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T TinHTY YEARS. 
 
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 DURING TRE 
 
 PAST THIRTY YEAR8 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH EU1.E IN INDIA- 
 
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 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, 
 BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, 
 
 PIlIA'TEitS TO THE QUEEN's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
 
 And to be puichaf d, either directly v.r through any Bookseller, from 
 
 EVRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, E.O., and 
 
 32, Abingdon Street, Westminster, S.W.; or 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, 6, North Bridge, Edinburgh; or 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., 104, Grafton Svreet, Dtolin. 
 
 -57l:i,] Price 4},d. 
 
 1889. 
 
INDIAN ADMINISTRATION DURING THE PAST THIRTY YEARS. 
 
 \^ 
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME OF THE RESULTS 
 
 OP 
 
 INDIAN ADMINISTRATION 
 
 DUEINO THE 
 
 PAST THIETY YEARS 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 
 
 l^vtWMXt^ to fiott) V^omt^ of parliament txt arommanD of f^tv Ms^t^t'B, 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, 
 BY EYKE AND SPOTTISWOODB, 
 Peintkes to the queen's most excellent majesty. 
 
 And to be purchased, elthet directly or through any Bookseller, from 
 
 EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, E.G.; or 
 
 32, AbiKgdon Street, Westminster, S.W. ; or 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, 6, North Bridge, Edinburgh; or 
 HODGES> FIGGIS, & Co., 104, Grafton Street, Dublin, 
 
 _ 1889. 
 [C— 5713.] Frke ^d. 551993 
 
/ 
 
 HCNRY MOP"^ '--"■PHENS 
 
 2 2-y 
 
 A3S 
 
 OEPr 
 
India Office, London, 
 
 28th February 1889. 
 
 Statistics and Commerce, 
 No. 16. 
 
 My Lord Marquis, 
 
 Your Excellency is aware that, in accordance with a provision con- 
 tained in the Act for the better Government of India, a Report on the Moral 
 and Material Progress of that country is annually prepared in this Office and 
 presented to Parliament. 
 
 2. It occurred to me last autumn that, as thirty years had passed since the 
 transfer of the Government of India from the East India Company to the 
 Crown, it might be useful to review the history of Indian administration 
 during that period, and thus to sum up and supplement the annual reports 
 which have been published up to the present time. 
 
 • 3. I accordingly gave instructions that a memorandum on the subject 
 should be drawn up. This has now been done, and as the work appears to me 
 to be one of much interest, I enclose a copy, believing that your Excellency in 
 Council will be glad to possess it. 
 
 I have, &c. 
 
 To his Excellency (Signed) CROSS. 
 
 The Most Hon. the Governor- General of India 
 in Council. 
 
 Enclosure. 
 
 Memorandum on some of the Results of Indian Administration during the 
 past Thirty Years of British Rule in India. 
 
 For some time past there has been presented to Parliament a yearly 
 statement of the progress and condition of India, province by province. 
 Thirty years have elapsed since India came under the direct control of the 
 Crown, and it is proposed to review some of the results of Indian adminis- 
 tration during that period In the year 1858, the Honourable Court of 
 Directors of the East India Company published a " Memorandum of the 
 " Improvements in the Administration of India" during the thirty years 
 ending with 1857 ; the prespnt review will be in some degree a continuation 
 of that memorandum. 
 
 2. Preliminary. — At the outset it may 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 physical characteristics. It 
 contains a number of peoples, speaking many languages, holding many 
 creeds, observing different customs, and enjoying divergent degrees of 
 civilization. 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 adminis- 
 trative, financial, and military troubles that resulted from the mutiny of the 
 Bengal Army. In 1878-80 occurred the Afghan war; in 1885-86 came 
 the third Burmese war ; and occasional expeditions had to be undertaken 
 against tribes that harassed the north-west or the north-east frontier of 
 India. But, on the whole, the past thirty years have been free from internal 
 troubles and have been less disturbed by external war than any previous 
 period of equal length during British dominion in India ; and the Govern- 
 l^ent have been able to direct their attention to the measures of progress and 
 
 / 58680. Wt. p. 217. ^2 
 
the works of improvement that have characterised the administration of India 
 under the Crown. Since the changes and revisions of jurisdiction effected soon 
 after the mutiny, the only additional territories that been added to British 
 India during the past thirty years have been a narrow strip of land at the 
 foot of the Bhutan hills ; the district' of Peshin and other small tracts near 
 Quetta, acquired in order to improve the defensibility of the north-west 
 frontier ; and the recently acquired territory of Upper Burma. 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, with a larger 
 population and revenue than belong to all the new territories put together — 
 a province which had been under British adlninistration for fifty years — was 
 restored to a Native Prince of the old ruling family. The pressure of 
 scarcity or famine was felt in 1860 over northern India, in 1866 over Orissa, 
 in 1869 and 1874 over parts of Bengal and Behar, and in 1877 over southern 
 India. The last famine was the severest and most far reaching Indian famine 
 of which authentic record exists, the successive failures of crop were as com- 
 plete, and the area affected was far greater than in the drought and floods of 
 1769, when one fourth to one third of the population of northern Bengal was 
 swept away. 
 
 Administration. 
 
 3. Constitution of the Government. — Before the year 1858 the Government 
 of India had been managed by the Court of Directors, subject to the control 
 of a Board of Commissioners. In that year the dual Government ceased, 
 and the control of Indian affairs was vested in a Secretary of State, respon- 
 sible to Parliament, and assisted by a Council of persons versed in Indian 
 affairs. In 1861 the Legislatures of India were established on a new and 
 broader footing ; but there has been little change in the constitution of the 
 Supreme Government or in that of the principal local Governments of India. 
 The Punjab has been converted into a Lieutenant Governorship, and the 
 Viceroy's Executive Council has been strengthened by the addition of an 
 ordinary member, usually designated the Finance Member, and of a member 
 " for public works purposes," who is appointed only when the special 
 urgency of affairs requires it. An important change has been made in 
 the working of the Supreme Government of India, whereby each member 
 has charge of a department or portfolio, while the Viceroy controls all 
 departments, and himself usually takes charge of the Foreign Department ; 
 in this way a great number of questions are decided by the responsible 
 member of the Government and the Viceroy, while the full Council have 
 to consider only the more important matters. Certain provinces that were 
 formerly but little controlled have been made into minor local administra- 
 tions, under the Chief Commissioners of the Central Provinces, of Burma, 
 and of Assam-; while the province of Oudh, which for 20 years had been 
 administered by a Chief Commissioner, has been placed under the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the North-west Provinces, with which territories it is closely 
 connected by position, as well as by community of language, race, and 
 interests. In order to transact the greatly increasing business of the 
 country, larger powers have been conferred upon local Governments, and 
 much public duty has been delegated to local bodies. 
 
 4. Information about India. — The basis of all good government, more 
 especially in a country subject to foreign rule, must be full and correct 
 infoi'mation 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 thirty years further knowledge 
 has been gained, which in variety, in detail, and in accessibility exceeds 
 the results of previous investigations. The work of the trigonometrical, 
 topographical, cadastral, geological, and archreological surveys had, some 
 of it, hardly begun in 1857 ; some of these surveys have now been carried 
 otev 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 the North-West Provinces 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 census of their population. 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 information on these topics may be gathered from the fact 
 that previous to 1871 the population of Bengal had been variously stated 
 in ofiicial reports at 38 to 42 millions, whereas the census of 1871 showed 
 the population of Bengal to be 67 millions ; or to take a smaller tract, 
 the population of the district of Tirhoot had been returned in 1870 at 
 1^ millions, whereas the census of 1871 showed the population of Tirhoot to 
 be close upon 4| millions. The subsequent and more careful census of 1881 
 bhowed 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 published 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 Sir William Hunter, of which two editions have already been 
 published. A regular system has been established, and is maintained, of 
 recfisterincr 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 ascertaining from week to week 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 observation& and regis- 
 trations are published either weekly or monthly ; and there is thus given 
 to the public, to traders, and to the Government early and accurate informa- 
 tion of much practical value, which was not available in any shape thirty 
 years ago. 
 
 5. Employment of Natives of India. — In pursuance of the policy announced 
 in Her Majesty's proclamation of November 1858, in accordance with Acts of 
 Parliament, and in fulfilment of the just aspirations of the educated agd 
 leading classes, much effort has been made to associate Natives of India with 
 the government of their own country. Under the India Councils Act of 
 1861, there are now either four or five Native Members on each of the five 
 Legislative Councils, which consist of 10 to 18 members each. The Native 
 Members are selected by the Government, just as European Members are 
 selected, to represent the different provinces and sections of the people whose 
 concerns come before the Council. The highest judicial tribunals in India 
 are the High Courts at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Allahabad, the Chief 
 Court at Lahore, and the Judicial Commissioners' Courts in the minor 
 provinces. In each of the High Courts there is at least one Native Judge. 
 The superior officers of the Indian Civil Administration are drawn chiefly 
 from the Civil Service, which consisted, in January 1888, of 964 persons, of 
 whom 59 were Natives of India. Thirty years ago there wore no Natives 
 on the Bench of any Supreme or Chief Court, or in the Legislative Council, 
 or in the Civil Service. 
 
 Next after the Civil Service the most important section of public servants 
 in the Civil Department is the Subordinate Civil Service, in which there 
 were last year 2,588 Subordinate Judges and Magistrates ; of these 2,553 
 Avere Natives of India, including 104 Eurasians domiciled in India, and only 
 35 were Europeans. Since 1879 a person nob a Native of India, or a member 
 of the Covenanted Civil Service or Staff Corps, cannot be appointed to any 
 judicial or revenue office, carrying a salary of lis. 200 a month, without 
 the previous sanction of, — 
 
 (a) the Secretary of State, as regards offices in Madras or Bo nbay ; 
 ip) the Government of India, in the case of other provinces. 
 
 A 3 
 
Subject to a few exceptions, this rule is strictly observed. Recently, 
 bowever, it was found necessary to employ Europeans to fill some of tbe 
 subordinate ofiBces in tbe new province of Upper Burma. In Native States 
 under British control, during tbe minority of tbe Cbiefs, Native officers bave 
 repeatedly filled tbe post of Regent and of Cbief Minister witb advantage to tbe 
 State and witb credit to themselves. Meanwhile, in all parts of the country 
 Natives are learning to discharge important duties of local self-government ; 
 for on the municipal and district boards, which manage the local affairs 
 of towns and rural tracts, the very great majority of members are Natives of 
 India. 
 
 6. Decentralization. — Tbe past thirty years bave 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 been achieved by the delegation of power and responsibility 
 subject to supervision and control, instead of requiring every matter to come 
 before tbe highest authority. Reference has already been made to the 
 partition of Departments among tbe members of tbe Supreme Government ; 
 a similar division of business has been made among the members of the 
 Madras and Bombay Governments and of Revenue Boards. Subject to 
 limitation of Budget grants and to the provisions of the law, wider financial 
 and revenue powers bave been given to Commissioners and Collectors of 
 districts. 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 suits are decided by 
 selected Judges. A large quantity of magisterial business has been entrusted 
 to Native honorary magistrates, whose judgments on the whole give popular 
 satisfaction ; while the management of local roads, streets, hospitals, schools, 
 and other improvements has been made over to local bodies consisting 
 mainly of Natives, and constituted under legislative enactments. In this 
 way tbe vastly increased work of tbe country is being done without material 
 addition to the strength or cost of the superior "Civil Service, and with more 
 satisfaction to tbe influential classes, who are gradually being admitted to a 
 larger share in the government of their own country. 
 
 Legislation. 
 
 7. Tbe Indian Legislatures, as they now consist, were established by an 
 Act of Parliament (tbe India Councils Act) passed in 1861. In every 
 one of these Legislative Councils are Native members, selected as repre- 
 sentatives of tbe races and classes interested in the business of the Council ; 
 and the working of these bodies has gradually improved during the past 25 
 years. 
 
 The Codes. — Concerning the Indian legislation of tbe last thirty years, no 
 less an authority than the late Sir Henry Maine recently wrote, " The 
 " progress of India in the simplification and intelligible statement of law 
 " has been greater than that of any western country, except perhaps the 
 " German Empire. . . . Down to a comparatively recent date, the 
 " influence of courts of justice for good in India was much diminished 
 " by tbe nature of the law which they administered, and of tbe procedure 
 " which they were compelled to follow. . . . British India is now in 
 " possession of a set of codes which approach the highest standard of excel- 
 " lence which this species of legislation has reached. ... In force, 
 " intelligibility, and in comprehensiveness tbe Indian Codes stand againSt 
 " all competition. These codes are wholly the growth of the period during 
 " which India has 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, of which no part is wanting, except a chapter on 
 " ' civil wrong,' which . . . is in active preparation. British India 
 " has . . . thus become one of tbe few countries ... in which 
 <' a man of moderate intelligence, who can read, may learn on any point 
 
" emerging in practical life which is the law which should regulate his 
 " conduct." 
 
