenditure was incurred from the general revenues on the construction of 
 roads and bridges, moi-e especially in the Punjal), the Central Provinces, 
 Bombay, and Burma. The great arterial roads were then completed, in 
 advance of and sometimes Avithout anticipation of the revolution in transport 
 effected by the extension of railways. Since 1871 the custody and construc- 
 tion of local roads have largely been made over to local bodies. These bodies 
 either enjoy revenues or receive grants enabling them to discharge their 
 responsibilities in this respect, and much care has been paid bj- them to road 
 maintenance and road making. New tnmk roads are rarely required, but 
 additional roads are constantly undertaken in order to facilitate access to 
 railway stations. As railways extend, more has to be done in making feeder 
 I'oads to the railway, more especially in provinces where the rainfall is heavy 
 and carts cannot ply for live or seven months of the year save on metalled 
 and bridged roads. Throughout the greater part of India pack animals 
 have been displaced by wheeled vehicles. Returns show that the 
 number of carts possessed and worked by the people has increased greatly 
 during the past 50 years. The levy of tolls on roads has been practically 
 abolished, the onlj- exceptions being in the case of ferries or temporary 
 bridges of boats. 
 
 42. Public Buildings. — It has been the custom of the Indian Government 
 to discourage any avoidable outlaj^ on public buildings, and to devote 
 available funds mainly to roads and canals. Still a great deal of building- 
 had to be undertaken. Healthy and commodious quarters have been erected 
 for the troojis all over India ; most of the larger prisons have been either 
 built or rebuilt on new designs ; lighthouses have been provided round the 
 Indian coasts ; a great number of court houses, public offices, hospitals, police 
 stations, and school houses have Ijeen constructed ; and at Bon^bay have been 
 erected a group of public buildings, which would be a credit and an ornament 
 to any city in the world. Forts, batteries, and places of arms have been 
 constructed or begun at obligatory points on the frontiers, at some of the 
 seaports, and at a few places on the great routes in the interior. Meanwhile 
 the ancient and beautiful buildings of past dynasties, at places like Agra, 
 Delhi, Madura, Benares, I^ahore, Ahmedabad, Gour, Budh Gaya, and Bhilsa, 
 have been cared for and conservetl. 
 
 Trade a\d Manufactures. 
 
 43. Trade. — The extension of roads, railways, and canals, the improve- 
 ment of seaports, the increase of the cultivated area, and the abolition of 
 internal and external customs duties have caused a great expansion of the 
 trade of India. The exchange of conunodities between one province or one 
 district and another has increased vastly, but there is no record of the 
 internal trade of India before 1858. In that year the Court of Directors 
 reported that the exports and imports of merchandise by sea from and into 
 India were valued at 251^ and 144 millions sterling respectively, or 39| 
 millions for the total foreign trade. The corresponding totals for the year 
 19()7-()8 were 1151 niillions sterling of exports and 8G| millions worth of imports, 
 or 202 millions of total trade. The external land trade of India, principally 
 with Nepal, Tibet, Western China, and Afghanistan, though relatively small 
 compared with the sea-borne trade, shows steady progress, having more than 
 doubled in the last 15 years, and now aggregates 10,000,000L The total value of 
 the external trade of India by sea and land has more than quintupled during 
 the 50 years ; while the actual bulk of the trade has increased in even greater 
 proportion, because prices of most imj^orted and exported goods are lower 
 now than they were in 1856. 
 
 In all parts of the world a large and regularly expanding trade is rightly 
 regarded as a sign of national prosperity. While India's external trade has 
 gone on increasing, there has arisen within her borders a great cotton 
 spinning and weaving industry, which already competes favourably with 
 European manufactures in eastern markets, and a great jute industry of a 
 highly profitable kind ; there has grown up a great and rapidly increasing 
 
 04 
 
24 
 
 production of Indian coal and petroleum oils ; at the same time, neAv and 
 valuable agricultural staples have been naturalised in the country. Ironworks 
 and the production of metals on a large scale have hitherto been delayed 
 from various causes, but a large enterprise is now in course of inception 
 with prospects of success. 
 
 44. Manufactui'es. — In old times India was a self-contained country, 
 where every tract, more or less, made its own clothes from its own cotton, 
 produced its own iron and made its own tools, grew and consiimed its own 
 food. Yarn was spun, cloth was woven, iron was smelted, and tools were 
 made on a small scale by individual workmen after rude methods. Before 
 1858 the old order was chauging, but the change has been very much more 
 rapid since. Machine made faln-ics and tools have largely taken the place of 
 the local manufactures ; and no doubt many thousands of families have lost 
 the trade and the custom their ancestors had enjoyed for generations. But 
 this change has not been without compensating advantages. Some of the 
 Indian art industries, such as embroidery, carpet weaving, and Avork in silver 
 and gold, have experienced the beneficial demand of a growing foreign trade. 
 Agriculture, which always was, and still is, the mainstay of the population, has 
 expanded enormously. Other industries have arisen. In I85G there was hardly 
 a power loom in the country, now there are 217 cotton mills, with 59,000 looms 
 and 5,500,000 spindles, employing 212,000 hands ; there are 44 jute mills, with 
 25,000 looms and 520,000 spindles, employing about 167,000 hands ; there are 
 92 rice mills, 62 saw mills, besides flour mills, oil mills, iron foundries, woollen 
 mills, paper mills, pottery works, and the great workshops attached to rail- 
 ways and shipbuilding yards. The manufacturing industry of India is still 
 in an early stage, but the advance made during the last few years has been 
 marked, and augurs well for the future. During the last five years the looms 
 in the cotton mills have increased by 50 per cent., the spindles by 11 per 
 cent., and the mill hands by 30 per cent. In the jute industry looms, 
 spindles, and operators have increased by over 50 per cent. The production 
 of coal has increased 50 per cent., and that of petroleum 400 per cent. 
 The output of the mica mines has doubled, and that of the manganese ore 
 mines has quadrupled. If engineers and artificers of the present day in 
 India are unable to rival the beautiful structures left by dynasties that have 
 passed away, the field of employment for masons, carpenters, and artificers in 
 India is wider and larger than it ever \\i\s before ; and some of the great 
 works of railway and hydraulic engineers, works put together by Indian 
 workmen, are worthy mounments of the direct rale of the Crown in India. 
 
