UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES; 
 
 OR 
 
 FACTS ON BOTH SIDES. 
 
 BY 
 
 DELTA. 
 
 Quseque ipse misserima vidi. 
 
 1745 
 
 ■\ 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1861. 
 
 Price One Shilling. 
 
 P 
 
INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES; 
 
 OR 
 
 FACTS ON BOTH SIDES. 
 
 BY 
 
 DELTA. 
 
 Quaeque ipse misserima vidi. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1861. 
 
 Price One Shilling. 
 
« • < 
 
 <i « e 
 « «• 
 
1 3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction. 1 
 
 Chap. I. Historical 5 
 
 „ II. The Kaleekota Case 9 
 
 1. The Government 14 
 
 2. The Civilian 16 
 
 3. The Planter 21 
 
 4. The Etot 28 
 
 III. Covenanted and Uncovenanted . . .36 
 
 IV. Kothiemurchus' Eant 43 
 
 V. Price of Production — Indigo . . . .50 
 
 VI. Price of Production — Bice . . . .57 
 
 VII. The Sepoy Mutiny 67 
 
 VIII. The Impending Famine 72 
 
 IX. Indigo and Cotton 79 
 
 Conclusions 88 
 
 Appendix 91 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The time is not yet come when it is possible to pronounce an 
 opinion on the conduct of Lord Canning as Viceroy of India. 
 
 (We know to oar cost that his administrate a has been the most 
 disastrous ever known since the English nation assumed the 
 Dosition of sovereigns in that country after the battle of Plassey, 
 but it is not so clear whether the misfortunes which have fol- 
 lowed him ever since he set foot on the Indian shore are due to 
 his incapacity, or whether they have arisen from circumstances 
 
 1 1 beyond all human control. 
 
 It may be that at the time when he was selected for the ap- 
 
 i pointment Lord Canning was the fittest man for the place who 
 had ever been sent to India, and that his misfortunes arose from 
 the rash and ambitious policy of his predecessor, who had sown 
 
 I the seeds of the whirlwind which was to overwhelm his succes- 
 sor. It may, after all, have been only one of those accidents 
 that so often determine the fate of empires, and if it had hap- 
 pened that Lord Canning had preceded Lord Dalhousie that 
 f the mutiny never would have taken place; or had Lord Dal- 
 ' Ipusie been in India when it broke out, it never would have 
 ilssumed the dimensions which the inertness of his successor 
 pjermitted it to take. It may turn out that it was only the 
 (round man put into the square hole, or vice versa. But these 
 .re speculations which those only who come after us can fairly 
 ealize and appreciate. 
 So far as we can now judge Lord Canning's greatest fault 
 s been that he has allowed weak and incompetent men to 
 l^ep into places of trust for which they were totally unfitted, 
 <,ud that either from apathy or indolence he has neither dared 
 \J face the unpleasantness of removing them, nor taken care to 
 I jlsist that they should perform their functions as even second 
 
 lass men can do when under efficient control. 
 5 I His greatest merit will probably be found to be in the sted- 
 N?st moral courage with which he held his own during the 
 xcitement of the dreadful period of the great Sepoy mutiny. 
 
 B 
 
 V 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Even in the darkest hour of that dreadful crisis, no moan of 
 despair ever escaped from Lord Canning's lips, no cry for ven- 
 geance ever found an echo in his heart even when the most 
 atrocious crimes seemed to demand it, and no shout of triumph 
 ever threw him off his guard or prevented him from taking the 
 precautious necessary to secure the advantage which to others 
 seemed complete. These are great qualities, and will go far to 
 redeem the weakness, which though sometimes fatal in the ruler 
 is frequently excusable in the man. 
 
 It is possible that he may be as little to blame personally for 
 the mutiny of the Company's European troops, which was the 
 second great disaster of this sort which occurred during his 
 viceroyalty. The legal authorities may have been right in ad- 
 vising the Government both in India and at home that the 
 soldiers had no right to the bounty they demanded and in ad- 
 vising them to resist it, and instructions may have been sent to 
 India to act in accordance with these opinions. It is true, never- 
 theless, that a great man would not have asked the lawyers for 
 an opinion in the technical construction of an agreement when 
 the highest interests of the State — almost the safety of the Em- 
 pire — were at stake ; and a bold man when he saw how things 
 were going would have dared to act on his own judgment even 
 in contradiction to the instructions he had received. In ex- 
 pecting this we are probably demanding the exercise of virtues 
 which not one man in a thousand would in like circumstances 
 be found to possess, and in the present instance it is looking to 
 Lord Canning for the possession of those very qualities in which, 
 from the nature of his mind, he is most singularly deficient, 
 however good or great he may be in virtues of a totally opposite 
 nature. 
 
 Although, therefore, posterity may probably acquit Lord 
 Canning personally of all responsibility as to these two great 
 disasters, they will scarcely return so favourable a verdict as t(b 
 the third rebellion, which has marked his ill-starred domination. 
 The smallest amount of prescience — the least show of firmness 
 on the part of Lord Canning, would have prevented the Indigo 
 rebellion from taking the dimensions it has assumed ; but): 
 whether from apathy or ignorance on his part he has allowed! 
 