 8. Other Laws. — 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-rigiit 
 and other rights in land, and laws relating to municipal and local sclf- 
 government, harbour trusts, paper currency, and such like subjects have 
 all been enacted or revised during the last thirty years. By such laws as 
 the Christian Marriage Act, the Mahomedan and the Parsee Marriage Act, 
 the Criminal Tribes Act, and the Act for the prevention of the murder of 
 female infants, remedies have been applied to disabilities and evils that have 
 come to light. Periodical additions to or re-enactments of the great codes 
 have been passed by the Legislature, so as to bring the law into harmony 
 with the growing needs of the community, and to prevent excessive accumu- 
 lation 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. Pro- 
 jects 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 sought from all provinces, classes, and races interested. 
 All opinions or suggestions are considered by Committees nominated by 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 
 fifteen different vernacular languages, and during the past twenty-five years 
 more than one hundred thousand copies of this Code have been printed. 
 
 9. Legislation for special tracts. — Round the frontiers of India, and in some 
 of the hilly regions of the interior, are races and tribes who in civilization 
 and civic progress 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, passed in 1870, power was given to the 
 Government of India to enact regulations for regions to which the Secretary 
 of State might make that Act applicable. A list of " Scheduled Districts " 
 brought under that Act was published in 1874, and as occasion arose other 
 tracts have been similarly treated. For instance, the whole of the new 
 province of Upper Burma has been constituted a " Scheduled District," until 
 such time as the country and the people shall be ready to come under the 
 ordinary legislature. A limited number of regulations have been passed 
 under these powers, such as the Frontier Regulation for Assam, and the 
 Frontier Crime Regulation of the Punjab, whereby crimes arising out of 
 tribal feuds and vendettas on the Peshawur border can be referred for trial 
 and sentence to a council of tribal elders. In 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 largely followed in the Upper Burma 
 regulations. 
 
 Justice and Police. 
 
 10. Native Judges and Magistrates. — The improvement that has taken place 
 in the administration of justice is partly due to the simplification and codi- 
 fication of the law. Another important factor in this improvement has been 
 the advance made by the great majority of Native Judges and lilagistrates 
 in education, in legal training, and in uprightness of character. Nine-tenths 
 of the original civil suits, and more than three-quarters of the magisterial 
 business of the country, come before Native Judges and Magistrates. Thirty 
 years ago few of these officers knew English, none of them had obtained a 
 University degree, and hardly any had enjoyed any legal training. At the 
 present time nearly all Civil Judges in the older provinces know English, 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 
 
 A 4 
 
8 
 
 average salaries paid to Native Judges and Magistrates have everywhere 
 increased ; in some provinces they are now double what they were thirty 
 years ago. With the improvement in education and in salary has come a 
 much higher standard of probity and sense of duty among Native Judges 
 and Magistrates. A generation ago public officers of this class were often 
 accused or suspected of corrupt motives. At the present time, such accusa- 
 tions against these officers are much more rare. 
 
 Not only has there been great improvement in the character and attain- 
 ments of Native stipendiary Judges and Magistrates, but a large number of 
 Native gentlemen in most provinces have evinced their fitness for employ- 
 ment as honorary magistrates. Thirty years ago an honorary Magistrate 
 here or there discharged a little judicial business ; last year there were more 
 than 2,000 honorary magistrates, who deal with a great quantity of petty 
 magisterial business in towns and rural tracts ; their decisions give satisfac- 
 tion in the main ; their procedure is fairly correct, and many of them take 
 real interest in their public duties. 
 
 11, Judicial machinery. — Thirty 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, and, in certain 
 cases, over European British subjects outside those limits. The Sudder 
 Courts had no original jurisdiction, but were the highest Indian Courts of 
 Appeal from local tribunals throughout the country beyond the limits of the 
 three Presidency towns ; and they also exercised general powers of super- 
 vision over those local tribunals. Under the present system each province 
 has one High Court, Chief Court, or Judicial Commissioner, with complete 
 jurisdiction over the province, and full control over all Courts, criminal and 
 civil. For many years all civil suits and important criminal trials have, 
 throughout the older provinces, been in the hands of special judicial officers, 
 who have no direct concern with the executive administration or the police 
 work of the country. Recently this separation of the judicial agency has 
 been extended to the Punjab and in great measure to Oudh. Burma is now 
 the only large province in which the administration of civil justice, and the 
 trial of important criminal cases, are entirely 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 execu- 
 tive business of his district, as well as for the control of all subordinate 
 Magistrates within his jurisdiction. In many parts of the country, where 
 unity of control is necessary for the maintenance of order, this arrangement 
 will probably continue for many years to come ; in other cases financial con- 
 siderations, for the present, prevent the creation of a stipendiary magistracy 
 apart from the executive staff. 
 
 12. Civil litigation. — The extension of trade, the simplification of pro- 
 cedure, 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. Approximately there were, in 1856, about 730,000 civil suits 
 instituted in the Empire, while in 1886 the number was 1,908,869. To deal 
 with this increased business the number of Native Civil Judges has been 
 increased in all provinces. There is now little room for further improvement 
 m the promptitude and regularity with which the Courts in most provinces 
 act. To prevent the ruin of non-fraudulent debtors the Legislature has 
 placed restrictions on the sale of land ia execution of decree, and has greatly 
 limited imprisonment. Special enactments have been passed for the reKef 
 and protection of encumbered landholders and indebted petty proprietors in 
 Oudh, Sindh, Guzerat, and the Deccan, with results highly beneficial to many 
 old families and multitudes of petty landowners. 
 
 13. Police. — Though the Police Department is now, as heretofore, a weak 
 point in the administration, and though from time to time cases of extortion 
 or oppression by the police come to light, still there hare been important 
 
9 
 
 improvements in the police system and practice during the past thirty 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 bringing them before a Magistrate. Act V. of 1861 provides 
 for the organisation and discipline of the police force, and under that law 
 there is now 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 directly under the magistrates who 
 tried cases brought before them by the police. In most provinces the status, 
 the wages, the education, the discipline, and the behaviour of the police have 
 materially improved under the organisation of 1861. In every province the 
 position of the indigenous village watchman has been improved, his duties 
 have been 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 respective towns. As yet it can hardly be said 
 that the sympathies of the bulk of the people are with the police ; though in 
 times of trouble, and at seasons when extreme pressure falls upon the local 
 force, respectable townspeople and villagers accept and faithfully discharge 
 the duties of special constables without pay or reward. The sanitary and 
 other municipal regulations, the Excise, Forest, and Infanticide Acts, and 
 other special laws have laid upon the police many duties 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 crimes, and 
 have given rise to new forms of robbery. Gang robbery of the old Indian 
 type has greatly abated everywhere during the past thirty years, except in 
 Burma, where the circumstances are peculiar. But against cattle theft, 
 housebreaking, and simple theft the police have not as yet been successful, 
 and these 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 journeys and 
 loss of time inseparable from a police prosecution. 
 
 14. Criminal Courts. — The number of Criminal Courts, in most of which 
 Native Magistrates preside, 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 tribunal ; and criminal justice is now administered 
 more promptly than was usual in 1856. 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 Native advocates, whose influence is felt by the Courts, and 
 from whose ranks the Native Judges are often recruited. Ever since 1861 
 the law has required that sessions trials shall be conducted with the aid of 
 either assessors or juries. A full trial of the jury system has been made for 
 some years in several districts of the older and more advanced provinces ; 
 but it is not yet certain that Indian juries in their present form work 
 successfully. In most provinces the assessors, whose opinions are not 
 binding on the Judge, give valuable aid in sessions trials. The results of 
 criminal trials and appeals are fairly satisfactory and are improving. Of 
 recent yeai-s the average length of criminal sentences has decreased, and the 
 average amount of fines has fallen, while the proportion of fines realised to 
 the total fines imposed has largely increased. 
 
 15. Jails. — The Legislature has, since 1860, passed Acts under which the 
 management of prisons is systematised and the powers of prison officers are 
 laid down. In every province central jails for long term prisoners, district 
 jails for short term prisoners, and lock-ups for persons under detention have 
 
 I i8686. B 
 
10 
 
 been establisted ; wbile Port Blair, at the Andamans islands, has been 
 constituted a penal settlement with ample staff for the safe eustody, 
 employment, and care of all convicts under sentence of transportation. 
 ^ew jails, with a proportion of solitary cells, have been built on sanitary 
 principles in every province ; and prison scales of diet have been revised. 
 Jails, 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 offenders have been established. The result of these measures ha.s 
 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 34 per mille in 
 1886 as compared with a prison death-rate of 55 per mille in 1880, and as 
 compared with 90 per mille, which was the average 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 whipping has been 
 greatly reduced ; in 1879* there were 21,933 prisoners whipped for breach of 
 jail regulations, while in the year 1886 only 3,094 were whipped. There 
 has of recent years been a decrease in the total number of prisoners confined 
 in Indian jails ; the total average number was 76,676 during the year 1886,. 
 as compared with 85,897 in the year 1869, and 121,637 in the year 1878, 
 after the great famine of southern India. These figures are exclusive of ten 
 to twelve thousand convicts under transportation at the Andamans, a 
 considerable proportion of whom are now on ticket-of-leave, and main^tairs 
 themselves by free labour at the settlement. 
 
 Laitd Revenue and Sukvets. 
 
 16. Land Bevemie. — The land revenue system and the laws regarding land 
 tenures closely concern the welfare and the interests of the mass of the 
 population of India. During the past thirty years revised settlements of 
 the land revenue demand have been made for long terms of years, on 
 moderate and equitable principles, over nearly the whole of India outside 
 the permanently 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 used 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 ef the 
 care taken in maintaining the village recerds^ and in consequence of improved 
 processes, the resettlement of a district occupies from one to three years, 
 costs Rs. 100 per square mile, and involves comparatively little harassment 
 to the people. Since 18,56 the cultivated area has more than doubled in 
 thinly peopled tracts like Burma 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 20 per cent. The 
 extension of railways and roads has provided outlets for surplus agricultural 
 produce, and has caused a general rise of prices in remote districts tbat were 
 absolutely landlocked thirty 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 eutside the permanently settled dis- 
 tricts, and other harsh, processes for the recovery of arrears of revenue, are 
 now comparatively rare, and at the same time the land revenue is paid 
 punctually. Last year the whole land revenue of the Bombay Presidency 
 was collected from 1,409,880 revenue payers without issuing more than 
 4,096 processes for tbe recovery of arrears. The total increase in the gross 
 land revenue during the past thirty years has been from Rx. 17,903,000 to 
 Rx. 23,653,000 j this increase of 32 per cent, in the land revenue has been 
 concurrent with a rise of nearly 1(X) per cent, in the value of the gross 
 
11 
 
 agi'icultural yield in consequence of the extension of cultivation, of tte rise 
 in prices of increased irrigation facilities, and of the introduction of new 
 staples. In the year 1856 the land revenue was more than one half of the 
 total public income of the country ; now it is less than one third of the total 
 revenvies, so that the basis of the public income is broader than it was, and 
 the comparative incidence of the revenue upon the land is lighter. 
 
 17. Tenant-right. — 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 
 demandable from them. In southern India, whei« most of the laud is 
 held by petty occupiers direct from the State, this custom haa been respected 
 from the beginning of British rule ; and in the temporarily settled districts 
 of northern India some degree of protection has been given to the tenants or 
 ryots. But up to 1S59 tenant-right had not been adequately safeguarded by 
 law, and for the great province of Bengal the Court of Directors reported in 
 1858 that " the rights of the Bengal ryots had passed away sub silentio, and 
 " they had become, to all intents and purposes, tenants-at-will." Since 1858 
 laws have been passed which make the petty occupiera of Madras, Bombay, 
 Burma, and Assam proprietors of their holdings, subject to the payment of a 
 moderate land revenue ; and the petty proprietors are protected against 
 future enhancements of land revenue on account of improvements effected by 
 themselves. For nearly every other province in India laws have been passed 
 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 shown, 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, where the old land tenures were not very unlike the petty pro- 
 prietorships of Bombay ; it is less important in the Punjab, where the bulk 
 of the land is occupied by proprietary brotherhoods, and the holdings of 
 rent-paying tenants are comparatively small ; and it is weak m Oudh, where 
 the position of the talukdars or superior proprietors was exceptionally strong, 
 and had been confirmed by the British Government. The position of tenants 
 or occupiers in every province is better and more secure than it was thirty 
 years ago. Even in permanently settled Bengal recent legislation has 
 greatly strengthened and iinproved the position of the ryots ; and a cadastral 
 survey in one of the most populous districts of the province showed that 
 91 per cent, of the ryots enjoyed tenant-right under the new law. Thus 
 Lord Comwallis's intention in favour of the ryots, promulgated nearly 
 100 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 
 part secured ; and this has been done without in j ustice to the Bengal 
 landlords, whose gross rental has increased four or five fold during the 
 century, and has in many tracts more than doubled during the past thirty 
 years. 
 