 45. Agriculture and Neio Staples. — The chief industry of India has always 
 been agriculture, but it was not until about the year 1870 that the Indian 
 Government directed systematic attention to fostering and improving Indian 
 agriculture. Since that time there has l^een established in every province of 
 India a department of agriculture, which collects and distributes early 
 information concerning the crops, controls or advises upon model and experi- 
 mental farms, introduces new agricultural appliances, tries new staples, and 
 has established institutions for teaching the chemistry and science of agri- 
 culture. A Central College of Agriculture at Pusa provides training for 
 advanced students. The indigenous field implements and methods have been 
 found financially the best for agriculture of the kind prosecuted by the 
 people, and it is chiefly in respect of the use of manures, of rotation of crops, 
 of fodder raising and storing, of new staples, and of such appliances as 
 improved sugar mills, that the example or teaching of the agricultural 
 departments and their agents is most required. In each province there is 
 also a veterinary department, which is charged with the improvement of 
 horses, cattle, and other agricultural stock, and which has attained con- 
 siderable success in mitigating the ravages of ]"inderpest by prophylactic 
 treatment. 
 
 Before 1857 the cultivation of tea, coffee, and jute had been begun, but 
 the progress made was small, and these articles were not reckoned among 
 the staple products or exports of India. Customs restrictions were with- 
 drawn, and the acqxiisition of waste lands for such crops was facilitated, and 
 now the tea industrv has so far extended that in the year 1907 over 536,000 
 
25 
 
 acres were under tea, about 500,000 persons were employed upon tea gardens, 
 and India exported 227 million poimds of tea, valued at 6,867,OOOL More 
 than half the tea required by the world is now supplied from India. The 
 coffee industry of Southern India was at one time very promising. Its 
 prospects have since been impaired by leaf disease, and by the competition of 
 South America ; still coffee valued at 743,00(^Z. was exported from India in 
 the year 1907. The exports of raw and manufactured jute during the same 
 year were valued at 24,200,000L, besides the great quantity of jute used for 
 bagging in India. Thus the export of these three new stajiles, tea, coffee, 
 and jute, which in the trade returns for 1858 Avere valued at half a million 
 sterling, had in 1907 reached a value of nearly 32,000,000L Since 1858 the 
 cinchona tree has been introduced from Bra-zil, and is now cultivated on the 
 hills of India. One result of the introduction of this new product is tliat 
 cinchona alkaloids, the only known specific against the fevers which scourge 
 Indian populations, are now sold in India at about one-fifth the price which 
 this valuable medicine used to command. 
 
 -46. Botanical Gardens and Museums. — The CJourt of Directors were liberal 
 in their support of botanical and other scientific investigation that contributed 
 to develop the natural prodiicts of India. The excellent botanical gardens at 
 Calcutta, Ootacamund, and Saharanpur have been maintained, and their 
 usefulness extended, while another botanical garden has been opened at 
 Bombay. A large Imperial museum at Calcutta has been biiilt, and has 
 acquired a great w^ealtli of natural history and archasological s])eciniens ; 
 other museums at Bombay, Madras, Lahore, Lucknow, Nagpore, and Rangoon 
 have been established or extended ; entrance to these museums is free, and 
 the number of visitors is very large. To the Calcutta museum has been 
 added a commercial section, representing as far as possible the products and 
 manufactures of Bengal. At the India Office in London there was a large 
 collection of Indian products and fabrics ; but not being very accessible to 
 the public the specimens of economic botany were transferred to the inuseimi 
 at Kew Gardens and the collection of Indian antiquities w^as made over to the 
 British ^luseum ; while a vastly enlarged, constantly increasing, and well 
 arranged collection of fabrics and appliances from ancient and modern India 
 is placed in a branch of the South Kensington Museum, which any one 
 interested in the conmierce or people of India can visit without charge. 
 
 Condition ok the People. 
 
 47. Divergent conditions. — The circumstances and condition of the people 
 vaiy greatly in different parts of India. The plain of the Ganges from 
 Saharanpur to Dacca bears a rural population of 80 millions at a rate of 400 
 to 800 to the square mile. The Central Provinces, Burma, Assam, Rajputana, 
 and considerable areas in the Punjab and in Bond)ay carry a rural population 
 of less than 150 to the square mile. There are provinces Avhere the rainfall 
 is always abundant, ranging from 00 to 100 inches in the year, and there are 
 vast plains where the rainfall is precarious and is often less than 10 inches a 
 year. There are tracts like Sind, Tanjore, and parts of the United Provinces, 
 where one half, or more than one half, of the cultivated area is irrigated in 
 one way or another. Again, the great sandy ])lains of the Punjab, w^herever 
 water is led from the snow-fed rivers, at once become fertile, and attract and 
 support a large population ; while in other arid tracts like the Deccan 
 uplands, Bellary, and Kurnool, Avater is rarely available, and even when 
 water can be had, as from the Tungal)liadra canal, the people do not take it 
 for their crops. The tenures and the distribution of profits from laud vary 
 greatly. In the Punjab and parts of the United Provinces, in Bombay and 
 Madras, in Burma and Assam, the profits of agricultiire go wholly or in great 
 part direct to a sturdy and in ordinary years a prosperous peasantry, who till 
 most of the land themselves ; wdiile in Behar, Western Bengal, Orissa, Oudh, 
 and part of the Agra Province, most of the profits of agriculture go to 
 landlords. In these latter provinces the pressure of population and the 
 competition for land have forced up rents, so as to leave, in some cases, only 
 a bare margin for the support of tenants with small holdings. 
 