INTRODUCTION. «i 
 
 a restless^-but vain and petulant— deputy to set class against 
 class, to unsettle the security of property, to reverse the relations 
 of capital and labour, and to inflict a wound on the financial 
 prosperity of India probably as deep, though not at the time so 
 apparent, as that inflicted by the Great Sepoy Mutiny, 
 
 It is easy to understand that it would be singularly dis- 
 tasteful to a man of Lord Canning's indolent turn of mind to 
 enter into a controversy with so ambitious a subordinate as 
 Mr. John Peter Grant ; knowing how vain that gentleman was 
 of his power of writing, and how anxious to display his elegant 
 style of composition on all occasions, in season and out of season. 
 He might well have shrunk from this, but it was not needed — 
 all that was required was a temporary veto, a postponement of 
 his measures, anything in fact that would have allowed time 
 for inquiry and reflection, and all the mischief might have been 
 saved. As it stands now, those who know the country best, 
 doubt whether any of the previous events were so detrimental 
 to the future prosperity of India, as this ignoble squabble got 
 up by Mr. Grant and his subordinates. The misfortune is that 
 it is so ignoble that few can be found to take an interest in it, 
 or to believe that it is possible any set of men could act so 
 foolishly. 
 
 Disastrous as it was, the story of the Great Sepoy Rebellion 
 was illustrated by deeds of high daring, and sanctified by 
 instances of noble endurance which go far to redeem its horrors, 
 and while we lament the misfortune we cannot but feel an 
 inward satisfaction and pride in the knowledge that our 
 countrymen bore themselves so bravely in that crisis of their 
 fate. It is easy, in consequence, to get a hearing to any explana- 
 tion of its causes or any recital of its details. 
 
 It is very different with the Indigo dispute. What can be 
 said to interest the British public in a dispute where civilians 
 and missionaries interfere between a planter and a ryot to 
 
 /fettle the price of a bundle of Indigo ? And instead of manly 
 Aleeds, they only indulge in wordy personalities ! All this may 
 (be as undignified as a squabble in a parish vestry, but if we 
 Jook below the surface, and will take the pains to study the signs 
 [of the times, we shall probably find as results of this third 
 b 2 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rebellion — That property outside the bounds of the Presidential 
 capitals is not worth a year's purchase. That we have under- 
 taken to govern a fine country by European energy and skill, 
 and to defend it by European courage and discipline, and that 
 while doing this we have destroyed the European capital, which 
 alone could provide the means to enable us to carry this through. 
 That we have absolutely interdicted the employment of European 
 energy and intelligence where it was most wanted, and where 
 it alone could suffice to develop the resources and improve the 
 capabilities of the country we have taken under our charge. 
 
 If we look closely at it we may find that we have been busily 
 engaged in cutting asunder the very roots which spread into the 
 ground and enabled the tree of European civilization in the 
 East to derive nourishment from the soil, and the consequence 
 may be that the next blast that sweeps across the plain may lay 
 prostrate and for ever the tree which it has taken a hundred 
 years and the wisdom of thousands to raise into maturity, but 
 which the hatchet of a fool may in a few hours overthrow. 
 
 If this be so, it cannot be considered a waste of time to 
 attempt to explain to the British public the origin of this 
 miserable quarrel, or to point out to them what its effects are 
 likely to be on the prosperity of our Indian empire, though it 
 may be a vain hope to interest the mass of them in a squabble 
 which has been so contemptible in its causes and must be so 
 inglorious in its results. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 It is not necessary in this place to attempt to enter into a his- 
 tory of the Indigo cultivation in Bengal, but a few facts may 
 render what follows more intelligible. 
 
 Without going back further than the 1 7th century it is admitted 
 that up to that time all the Indigo introduced into Europe came 
 from India. Between the years 1664 and 1694 the East India 
 Company imported altogether into England 1,758,060 lbs. of 
 Indigo, or about 800 mds. per annum on an average, principally 
 the produce of Lahore and Agra, and brought down by natives to 
 Surat, which was then their principal factory. After this these 
 imports sensibly diminished, it may have been in consequence of 
 the troubles that ensued on the downfall of the Mogul empire, 
 but more probably from the inability of natives ever to compete 
 with European skill and energy. They were beaten out of the 
 field by the Spanish and French planters of Guatemala and St. 
 Domingo, and more especially by the English, who, about the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century, took up the cultivation 
 vigorously in Jamaica, Barbadoes, and more extensively in Flo- 
 rida and Carolina. In the year 1745 Parliament put a duty of 
 35 6d a pound on Indigo grown in British possessions, which 
 forced its abandonment in the British West India Islands. The 
 quarrel between the mother country and her North American 
 colonies prevented for awhile its introduction from — or at all 
 events its extension in — these countries. The troubles of St. 
 Domingo extinguished its production there, and Guatemala 
 alone continued, and continues, to supply its modicum of the 
 dye from the Western world. 
 
 While all this was going on in the West, East Indian Indigo 
 was entirely forgotten and utterly unknown in the European 
 markets, but about the year 1770 some enterprising Frenchmen 
 attempted to establish a cultivation of the plant in Bengal and 
 to manufacture it according to the processes invented in Ame- 
 
INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES, 
 
 rica. Their success was not brilliant, but sufficient to excite 
 the jealousy of the Company, who could suffer no interference 
 with their monopoly of all things. About ten years afterwards 
 (1 779-80) the Company attempted it on their own account, but 
 according to their own shewing in a few years lost £80,000 by 
 the venture. They therefore made a virtue of necessity, declared 
 the trade free and encouraged their own servants to cultivate it, 
 "in order to afford them a means of remitting their fortunes 
 home, as well to the benefit of Bengal as to this country/* 
 (See Despatch, 22nd April, 1789). 
 