 18. Surveys. — Before 1858 the Grand. Trigonometrical Survey had been 
 organised, and there had been collected in India a valuable siaff of surveyors, 
 who were engaged in surveying the country for topographical and revenue 
 purposes. During the past thirty years the system of great triangles, on 
 which all the Indian surveys are based, 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 had 
 by the end of 1887 almost completed the survey of all India, including the 
 Native States, but not including the newly acquired territory of Upper 
 Burma. In former years the survey for revenue pui-poses used to map 
 village boundaries, marking cultivated lands, village sites, woods and groves ; 
 but during the past 15 years the revenue surveys have mapped every 
 field, thus making the results of their work far more valuable for agri- 
 cultural and revenue purposes. Survey detachments have also mapped large 
 portions of the Himalayas, the wild tracts on the north-western and north- 
 eastern frontier, wherever military or diplomatic expeditions have been sent, 
 and have carried exploration surveys up to the river Oxus on the north, into 
 
 B 2 
 
12 
 
 Tibet, and to the boundaries of Cbina. Within a few months after the close 
 of any field work maps of the results are published, and in the year 1886-87 
 as many as 315 different maps were published, besides several thousands of 
 cadastral village maps. For the whole of continental India the maps and 
 geographical material are now as good as the country can afford, and better 
 than are possessed by some more advanced nations. Through the operations 
 of the survey an accurate knowledge of tlie tides on the Indian coasts has 
 been acquired. 
 
 The geological survey has, 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 
 continued its work ; the Indian coasts and harbours have been surveyed, and 
 charts of soundings have been published. Four years ago a special survey 
 vessel, provided with the newest scientific appliances, was added to the 
 strength of the Indian Marine, and the work is now carried on more 
 completely than before. A small staff of skilled observers has been employed 
 for twenty years in conducting an archaeological survey of the older parts of 
 India and Burma; their 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 that have 
 passed away. 
 
 Heads op Retenfe. 
 
 19. Salt Tax. — From time immemorial a tax on salt has been a source of 
 revenue in India, and it has been held that at the present time it is the only 
 impost which falls upon an Indian of moderate means who neither holds 
 laud, nor goes to law, nor consumes liquor or opium. In 1858 the salt tax 
 was Rs. 2J a maund (about 82 lbs.) in Bengal, one rupee a maund (including 
 cost of manufacture) in Madras,, twelve annas in Bombay, and Rs. 2 a maund 
 in Northern India ; in 1859 the rates were raised to Rs. 3, Re. 1, and Rs. 2^ 
 respectively ; and in 1861 they were again raised to Rs. 3 J in Bengal, 
 Rs. 1^ in Madras, and Rs. 3 in Northern India ; in 1865 the Bombay rate 
 was raised to Rs. 1-| per maund. The rate of R.S. 3y 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 was levied by means of 
 an internal customs line 2,000 miles long, winding round the Punjab, 
 the North-West Provinces, and the Central Provinces. At this line duties 
 were levied on all salt passing eastwards, and also on all sugar passing 
 westwards. 
 
 Between the years 1870-78 arrangements were made with Native States 
 owning salt sources, whereby the Rulers, in consideration of large annual 
 payments, allowed the British Government to control and tax the manu- 
 facture 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 produc- 
 tion. The way was thus opened for the abolition of the inland customs line, 
 and for the equalisation of salt duties all over India. As a necessary btep 
 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 was 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 g rupee, was maintained. The inland customs 
 line was abolished, whereby 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 amounting to Rx. 165,000 a year ceased. The result 
 of these measures was to reduce the salt duty by about 36 per cent, on 
 150 millions of the Queen's subjects, and to raise it by about 10 per cent, 
 on 50 millions. Since the change the consumption of salt in Madras and 
 Bombay, where the duty was enhanced, has regained its old level, while 
 consumption has steadily increased over the rest of India. 
 
18 
 
 Except in parts of Bombay and Madras, salt is everywhere far cheaper 
 than it was thirty years ago. The cheapness, though in part due to the 
 reduction of duty, is mainly the result of the extension of railways. 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, sale used to be retailed at 11 lbs. per rupee, 
 when the duty was Rs. 3 a maund ; the railway was opened to Nagpore in 
 1866, and within a year the ruling price of salt at Nagpore was 19 lbs. per 
 rupee, and remained about that rate till the duty was reduced in 1878-82. 
 The effect of railways on the price of salt in Eastern Oudh and Rohilkund 
 has been quite as marked ; for those territories draw some of their salt from 
 the Rajputana salt sources, which used to be distant two months journey by 
 pack bullock, camel, and cart ; whereas now the salt comes in railway trucks 
 from the salt sources to many marts in eastern Oudh and Rohilkund. In 
 1888 the salt duty was raised from Rs. 2 to Rs. 2^ a maund, in order to 
 meet financial difficulties mainly caused by the fall in the gold price of 
 silver; the result of this enhancement on the consumption of salt is not yet 
 known ; but the obligation thus to enhance taxation on a necessary of life 
 during time of peace was much regretted. The latest figures show that in 
 188i5-87 the average consumption of duty-paid salt was, for all India, about 
 12 lbs. per head of the population; this is 50 per cent, larger than the 
 computed rate of consumption in northern India 20 years ago, Avhen the rate 
 , of duty was Rs. 3 a maund, but it is still below the rate of consumption in 
 Bombay and Madras, where the duty stood at Rs. Ih for some years. In the 
 year 1861 the net salt revenue was Rx. 3,911,000, with a duty ranging from 
 Re. 1 to Rs. 31, and averaging Rs. 2| ; in the year 1875 the net salt revenue 
 was Rx. 5,737,000, with about the same rates of duty; and in the year 
 1886-87 it was Rx. 6,171,000, with a uniform rate of Rs. 2 per maund or 
 about fths of a penny per lb., all over India. 
 
 20. Opium. — The opium revenue is raised on opium sent from India to 
 China, partly by a monopoly in eastern India and partly by an export duty 
 in western India. The chief changes in the administration of this revenuo 
 during the past thirty years have been the enhancement of the export duty 
 on Bombay opium ; conventions with Native States, whereby, for a liberal 
 payment, they unite with the Indian exchequer to safeguard the duty on 
 opium grown in Native States ; the increase of the price paid to poppy 
 cultivators for all produce delivered at the Bengal opium factories ; the 
 formation of a reserve opium stock in Calcutta, whereby the amount of 
 opium sold monthly can be steadily maintained from year to year, instead 
 of fluctuating violently from season to season according as the crop is good 
 or bad ; and some extension of the breadth sown with poppy in Bengal and 
 the North-West Provinces. The result of these arrangements has been that 
 the net opium revenue, which averaged about Rx. 4,580,000 a year in 
 1855-58, rose to Rx. 8,451,000 in 18S0-81. Since that year the opium 
 revenue has decreased by reason of the fall in the price of Indian opium in 
 China ; at the same time the charges have been increased owing to the 
 manufacture of a larger quantity of opium ; and tho net opium revenue 
 averages Rx. 6,000,000 for the years 1884-88. The Indian supply is only 
 a part of the opium consumed in China ; but it has always been esteemed to 
 be better and purer than the Chinese drug. Of late years the quantity 
 of opium produced in China has increased greatly, and the quality of the 
 drug has improved ; at the same time the Chinese have, imder the Chefoo 
 Convention, materially increased the import duties on Indian opium, while 
 they have engaged to abolish the inland duties formerly levied thereon. 
 
 21. Custmns.— In 1858 the Court of Directors wrote that " the duty levied 
 " on British goods imported into India was 5 per cent, ad valorem. There 
 " was a distinctive duty on many articles imported from foreign countries, 
 " and there was a general duty of 3 per cent, (from which, however, cotton 
 
 " was exempt) on the produce and manufactures of India In 
 
 " southern India the land tariS" was the same as that on imports by sea." 
 In 1860 the import duties were enhanced to meet in part the financial 
 difficulties consequent on the sepoy mutiny. Since that time gradual 
 
 B 3 
 
14 
 
 reductions of duties were made, until in the year 1882 all customs duties 
 whatever were abolished except on importations of salt, opium, wine, beer, 
 spirits, and arms, and export duties were retained only on opium and rice. 
 Recently an import duty has been imposed on petroleum. The salt and 
 liquor duties, which are the necessary complement of excise duties, do not 
 hamper the general trade of the country ; the duty on aims and ammunition 
 is levied as a matter of police precaution ; and the trade of India is now, on 
 the whole, more free from customs burdens than the trade of any great 
 country in the world. 
 
 22. Excise. — Before 1858 the excise revenue on spirits, liquors, and drugs 
 was raised all over India under the contract system, whereby a liquor dealer 
 paid an annual sum for the monopoly of the liquor trade within a defined 
 area, and was then permitted to make and to sell as much liquor as he could 
 within that area. During the past thirty years this system has been changed, 
 and in most cities, towns, and populous tracts all spirits passed into con- 
 sumption pay a still-head duty, or an import duty per gallon according to 
 strength ; only a limited number of shops are licensed, and illicit stills are 
 put down as far as possible. In sparsely peopled tracts, where administrative 
 supervision is difficult, contract stills are licensed, but the great bulk of the 
 revenue is raised under the still-head duty system. Under the present 
 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 revenue has risen from Rx. 1,152,(X)0 in 1860 to Rx. 4,439,000 in 
 1 887. The consumption of liquor and the excise revenue per head of the 
 population are considerable in some of the great cities and towns, 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 are able to spend more on liquor than they 
 did thirty years ago, but they pay much more for, and contribute a higher 
 revenue per gallon on, what they consume than they did under the old 
 system. 
 
 23. Income Tax. — Thirty 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 the late Mr. James Wilson intro- 
 duced a tax on trading and professional incomes, and incomes derived from 
 investments. Since that time, with short intervals, during which the impost 
 was forgone, an income tax in one shape or another has formed part of the 
 fiscal system of India. Difficulty has been found in ascertaining approxi- 
 mately the incomes of Native traders, and there have been complaints on the 
 one hand that incomes are often over-estimated, and on the other hand that 
 the majority of Native traders evade just assessment of their incomes, but 
 these difficulties are being gradually overcome. Under the present law no 
 incomes below Rs. 500 a year are taxed, and incomes from land or agricul- 
 ture, being otherwise taxed, are exempt ; incomes between Rs. 500 and 
 Rs. 2,000 a year pay 2 per cent., and incomes of Rs. 2,000 a year 
 and upwards pay five pie in the rupee, equal to 2'6 per cent., or 6^ pence 
 in the pound sterling. The total number of income tax payers in 1886-87 
 was 910,000 persons, of whom 102,000 were receiving fixed salaries, and the 
 total yield, of the tax was Rx. 1,305,000. 
 
 24. Stamp Duties. — Stamp duties before 1858 were levied mainly on litiga- 
 tion and on legal documents, and they yielded in the year 1859 a revenue of 
 Rx. 683,000. In the year 1860 the stamp law was revised, and placed more 
 nearly on the system followed in England. Duties were imposed on trading 
 and commercial 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 Rx. 3,640,000, of which 
 seven-tenths are levied from litigants in courts of justice and three-tenths 
 on trading and other documents. The stamp duties, apparently, do not press 
 more heavily on litigation than they did thirty years ago ; but complaint has 
 
15 
 
 heen made concerning these duties, and it is proposed to revise them when 
 the financial position permits, and other more pressing needs have been 
 relieved. 
 
 Forests, 
 
 25. Forest Conservancy. — In 1858 a beginning had been made in the direc- 
 tion of preserving the State forests and securing a forest revenue in parts 
 of Burma and Madras. There were great areas of forest, copse, and waste 
 belono-ing to the State in every province of India, but little attempt had been 
 raade'^either to prevent wasteful destruction of forests, to promote reproduc- 
 tion, or to secure supplies of timber, firewood, or other forest products for 
 the 'use of future generations. Since 1858 the forest system begun_ by 
 Sir D. Brandis in Pegu and Tenasserim has been extended to every province 
 of India; forest laws have been enacted for every province; a staff of 
 trained forest officers has been organised ; 68,000 square miles of State 
 forests have been marked ofi* as forest reserves, which are to be husbanded 
 and managed as public properties for the benefit of the country and of neigh- 
 boiiring populations. Fire is being excluded from these forests ; systematic 
 working for timber for firewood, and for other purposes is being 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 moderate forest revenue has been 
 fostered, and in 1886-87 the total forest revenue of British India was 
 Ex. 1,104,000, and the net forest revenue was Kx. 383,000, after paying 
 all charges for forest conservancy and working. The advantages, present 
 and prospective, of scientific forest management are ko clear that some of the 
 larger Native States, notably Mysore and Travancore, have organised and 
 are maintaining a forest administration of their own on the system adopted 
 in British India, and arc raising a considerable forest revenue. Some of the 
 smaller States have leased their more valuable forests to the British Forest 
 Department, to be worked on scientific principles. 
 
 Post Office and Telegraphs. 
 
 26. Post Office.— Before 1858 a postal system on the English model, with 
 a uniform low stamp for all distances, had been introduced into India, and 
 since that year the postal system has been greatly extended and improved. 
 In 1856 there were 36,000 miles of postal route, now there are 66,960 miles ; 
 in 1856 there were 750 post offices and boxes, now there are 16,960 ; then 
 33 millions of letters, packets, and newspapers passed yearly through the 
 post office, in 1887-88 the total was 274 millions. At the same time the 
 post office has undertaken a vast amount of new work 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 safely for a half-anna {^cl.) stamp, and a 
 post card for a quarter-anna (Id.) stamp, over a distance of 3,000 miles from 
 Quetta in Biluchistan to Bhamo on 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 excess of postal charges 
 over receipts was Rx. 132,516 in the year 1887-88 ; but the post office now 
 pays its way more nearly than it did thirty years ago. 
 