 In any comparison between the condition of the people in India and in 
 I'jurope it has to be remembered that in India eveiy one marries, and marries 
 
 4911. U 
 
T 
 
 / 
 
 26 
 
 early ; that the popiilation teuds to increase at a rate varying from | per cent, 
 per annum in the Upper Ganges plain to 4 per cent, per annum in Burma ; 
 that there is no poor law or system of poor relief, Init there is everywhere a 
 widespread and openhanded charity, so that the infirm, the old, the sick, 
 the cripples, priests, besides many who prefer a mendicant's life, are in 
 ordinary years supported by the alms of tlieir neighbours. Further, it must 
 be borne in mind that in rural India, from the nature of the climate and by 
 immemorial custom, the poorer classes have fewer wants, and can satisfy 
 them more cheaply than in Europe. Clothes, warmth, shelter, furniture, 
 cost very little for a rural family in India ; and the bulk of the population 
 are satisfied with two meals a day of millet cakes or porridge, some pidse 
 or green vegetable, salt, and oil. In coast districts, in southern India, and 
 in Moslem families, a little salt fish or meat is added to the daily meal. 
 
 48. General. — So far as ordinary tests can be applied, the average Indian 
 landholder, trader, ryot, or handicraftsman is better off than he was fifty 
 years ago. He consumes more salt, more sugar, more tobacco, and far more 
 imported luxuries and conveniences than he did a generation back. Where 
 house to house inquiries have been made, it has been found that the average 
 villager eats more food and has a better house than his father ; that to a 
 considerable extent, brass or other metal vessels have taken the place of the 
 coarse earthenware vessels of earlier times ; and that his family possess more 
 clothes than formerly. There are exceptional districts, like North Behar, 
 where the rural population is extraordinarily dense, or parts of the Deccan, 
 where the soil is extremely poor, and the rainfall is very precarious ; in such 
 tracts the condition of the landless laljourers is still deplorably low. There are 
 other exceptional tracts, such as Lower Burma, Assam, Malabar, Canara, the 
 Himalayan districts, and a .great part of Eastern Bengal, where the population 
 is sparse or not too dense, where the soil is rich, where the rainfall is always 
 abundant, and where good markets are at hand ; in such tracts wages rule 
 high, work and food are abundant, there is a comparatively high scale of 
 living, and there is little or no real poverty. The greater part of India lies 
 between these exceptional extremes, and, on the whole, the standard of 
 comfort in an average Indian vdlager's hoiisehold is better than it Avas fiftj- 
 years ago. It is quite certain that the jiopulatiou of India absorlj and hoard 
 far nrore of the precious metals than they did formerly, for during the past 
 fifty years India's net absorption of gold and silver from outside has amounted 
 to the equivalent of 6303 millions of rupees, or an average of 126 millions a 
 year, while during the 22 years ending with 1857 the net absorption of the 
 precious metals liy India averaged onlj- 32 millions a year. 
 
 49. Condition of different classes. — The population, for the purpose of the 
 present paragrajih, may be roughly divided into - 
 
 The landowning class. 
 The trading class. 
 The professional class. 
 The tenant or ryot class. 
 The labouring class. 
 
 The landowning class includes not only the great zemindars of Bengal 
 and Oudh, who with their families and retainers live on the rent of the laud, 
 but it includes tens of millions belonging to the proprietary brotherhoods 
 of northern India, to the petty proj^rietors holding their lands directly from 
 the State in Madras, Bombay, Burma, Assam, and Berar, and to the tenure 
 holders of Eastern Bengal. All these classes are undoubtedly better off than 
 they were fifty years ago, for the profits of agriculture are larger owing to 
 the rise in prices and the expoi't demand for surplus produce. In every 
 province the mai'ket price of land has advanced ; and in many parts land 
 fetches now three to ten times the price per acre that it did fifty years ago. 
 
 The trading classes are, on the whole, better oft" by reason of the gi-eatly 
 increased commerce of the country, though the percentage of profit on 
 transactions and the interest upon money are lower than they Avere. Great 
 fortunes are less easily made in trade and monej^ lending than they were 
 fifty years back, b\it a larger lunnber of traders make a fair living by 
 commerce. 
 
27 
 
 Among the professional classes, lawyers and soldiers enjoy Letter incomes 
 than they used to do ; the salaries of Indians in the service of Government 
 average higher than they formerly did. But present times are not favourable 
 for the priestly castes, students of Moslem or Hindu lore, broken doM'n gentle- 
 folk, scions of decayed old families, and others who, from religious sejitiments 
 or caste feeling, are unable to accommodate themselves to the changing order 
 of things. 
 
 The tenant or ryot class in all provinces enjoy some share, and in some 
 provinces have obtained a considerable share, in the increased profits of 
 agriculture. In tracts where the system of petty proprietors obtains, the 
 tenants are few, and nearly as well off as the small landowners. In Eastern 
 and Central Bengal the ryots are well off. In the Central Provinces, where 
 tenant-right is exceptionally strong, the ryots are mostly in good circiim- 
 stances. But in Behar, in part of the Agra Province, and in Oudh, 
 tenant-right is weak, or has been but recently placed on a firm footing ; the 
 population is dense, holdings are small, and many of the ryots are in poor 
 circumstances. They and their families earn something in good years by 
 labour outside their holdings, and when the season is favourable they live 
 fairly well. A ryot with the tenant-right under the law can generally get 
 credit in a year of short harvest. But in a famine year many of the ryots in 
 these last-named tracts must and do break down. The first people to suffer 
 in time of scarcity, and even to starve, if State relief does not reach them, are 
 the old and helpless folk who in ordinary years live on the alms of the small 
 ryots and of labourers. 
 V The labouring classes, who have no beneficial interest in the land, are in 
 