 From this hour Indigo became the staple of Bengal, not that 
 that province was particularly well adapted to its cultivation y 
 but because monopoly had relinquished its grasp of it, and 
 European capital and energy were henceforth to be applied to 
 its development. Had the Company lost £80,000 by its cotton 
 investments instead, the world would wear a different aspect to 
 what it now does. But to proceed. In the year 1783 Bengal 
 exported to England 1200 mds of Indigo, other countries about 
 ten times that amount; in 1790 Bengal contributed 73S8 mds.^ 
 other countries 17,7-3; in 1794, Bengal had almost come up 
 with its rivals, exporting 18,000 mds. against 18,500 of other 
 countries. In 1800 the tables were turned. Bengal sent home 
 39,000 mds., all other countries contributed only 14,000, and 
 from that time forward the disproportion became annually more 
 and more apparent. In 1815-16 the amount of Indigo produced 
 in Bengal was 128,000 mds. — considerably more than it pro- 
 duces now, and from that time forward Bengal supplied all the 
 Indigo required for the consumption of the world, with the ex- 
 ception of a small quantity that came home from Mexico ; it 
 might have continued to do so, but that the extravagant prices 
 obtained in 1824 to 1829 stimulated Java and Madras to try 
 their luck in this then profitable speculation, and the reaction 
 in Calcutta, leading to the disasters in 1830-33, helped for 
 awhile to enable them to support the competition. Previous to 
 the year 1815, when the Indigo cultivation in Lower Bengal 
 attained its full development, almost all the factories were in 
 the hands of the Company's servants, especially those who were 
 employed as Commercial Residents, and without this circum- 
 
EARLY STAGES OF CULTIVATION. 7 
 
 stance it is probable that it never could have been established 
 at all. The Residents, however, had then, as they have now in 
 the case of opium, full and absolute power to force their ad- 
 vances for silk in other produce on any one they pleased, and 
 absolute power to force any one to reel or work for them as they 
 might direct. So long as this was or is done by members of the 
 Bengal Civil Service, there cannot, according to their account 
 of matters, of course be any injustice or oppression; though if 
 one tenth part of what was and is done by them were done by a 
 free settler the dead would rise from their graves to demand 
 redress against their oppressors. 
 
 During the period we are speaking of, the Residents extended 
 to the cultivation of Indigo, for their own sakes, the beneficent 
 powers entrusted to them to procure silk and other articles of 
 commerce for their masters, and with such success that larger 
 fortunes were then realized from the cultivation of the dye than 
 have since unfortunately been obtained.* After the cultivation 
 had fairly been established by the Civil service, it was forced to 
 an unnatural extent by the Free Traders, from the circumstance 
 of its being of all the great and important staples of India, the 
 only one they were allowed to touch. It also happened that 
 during the early part of this century, large sums of money 
 accumulated in the hands of the great agency houses of Calcutta, 
 arising from the savings of the Civil and Military servants of 
 the Company. The Service of course expected interest for their 
 money while so deposited, and a favourable remittance home 
 
 * One of the most remarkable instances of this and of the vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune, was Mr. Williams of the Bengal Civil Service, for a 
 long time the Commercial Resident at Comeercollv. Almost all the 
 Indigo factories in that neighbourhood were built or owned by him, and 
 so rich did he grow that he would not condescend to go home in any 
 ordinary ship, but built one of the finest vessels of her day, the old 
 Zenobia, to convey to England himself, his family and his fortune — in 
 the shape of as many chests of Indigo as she would carry. Before she 
 was launched it was whispered that he had used his masters' money — 
 nobody objected to his using their power, in the production of his Indigo. 
 An inquiry was ordered — the verdict was against him — he was dismissed 
 the Service, and died long afterwards a poor old broken-hearted man at 
 Ducca. The Zenobia still plies her trade, and every year since has 
 brought a cargo of the ill-fated dye to London, regardless of him who 
 first drove a copper nail into her keel. 
 
8 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 when a sufficient sum had accumulated. The Government also 
 came annually into the market and purchased large quantities of 
 Indigo, as a vehicle of remittance for the money required at 
 home. 
 
 From these circumstances the cultivation was immensely ex- 
 tended, and prices forced up to such an extent that it resulted, 
 as is usually the case in forced productions, in the crash which 
 occurred in 1830-33. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the fostering care which had been 
 bestowed upon it, it does not appear that Indigo ever was in 
 Bengal a profitable investment for money. The old civilians 
 may have made fortunes out of it, but they had advantages not 
 vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. Its cultivation was the proxi- 
 mate cause of the downfall of the great agency houses — it 
 ruined the Union Bank in 1847-48, and numberless professional 
 fortunes gathered together with infinite toil within the Maha- 
 ratta Ditch have disappeared like magic in its blue depths — 
 while on the other hand, the fortunes which have been made 
 have been few and far between, and out of all proportion small 
 when compared with the amount of capital sunk, and the amount 
 of risk run in its production. 
 