 Among miscellaneous work performed by the post office the management 
 of the savings bank business is becoming an important item. In 1858 the 
 Grovernment had opened no savings banks for the public, in the year 1887-88 
 there were 5,966 savings banks, with 261,157 depositors, of whom nine-tenths 
 were Natives of India, and the balance of deposits at the end of the year 
 was Rx. 5,048,836. 
 
 27. Telegraphs. — In 1857 there were 3,000 miles of single telegraph wire 
 in India, and a few score of telegraph offices. There was in 1887 a total 
 length of 30,034 miles of line, with 86,890 miles of wire ; there were 2,389 
 telegraph offices, and 2^ million messages passed over the wires, exclusive 
 
 B 4 
 
16 
 
 of railway messages about traffic and departmental matters. The fee for a 
 short message, irrespective of distancs. which may reach 3,000 miles, is eight 
 annas (equal to 8d. in English money), or about one-fourth of the rates 
 charged in 1856. The telegraph receipts of 1886-87 yielded a surplus, after 
 meeting all current charges for maintenance and working (exclusive of 
 charges for new construction), equal to 4j per cent, on the capital outlay 
 of Ex. 4,000,000. 
 
 Hospitals and Sanitation. 
 
 28. Hospitals. — From the early days of British rule 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 
 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 1886 there were in British India 1,411 institutions of 
 this kind, at which 243,000 in-patients and 10,066,000 out-patients- were 
 treated. The number of Native practitioners who have been trained in 
 Western surgery and medicine is now more than ten 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 that year 4,027,000 persons 
 were successfully vaccinated. The number of vaccinations has increased 
 steadily in all provinces', until in the year 1886 the returns show 4,950,893 
 successful vaccinations. In some cities and districts the number 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 small-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 ascertain the facts regarding death and disease over the country. 
 During the past thirty years 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 now fairly correct ; 
 and a valuable body of information is being collected concerning the mortality 
 and diseases of the population in different tracts. Sanitary reform is being 
 attempted in all cities and towns that have any kind of municipal organisa- 
 tion ; and even in villages the observance of simple sanitary rules has been 
 inculcated. In a considerable proportion of municipal towns some real 
 sanitary improvement has been effected ; but in most towns, and even in the 
 city of Calcutta itself, it can hardly be doubted that insanitary conditions 
 siill cause much preventible disease and death. A regular supply of pure 
 water has been provided for 23 cities and towns, while important improve- 
 ments have been made in the water-supply of many more places. In rural 
 tracts little sanitary reform has been actually carried out ; and it cannot be 
 said that any serious reduction has been yet effected in the recurrence of 
 cholera or in the prevalence of fever ; while in some tracts fevers are believed 
 to have become more endemic in consequence of the raising of subsoil waters 
 by irrigation canals without adequate provision for drainage. Sanitary 
 Commissioners or Boards advise upon and control sanitary affairs in every 
 province. The executive management of hospitals and sanitary matters 
 is for the most part under the direction of local bodies, consisting mainly of 
 Natives ; and it may be hoped that gradually local opinion and the popular 
 sense may be in favour of sanitary improvement. As yet the people of India 
 do not appear to appreciate any practical sanitary effort except the provision 
 of a pure water-supply. 
 
 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 Grovernment 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 Commission was a renewed enforcement and a 
 farther extension of the educational principles and policy prescribed in 18541 
 
17 
 
 Threo tlniversities had been established in 1857, and a few undergraduates 
 had been attracted ; Education Departments had been formed in the larger 
 provinces ; and a system of giving grants in aid to schools had been begun. 
 The educational statistics of 1858 are not complete, but apparently there 
 were then about 13 colleges, while the schools of all grades known to the 
 Educational Department contained about 400,000 scholars. The earliest 
 year for 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 undergraduate students; in 
 1886 there were 110 colleges and college departments, with 10,538 under- 
 graduates on the rolls. In 1865 the returns showed 19,201 schools of all 
 grades with 619,260 scholars, whilo in 1886 there were 122,257 schools with 
 3,314,542 scholars. The total educational expenditure was about Rx. 394,000 
 in 1858, and was Rx. 671,000 in 1865; while in 1887, the total expenditure 
 was Rx. 2,550,000, of which Rx. 663,000 came from school fees, Rx, 530,000 
 froin private subscriptions 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 stafi' of inspecting officers visit and examine all 
 schools on the departmental lists. The proportion of children passing the 
 several standards has continued to increase ; and the numbers reaching and 
 attending secondary schools have steadily advanced till, in 1886, there were 
 404,000 boys and 25,000 girls on the rolls of such schools. Medical colleges 
 and schools furnish yearly a limited number of graduates and a larger 
 number of certificated practitioners, who do duty at hospitals and dispen- 
 saries, or serve in the Army Medical Department, and many of whom in the 
 older provinces find useful and lucrative careers in private practice. A 
 valuable association founded by the Marchioness of Dufierin, and strongly 
 supported by Indians of all classes, is now employing women doctors for work 
 in women's hospitals and in Indian homes, and is imparting some knowledge 
 of medicine, surgery, and nursing to Indian women. Engineering and other 
 technical schools and classes have increased, while a large number of 
 apprentices receive technical teaching of the best kind at the workshops 
 attached to the railway lines. Art schools have been established at a few 
 centres, but the number of art 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 schools ; but the law is a popular profession with the educated 
 classes in India ; and there can be no question but that the present genera- 
 tion of trained Native lawyers have done much to improve the administration 
 of justice in India. Much of the educational progress of the past thirty 
 years has been due to the efibrts of private persons, missionaries, and others, 
 who from motives of charity and public spirit conduct or endow schools, 
 which earn grants in aid from the public funds ; without these private 
 agencies, the progress, more especially in secondary schools, could not 
 have been nearly so great. The administration of educational funds and 
 the control of schools, subject to supervision by Inspectors, are now mostly 
 in the hands of local public bodies, the members of which are elected by or 
 nominated from among the taxpayers. 
 
 It has often been remarked that one result of the secondary school and 
 the university system in India is that it produces a larger number of 
 graduates in " Arts " than can be absorbed into the public service or the 
 learned professions as they now exist ; and that the culture of these men is 
 not such as to make them successful in commerce, in arts, in engineering, 
 or in agriculture, and that there is a tendency for such men to form a 
 discontented, unproductive class. The Indian educational departments are 
 gradually applying a remedy by promoting the study of science and by 
 extending technical and art education. 
 
 31. Literature and Newspapers. — One result of the spread of education has 
 been a great increg,se in the number of books, magazines, and newspapers 
 published in India. Thirty years ago there were a few vernacular news- 
 papers, with & small circulation, mostly at or near the Presidency towns. In 
 1886-87 as many as 315 vernacular newspapers were published regularly in 
 
 i S8686. C 
 
18 
 
 1 2 different languages, with a circulation that in the case of one Bengali 
 weekly paper reaches 20,000. 
 
 In the year 1858 hardly any vernacular books were published save a few 
 educational or religious works and occasional reprints of old dramas, stories, 
 and poems. In 1886 the register of publications for British India showed 
 8,877 books and magazines published within the year, of these more than, 
 nine tenths were in vernacular languages. They comprised original works 
 of poetry and fiction, histories, scientific treatises, religious and educational 
 works, magazines, and reviews, besides translations of standard English 
 books. 
 
 Finance. 
 
 32. Finance. — The thirty 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 Rx. 42,100,000 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 take the years before 
 and after the financial disturbance caused by the mutiny. In the year 
 1856-57 the total revenue of India was Rx. 33,378,000, and the year closed 
 with a deficit of Rx. 474,000. During the 20 years previous to the mutiny 
 there had been 14 years of deficit and six years of surplus, yielding a net 
 deficit of Rx. 18,626,000, and an addition of Rx. 16,737,000 to the debt. 
 During the 25 years from 1862-63 to 1886-87 there were 14 years of surplus 
 and 11 years of deficit, yielding a total surplus of Rx. 6,169,000. For the 
 purpose of this reckoning the sum of Rx. 7,829,000, set aside between the 
 years 1881-82 and 1886-87 to meet future liabilities on account of famine 
 relief, has been treated as surplus. The debt of India on the 31st March 
 1887 was Rx. 92,654,000 and £84,228,000, or about 177 millions in all. But 
 against this should be set 78 millions of capital spent on railways, 25 millions 
 on irrigation works, and 7 millions on loans to Native States or local bodies ; 
 this outlay yields upon the whole a net return of about 5 per cent. The 
 public debt of India, apart from capital thus invested, is therefore 67 millions, 
 as against 51 millions before, and 93 millions after, the mutiny period. The 
 reduction of the real burden of the debt has been achieved by spending in 
 prosperous years large sums on reproductive works, and by investing the 
 sums set aside against future famines either in the public stocks or in repro- 
 ductive works. At 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 boi'row money in England for India under 5 per cent. In 1888 the Indian 
 debt bears interest at rates ranging from 3 to 4^ per cent. ; the conversion 
 of 53,261,820/. India 4 per cent, stock into a corresponding amount bearing 
 only 3 1 per cent., having been very recently effected ; and during the present 
 year money has been raised to pay off" Indian loans or to pay for railways at 
 the rate of 3yV per cent, in England, and of 4 per cent, in India. 
 
 33. Income and Expenditure. — The total revenue of India in 1886-87 was 
 Rx. 62,859,000, exclusive of railvvay earnings and municipal funds. This is 
 nearly double the revenue of the period before the mutiny ; yet the increase 
 is almost entirely due to the growth of revenue under old heads. The only 
 new revenues are the income tax, the provincial rates, and the forest receipts ; 
 they yield in all about Rx. 5,500,000, which sum is not much greater than 
 the yield of the customs, salt, and inland duties abolished at different times 
 during the last twenty-five years. New local cesses and other imposts for 
 local, municipal, and port improvements have been imposed since the mutiny ; 
 but they are expended entirely by local bodies on local objects, such as roads, 
 harbours, schools, hospitals, and town improvements. 
 
 The current expenditure of the year 1886-87, apart from capital outlay on 
 railways, and from local or municipal funds, was Rx. 61,492,000, which shows 
 a very large increase over the expenditure of Rx. 33,852,000 in the year 
 1856-57. This increase is due partly to the fact that revenues and charges 
 are now shown " gross," whereas in former years some heads were shown 
 " net," partly to enhanced outlay on public works of all kinds, partly to the 
 increased Army charges, and partly to the silver difficulty described in the 
 
19 
 
 next following paragraph ; but it is mainly due to the growing requirements 
 of a civilised and improving administration. The interest payable for capital 
 spent on reproductive works is larger ; the pension list has increased ; the 
 land revenue administration is more elaborate ; there are many more courts 
 of justice and more police ; the outlay ou post offices and telegraphs has 
 grown ; the expenditure on education, on hospitals on forest administration 
 is many fold larger than it was in 1856 ; the standard of wages has risen ; 
 the average salaries paid to educated Native officers of all ranks have more 
 than doubled, 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 Europe. In order that the administration of 
 India should be improved in accordance with the growing requirements of 
 the present time, very much of this increased expenditure was absolutely 
 unavoidable. Special commissions or inquiries are frequently instituted to 
 check and reduce expenditure, and in this way economies are effected or 
 increase is checked. The guardians of the Indian exchequer are constantly 
 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 countries of Europe, and the increase has been more rapid 
 in India, where such a government is of comparatively recent growth. The 
 financial difficulties caused by the fall in the gold value of silver, and by the 
 enhanced cost of the Army, have compelled the Government, both in India 
 and in England, to take very stringent steps for restricting expenditure and 
 preventing further increase. 
 
 34. Currency difficulty. — During the last fifteen years the task of adminis- 
 tering the finances of India has become much more difficult by 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 account of 
 India has had to be incurred in England. Three generations ago India paid 
 what might have been called tribute, just as the Dutch East Indies do at the 
 present time. But the days of such tributes from British India have long 
 passed away ; and the English expenditure of the Indian Government is on 
 account of interest on so . much of the public debt as was borrowed in 
 England ; on account of interest on guaranteed railway capital, nearly all of 
 which was payable in gold; on account of stores, arms, and material for 
 railways, troops, and public Departments ; on account of the depots and 
 despatch of British troops for India ; and on account of pensions to retired 
 public servants and soldiers. About 15 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. 
 