 India a smaller section of the people than they are in England. Still out of 
 the total Indian population of 294 inillions there are a vast number of 
 labourers, and their condition is most important to the prosperity of the 
 country. The wages of skilled labour, and the amount of skilled labour 
 finding employment, have greatly increased. The standard of wages for 
 unskilled labour has also advanced, though not to the same extent. The price 
 of food has risen, and the rise during the last few years has been marked, and 
 has excited a good deal of feeling. There have been and are hard times for 
 hand weavers and such like handicraftsmen, whose employment is reduced 
 by the competition of machine made goods. The landless labourers in the 
 thickly poijulated rural tracts, remote from railways or new industries, live 
 poorly now, as they have done in generations past ; and their wages or 
 earnings are in some districts still very small. In ordinary years, when the 
 harvests are moderately good, even the landless labourers as a class get 
 enough to eat, though individuals from accident, infirmity, or idleness, may 
 suffer ; but people of this class have no savings, and cannot get credit, so 
 they suffer in seasons of scarcity when employment in the fields is scanty. 
 In parts of the Ganges valley the pressure of the population, which is entirely 
 agricidtural, is too great for the land to bear. The people of India have a 
 great dislike to leaving their homes. The census shows that nine-teaths of 
 the popidation are resident in the districts in which they were borti, and of 
 the remaining one-tenth the great majority are settled within easj' reach of 
 their native districts. Emigration beyond the seas to distant countries is a 
 negligible quantity as regards its effect on the population. There is con- 
 siderable migration from the maritime provinces to Burma, Ceylon, and the 
 Straits, for the purpose of lal)om-, but most of the emigrants return after one 
 or two years. Migration also proceeds from the inland districts to the tea 
 gardens of Assam, and to the industrial centres where the demand for labour 
 for factories and coal mining is nearly always greater than the supply. 
 There is still plenty of good land available for settlers in Burma, the Central 
 Provinces, and Assam. The south-western districts of the Punjab, until 
 lately vuitilled, Avill support a large agricultural population on the completion 
 of the canal irrigation schemes in progress, and already have sensibly 
 relieved the j^ressure of population in other parts of the province. The 
 striking success of these irrigation colonies, and the avidity with which land 
 is taken up there by incomers from a distance, show that the traditional 
 immobility of the Indian peasant can be overcome, if the prospect is 
 STifficiently assured, and the new sphere of work congenial. 
 
 50. Condition of the Poorer Classes as evidenced hy recent Famines. — 
 The severe and wide-spread droughts which periodically afflict India 
 
 4911. £ 
 
28 
 
 affect in a special degree the poorest classes, who are then exposed to the 
 double strain of a falling labour market and high prices. It is for such 
 seasons that the elaborate system of famine relief, which will elsewhere be 
 described, is reserved, and it is then that the condition of these classes comes 
 most closely under observation. If, as sometimes happens, ojie drought is 
 followed by a second after a few years, a comparison can be instituted as to 
 the degree of resisting power shown by these classes on the two occasions, 
 and an inference drawn as to Avhether their condition has improved or 
 deteriorated in the interval. In 189G and again in 1907 the United Provinces 
 experienced a severe drought. The Central Provinces were similarly affected 
 in 1896, 1899 and 1907. The reports of the local Governments on the 
 famiTie-relief operations of 1907-08 institute a valuable comparison, which 
 leads to the conclusion that of late years the condition of the poorest classes 
 in these two provinces has sensibly improved. 
 
 The report for the United Provinces after mentioning that a nine months 
 food supply for the whole province, representing a value of 28,000,000L, 
 besides 10,000,OOOZ. of non-food crops, were lost by the drought of 1907, and_ 
 that it was as intense and extensive as the drought of 1890, proceeds as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The previous famine was to a great extent a laliourci's' famine ; in tiie present year the 
 labouring population did not i-esoit in large numbers to relief vvoi-ks except in the very 
 
 severely affected districts The difference between the two years is not 
 
 entirely explainable by this or by the gi'eater sevei-ity of the earliei' famine. It points 
 to the fact, which seems beyond dispute, that the position of the labouiing classes has 
 improved in the last decade, as is clearly illustrated by the later section of this resolu- 
 tion on the sul)ject of wages of labour. As regards the cultivating classes, even in the 
 previous famine they wei'e seldom comj)elled to resort to relief works : the pressui'e of 
 the famine up(ui these classes was chiefly manifested by the greater extent to which they 
 themselves and theii' families were compelled to jierfoi'm field work foi' which they 
 would oi'dinarily have employed hired labour. Within the last ten years their position 
 has been further strengthened by the constantly increasing facilities of tnmsport and 
 the high piices obtainable for agiicultural pi'oduce. An interesting comment on this 
 point is afforded by a missionary in Gliazipur, who writes from personal experience 
 that in 1877 people were dying there of starvation with common rice selling at 
 9j sers (19 lbs.), while this year tliere were no signs of serious distress with the 
 same grain selling at 5j sers (lOf lbs.) to the rupee. The Famine Commission of 
 1880 noticed that the price of ordinai-y grain in this province in the famine of 1877-78 
 did not rise above 26 lbs. foi' the rujjce. It is not too much to say that had prices 
 been the same this year as they were 30 years ago, thei'e would have been no need 
 for I'clief over the greater part of the area jn which famine operations have recently 
 been closed." 
 
 "Although prices have been exceptionally higli for several years, the rise has been 
 accompanied by a marked increase in tlie wages of labour-, with the result that the 
 highei- price of food does not affect the ordinary labourer so long as he can obtain 
 employment. The amount of employment available has simultaneously inci-eased very 
 considerably by reason of the large expenditure by Government on public woi-ks, 
 railways and canals and the industrial and building operations of the general public. 
 The Director of Land Records and Agricultui'e has collected infoi'mation of the wages 
 paid in all rural tracts between October and December 1907, and has compared them 
 with the results of the wage census taken on the same lines in 1906. His conclusions 
 are that the commonest I'ates of wages paid in the later period were nowhere below, 
 and were in most cases above, those recorded at the wages census, iloi'eover, wages 
 below the commonest rates were paid much less often than in 1906, whereas wages 
 above the prevailing i'ates were paid on a considerably greatei' scale than in 1906, and 
 rates hitherto unknown were paid in some localities. Taking the combined I'csults of 
 these conclusions he estimates that the average wage of the pi-ovince has inci'eased in 
 the period by two or possibly three pice for each day's work. A labourer, thei'efore, 
 who in 1906 spent 1| aniias on food, could in the autumn of 1907 spend two annas on 
 food without curtailing his other expenditure ; so that he could get the same amount 
 of food as before if prices wei-e SSj per cent, above the level of prices in 1906 (itself 
 above normal)." 
 
 " In the large cities the rise has been even greater than in the rural tracts. In Agra, 
 for instance, men engaged as ordinaiy diggers earned, in 1900, 2 annas a day, and 
 women seldom received moi'e than 1 aima 3 pies. At the present time the I'ate of 
 wages for this kind of woi'k is four annas for men, and 2 annas to 2 annas 6 pies for 
 women. Alasons and stone-cutters wlio in 1900 earned 3 annas 6 pies daily now receive 
 from 5 to 7 annas. lu the same period the pay of such classes as gardeners, water- 
 carriers and sweepers has approximately doubled." 
 