 At present Bengal barely holds her own with the rest of the 
 world. A succession of bad seasons in Lower Bengal have re- 
 duced the crop to about an average of a lakh, or say one 
 hundred thousand maunds a year. Thus, while Bengal supplied 
 17,619 chests in 1860 to the London market, Madras, Manilla, 
 Java, &c, sent 9770, or about half as much ; and Guatemala 
 furnished 5758 serons, and 7456 in the previous year. Though 
 this diminution in the quantity has forced up the price of Bengal 
 indigo to about 200rs. per maund, the higher price has not com- 
 pensated the planter for the diminished quantity, while it has 
 served to stimulate the production of the dye in other countries to 
 his detriment. Under these circumstances, he has found it difficult 
 to obtain the outlay to carry on his factories or to keep them in 
 a state of efficiency ; and altogether his prospects were so dis- 
 couraging, that it required the fostering care of Government to 
 help this unfortunate branch of industry over the present crisis 
 —not the unnatural raid of the Civil Service against their own 
 
THE KALEEKOTA CASE. y 
 
 child. Whatever the faults and failings of the bantling may- 
 have been, it has, at least, this merit : that in its day, it has done 
 more to develope the resources and to introduce European skill 
 and capital into India than all the other products of that rich 
 country put together. At present there is nothing to take its 
 place ; and if Mr. John Peter Grant succeeds in destroying it, 
 the annual Indian deficit may reach dimensions which will 
 astonish the mind of even a member of the Bengal Civil 
 Service. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE KALEEKOTA CASE. 
 
 Wherever indigo planting is mentioned there is a sort of 
 indefinite feeling that there is something very dreadful connected 
 with it — something which it is not easy to define, but which 
 must be very horrible. Missionaries have preached terrible 
 sermons about the abduction of women and cattle, the burning 
 of bazaars, and the imprisonment of unoffending ryots, and so 
 forth. On a recent occasion, a respectable missionary asserted 
 that every chest of indigo that reached the London market was 
 saturated with human gore ! — whether to improve the colour or 
 merely to add to the weight was not explained — but when pressed 
 for his authority, he named a member of the Bengal Civil Ser- 
 vice, who admitted that he said so ;* and, as he had resided in 
 an indigo district, the public (in Europe, at least) can't help 
 fancying there must be something in it. In India they have 
 evinced singular incredulity. However, it will be well to look 
 the matter in the face; no one denies that fights of clubmen or 
 latials have been instigated by planters in former days, and that 
 men have been killed in these affrays. The Commissioners re- 
 cently appointed to inquire into the matter state (par. 85), 
 " That they had obtained (from the Hon. Ashley Eden) a list of 
 forty-nine serious cases which had occurred in a period of thirty 
 years, in different parts of the country. They do not lay much 
 stress upon it, because violent affrays ending in homicides or 
 
 * Since nicknamed, in consequence, " Gory LatOur." 
 
10 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 wounding are, they are happy to say, of not nearly such frequent 
 occurrence as they used to be, and affrays are not peculiar to 
 indigo planting — they occur equally where the plant is rut 
 grown."* 
 
 Considering who penned this paragraph, it may be taken 
 for a complete acquittal as the case at present stands, the fact 
 being that, between European and native, they are entirely 
 obsolete ; between native and native they still are common and 
 always have been so, but that is of no consequence to our present 
 purpose. If natives like to kill one another, that is their look 
 out. A planter might as well interfere between man and wife 
 as between two Zemindars bent on a little bloodshed ; besides 
 that is no crime in the eyes of the Civil Service, though it is of 
 vital importance in their eyes that no European should be acces- 
 sary to what then becomes a frightful crime. If the Govern- 
 ment can prevent this last disgrace, they think they have done all 
 that could well be expected of them. 
 
 Let us however admit the whole case, which in fact it is of 
 no use denying — fights did take place. Let us take an example 
 and examine the atrocity in all its blackness and see what it 
 amounts to. To do this we must unfortunately go back some 
 five and twenty years, the race is avowedly extinct, and no 
 recent specimen available. Even then, as one of the parties 
 principally concerned is still pursuing his nefarious trade, we 
 will call the village and factory Kaleekota, and the district in 
 which it occurred Paglahpoor, which though it may be a correct 
 designation, is not the name by which it is distinguished on the 
 map. 
 
 The village of Kaleekota had cultivated Indigo for the 
 factory, ever since it was established, and, strange though it 
 may appear, had grown rich and saucy either by, or in spite of 
 this. Their Malek or master, the Zemindar, seeing that they 
 were perfectly able to pay an increased rent demanded it, but by 
 the aid of the factory they had always been able to resist his 
 
 * It is to be regretted that the means do not exist in this country for 
 a satisfactory analysis of this extraordinary list ; for it bears on its face 
 evidence of the most singular misconception of facts and perversion of 
 evidence which can be conceived ; but as it was rejected by the Com- 
 missioners, we may let it pass also. 
 