 Eor 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 Rx. 15,000,000 (or fifteen millions of ten rupees) would suffice to 
 cover India's yearly liability of 15 million sterling in England. But since 
 1871 silver has been practically demonetized in Europe ; India and China 
 are now the only great countries that freely coin or absorb silver ; and the 
 relative value of silver, as compared with gold, has gone steadily down. 
 During the present year the sterling value of the rupee has been as low as 
 Is. Ad., as against 2 shillings, the usual value of former times. At thi« 
 reduced rate it would cost India Ex. 22,500,000 (or twenty-two and a half 
 millions of ten rupees) to meet her liabilities of 15 millions sterling in 
 England. Thus the Indian exchequer may have to provide for the service of 
 the year, on account of charges in England, Rs. 7,500,000 more than it would 
 have had to provide under the exchange rates of former times; and the 
 charge thus arising fluctuates, from year to year, or from month to month, in 
 accordance with the silver market, to an extent that the Indian financial 
 authorities are wholly unable to foresee. By borrowing for railway extensions 
 pr other purposes in India instead of in England, future aggravation of the 
 silver difficulty is to some extent avoided. During the present year a strong 
 Royal Commission have been considering the currency difficulty, which was 
 alleged to have injuriously affected trade. The great charges caused to the 
 Indian Treasury by the fall in the gold value of silver account in great 
 
 U 2 
 
20 
 
 measure for the present difl&culties of Indian finance ; they form the principal 
 reason why deficits have sometimes occurred in recent years, why the income 
 tax has been revived and salt duties have been enhanced, why the rice 
 duty has not been taken off", why outlay on public improvements has been 
 restricted, and why some authorities advise the reimposition of customs duties 
 on importations in India. 
 
 35. Financial system. — 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 Governor-General in 
 Council ; and detailed projects for even small and urgent works 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 expenditure could be checked and 
 brought to account. By Act of Parliament in 1858 the entire control of the 
 revenues both in India and elsewhere is vested in the Secretary of State in 
 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, with sanctioned grants for each sub-head in every province and 
 district. Under his system Budget Estimates for the Empire are compiled 
 from the sanctioned Estimates for each province and department ; and the 
 final Estimates are made public before the beginning of the year, together 
 with the accounts and revised Estimates of the two preceding years. When 
 the Budget Estimates of any year involve legislation for the reduction or 
 increase of taxation, the Estimates are laid before the Legislative Council, 
 whose sanction is sought to the projects of law brought forward. Every 
 department and oflBcial is rigorously bound to keep expenditure within the 
 sanctioned grant, or to report at once for orders if unforeseen circumstances, 
 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 Government 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 
 Rx. 3,C00 a year can be created, no serious -departure from the sanctioned 
 Budget Estimates is permitted, and no large scheme involving fresh 
 expenditure can be launched. Mr. Wilson's system, with certain modifica- 
 tions of detail is still in force. From the time when he made his Budget 
 speech in February 1860, the Indian Budgets or projects of law relating to 
 financial measures of the year have been discussed on 18 occasions in the 
 Legislative Council, and have on 11 occasions been published without such 
 discussion. 
 
 36 Provincial Finance. — As the business of the administration increased, it 
 was found increasingly 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 wider 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 these services or 
 Departments, and left them full discretion to spend those grants to the best 
 advantage, subject to Budget rules and to the reservation of the powers of the 
 Secretary of State. At the same time a more complete control was delegated 
 to Local Governments over expenditure from all funds raised for local 
 purposes. It was found that this partial provincialisation of the finances 
 saved much correspondence and friction, conduced to efficient administration, 
 and led the Local Governments to introduce important economies and 
 improvements that might otherwise have been indefinitely postponed. 
 
21 
 
 , In 1877, and again in 1882, the provincial system was carried much 
 further ; the remaining heads of civil expenditure, as well as the irrigation 
 canals and some of the State railways, were placed under the financial control 
 of the Local Governments. At the same time, the intei'est of the provincial 
 authorities were still further increased in the development of the revenue by 
 the delegation to them of the management 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 expenditure. As the provincial finance system 
 now stands, the Supreme Government keeps under its own control the 
 opium, 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 certain trunk railways. 
 The administrative control of other heads of revenue and expenditure devolves 
 on the Local Governments. In round numbers and exclusive of railways, the 
 Supreme Government keeps the control over Rx. 22,000,000 of revenue and 
 Rx. 44,000,000 of expenditure, including payments in England, while to the 
 Local Governments is delegated the control of Rx. 42,000,000 of revenue and 
 Rx. 20,000,000 of expenditure. 
 
 Neither the Secretary of State in Council nor the Government of India is 
 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 Currency and Mint. — The three Presidency banks had a note 
 circulation, which reached Rx. 3,317,000 in the year 1860, and which was 
 hardly current outside the cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Ma,clras. In the 
 year 1862 the private note circulation ceased, and the Government introduced 
 a paper currency on the basis of completed convertibility into silver. There 
 are now eight cii'cles of issue, each of which gives in exchange for money 
 notes ranging from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10,000 in value. 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, which began with Rx. 3,690,000, 
 amounted in March 1888 to Rx. 16,424,000; for some years previous it 
 had kept at about 14 millions without showing permanent tendency to 
 advance. The service performed by the note circulation is more considerable 
 than the foregoing figures might imply ; for the returns of the past year 
 show that from April 1887 to March 1888 Rx. 83|- millions worth of notes 
 were issued by the currency department for cash, while Rx. 80^ millions 
 worth were cashed at currency offices and agencies. The Currency Act 
 allows a part of the silver received for notes to be invested up to a maximum 
 of Rx. 6,000,000. The full amount has been invested in Government 
 securities for some years past ; and the interest yielded by this investment 
 amounts to Rx. 250,000 a year, while the expenditure of the Currency 
 Department amounts to Rx. 37,000 a year. 
 
 Before the year 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 being introduced from year to 
 year. The total value of the silver and copper coined in British India from 
 1859 to 1887 inclusive has been Rx. 188,098,000 ; the heaviest coinage in 
 any one year was Rx. 16,329,000 during 1877-78, the year of the great 
 famine, when large quantities of silver were sent to the mints either by 
 importers or from hoards and jewellery in the distressed districts. 
 
 Public "Works. 
 
 38. In the time of the East India Company certain great roads were 
 constructed, the Ganges canal was dug, the Jumna canals were reopened, 
 
 C 3 
 
22t 
 
 and improvements were made in some of the old vorks on the Madras coast, 
 but the progress effected with works of material improvement in India has 
 been far greater during the 30 years of Her Majesty's rule than during the 
 preceding century. 
 
 Railways. — In 1857 the Indian Government had opened 300 miles of 
 railway, which carried during the year 2 million passengers and 253,001) tons 
 of goods. In the year 1887 there were 14,(X)0 miles of open railway, which 
 carried during the year 95^ million passengers and over 20 million tons of 
 goods ; while 2,500 miles of railway were under construction. The rates 
 charged for passengers on these railways are as low as one farthing per mile 
 for passengers, and one halfpenny per ton per mile for goods. The gross 
 earnings of the Indian railways last year amounted to Ex. 18,459,000 ; and 
 it has been estimated that the producers, traders, and passengers of India 
 benefit to an amount corresponding to Rx. 60,000,000 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 20 miles a day and a rate of 400 miles 
 a day. 
 
 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 would 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 any 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, or are being made, on all the main routes in 
 British or Native territory ; the system of military railways on the North- 
 West Frontier is nearly complete, and several lines which do not pay 
 commercially have been constructed for the protection of tracts specially 
 liable to visitation by famine. Cross lines and branch lines have still to be 
 made, and during the two years 1886 and 1887 new lines or extensions, 
 aggregating 2,228 miles, were opened. In the North-West Provinces and 
 Oudh, the richest and most densely peopled tract in India except Lower 
 Bengal, railway extension has progressed so far that it has been stated that 
 " no village, except in the Himalayas and hill tracts south of Mirzapore, 
 " will be more than 40 miles from a railway station " by Jime 1889, when 
 the Indian Midland Railway, now under construction, will be completed. 
 
 The capital cost of all Indian railways open to traffic to the end of 1887 
 was Rx. 182,879,000 ; and during that year the net earnings amounted to 
 5*12 per cent, on this capital, which excludes outlay on lines as yet unfinished. 
 By reason however of the rights of the guaranteed railways to one-half the 
 surplus earnings above 5 per cent., and by reason of the liability to pay 
 guaranteed railway interest in gold, the working and interest account of 
 Indian railways for the year 1886-87 showed a loss to the Indian exchequer 
 of Rx, 1,188,668. 
 
 39. Canals. — After railways the most important public works of the past 
 thirty years have been the canals and other irrigation works, whereby water 
 is carried to the fields in parts of the country where the climate or character 
 of the agriculture requires it ; embankments, whereby flood waters are kept 
 from devastating the fields ; and navigation canals. In their Report of 1858 
 the Court of Directors adverted to, — 
 
 The Cauvery and Godavery irrigation works then partly open. 
 
 The old Jumna canals, which had been reconstructed and reopened. 
 
 The Sind 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. 
 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 about 
 Rx. 26,000,000 of capital, besides large sums from yearly revenue, have 
 been spent on irrigation works. All the canal systems mentioned above 
 have been finished dr greatly extended ; and there has also been large 
 
23 
 
 expenditure on the following works, all of which, except the last, are in 
 full operation : — 
 
 The Sirhind canal, drawn from the Sutlej. 
 
 The Sone canal. 
 
 The Orissa canals and embankments. 
 
 The Lower Ganges canal. 
 
 The Agra canal. 
 
 The Toongabhadra canal. 
 
 The Punjab inundation canals. 
 
 Minor irrigation works in Bombay. 
 
 The Irrawaddy and Sittang embankments. 
 
 The Damoodur and Hooghly embankments. 
 
 The Midnapore canals. 
 
 The Central Bengal canals and river improvements. 
 
 The Buckingham canal. 
 
 The Pegu canal. 
 
 The Betwa canal. 
 
 For some of these works, which have been constructed from revenue, 
 separate capital accounts are not kept, and the direct return yielded by the 
 different works varies greatly. For instance, on the Sind canals 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 irrigation. In Madras the 
 Cauvery, Godavery, and Kistna irrigation works yield a direct return of 
 irrigation revenue exceeding 15 per cent, on their capital cost. The canals 
 in the North-West Provinces and the Punjab pay about 4 per cent, on their 
 capital cost all round. The Central Bengal canals yield a large revenue from 
 navigation tolls. The Orissa, the Sone, and the Toongabhadra canals yield 
 little or no net revenue, but in years of drought they would safeguard great 
 areas of crop and secure a large supply of food. Even in provinces where 
 canal irrigation is popular and long established, there are great variations in 
 the extent to which water is utilised ; for instance, in 1883, a year of short 
 rainfall, but not of famine, 2,297,000 acres took water from the canals of the 
 North-West Provinces, and the net canal revenue came to 6"9 per cent, on 
 the capital cost; whereas in 1886-87, when the rainfall was full and season- 
 able, only 1,363,000 acres took water from these canals, and the net canal 
 revenue gave a dividend of only 4*7 per cent, on the capital. 
 
 For the year 1886-87 the total area that took water from all public 
 irrigation works in India was 10,951,000 acres. For the same year, the net 
 revenue on all irrigation works for which capital accounts were kept gave a 
 dividend of 3^ per cent, on a capital expenditure of Rx. 25,136.000. The 
 additional value of the crops secured by State irrigation works was estimated 
 at Rx. 14,500,000 for the year 1886-87. In a year of drought or famine the 
 money value of the benefit conferred by these works would be very much 
 greater. Nearly four-fifths of the irrigation from the great canals, most of 
 the protection afforded by embankments, nearly all the navigation canals, 
 and about half the irrigation from minor sources, are due to works which 
 have been carried out during the past thirty years. 
 
 40. Roads. — During the first half of the period under review a large 
 expenditure was incurred from the general revenues on the construction of 
 roads and bridges, more especially in the Punjab, the Central Provinces, 
 Bombay, and Burma. In times of scarcity, when work had to be found for the 
 labouring poor, new roads were made in many districts. But no precise 
 returns are available showing the precise length of metalled or bridged roads, 
 or of other roads in each province. Since 1871 the system of making over 
 to local bodies the custody and construction of local roads has become more 
 and more general. The Local Boards or Committees either enjoy revenues 
 or receive grants enabling them to discharge their responsibilities in this 
 respect ; and most of the available money is now spent in maintaining and 
 repairing existing roads. New trunk roads are rarely required, and addi- 
 tional roads are now, for the most part, made to facilitate access to railway 
 stations. In Bengal, where relatively little road making had previously been 
 done, the District Committees have, for the last 15 years, spent about 
 
 C 4 
 
24 
 
 Rx. 300,000 a year in extending and improving roads and highways. During 
 the past thirty years there have been spent from general and local funds on 
 roads and bridges in India sums that do not fall short of Rx. 1 ,500,000 a 
 year. As railways extend, much more will have to be done in making feeder 
 roads to the railway, more especially in provinces where the rainfall is heavy 
 and carts cannot ply for five or seven months of the year, save on metalled 
 and bridged roads. The settlement returns show that the number of carts 
 possessed and worked by the people has increased greatly during the past 
 thirty years. Tolls have been abolished in most provinces, and are rarely 
 levied on roads save occasicmally at ferries or temporary bridges of boats. 
 
 41. Public Buildings. — It has been the custom of the Indian Government 
 to discourage any avoidable outlay 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 
 troops all over India ; moat 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 been constructed ; and at Bombay 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, Lahore, Ahmedabad, Grour, Budh G-aya, and Bhilsa 
 have been cared for and conserved. 
 
 Trade and Manufactures. 
 