 The report for the Central Provinces contains the following remarks on 
 the subject : — 
 
 " Every year since 1900 has witnessed an extension of the area occupied for cultivation, 
 and there has been no year at the close of which it could be said that the prospeiity 
 of the cultivating classes had not advanced. In no parts of the jjrovinces has progress 
 been more rapid than in the cotton tracts. Cotton thrives best with a light lainfall, 
 
29 
 
 ami yt'iirs of short rainfall have induced cultivators to devote increased attention to the 
 ci'op. Its cultivation has also been greatly stimulated by the high pi'ioes obtainable foi- 
 the fibre, and a lai'ge export demand for the seed. The value of land lias risen 
 everywhere, and the demand foi' it is extraordinarily keen in the cotton countiy. 
 . . . . The pi'ices for agricultui-al produce have genei'ally been higli since the 
 famines. In 1903-04, owing to the excellent harvests reaped in these provinces and 
 in Northern India, they I'eceded to a point s(jmewhat below those of the noi'mal period 
 preceding the first famine ; but subsequentlj- the pooi'ness of the seasons bi'ouglit 
 them back to a highei' level, from whicli tliey have shown no tendency to I'ecede, and 
 the good haivests i-eaped in these pi-ovinces dui-ing the year immediately j)receding 
 the recent scarcity must have brought lai-ge sums into the pockets of the cultivating 
 classes. Along with this improvement in their material resources, there has been a 
 distinct advance in the dii'ection of agricultural improvement. 
 " Substantial as has been the improvement in the condition of the landholder it has been 
 even moi-e remai-kable in the case of the labourer, whether he woi'ks on the farm, 
 or seeks employment in the towns. If cultivators have anything new to complain of, it 
 is the deaitli of labour, and the absoi-ption of a large pai't of theii' exti-a pi'otits in the 
 increased rates of wages that they are compelled to pay. Genei'allj- unthi'ifty, the 
 laboui'ing classes are the first to succumb when times are hai-d for all, and the famines 
 left tlieii' numbers seiiously depleted. Since then the cry has been for woi-kei's rather 
 than foi' woi-k. Agriculture itself has steadily increased its demands, but has felt 
 itself obliged to compete with the still more rapidly inci'easiug requirements of 
 commerce, and it is no exaggei-ation to say that the laboui'er has been in a position 
 
 to dictate his own terms Thei'e has been a general rise in the standard 
 
 of wages, and the I'ise is more than proportionate to the rise in prices which has 
 necessitated it. The labourer lias never been in bettei' case." 
 
 The United Provinces and the Central Provinces contain 60 million 
 people and are fairly representative of the conditions of British India as a 
 whole. 
 
 51. Famine.-— Against famine, the greatest of all tronbles that befall the 
 population of India, the country is more fitted to contend than it was fifty 
 years ago. Over many tracts of India the rainfall is occasionally short or 
 nnseasonahle and sometimes it fails altogether. Such a disaster causes loss 
 of harvests and scarcity of food deepening sometimes into famine. Happily 
 drought or famine never afflicts the whole of India at once, and jirosperous 
 provinces always have surplus food to spare for their suffering neighljours. 
 Under native rule famines were very frequent and frightful when they came. 
 There was little thought for, and no effectual means of, remedial action. 
 Famine smitten areas could not be relieved by importation of food from 
 prosperous tracts. The mortality was often terrible, and the countr}' would 
 lie desolate for years. Famines have been frequent under British rule, but 
 they are less destructive and their effect less permanent. During the past 
 fifty years there have occurred the Northern India drought of 1860, the 
 Orissa famine of 1866, the Bengal famine of 1874, the great famine of 
 Southern India in 1877 ; and in more recent times, after a nineteen years' 
 cycle of comparatively regular rainfall, the gi'eat droughts of 1896, 1899 
 and 1907. 
 
 In the earlier famines in this list, relief was insufficient and imperfectly 
 organized. No famine code had been inherited from native rule. The 
 principles on which relief shoiild proceed Avere not at first clearly understood, 
 and though the humane policy of saving life was accepted, its execution was 
 impeded by defective communications and failure of local supplies of food. 
 These impediments no longer exist. An Indian famine is now mainly a 
 problem of extemporising work for the able-bodied and i:)roviding gratuitous 
 relief for those incapable of Avork. By timely arrangements and the liberal 
 expenditure of public money, a drought, however intense, can now be 
 combatted without disturbance of ordinary public business and with a great 
 measure of success. 
 
 Every province has now its plans of relief organisation and relief works 
 thought out and sanctioned beforehand. Everywhere the urban and village 
 organisation is stronger than it was. The crop area securely protected 
 from drought by irrigation is three- fold what it was in 1857. Railways 
 have revolutionised relief. Absolute dearth of food is now unknown. 
 Private trade pours in food wherever it is required. In the drought of 
 1899-1900, Avhich extended over an area of 175,000 square miles with a 
 population of 25,000,000, the railways carried 2| million tons of grain into 
 the affected tracts. Not one-tenth of this quantity could have reached these 
 districts, or could have been distributed in time, with the means of communi- 
 cation whicli existed in 1857. Without this outside supply of food, and 
 
 E 2 
 
30 
 
 without the great orgauisation specially provided for relieving the starving 
 and the sick, the distress and excess mortality woidd have been far greater 
 than actually occurred. 
 