THE KALEEKOTA CASE. 11 
 
 illegal exactions. In this state of the case, the Malek offered to 
 lease the village to the factory, and as it was important to have 
 an influence in it, a negociation was opened. When, however, 
 the terms were made known, it was found that the Malek 
 demanded that the factory should pay him an increase of nearly 
 50 per cent, on what the ryots had been in the habit of paying, 
 in other words should do the iniquity it had assisted in re- 
 pelling, and should besides pay a large bonus for a lease for seven 
 years. The terms in fact were so unreasonable that they were at 
 once refused. " Very well,'' said the Zemindar, " if you wont 
 give me what I ask, no ryot in Kaleekota shall cultivate a 
 begah of Indigo for the factory from this day henceforward/' 
 No sooner said than done* When the factory servants went as 
 usual to turn out the ploughs in the morning to cultivate the 
 land according to agreement, they were kicked out of the 
 village, and figuratively if not practically beaten, and were 
 immediately despatched to the station to complain. On the other 
 hand if they were in sufficient force to seize the ploughs, off 
 went the ryots to complain that " the factory servants, armed with 
 swords and spears and all manner of lethal weapons, had 
 attacked, beaten, and nearly murdered them/ 5 The factory 
 pleaded its agreements, the ryots swore they were forged or 
 obtained by force. Pottahs or leases were taken from parties 
 who claimed property in the village, and claim and counter 
 claim, suits and counter suits were set up by both parties. The 
 object of all this simply being, that if the quarrel could not be 
 settled amicably, and it came to a fight, either party might 
 plead justification. No one expected that the suits would be 
 settled in one or two years, and if settled, that the decree would 
 be enforced. Months were thus spent in squabbling and 
 fruitless negociation, but the sowing season was approaching, 
 and if it was not settled before that ; all was lost. What the 
 planter had to look to, was the certainty, that if the Kalee- 
 kota Zemindar could force the factory to accede to his terms, 
 every proprietor of every village would have followed his 
 example, and if the ryots were allowed to cultivate or no, as 
 they pleased, in defiance of their agreements, and in spite of 
 the advances they had taken ; there was an end of the concern. 
 
12 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 With 5000 or 10,000 different ryots to deal with, if each man 
 was to settle his own terms, planting was impossible. A fight, 
 in fact, in those days was inevitable. The factory therefore 
 collected some 200 men, the Zemindar was understood to have 
 done the same. Ultimatums were sent in by diplomatists on 
 both sides, but being rejected, it was understood that a battle 
 might decide the fate of the war any day. 
 
 The usual course of these affrays used to be that the factory 
 army advanced towards the recusant village and found the mer- 
 cenaries employed to defend it drawn up in some advantageous 
 position in front of it. When the armies had approached to within 
 one or two hundred yards of each other the chiefs advanced to the 
 front, and, as in Homer's days, began to harangue each other, 
 not in classic Greek, it must be confessed, but in very exciting 
 Bengallee. When sufficiently excited by each other's eloquence 
 the chiefs of the armies again advanced ; each singled out his ap- 
 propriate foe, and, as in the old days of Greece, five or six single 
 combats took place between the heroes on either side while the 
 armies looked on. Five minutes generally decided the fate of 
 the war. One or two chiefs were wounded or knocked down ; 
 very rarely was any man killed. First blood, in fact, decided 
 the fate of the day. The defeated chiefs retired on their sup- 
 ports, who took to their heels, and the victorious army rushed 
 forward with loud shouts and took possession of the city, whose 
 mercenaries had been defeated. As the fight had long been ex- 
 pected all the women and children and old men had been removed, 
 with all their property, to the neighbouring villages, so that very 
 little loot was ever obtained. The object, in fact, was to seize 
 the village and hold it till peace was signed, which was then very 
 speedily accomplished. There the matter ended so far as the 
 factory and villagers were concerned, though some of the mer- 
 cenaries on either side, probably, got into trouble with the police ; 
 but that was their look out. Men who live by breaking the law 
 must be prepared for the consequences when they are caught. 
 If any one was killed, which did sometimes happen, though rarely, 
 it was a very black look out for both parties. It was, it is 
 true, a glorious haul for the police ; for as both were equally to 
 blame both were mulcted accordingly. The consequences were, 
 
THE KALEEKOTA CASE. 13 
 
 in fact, so serious that such a result was generally avoided. If 
 the truth were told there is more blood spilt and heads broken 
 in a town and gown row at Oxford or Cambridge than was ever 
 spilt or were cracked in a fight among Bengallees, and more men 
 killed in prize fighting in a series of years in England than were 
 ever killed in Bengal in these encounters. In both cases, when 
 it did happen, it was among men of the same class — professional 
 Athletes who live by fighting, and who, consequently, are not 
 much to be pitied if occasionally one of them fell in the exercise 
 of his profession. 
 
 In the particular instance of Kaleekota things did not quite 
 follow the usual routine. When the factory army advanced 
 they saw the villagers ; — they were the villagers themselves in 
 this instance, — drawn up in hostile array, but before the attacking 
 party came within scolding distance they fled, and the invaders 
 rushed, with shouts of victory, into the captured town; but 
 here^ oh horror of horrors ! instead of " a deserted village" they 
 found the Darogah i( in possession," with a large body of police, 
 who immediately proceeded to seize and secure the factory men. 
 They were caught in a trap, but no time was to be lost. Being 
 by far the most numerous they resisted the police, rescued their 
 companions, and escaped to bring the news of the disaster to the 
 factory. Great was the consternation, as may be supposed ; but 
 there was only one course open. A trustworthy agent was sent 
 with a heavy bag of rupees to the Tannah. He gave the Darogah 
 a tangible proof of the Sahib's friendship, and shewed a propor- 
 tionate degree of consideration to all the inferior officers. A 
 silver salve was applied to the wounds of those who had suffered 
 in the affray, and having adjusted all this satisfactorily, a report 
 was sent to the magistrate, stating " That, fearing a breach of 
 " the peace, he (the Darogah) had taken with him the men at 
 " his disposal and gone to Kaleekota to prevent disturbances, 
 M but that the villagers, excited thereto by evil-disposed persons, 
 " had refused him admittance to the village, and had beaten his 
 " men and defied his authority. Under these circumstances, 
 " he requested further powers and a reinforcement of men, and, 
 " meanwhile, he sent a couple of his wounded peons who would 
 !? tell his honour all about it." 
 