 42. Trade.-^The extension of roads, railways, and canals, the improvement 
 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 commodities between one province or one district 
 and another has increased vastly, but we have 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 25^ and 14|- millions sterling respectively, or 39f millions for the total 
 foreign trade. The corresponding totals for the year 1887-88 were 90^ 
 millions of exports and 65 millions worth of imports, or 155|^ millions of total 
 trade. The external land trade of India, principally with Siam, Nepal, 
 Cashmere, Afghanistan, and Biluchistan, has increased less' rapidly ; it has 
 risen during the last ten years from a value of Rx. 4,857,000 to a value of 
 Rx. 5,753,000. The total trade between Afghanistan and the Punjab has, 
 during those ten years, fallen from a value of Rx. 1,509,000 to a value of 
 Rx. 891,000. The total value of the external trade of India by sea and land 
 has thus nearly quadrupled during the thirty years ; while the actual bulk 
 of the trade has increased in even greater proportion, because prices of most 
 imported 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 Baatern markets ; there has grown up a great and rapidly 
 increasing production of Indian coal ; at the same time, new and valuable 
 agricultural staples have been naturalised in the country. The next generation 
 may, perhaps, see ironworks and the production of metals prosecuted in India 
 on a large scale. 
 
 43. Manufactures. — 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 consumed 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. But before 1858 
 the old order was changing, and the change has been still more rapid since, 
 Machine made fabrics and tools are taking the place of the local manur 
 
25 
 
 faetures ; and no doubt many thousands of families have lost the tradp and 
 the custom their ancestors had enjoyed for generations. But this change 
 has not been without compensating advantages. There are signs that some 
 of the Indian art industries, such as embroidery and work in silver and gold, 
 are reviving in answer to the new demands 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 1856 there 
 was hardly a power loom in the country, now there are 89 cotton mills, with 
 16,736 looms and 2,190,376 spindles, employing 72,000 hands; there are 
 24 jute mills, with 7,134 looms and 135,593 spindles, employing about 
 30,000 hands ; there are 43 rice mills, 4l saw mills, besides flour mills, oil 
 mills, iron foundries, woollen mills, paper mills, pottery works, and the great 
 workshops attached to railways and shipbuilding yards. The manufacturing 
 industry of India is in its infancy ; but a beginning has been made, for the 
 yarns from Bombay cotton mills are gaining ground in China and Japan, as 
 well as in Indian bazaars, while the jute mills of Bengal hold their own with 
 Dundee in the markets of the world for the coarser jute fabrics. In 1858 a 
 little coal was raised from a few coal workings in Bengal, while railways, 
 «teamers, and other consumers of coal got their fuel from England. Now 
 the coal output of Indian collieries is 1,388,000 tons a year, as compared 
 with an annual importation of 765,000 tons from abroad ; while new coal- 
 fields are being opened out in other provinces. 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 was before ; 
 and some of the great works of Indian railway and Indian hydraulic engineers, 
 works put together by Native Indian workmen, are worthy monuments of 
 the first thirty years of the direct rule of the Queen in India. 
 
 44. 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 been established in every province 
 of India a public department which collects and distributes early information 
 concerning the crops, controls or advises upon model and experimental 
 farms, introduces new agricultural appliances, tries new staples, and is 
 organising schools for teaching the chemistry and science of agriculture. 
 By these departments Indian students of good education have been sent to 
 Europe to study at agricultural colleges. 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 likely to have useful effect. 
 Something has been done towards introducing better breeds of cattle into 
 some provinces, and great attention has been paid to the improvement of the 
 local breeds of horses, ponies, and mules. At the present time more than 
 400 selected sires from Great Britain, from Arabia, and from good cross 
 breeds are being maintained by Government in the chief horse breeding 
 districts, besides a large number of donkey stallions in the mule breeding 
 tracts. For the improvement of the breed of sheep and goats something, 
 but not much, has been done in the Punjab. Cattle disease, in epizootic 
 form, is one of the great difficulties of Indian agriculture; and, as yet, the 
 efforts to combat this plague have not been successful. After careful 
 inquiry the proposal to separate or destroy tainted cattle after the English 
 system was negatived. An experiment is now to be made in Bengal with 
 M. Pasteur's 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 withdrawn, 
 and the acquisition of waste lands for such crops was facilitated, and now 
 the tea industry has so far extended that in the year 1887 over 296,000 acres 
 were under tea, about 300.000 persons were employed upon tea gardens, and 
 India exported 90 million pounds of tea, valued at llx. 4,883,000. Thn-s 
 
 i 5K68G. D 
 
26 
 
 during tliirty years tlie Indian tea export lias grown from nothing to nearly 
 two-thirds of the total export of tea from China. The coffee industry has 
 been checked of recent years by a leaf disease, which destroys the coffee 
 bushes, and also by increased production from South America ; still cofFee 
 valued at Ex. 1,540,000 was exported from India in the year 1887. The 
 exports of raw and manufactured jute during the same year were valued at 
 Ex. 6,021,000, besides the great quantity of jute used for bagging in India. 
 Thus the export of these three new staples, tea, coffee, and jute, which in the 
 trade returns for 1858 were valued at Rx. 456,000, had in 1887 reached a value 
 of Rx. 12,418,000. Since 1858 the cinchona tree has been introduced from 
 Brazil, and is now cultivated on the hills of India. One result of the intro- 
 duction of this new product is that 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. 
 
 45. Botanical Gardens and Musetims. — The Court of Directors were liberal 
 in their support of botanical and other scientific investigation that contributed 
 to develop the natural products of India. The excellent botanical gardens 
 at Calcutta, Ootacamund, and Seharunpore have been maintained, and their 
 usefulness extended, "while another botanical garden has been opened at 
 Bombay. A large Imperial museum at Calcutta has been built, and is 
 gradually acquiring a great wealth of natural history and archaeological 
 specimens; 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 Natives who visit them 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 museum at Kew Gardens, the collection of 
 Indian antiquities was made over to the British Museum, while a vastly 
 enlarged, constantly increasing, and well arranged collection of fabrics and 
 appliances from ancient and modem India has of recent years been placed in 
 a branch of the South Kensington Museum, which any one interested in the 
 commerce or people of India can visit without charge. 
 
 Condition of the People. 
 
 46. Divergent Gonditio7is. — The circumstances and condition of the people 
 Vary greatly in different parts of India. The plain of the Ganges from 
 Seharanpur 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, 
 llajputana, and considerable areas in the Punjab and in Bombay carry a 
 rural population of less than 150 to the square mile. There are provinces 
 where the rainfall is always abundant, ranging from 60 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 North- West Provinces, where one half, or more than one half, of the 
 cultivated area is irrigated in one way or another. Again, the great sandy 
 plains of the Punjab, wherever water is led from the snow-fed rivers, at once 
 become fertile, attract and support a large population ; while in other arid 
 tracts like the Deccan uplands, Bellary, and Kurnool water is rarely avail- 
 able, and even when water can be had, as from the Toongabhardra canal, the 
 people do not take it for their crops. The tenures and the distribution of 
 profits from land vary greatly. la the Punjab and parts of the North- West 
 Provinces, in Bombay and Madras, in Burma and Assam, the profits of 
 agriculture go wholly or in great part direct to a sturdy and in ordinary 
 years a prosperous peasantry, who till most of the land themselves ; while in 
 Behar, Westei'n Bengal, Orissa, Oudh, and part of the North- Western Pro- 
 vinces, 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 comjiarison between the condition of the people in India and in 
 Europe it has to be remembered that in India every one marries, and 
 
27 
 
 rnarries early ; that the popuhxtion increases yearly 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, but 
 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 their 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 fully satisfied with two meals a day of millet cakes or porridge, 
 some pulse 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. 
 
 47. General. — So far as ordinary tests can be applied, the average Indian 
 landholder, trader, ryot, or handicraftsman is better off" than he was thirty 
 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 labourers 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 rain- 
 fall 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 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 villager's household is reported to be better 
 than it was thirty years ago. It is quite certain that the population of India 
 absorb and hoard far more of the precious metals than they did formerly, for 
 during the past thirty years India's net absorption of gold and silver from 
 outside has amounted to 342| millions of 10 rupees, or an average of 
 11^ millions a year, while during the 22 years ending with 1857 the net 
 absorption of the precious metals by India averaged only 3f millions a year. 
 
 48. Condition of different classes. — The population, for the purpose of the 
 present paragraph, 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 land, but 
 it includes tens of millions belonging to the proprietary brotherhoods of 
 northern India, to the petty proprietors 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 thirty years ago, for the profits of agriculture are larger owing to 
 the rise in prices and the export demand for surplus produce. In every 
 province the market price of land has advanced ; and in many parts land 
 fetches now three to ten times the price per acre that it did thirty years ago. 
 The trading classes ai'e, on the whole, better off by reason of the greatly 
 increased commerce of the country, though the percentage of profit on trans- 
 actions and the interest of money are lower than they were. Great i'ortunee 
 are less easily made in trade and money lending than they were thirty years 
 back, but a larger number of traders make a fair living by commerce. 
 
 D 2 
 
28 
 
 Among the professional classss, lawyers and soldiers enjoy better incomes 
 than they used to do ; the salaries of Native servants of Government average 
 higher than they formerly did. But present times are not favourable for the 
 priestly castes, cultivators of Moslem or Hindoo lore, broken down gentlefolk, 
 scions of decayed old families, and others who, from religious sentiments 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 circum- 
 stances. But in Behar, in part of the North- West Provinces, 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 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. 
 
 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 270 millions 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 increased considerably ; and in some districts, 
 more especially along railway lines, the standard of wages for unskilled 
 labour has advanced. The price of food, however, has risen, though this 
 increase makes little difference to agricultural labourers, most of whom are 
 paid in kind. 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 peopled 
 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 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 agricultural, is too 
 great for the land to bear. Some small emigration takes place ; about 
 71,000 persons a year emigrate from India across the sea to the Straits 
 Settlements, to Ceylon, and to sugar islands in the western seas; about 
 25,000 a year migrate to the tea districts, and about 70,000 a year to Burma. 
 But most of these emigrants go merely to labour for a time, and tliey return 
 home after one or more years. There are vast breadths of good land 
 available for settlers in Burma, Assam, and the Central Provinces ; parts of 
 the Punjab plains, as yet unfilled, will support a large population as soon as. 
 canal water can be made available. But hitherto attempts to promote 
 emigration on a large scale from over-peopled- tracts to distant provinces have 
 failed. The Indian peasant is very loth indeed to leave his ancestral village. 
 It may be that improved means of travelling and advancing knowledge will 
 hereafter lead to a much larger migration of the population within India than 
 has yet been known. 
 
 49. Condition of the poorer classes in different Provinces. — After the famine 
 
 of 1877 a careful analysis of the condition of the people in every district of 
 
 India was undertaken. The inquiry is not yet complete ; but a preliminary 
 
 review of this important subject was published by the Government of India 
 
 October last, giving the results of special reports furnished upon the 
 
29 
 
 condition of the lower classes of the population in every district. Tho 
 Marquis of Dufferin's Government described the situation in the following 
 words : — 
 
 "4 It may be stilted briefly tlmt, over the greater part of India, the condition of the lower 
 classes of the agricultural population is not one which need cause any great anxiety at present. 
 The circumstances of tbtse classes are such as to secure in normal seasons physical efficiency for 
 the performance of agricultural work, though in the tracts classed as ' Insecure ' tiiere is always 
 a risk in the event of a failure of the rains that the more indigent class of the people may bo 
 overtaken by distress in various degrees and forms, und be deprived of the wages ordinarily pro- 
 vided by tlie agricultural operations or) v/hicli in normal seasons they depend for their livelihood. 
 There is evidence to show that '.n all parts of India there is a numerous population which lives 
 from hand to mouth, is always in debt owing to reckless expenditure on marriages and other 
 ceremonies, and in consequence of this indebti;dness and of the fact of their creditors, the middle- 
 men, intercepting a Urge proportion of the profits of agriculture, do'3s not save, and has little or 
 nothing lo fall back upnn in bad seasons. >«everiheless, in the majority of cases, there is no 
 sufficient cause for the direct interference of Government. 
 
 " In one or two parts of the country, however, there seem 1« be grounds for anxiety. In Behar, 
 it is believed that 40 per cent, of a population of 15,313,359 is in a state of agricultural degrada- 
 tion. The chief remedy suggested by the Government of Bengal is emigration. Emigration to 
 the Colonies, to the tea plantations of Assam, and with far gieater effect to tlie eastern districts of 
 Bengal, already relieves, in a certain measure, the congestion of population in Behar, but tlio 
 obstacles of climate and languag- and the risk to healtii in reclaiming laud in Assam or Eastern 
 Bengal have hitlierto impeded emigration on a larger scale. In the North- Western Provinces and 
 Oudh there is now no evidence of marked agricultural degradation, and even in districts such 
 as Ballia, where the density of population is over 700 to the square mile, the fertility of soil which 
 is the cause of the density of po[>ulation secures general prosperity. Still the census figures, whicli 
 show that in 21 districts there is a population of more than 500 to the square mile, suggest the 
 inference that the time may not be far distant when it may be necessary to relieve over-population 
 by some comprehensive scheme of emigration. This remark especially applies to the districts east 
 of Lucknow. And although the Government of the North- Western Provinces and Oudh is of 
 opinion that there is at present nothing which demands special action in those provinces, ic 
 recognises as the best corrective for local distress the emigration of the surplus population from one 
 part of the country to another. In the rest of India, with the one exception of the Ratnaciri 
 District in the Bombay Presidenc}', no precautionary measures of exceptional character seem to 
 be immediately called for; so tha: in existing circum-itances Behar is the tract which demands the 
 chief and closest attentiim of the Administration. But, as before remarked, the inquiry which has 
 been made and which has led to the above conclusion is only of a preliminary character, and must 
 be supplemented by the careful analysis of agricultural tracts which was enjoined on Departments 
 of Land Records and Agriculture in the R solution of 1881." 
 