 As illustrating the comparative ease with which an intense drought is now 
 surmounted, another citation may be made from the report on the famine 
 relief operations of 1907-08 in the United Provinces. " There was " it is 
 stated, " no organised movement of tlie popidation from the distressed areas 
 " in search of work, no considerable emigration to or immigration from Native 
 " States, and, in fact, no noticeable wandering at all. The slight extent to 
 " which poor house relief was required, and the very small number of casual 
 " wanderers relieved by the police, afford a striking confirmation both of the 
 " effectiveness with Avhich gratuitous I'elief was administered and of the small 
 " disturbance whicli the famine caused in the ordinary conditions of the life of 
 " the people. The death rate, though higher than in an ordinary year, was 
 " far fi-om excessive considering the extent and severity of the scarcity which 
 " prevailed ; the ravages of epidemic disease and the mortality indirectly due 
 " to scarcity were minimised to an extent unprecedented in seasons of similar 
 " distress, while deaths dii-ectJy due to starvation were almost unknown." 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been done to prevent or mitigate the effects 
 of drought, there are natural limits to the completeness of preventive measures. 
 There are tracts which cannot be protected by irrigation works, and even in 
 the most favourably situated tract protection is at best partial and does not 
 extend to every field. To meet the demands of relief and of preventive 
 measures the Government of India set aside in the budget not less than 
 1,000,000L annually for " Famine Relief and Insurance." When famine or 
 scarcity comes, expenditure on relief is not restricted to this sum. The only 
 limit then recognised is the need of the distressed population. In years 
 when the annual famine grant is not required for relief, the money is spent 
 on famine preventive works in tracts especially exposed to drought ; or used, 
 instead of borrowed money, for the capital requirements of State ]-ail\vays and 
 canals. In this way permanent assets are created in non-famine years as a 
 set-off against debts incurred on relief in famine years. 
 
 Local Ski.i' Govkunment. 
 
 52. Municipalities. — Before the mutiny era, local committees had been 
 formed in the districts of some provinces, and in parts of India the town 
 panchayets (councils of five elders) still survived. But these bodies were 
 consultative only. The members were nominated by the Government, and 
 the final control of local affairs, town improvements, district roads, public 
 schools, hospitals, and port improvements was entirely in the hands of 
 Government officials. Since 1860 a comprehensive system of municipal 
 government has been created. Laws have been passed for every province of 
 India, under which urban affairs are j)laced in the hands of local bodies, 
 partly elected by and partly nominated from among the townsfolk. In the 
 municipalities as a whole about half the members are elected : the rest are 
 nominated by the Government. The tendencj' is to extend the elective 
 principle, so far as is consistent with efficient administration and the due 
 representation of the different classes of the community. The municipal 
 bodies, subject to the law and the general control of the Government, raise 
 funds or receive grants of public money for local purposes. They are 
 responsible for the sanitary improvement, the hospitals, the streets, the 
 lighting, the schools, and, in fact, for all local affairs in their towns. Except 
 in the larger towns, municipal elections are not keenly contested. 13ut a seat 
 on a municipal board is highly esteemed as an honourable and useful post, 
 though it carries no emoluments and much responsibility. 
 
 There are now in India 740 municipal towns, containing a population of 
 16 millions. In 1907-08 the revenues controlled by municipalities amomited to 
 3,910,000Z. But 40 per cent, of this sum was provided by Calcutta, Bombay, 
 Madras, and Rangoon. Many of the towns are quite small and have veiy 
 small incomes. Everywhere the sanitary work to be done transcends the 
 means of the local authorities. But in some of the larger towns a great 
 reduction has been effected in the death rate as it existed 30 or 40 years ago. 
 
31 
 
 A very considerable start has l^een made in local self-help and self-govern- 
 ment, and cons'derable local interest has been evoked in local affairs. The law 
 provides that, in case of great neglect or mismanagement, the Groverument 
 may intervene and take specific local matters ont of the hands of the 
 municipal body, but the extreme step of actual intervention is rarely taken. 
 The Government and its officers habitually afford help, advice, control, and 
 even admonition to any municipal bodies that may seek or require such aid. 
 
 53. District Boards.- -The local boards, to Avhich is conmiitted the duty of 
 self-government in rural tracts, are, as representative institutions, the 
 creation of the last 25 years. In all the larger provinces, with the exception 
 of Burma, there is a district board in each district, with or without 
 subordinate boards for sub-districts, and to these boards have been trans- 
 ferred the management and expenditure of all public funds available or 
 raised for district roads, schools, hospitals, and sanitary improvement. 
 
 In the Madras Presidency the chain of local authorities is most complete. 
 The primary authority is a " union " or parish, consisting of an important 
 village or group of villages, each controlled by a small council of residents. 
 The union has power to levy a light tax on houses, mainly for sanitary 
 purposes. Next come the sub-divisional boards, which roughly correspond 
 with the " district coxuicil " in England. They are the subordinate agents 
 of the district Board, and are entrusted with certain branches of local 
 expenditure. Finally, there is the district board, which may be regarded as 
 the "county council." 
 
 In other provinces the " union " has not yet been effectively established, 
 but in time will, no doubt, follow. The degi-ee to which the elective 
 principle has l)een introduced varies in the different provinces, but generally 
 it may be said that about half the members of the district boards are elected, 
 and the rest nominated by the Government. The aggregate income of the 
 boards in British India in 1907-08 was 3,140,000L It is mainly derived 
 from local rates levied upon agricultural lands over and above the land 
 revenue, supplemented by grants from general revenues. The expenditure 
 is chiefly for roads and bridges, hospitals, vaccination, drainage, water 
 supply, primary education, markets, and rest-houses. 
 
 The policy with regard to these boards, as in the connected case of 
 municipalities, is to make them more thoroughly representative and to 
 enlarge their self-governing j)owers, with a view to enlisting the best 
 energies of the people and familiarising them witli the administx'ation of 
 prdjlic affairs. It is contemplated to link them, by means of a suitable 
 system of representation, cm to the new and enlarged Provincial Legislative 
 Councils which recent legislation has created. 
 
 54. Po7-t Trusts. — For the management of harbour affairs at the chief 
 seaports trusts have, since 1860, been constituted by law ; and on each of these 
 port trusts sit European and Native representatives of the trading and 
 shipping interests, as well as two or three Government ofiicers. The port 
 trusts manage the docks, the harbour lights, the wharves, the pilotage, the port, 
 police, and all port affairs ; but they cannot borrow money, or impose dues, 
 or undertake great works, without the previous sanction of the Government. 
 The several port trusts have performed their duties to the satisfaction of the 
 trading communities and of the Government. The wharves and docks at 
 Calcutta and Bombay are fully up to the standard of modern requirements ; 
 ample wharves have been provided at Rangoon ; important harbour 
 improvements have been executed at Karachi, and harbour works at Madras. 
 Meanwhile, the port and harbour charges are almost everywhere nuich 
 lower than they were ; at some ports they are less than half what they were 
 when the trusts were first constituted ; and the Avorks executed from 
 borrowed money yield a net revenue which suffices to meet the interest on 
 the capital, and to pay off the capital itself within a moderate term of 
 years. 
 