14 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 To make a long story short, the result was that the villagers 
 were seized, tried, and condemned to imprisonment with hard 
 labour, in the common gaol of Paglahpoor for periods varying 
 from six months to six years. It need hardly be added that 
 there was no further question about the lease of Kaleekota, or 
 whether the ryots should or should not cultivate Indigo for the 
 factory. All this is very horrible no doubt, and ought not to 
 have been — but who is to blame for it ? There were at least 
 four parties concerned in the transaction : the Government — 
 the Civil Service — the Planter, and the Natives. Let us try if 
 we can apportion to each his fair share of these transactions. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 The Government, 
 
 The Government of India saw Indigo to the value of at least 
 £2,000,000 sterling annually brought to Calcutta — they them- 
 selves generally purchased one half of it — they knew that three 
 or four millions more must have been sunk in building the fac- 
 tories where it was produced ; they knew that the million and a 
 half of hard cash which this industry distributed through their 
 districts enabled them to realize their rents to an extent, and 
 with a facility which would have been otherwise impossible, and 
 knew that nothing had done so much to increase the trade and 
 to develope the resources of India as Indigo planting had done. 
 But Government did not know who produced this dye — they 
 knew that certain individuals had stolen out to India under free 
 mariner's indentures ; but they were assumed to be ploughing 
 the main, not cultivating Indigo — and they knew that certain 
 mariners had made free with their indentures and disappeared, 
 possibly into the interior ; but no one knew where. The law 
 did not recognize the existence of any such class. No British 
 born subject, mariner or otherwise, could hold an acre of land or 
 possess a pennyworth of property outside the Maharatta ditch. 
 In so far as the Government or the law was concerned, the class 
 of Indigo planters was non-existent. The factories w T ere built 
 on a plot of land of which a lease was taken from a man who 
 
THE GOVERNMENT. 15 
 
 probably could show no title to it, in the name of some native 
 factory servant who probably was dead and left no heirs, executors 
 or assigns. To the land beyond the factory ditch, the planter 
 had not even to this the ghost of a title. He advanced lakhs 
 and lakhs of Rupees annually to men who had not property to 
 the value of one tenth of the amount advanced, and who ran up 
 an account of one or two hundred rupees without troubling 
 themselves twice about it. No interest was ever charged ; a 
 return of the advance was never asked for otherwise than in 
 service; and if it had ever been asked, it would have puzzled 
 any one to explain legally, how the debt was contracted or who 
 the creditor was. It certainly was not the shadowy planter who 
 provided the money. 
 
 All this may have been wise and proper, but it had the effect 
 of making the production of Indigo very uncertain and very 
 expensive, and it deterred men who had got either capital or 
 character to lose from engaging in the speculation. The real 
 wonder is not that there should have been some black sheep 
 among the early planters, but that any man of respectability 
 could be found to accept the position of outlawry in which it 
 suited the Government of India to place them. 
 
 So far from wondering that some of the acts of the planters 
 should not have been strictly legal, it would probably puzzle all 
 the jurists in Europe to explain how a man can act legally whose 
 existence the law does not recognize or provide for. It would 
 be equally difficult to explain how any one is to hold or protect 
 property to which the law of the land gives him no title what- 
 ever, unless he can protect it by his own strong arm and his own 
 superior ability. The real truth of the matter is, his title was in his 
 blood. The title by which the planter held his factory, was pre- 
 cisely analogous to that by which the Company held India. It was 
 because he was more just, more sober, more reasonable than those 
 around him that he was able to defeat every combination, and 
 to hold his own among his equals and secure the willing obedi- 
 ence of those who were placed under him, This may have been 
 right or it may have been wrong ; but it was rather hard that 
 the Government which so shamefully neglected its first duty, as 
 not to acknowledge the existence of a large and influential body 
 
16 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 of its subjects should now turn round and say — Gentlemen, your 
 acts are not in strict conformity with the law ! 
 
 Things have altered much since that time, however. Planters 
 have been permitted to acquire property, and to hold it in their 
 own names ; and acts of lawlessness have decreased in the exact 
 ratio in which their property has become more secure, and would 
 absolutely cease if the law were better administered. We hope 
 indeed to prove before we are done that all that is alleged 
 against the Planter is not the effect of any desire on his part to 
 break the law, but is the inevitable result of the wretched state 
 of the administration of justice in Lower Bengal, which has 
 forced him occasionally to take the law into his own hand, in 
 order to protect his own person and property from the lawless- 
 ness for which the Government is alone responsible. 
 
 Section II. 
 
 The Civilian. 
 