 The reports of the several Local Governments for their respective provinces, 
 based upon full information supplied by European and Indian officers, were 
 briefly as follows : — 
 
 Bengal. — (Population, 66^ millions in 1881), — 
 
 "The general result of tho in(iuiry is that, in the greater part of tlie Lower Provinces, the 
 industrious classes find no difficulty in supplying their primary wants, and are, as a rule, well 
 nourished. Their prosperity is greatest in the eastern districts, and gradually diminishes as we 
 carry the survey towards the Avest. It is not impan-ed by endemic disease, eveii where this has 
 reduced the population, and left the survivors to some extent emaciated or enfeebled. On the 
 contrary, the reports from districts so afllicfed show that the inhabitants are somewhat better off 
 than in the neighbouring tracts. But the signs indicating prospei-ity cease when we reach Behar, 
 where, thoush the cultivators having holdings of a size sutiicient to aflbrd full ocrupation to their 
 families are well-to-do, and the middle class enjoys exceptional comlort, wages are very low, so 
 that those who dtptnd for their living entirely or mainly on their daily labour earn a very scanty 
 Hubsistence. The number of these labourers, including those who hold some land, is estimated at 
 about forty per cent, of a population of over fifieen millions. The cause of the lownoss of wages 
 appears to be the multiplication of the labourers in a healthy climate, and under a social system 
 founded on early marriages, up to tiie poir.t at which employment can be found on the lowest terms 
 consistent with the continued maintenance of families. This cause is of a permanent nature, 
 existing social and climatic conditions remaining unchanged. Its effects would not be 
 counteracted by any conceivable development of local industry, as such development could hardlv 
 progress in geometric ratio with the increase of population. Emigration can afford a sufficient 
 and lasting remedy only if it be conducted on a large scale and continuously." 
 
 Korth-West Provinces arid Oudh. — (Population, 44 millions in 1881), — 
 
 " In these Provinces the inquiry was made after a succession of bad seasons, wlien the "-ravest 
 anxiety for the present, and apprehension for the future, existed. In these circumstances it might 
 have been expected that the result of the inquiry would have been far from reassuring, but the 
 North-Western Provinces and Oudh Government consider that the consensus of opinion is to the 
 effect that the people are not generally undei fed. * * * • » 
 
 Even the artisan class live in comparative comfort." 
 
 "Sir Auckland Colvin, the Lieutenant Governor, disclaims optimist views, and points out that, 
 when an officer speaks of the more indigent class of the people as being always on the venT- of 
 starvation, the meaning is not that they are living on insuflHcient food, but that they rcn the risk 
 in view of a failure of the rains of losing employment, and consequently losing the means of 
 obtaining food." 
 
 D 3 
 
3a 
 
 Madras. — (Population, 30| millions in 1881), — 
 
 " The Madras report is preliminary, and ihe inquiry will be continued. The opinions of tlie 
 district officers are not supported by concrete instances, but in many cases they reilect the views 
 of men who have for years observed the conditions of agricultural life in Madras. The conclusioix 
 of these officers, which is concurred in by the Board of Revenue and by the Madras Government, 
 18 that no considerable proportion of tlie population suffer from a daily insufficiency of food in 
 ordinary years." 
 
 " On the whole, it maybe said that in ordinary seasons the lower a.^ricultural classes generallv 
 get throughout the year a sufficiency of food, that is, food enough to maintain them in bodily.' 
 health and strength and in full efficiency for labour." 
 
 Punjab. — (Population, 18| millions in 1881), — 
 
 " There are no grounds whatever for any anxiety as to the condition of the agricultural 
 population in the Punjab in respect of footl. The evidence given is of a very decided character. 
 So long as men and women of the lowest classes marry young and have families, borrow money 
 for expenditure which is unnecessary, and are content wilh a low standard of living, so long will 
 periodical suffering occur, but the masses in normal seasons get as much to eat as they want." 
 
 "Briefly it may be said that in the Punjab, in ordinary times, the greater proportion of the 
 population does not suffer from a daily insutiiciency of food ; but in times of unusual scarcity, not 
 amounting to famine and high prices, the poorer classes, whose stiiiulnrd of living is very low, 
 are no doubt reduced to great straits, and do not get a sufficiency of food. 
 
 " Sir James Lyall, the Lieiitenant-Grovernor, points to the physique of the people, to the high 
 birth-rate and low death-rate, and to the rise in wages, and saya that the remedy for congestion, 
 when it occurs, lies in the construction of new canals." 
 
 Bombay. — (Population, 16^ millions in 1881), — 
 
 " With the exception of the Ratnagiri District, it may be said that the people of the Bombay 
 Presidency are in fairly good circumstances. Even in the famine only 10 or at the outside 15 per 
 cent, of the population showed the effects of pressure by death or resort to relief, and in the 
 scarcity of 1885 relief works were scorned in Bijapur. One a.^na per head all told, or two annas 
 a day for an adult man, is sufficient to provide food, and this wage can be earned everywhere. 
 
 " The Bombay reports are concluded by the summary prepared under the orders of the 
 Governor : — 
 
 " ' The causes of indigence and the localities in which it is to be found are well known. The 
 early tribesman with his drink and indolence, the Deccan Kunbi with his uncertain seasons and 
 danger of famine, the Konkani with his ragged country, poor soil, and swarming }x>pulation- — the 
 existence and poverty of all these is recognised and felt for. Gigantic effisrts* have been made, 
 in many points crowned with success, to deal with their cases. In Gujarat we see the Kolis, in 
 Thana the Thakurs, in Khandesh the Bhils, settling to cultivation. In the Deccan, railways and 
 great irrigation works and special legislation for debt have been called in to give relief. The 
 worst part of the Konkan lias been explored by ro.ads, and the enterprise of steamer companies 
 has been attracted there. The post oHices have enabled surplus earnings to be remitted with 
 increasing ease and facility, and in annually multiplying amounts. The result is seen in more 
 emigration, in cheaper clothing, higher wages, an evener distribution of wealth among all, including 
 the lowest classes, and the gradual but sure diminution of distress and its localisation to the least 
 ci vilized and accessible tracts of the Presidency. Every Indian administrator has recognised the 
 poverty of the people of India. A man who supports life in the Bombay Presidency on two or 
 three annas a day will be poor, but not so poor by half is the man who is culled on to do so Lii 
 England on a shilling, or what was once eight annas.' " 
 
 Central Provinces. — (Population, 9f millions in 1881), — 
 
 " There is no doubt in these provinces a great deal of poverty, but there is very little distress. 
 The people are well fed, and the only section of them who can be said to be hard pressed for bare 
 subsistence are the hill tribes, who are but little more provident than the beasts of the forests, and 
 have to undergo similar vicissitudes in daily food. The volume of wealth is rapidly increasing, 
 ^d there is no lack of employment for those who wish for it." 
 
 Assara. — (Population, 4| millions in 1881), — 
 
 " The general conclusion arrived at for the whole province is that the questions raised by the* 
 Government of India (whether the lower classes of the people are suffering from an insufficiency 
 of food or agricultural capital, and whftt remedies can be provided) need cause no anxiety 
 whatever." 
 
 jBerar,— (Population, 2^ millions in 1881), — 
 
 " In Berar real distress is practically unknown, and the labouring classes have attained a 
 standard with which very few other parts of India can claim any comparison. They are geneiully 
 well clad and in good case, and at their frequent festivals show a good deal of wealth in their 
 attire." 
 
 * Amonp; these efforts are the measures taken under the Deccan Agricuhurists Relief Act. It is interesting 
 to note tliat the Judge, a Native of India, who presides over the proceedings taken under this Act, reports that the 
 itsult of the past nine years has heen the growtli of thrift and self-help among the ryots, the decrease of inongagcs 
 pf ftgricultuial laud, a rt duction in the rate of intere.'^t, and a visible improvement in the condition of the ryots, ov 
 p^tty proprietors of land, in the districts to nhich the Act applies. 
 
31 
 
 " The Vice-Presiilent of tha Akola Municipality remarks that no people in Berar suffer from 
 insufficiency of food tliroughout. the year, and a Native Deputy Educational Inspector bears 
 testimony to the fact that tlie louver classes <;et full meals and all the necessaries of life, and points 
 to the total absence of bep;irars in the interior as another sign of the fair condition of the lower 
 classes. A Native Extra- Assistant Gommis.-ioner and a .Iud};e of the Small Cause Court at 
 Aniraoti further attests that there is, during; times unaffected by famine, little dearth of ample food 
 for the poor(!st in these tracts. lie considers that the agricultural classes are particularly well off 
 in all respects of bodily nourishment." 
 
 The foreo-oing extracts have been set out because they are the most recent 
 opinions, formed after careful investigation by responsible and skilled 
 inquirers, regarding the condition of the poorer classes of the people of 
 India. The province of Burma Avas not included in the recent inquiry, 
 presumably because it was known that the people of Lower Burma are well 
 off, that the standard of wages and earnings is three or four times as high 
 as the average of continental India, and that there are no poor in the 
 province. 
 
 50. Famine. — Against famine, the greatest of all troubles that befall the 
 population of India, the country is more fitted to contend than it was thirty 
 years ago. Over many tracts of India the rainfall is occasionally short or 
 unseasonable, 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 prosperous 
 provinces always have surplus food to spare for their sulfering neighbours. 
 During the past thirty years there have occurred the northern India drought 
 of 1860, the Orissa famine of 1866, scarcitv in the Upper Ganges valley 
 during 1869 and 1878, drought in Bengal during 1874, and the great famine 
 of south India in 1877. For the last ten years India has been exempt from 
 serious drought or famine, though local .failures of crops have occurred, such 
 as would have caused much misery if improved means of communication 
 had not enabled supplies of food to flow from surplus districts to meet the 
 local scarcity. 
 
 It is quite certain that an Indian province and the Indian Administration 
 are now better prepared to meet a famine than they were thirty years ago. 
 Every province has its plan of relief organisation and of relief works thought 
 out and sanctioned beforehand. Everywhere the urban and village organi- 
 sation is stronger than it was. The crop area protected from drought by 
 irrigation has more than doubled since 1857. Means of communication and 
 food transport from province to province have been established, such as 
 never existed before, while roads and carts for distributing food from railway 
 stations have been multiplied. In the great south India famine of 1877, the 
 most terrible Indian famine of which there is any authentic record, four 
 railway lines were at one time carrying into the famine tracts 4,000 tons 
 of food a day from the surplus of Bengal, Burma, Nagpore, and north India. 
 This represented a day's meal for nearly seven millions of people. Not one 
 tenth of this quantity could have reached the afflicted provinces, or could 
 have been distributed in time, with the means of communication that existed 
 in 1857. Without this outside supply of food, and 'without the great 
 organisation specially provided for relieving the starving and the sick, there 
 would have been a far greater loss of life in south India than actually 
 occurred. 
 
 In one respect only is an Indian .province less prepared to resist famine 
 than formerly. Before railways were made and trade had increased, the 
 surplus food of good harvests fetched very low prices, and used to be kept 
 by the producers or by local dealers in underground or other granaries 
 against a year of scarcity or until the stores rotted. Nowadays, the surplus 
 is exported at once, and fetches the prices curreno in the markets of the outer 
 world. And so, when a year of scarcity comes, the local reserve stocks of 
 food are much smaller than they used to be. But the diminution of the 
 reserve stocks is much more than counterbalanced by the increase of the 
 irrigated area which yields a crop even Avhen the rain fails, by the great 
 extension of cultivation and of the food surplus — an extension caused by the 
 export demand, — and by the railways, which transport surplus food from 
 prosperous provinces to drought-stricken districts. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been done many parts of India are now, as 
 heretofore, liable to famine. For a series of years the Indian Government 
 
 D 4 
 
32 
 
 set aside 1^ millions from tlie yearly revenue to meet famine relief expen- 
 diture in future years. No surplus at present exists, but 7f millions have 
 already been made available for this purpose ; and it is intended to resume 
 the arrangement and to set aside Rx. 1,000,000 annually as soon as circum- 
 stances permit. When famine or scarcity comes, no effort and no expenditure 
 ■will be spared to save life and relieve distress ; in most cases such effort will,, 
 it is hoped, be successful, but a country like India, with a vast population, 
 of whom a considerable section possess neither credit nor savings, can hardly 
 be carried through a widespread and severe famine like that of 1877 without 
 much suffering and some loss ot life. 
 
 Local Self-government. 
 