 Political Relations and Native States. 
 
 50. Political Relations. — In 1857 India had political relations with Ava, 
 Afghanistan, Tibet, Siam, Turkish Arabia, and Persia, and the frontier States 
 of Nepal and Bhutan. With Nepal these relations have remained undisturbed 
 
 E 3 
 
32 
 
 and been marked with increasing cordiality. With the other States there 
 have been troubles more or less serious, such as inevitably occur in inter- 
 course with oriental states that are peculiarly liable to internal revolution or 
 <lecay, and are also exposed to the external pressure of contiguous European 
 powers. In 1864 the ill-treatment of a British envoy by the rider of Bhutan 
 brought on hostilities which led in the following year to a treaty of " peace 
 and friendship," with the result that our relations with the Durbar are now 
 entirely amicable. In 1878 the dubious attitude of the Amir of Afghanistan 
 at a time of exceptional tension between Great Britain aad Russia led to the 
 third Afghan war, the establishment of a new ruler on the Cabul throne, 
 and the conclusion of treaty engagements between him and the Tiritish 
 Indian Government. These have since been consolidated by friendly visits of 
 the late and present Amir to India, by supplementary provisions and 
 bounflary demarcations, and by diplomatic imderstandings Ijetween Kussia 
 and England. In 1885 prolonged imfriendliness and breach of treaty on tlie 
 part of the King of Ava In-ought on the third Burmese war and resulted in 
 the incorporation of his kingdom in British Burma. With Tibet, a vassal 
 of the Chinese Empire, relations, political and commercial, have been scanty 
 and unsatisfactory. In 1888 encroachments by the Tibetans in Sikkimmade 
 it necessary to expel them by force from the places they occupied ; and in 
 1890 a Convention was concluded with China, regulating the relations of the 
 British and Tibetan Governments. Persistent failure on the part of the 
 Tibetans to observe the provisions of this Convention and of the trade 
 regulations of 1893, led to the despatch of a Mission to Lhasa in 1904, and 
 to the conclusion of the Conventions of the 7th September 1904 with the 
 Tibetan Government, and of the 27th April 1906 with China. With Siam, 
 Tui-kish x\rabia, and Persia, questions of boimdaries, commercial privileges, 
 and spheres of influence have at times been provocative of controversy with 
 France, Turkey, and Russia respectively, but have been found capable of 
 adjustment. To this end the comprehensive conventions made by the British 
 Government with France and Russia in 1904 and 1907 have greatly contril^uted. 
 Generally speaking the relations of India witli its neighbours are at the end 
 of the half century in a more satisfactory condition than at the beginning. 
 They are better defined, more scrupulously respected, and more firmly based 
 on mutual good will and the perception of common advantages. 
 
 57. Native States.— The condition of the feudatory states in India has 
 greatly improved, and their relations with the British Government have been 
 placed on a firmer footing during the past fift^' years. Soon after the 
 mutiny documents were given in the Queen's name to all of the leading 
 ])rinces ruling their territories, whereby they were granted power to adopt 
 heirs and successors, on condition of loyaltj' to the British Government. 
 By these grants a grave cause of anxiety was removed from the minds of the 
 Chiefs, who in previous years had seen Hindu States lapse to the British 
 Government on the failure of direct heirs to the throne. It has also been 
 made manifest in more than one case that, when reigning Chiefs had to be 
 removed for scandalous misgovernment or for grave crimes, their countries 
 were not annexed, but new rulers of the old families Avere placed by the 
 British Government on the vacant thrones. The rendition of Mysore to 
 a native prince, after fifty years of British administration, showed that no 
 Native State would be annexed to British India so long as, in the words of 
 Ijord Canning, it was not guilty of " disloj^alty or flagrant breach of 
 engagement " to the protecting power. 
 
 Almost all the great Chiefs had adhered loyally to the British during 
 the mutiny crisis ; but after 1860 no misgivings as to the intentions of 
 Government were any longer possible. Since that time the Chiefs have 
 cordially co-operated with the British Govermueiit in placing the admini- 
 stration of the salt tax and the opium duty on an improved footing ; they 
 have, in many States, acted on the advice and example of the paramount 
 Power, by abolishing transit duties, by improving their judicial and revenue 
 administration, by maintaining order, by constructing roads, railways, and 
 irrigation works, by promoting education, by establishing hospitals, and by 
 coming to the relief of their sidjjects in the grievous droughts which have 
 Tisited India of late years. In all the more important States and in many 
 
33 I'Oil^l^ii 
 
 of the minor States the cause of good government has made great advances. 
 In not a few States in Rajputana, Central India, and Boml^ay, recent famines 
 have seriously reduced the population, crippled the revenues, and created 
 serious financial embarrassments. But this set-back of prosperity is dvie to 
 exceptional and temporary causes. AVhere famine has not interfered, the 
 Chiefs as a rule keep their expenditure within their revenues, which have 
 increased greatly within the past lifty years ; some of them have large 
 reserves either in cash or in the securities of the Indian Government ; and 
 many of them spend a large share of each year's revenue on works of 
 material improvement. These good results are due in part to the good sense 
 of the Chiefs themselves and of their ministers, but they are also greatly 
 due to the peace secured, the example set, and the advice given by the 
 British Government. 
 
 Among the G82 Native States with a total population of over seventy 
 millions, there are some, no doubt, in which the people are overtaxed, 
 in which order is not maintained, and in which the Chiefs live beyond their 
 incomes. In most States also good government and the happiness of the 
 people are still largely a question of the personal qualities of the ruler for 
 the time being. Still, in the main, the protected States of India have made 
 real and steadj^ progress in good govermnent during the last fifty years. 
 Notable proofs of their loyalty to the British Crown were given in 1887, when 
 the great Native States made spontaneous offer of their swords and treasure 
 for the defence of the north-west frontier of India ; in 1890, in the formation 
 of tlie Imperial Service troops ; and again at the two Jubilee celebrations of 
 Her late Majesty's reign, on the occasion of Her lamented death, and at the 
 Coronation Durbar of 1903. 
 