 No one who knows the Indian Civil Service but must admit 
 that they are an extraordinary body of men — an honour to the 
 country which produced them, and a credit to the empire they 
 are called upon to govern ; at the same time, no one who knows 
 much of human nature will fancy that a body of men who were 
 selected while boys from a large section of the people, and not 
 chosen for mental qualifications but from relationship to certain 
 patrons, can all turn out Solons or models of discretion or gen- 
 tlemanly bearing. He will not be surprised to learn that some 
 remain drones through life, while others are so elated by the 
 position in which they are placed, that their conduct is an injury 
 to the service to which they belong, and a frightful misfortune to 
 those who are placed under their charge. 
 
 Even if they were all Solons, and Solomons into the bargain, 
 more is generally expected of them than any ordinary mortal 
 could satisfactorily perform. Many indigo districts contain from 
 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 of inhabitants ; and it is expected that all 
 the judicial, revenue, and criminal causes among this population 
 should be examined into and decided by three or four men. Let us 
 
THE CIVILIAN. 17 
 
 fancy three Germans or Spaniards, who having acquired a fair 
 smattering of English, were to be placed at Lanark to decide all 
 the judicial, revenue, and criminal causes of Scotland south of 
 the Clyde and Forth — or at York, to do all the business of the 
 three Ridings ! If these three foreigners were to attempt this, 
 instead of the thousands of trained men who now perform these 
 duties, and who have been chosen for their fitness, and who have 
 devoted their lives to the business, any one may guess what 
 would be the result in a few weeks. The case of the Civil Ser- 
 vice, however, is worse than this ; English and Scotch men are 
 prudent, and would soon learn to govern themselves. The Ben- 
 gallees are excitable, litigious, prone to falsehood, and utterly 
 incapable of self-government. The assistance the Civilian gets 
 from the natives in the discharge of his functions is a frightful 
 aggravation of his difficulties. The salaries of his Omlah, or 
 officers of the court, are so small, and their position so important, 
 that, with the fewest possible exceptions, they eke out their 
 scanty pay by bribes received from suitors, and, what is worse 
 still, one and all of them encourage the belief that their master 
 is as corrupt as themselves — the keystone of the system being 
 that all should be believed to share according to their several 
 degrees. Another disadvantage under which the service labours 
 is that, where all must be employed, men are never, or with the 
 rarest possible exceptions, appointed to an office because of their 
 fitness for it. The Judge is placed on the bench, not because he 
 knows anything of the law or of judicial business, but because he 
 has succeeded by seniority to that grade. The Collector need not 
 know anything of figures or political economy ; and the Magis- 
 trate is a younger man, learning his business at the expense of 
 the subject, prior to his being promoted to be Collector, Judge, 
 Commissioner, and Governor of the province, as the case may be. 
 Another regulation, more detrimental to the efficiency of the 
 Civil Service, is, that they are changed every three years from 
 one district to another. If there was the smallest possible sus- 
 picion that any of them were corrupt, this might be most wise ; 
 but, as no one whose opinion is worth anything ever hinted such 
 a thing, it is most uncalled for. If a new magistrate is sharp 
 and clever, with a keen eye and a knowledge of mankind, he 
 
 c 
 
18 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 will find out in six months, or a year, at all events, who are the 
 peaceful men of his district — who the disturbers of the law ; and 
 he will find out who are the least corrupt among his Omlah, 
 and, by a little extra judicial sharpness, he will let people know 
 that he is not to be trifled with ; and for the next two years, or 
 two years and a-half, he will be a valuable servant, and his dis- 
 trict a model of order and propriety. If he is a slow man, it 
 may take him all his three years to find out this, and during that 
 period he will be pottering over evidence and turning over regu- 
 lations, whilst outside everything will be going to the dogs. 
 During his dynasty, the man who can hire the largest quantity 
 of evidence, and secure the services of the most experienced 
 false witnesses, will have it all his own way, provided, of course, 
 that he has money enough to bribe pretty freely. 
 
 It may appear to Englishmen a very proper regulation that 
 a Judge or Magistrate must decide according to the evidence. 
 A timid Civilian always does — because the evidence as written 
 down is liable to be overhauled by the Commissioner, or by a 
 Court in Calcutta, in the event of an appeal, by persons in short, 
 who have not the slightest idea of the character of the Plaintiff 
 or Defendant, or can tell whether the witnesses were witnesses 
 by profession or by accident. Any one, however, who knows 
 his business, knows that the evidence is about the last thing he 
 ought to attend to. If it is clear, it is certain to be false ; if 
 confused and exaggerated, it may be true. Forms and evidence 
 are, in fact, most excellent institutions wherever there is time 
 and skill to sift the one, and a sufficiently numerous and well 
 trained staff to carry through the other with regularity and 
 precision. But when three men are set to do the work that 
 could hardly be done efficiently by three hundred, some shorter 
 cut is indispensable, and no one would blame the Civil Service 
 for taking it, if they did not pretend that their hap-hazard way 
 of dispensing justice or injustice was the perfection of law, and 
 did not fancy that such blind work could either give security to 
 property or enable a country to develope its resources without 
 some other machinery being established for that purpose. 
 
 This may seem strange reasoning to Englishmen accustomed 
 to see on the Bench only men who are chosen for their fitness 
 
THE CIVILIAN. 19 
 
 and experience. Who are in the habit of seeing every shred of 
 evidence sifted by the keenest and most intellectual Bar, till 
 nothing remains but the residium of truth which it may contain, 
 and even then are not content to allow the Judge and the Bar 
 to decide, though the eyes of the public are upon them, but 
 refer the whole to a jury of impartial men. People whose lives 
 and property are protected by such safeguards as these, have 
 no idea what it is to live under such a system as necessarily pre- 
 vails in India. Trial by jury is one thing, the opposite pole to 
 this is trial by perjury — and that unfortunately is the normal 
 institution of the Company's Courts in India. 
 