 51. 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 Avas entirely in the hands of 
 Government officials. Since 1860 laws have been passed for every province 
 of India, under which urban affairs are placed in the hands of local bodies, 
 the members of which are in large places mostly elected by and in small 
 places mostly nominated from among the townsfolk. The municipal bodies, 
 subject to the law and to 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. As yet, the ratepayers 
 in towns do not, for the most part, take much interest in the election of their 
 representatives, though in some few places municipal elections have beei^ 
 keenly contested. A seat on a municipal board is, however, generally 
 recognised by the people as an honourable and useful post, though it carries. 
 no emoluments and much responsibility. 
 
 There are now in India 720 municipal towns, containing a population of 
 14 millions. Out of 7,193 members of municipal bodies 3,481 were elected. 
 The municipal franchise is usually given to any town that cares to exercise 
 it, and, wherever municipal committees are elective, the elected members are 
 never less than half of the whole body. Municipalities during 1886 con- 
 trolled an expenditure of Rx. 3,569,000, out of which Rx. 1,968,000 were 
 raised by taxation, Rx. 1,237,000 from sources other than taxation, and 
 Rx. 452,000 by loans for specific works of water-supply or drainage. Of 
 the total expenditure 34 per cent, was devoted to hospitals, vaccination, 
 water-supply, and other sanitary improvements, and 23 per cent, to streets, 
 roads, and other works for the public convenience or safety. There is still 
 very much sanitary work to be done everywhere, but in some of the large 
 towns a great reduction has already been effected in the death-rate as it 
 existed 15 or 20 years ago. A valuable beginning has been made in local 
 self-help and self-government, and much local interest has been evoked in 
 local affairs. The law provides that, in case of grave neglect or mismanage- 
 ment, the Government may intervene and take specific local affairs out of 
 the hands of any local body, but during the past five years the extreme step 
 of actual intervention has been taken in the case of one municipality only. 
 The Government and its officers habitually afford help, advice, control, and 
 pven admonition to any municipal bodies that may seek or require such aid. 
 
 52. District Boards. — The local boards, to which is committed the duty of 
 self-government in rural tracts, are mostly of more recent creation than the 
 municipal bodies, But in all the larger provinces, except Burma, there are 
 now local bodies for each district, with subordinate boards for sub-districts, 
 and to those boards have been, or are gradually being, transferred the 
 haanagement and expenditure of all public funds available or raised for 
 district roads, schools, hospitals, and sanitary improvement. 
 
 Ir the Madras Presidency the district boards, established in 1871, are 
 efficient. In Bengal the road cess committees have been merged into 
 district boards, with wider powers and more popular constitution than before. 
 I}i the North- West I'rovinces the constitution of the district boards is more 
 
33 
 
 representative than elsewhere, and there the system is as follows : For each 
 of the 206 sub-districts (or tahsils) in those provinces was chosen by the 
 chief civil officer of the district, in the way he found most suitable, an 
 electoral body of from 25 to 100, and averaging 63 persons ; this electoral 
 body represented all classes of residents and of property in the sub-district ; 
 the electorate so constituted then chose 6 to 12 members, who compose the 
 local board, and who sit upon the district board with all the members from 
 other sub-districts. The average number of members elected to each district 
 board was thirty, and to each board eight additional members were nominated 
 by the Government. Every sub-district board must elect its own chairman, 
 and every district board may either elect or leave the Government to appoint 
 its chairman. The electoral body thus constituted in the North-West 
 Provinces appear to have appreciated their duties, for out of 13,080 electors, 
 9,148, or 72 per cent., travelled to the poll and recorded their votes. So far, 
 the district and sub-district boards seem likely to discharge their duties with 
 advantage to the districts they represent, and with credit to themselves. 
 They have the advantage of the co-operation of European and Native officials. 
 Eventually these boards will have, all over India, the control of local funds 
 amounting to about Rx. 3,000,000. 
 
 53. Port 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 officers. 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 Bombay are, and those at Calcutta shortly will be, fully up to 
 the standard of modem requirements ; ample wharves have been provided at 
 Rangoon ; important harbour improvements have been executed at Karachi ; 
 the Madras harbour works which are still in progress have not yet been 
 successful by reason of the physical difficulties of the situation. Meanwhile, 
 the port and harbour charges are almost everywhere much lower than they 
 were ; at some ports they are less than half what they were when the trusts 
 were first constituted ; and the works 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. 
 
 54. Political Relations. — In 1857 India had frontier relations with Siam, 
 Ava, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, Afghanistan, Turkish Arabia, and Persia. Since 
 that time India's relations with Siam, Nepal, Turkish Arabia, and Persia 
 have been peaceful and satisfactory. Prolonged unfriendliness and 
 breach of treaty on the part of the King of Ava brought on the third 
 Burmese war, which in 1886 resulted in the incorporation of Upper Burma 
 with the Queen's dominions. In 1864 war had to be made on Bhutan, which 
 had harried British territory, maltreated a British Envoy, and refused 
 reparation ; the war resulted in the cession of certain submontane tracts to 
 the British Crown ; since that time British relations with Bhutan have been 
 peaceful. With Tibet, a vassal of the Chinese Empire, India has had scanty 
 relations, diplomatic or commercial ; during the past year Tibet invaded the 
 territory of a British feudatory State, and, as the Tibet authorities would 
 not yield to friendly representations, the invaders had to be driven out by 
 force. The Ameers of Afghanistan have thrice visited India as guests, once 
 in 1856, once in 1869, and once in 1885 ; but in 1878 the unfriendliness of 
 the Afghan ruler caused the third Afghan war, during an interval in which 
 the British Envoy, with his escort, was massacred at Cabul. Since 1881 
 India's relations with the Ameer of Afghanistan have been friendly. The 
 annexation of Upper Burma has made India conterminous with China, and 
 the authorities of that Empire have regarded the British occupation of Burma 
 
 t 58686. E 
 
34 
 
 in an amicable spirit. In 1857 the boundary of Russia was on the Caspian, 
 the eastern shore of which is about 1,000 miles from the Indian frontier ; 
 now Russian posts have advanced some 570 miles nearer, and have reached 
 the contines of Afghanistan. During the last two years an Anglo-Russian 
 Comtftissiou has settled and demarcated the north-western frontier of the 
 Afghan territory from the frontier of I'ersia to the Oxus. 
 
 55. Native States. — The condition of many of the feudatory States in India 
 has materially improved, and their relations with the British Government 
 have been placed on a firmer footing during the past thirty years. Soon 
 after the mutiny documents were given in the Queen's name to all ruling 
 Native Princes, whereby they were granted power to adopt heirs and 
 successors, on condition of loyalty to the British Government. By these 
 grants a grave cause of anxiety was removed from the minds of Native 
 Chiefs, who in previous years had seen States lapse to the British Govern- 
 ment on the failure of direct heirs to the throne. It was seen also, in the 
 case of Tonk and Baroda, 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 were placed by the British Govern- 
 ment 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 annexation could be avoided. 
 
 Almost all the great Chiefs had adhered loyally to the British during the 
 mutiny crisis ; but after 1860 the loyalty of Indian Princes ceased to be 
 tinged with any fear of annexation. Since that time the Chiefs have cordially 
 co-operated with the British Government in placing the administration 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 abolish- 
 ing transit duties, by improving their judicial and revenue administration, by 
 maintaining order, by constructing roads, railways, and irrigation works, by 
 promoting education, and by establishing hospitals. In most of the States 
 of Rajputana, of the Punjab, and of Bombay, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, 
 Cochin, some of the Central India States, Cooch Behar, and other minor 
 chief ships, the cause of good government has made important advances ; the 
 Chiefs of these States keep their expenditure within their revenues, which 
 have increased greatly during the past thirty 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 control exercised by the British 
 Government. 
 
 Among the scores of Native States with a total population of sixty 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 rest too 
 much on the personal qualities of the ruler for the time being. Still, in the 
 main the feudatory States of India have made real and steady progress in 
 good government during the last thirty years. Notable proofs of their 
 loyalty to the British Crown were given in 1884, and again in 1887, when the 
 great Native States pressed the Indian Government to use their troops and to 
 accept their money for the purpose of repelling or preventing attack upon 
 the north-west frontier of India. In 1857, and again in 1879, the Punjab 
 States sent troops into the field to fight under the British flag ; and in 1858 
 a Nepal contingent gave valuable aid in quelling the rebellion in Oudh. But 
 no general and spontaneous ofi'er of the swords and treasure of Indian Chiefs 
 was ever made to the British Government until 1884 and 1887. 
 
 Army. 
 
 56. Army. — At the end of 18' 6 the Indian Army consisted of 40,000 
 European soldiers and 215,000 Native soldiers, besides 32,000 men in con- 
 tingents paid by and serving in Native States ; at that time a large proportion 
 
35 
 
 of the Indian Artillery consisted of Native gunners. The present Army of 
 India consists of 72,000 European and 152,000 Native soldiers, including all 
 the regular contingents on the Indian Establishment but serving in Native 
 States ; and out of 103 batteries of artillery 88 are manned by Europeans. 
 Tho armament of the troops has been changed from smooth-bore muskets to 
 breech-loading rifles, and the British field artillery is being armed with 
 12-pounder breech-loading rifled guns instead of 6 and 9-pounder smooth- 
 bore muzzle-loaders. Railways have made the concentration and mobilization 
 of troops within India or on her frontier ten times easier than it was in 1857. 
 A regular transport service has been created, and a supply of animal 
 carriage, of hospital servants, and other field establishments, sufficient 
 to place a large army in the field, has been sanctioned, and is being 
 organised, 
 
 Officers and men, arms and horses, ammunition and materiel, commissariat 
 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 Indian 
 Army was Rx. 12,750,000, for the year 1887-88 the estimated charge is no 
 less than Rx. 20,460,000, including certain temporary expenses in Upper 
 Burma and the loss by exchange on home charges ; there is also a charge of 
 Rx. 1,850,000 for military works, including special defences. The course of 
 recent events has compelled the Government to increase the efficiency and 
 strength of the Indian Army, as well as to augment the defensive works of 
 the Empire ; but within the borders of India the need for troops is less than 
 it was ; the peace of the oldest provinces is secured by a moderate garrison, — 
 for instance, Bengal, with a population of 70 millions, has a military garrison 
 of under 7,500 soldiers, of whom nearly half are for the defence of Calcutta. 
 Among the more important changes in army organisation within the past 
 thirty years have been the amalgamation of the Indian Armies with the 
 British Army, the formation of the Indian Staff" Corps, and the alteration in 
 the regimental system of the Native Army. Before the mutiny a, regular 
 Native regiment had an establishment based on the system obtaining in 
 British regiments with European company officers, while the irregular regi- 
 ments had from three to four European officers only, with Native troop and 
 company commanders. Under the later organisation, which is a modifica- 
 tion of the former irregular system, every Indian regiment, with a few 
 unimportant exceptions, has nine European officers, the Native officers 
 having become company and troop commanders and subalterns. The 
 proportion of soldiers drawn from unwarlike races had 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 it may be mentioned that the health of the troops has been greatly 
 improved by better barrack accommodation, by quartering a far larger 
 proportion of European soldiers at hill stations, and by careful sanitary 
 precautions. For many years before the mutiny the average death-rate 
 among European troops in India was 69 per thousand, and among Native 
 troops 20 per thousand ; during the four years ending with 1886 the death- 
 rate has averaged 13 per thousand among European and 12 per thousand 
 among Native troops. 
 
 The military position in India has been strengthened by the enrolment of 
 17,000 volunteers of European blood, of whom 14,000 were reported efficient 
 at the end of 1886. A reserve force of Native soldiers who liave passed 
 through the ranks is also being organised, and the men of the reserve force 
 will be liable to rejoin the colours in case of need. 
 
 57. Conclusion. — The Court of Directors claimed in 1858 that their govern- 
 ment of India had been " not only one of the purest in intention, but one of 
 " the most beneficent in act, ever known among mankind ; that .... it 
 " had been one of the most rapidly improving governments in the world." 
 It may fairly be claimed that, during the thirty years of government under 
 the Crown, progress has been more rapid in India than during any previous 
 period of the same length, and that the intentions and actions of the Govern- 
 ment have been as much for the benefit of the Indian people as in the time 
 
36 
 
 of the Court of Directors. The polity, the progress, and the requirements of 
 India have been investigated 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 comolexity. 
 
 India Office, 
 February 1889. 
 
INDIAN' ADM INISTRATION i . . i NG TH E PAST T III RT 1 V r] \ 
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 4-' 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME OF THE EESTJLTS 
 
 OF 
 
 INDIAN ADMINISTRATION 
 
 DURING THE 
 
 PAST THIllTY YEAJiS 
 
 or 
 
 BHITISH IIIII^E IN INDIA. 
 
 ^rfsKntei to boti; ^ouSfS of ^9ar!ianunt I)p Commaiiti of ^tr iilajfStiu 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFF! 
 
 BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, 
 
 PR1NTEE3 TO THE QXTEEN'f- " ■ ■"• ;'?>riv:,!,ENT MAJES'iV. 
 
 And to be purcliased, either dirt ; : i ; 1 i 
 
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