 AUMY. 
 
 58. Arnitj. — At the end of 1856 the Indian Army consisted of 40,000 
 European soldiers and 215,000 native soldiers, besides 32,000 men in contiur 
 gents paid by and serving in Native States ; at that time a lai-ge proportion of 
 the Indian artillery consisted of native gunners. The present army of India 
 consists of 75,751 British troops and a native army of 158,932 troops. The field 
 and horse artillery are now manned by Europeans. The armament of the troops 
 has been changed by successive advances from smooth-bore muskets to breech- 
 loading magazine rifles, and the horse and field artillery are armed with 12-?, 
 and 182-pounder quick-firing guns instead of 6 and 9-pounder smooth-bore 
 muzzle-loaders. Kaihvays have made the concentration of troops within India 
 or on its frontier ten times easier than it was in 1857. Transport and supply 
 services have been organised, factories established for the manufacture of 
 munitions of war, reserves of equipments and stores provided, and all 
 arrangements made for the mobilization at short notice and maintenance in 
 the field of a force of any strength that an emergency might require. 
 
 Officers and men, arms and horses, anunimition and materiel, com- 
 jnissariat and land transport, barracks and fortifications, all cost more than 
 they did before the mutiny ; while, therefore, for the year 1856 the cost of 
 the army in India was ]2,700,000L, for the year 1909-10 the estimated net 
 charge is no less than 18,424,000/. ; there is also a charge of 817,000L for 
 military works, including special defences. The re-armament and military 
 progress of other countries have compelled the Indian Government to increase 
 the efficiency and strength of its army, as well as to augment the defensive 
 works of the country ; but within the borders of India the need for 
 ti'oops is less than it was ; the peace of the oldest provinces is secured 
 by a moderate garrison — for instajice, the two Bengals with a population 
 of 80 millions have a militaiy garrison of 9,700 soldiers, of whom nearly 
 one-third ai'e for the defence of Calcutta. Among the more important 
 changes in army organisation within the past 50 years have been the 
 amalgamation of the Company's European troops with the British army, 
 the reorganisation of the native army, the formation of a unified army for the 
 whole of India in place of the three armies of the Presidencies of Bengal, 
 Bond^ay, and Madras, the reconstitution of the functions and powers of 
 the Army Department and of the (3ommander-in-Chief, and the delegation 
 of considerable powers of executive control to General Officers connnanding 
 
 M 4 
 
/ 
 
 *•*• •;''•,*";".•'.*..' • • ■ ' 
 <livisions and brigades. Before the mutiny a regular native regiment had an 
 establishment of officers based on the sj-stem olitaining in Britisli regiments, 
 with European company and troop officers and subalterns, while the irregular 
 regiments had from three to four European officers onl}^ with native troop and 
 company commanders. The reorganisation made after the mutiny followed the 
 system of the irregular regiments, and reduced the Britisli officers to six in each 
 regiment, leaving the company and troop commands to native officers. This 
 system is still in force, though the number of British officers has since been 
 largely increased. The proportion of soldiers drawn from unwarlil^e races has 
 been greatly reduced, while the proportion of Goorkha regiments and of soldiers 
 from the martial races of northern India has been increased. It is not 
 necessary to recite here all the measures taken to promote the efficiency of 
 the Indian army, but ft may be mentioned that the health of the troops has 
 been greatly improved by better barrack accommodation, by quartering a far 
 larger pi-oportion of Europeans at hill stations, and by careful sanitary 
 precautious. For many years before the mutiny the average death-rate 
 among Eiiropean troops in India was G9 per thousand, and among native 
 troops 20 per thousand ; during the four years ending 1907 the death-rate 
 has averaged 10 per thousand among Eiiropean and 7 per thousand among 
 native troops. 
 
 .The military position of India has been strengthened liy the enrolment of 
 30,200 volunteers of European Ijlood, of whom 31,400 were reported efficient 
 at the end of 1 908. The reserve of the native army numbers about 35,700 
 men, and Avill be increased gradually to 50,000. The Imperial Service troops, 
 which are maintained for the defence of the Empire by the native Princes of 
 India, number about 18,000, besides six transport corps. These troops are 
 available for Imperial service when placed l)y the Chiefs at the disposal of the 
 British Govei-nment, but otherwise belong absolutely to the States. They 
 have reached a high standard of excellence and have done service in several 
 campaigns. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 59. The Court of Directors claimed in 1858 that their government of Iiulia 
 had been " not only one of the purest in intention, but one of the most benevolent 
 " in act, ever known among mankind ; that . , . . it had been one of 
 " the most raj^idly improving governments of the world." It may fairly be 
 claimed that, during the years of government imder the Crown, i:)rogress has 
 been more rapid in India than during any previous period of the same length, 
 and that the intentions and actions of the Government have been as mucli 
 for the Ijenefit of the Indian people as in the time of the Court of Directors. 
 The polity, the progress, and the requirements of India have been investi- 
 gated by competent critics of many nations, and the general verdict has been 
 that, despite mistakes and shortcomings such as are inseparable from human 
 effort, the administration of India by the Crown has been an earnest and 
 fairly successful attempt to solve political, social, and material problems of 
 much difficulty and complexity. In conclusion, it may be permitted to recite 
 the gracious words of the Proclamation by the King-Emperor, of the 2nd 
 November 1908 to the Princes and Peoples of India : — "Half a century is 
 " but a brief span in your long annals, yet this half century that ends to-day 
 " will stand amid the the floods of your historic ages, a far-shining landmark. 
 " The proclamation of the direct supremacy of the Crown sealed the imity of 
 " Indian Government and opened a new era. The journey was arduous, and 
 " the advance may have sometimes seemed slow ; but the incorporation of 
 " many strangely diversified communities, and of some three Inmdred 
 " millions of the human race, under British guidance and control has 
 " proceeded steadfastly and without pause. We survey our labours of the 
 " past half century with clear gaze and good conscience." 
 
 India Office, 
 October 1909. 
 
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