 Civilians of course will not confess it, but in the bottom of 
 their hearts they must feel that the position in which they are 
 placed is a most trying and most humiliating one. They are 
 placed on the bench without any special fitness or previous 
 training. They never were at the bar or among the people they 
 are called upon to judge. They never saw the action of the law 
 or the suitors except from the bench, and have consequently no 
 idea that there is any other than the Civilian side of the 
 question. They have no bar to assist, no jury to steady them, 
 no public opinion to guide them, and no subordinate officer to 
 support them. They are surrounded by men who have no ties 
 of affection, and no official familiarity with the ever shifting 
 Civilian. Under these circumstances it is easy to see what must 
 happen, the Civilian is a far better, more honest, and more 
 intelligent man than those among whom he is placed; but 
 when he asserts that he dispenses justice, we are quite safe in 
 replying that he does not know the meaning of the word he is 
 using. 
 
 There is one other circumstance which aggravates to a very 
 considerable extent the difficulties of the position in which the 
 Civilian is placed, which is his entire segregation from all men 
 except those of his own elass. 
 
 So soon as he was appointed in England he was sent to a class 
 college at Haileybury and educated with young men who were 
 destined for the civil service only. He could not be aboard ship 
 many days without finding out, by the universal deference paid 
 him, that he was a different class.of mortal, not only from his or- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 dinary ship-mates but even from his own brother, if he had one 
 on board, who might be only a cadet, or, even worse, a free ma- 
 riner. Arrived in India, he used, in former days, to be again 
 separated from his fellow-men in the college at Fort William. 
 He is now drafted off into mansions of the higher Civilians at 
 Chowringhee till he proceeds up the country. There his society 
 consists only of a knot of three or four individuals of the Civil 
 service, who form the little self-laudatory coterie of a Bengal 
 Civil station, and beyond these he sees nothing but a set of 
 cringing, fawning sycophants, the worst representatives of their 
 class. The good and respectable natives keep as far from the 
 Company's Courts as the limits of the district will allow, and 
 none approach them but for interested motives, and of these none 
 hesitate to attempt to attain their ends by the grossest flattery, 
 or it may be by the most barefaced imposture. 
 
 No native in Lower Bengal — up country it is different — ever 
 dreams of approaching a Civilian on terms of equality. No one 
 ever dares to tell him the truth. From morning till night he 
 only hears that there is only God in heaven and him on earth, 
 that he can do no wrong, that he is father and mother, " all the 
 world besides " to every one that approaches him. All this may 
 sound very ridiculous at first, but when a man is steeped in flat- 
 tery for years it takes effect at last. If not a god he is more 
 than mortal — at least formed of different clay from other vessels. 
 The channel of communication with sublunar mortals is either 
 entirely cut off or so poisoned as to be worse than useless, and 
 when a rude mortal like an Indigo planter dares to tell his god- 
 ship that he is no better than other men of women born, the 
 effect is, to say the least of it, singularly unpleasing, and has in 
 fact, led to all this disturbance. But of this mere hereafter. 
 All that is wanted in the present state of the inquiry is to recog- 
 nise the fact of the extreme difficulty of the position in which a 
 Civilian is placed. It is absurd to ascribe to them improper mo- 
 tives for their conduct. So long as a Civilian is only mortal it 
 is quite impossible that he should dispense equal justice to a 
 million or two of people without subordinate officers, on whom 
 he can depend, without a code of laws or settled forms of pro- 
 cedure, without the assistance of a Bar and without a police, who 
 
THE PLANTER. 21 
 
 can be trusted. He has none of these, and the consequence is 
 that, in spite of the virtues and talents of the Civilian individually, 
 the administration of justice in Lower Bengal is a disgrace to 
 the name of Englishmen.* 
 
 Section III. 
 The Planter. 
 
 There is very little to be said in extenuation of the part the 
 Planter bore in the transaction, consequent on the Kaleekota 
 Izarah case. A man who commits a breach of the peace must 
 be prepared to take the consequences of his lawlessness and to 
 bear the obloqny which is certain to follow. It is in vain to urge 
 that it was a necessary condition of the position in which he was 
 placed. This may be, and in the present instance is, true, but 
 why then accept this position ? If a man places himself know- 
 ingly where a breach of the law is the necessary consequence of 
 
 * Since the above was in type a Pamphlet has been published by 
 John Dickenson, Jun., purporting to be a " Reply to the Indigo 
 Planter's pamphlet, entitled Brahmins and Pariahs/' the object of which 
 is two-fold. First, to complain that the Planters have not subscribed 
 with sufficient liberality to the payment of his salary as Secretary of the 
 Indian Reform Association. " Hinc illee lachrymse." Secondly, to ' 
 defend J. P. Grant and his subordinates against the accusations of 
 the Planters. 
 
 In the penultimate paragraph he sums up the defence of the Bengal 
 Government in the following emphatic words — " I have only to add, 
 that on one point the natives do most cordially agree with the Indigo 
 planters, which is, in declaring that the maladministration of justice in 
 India is such an intolerable grievance that the English people can form 
 no conception of it ! It is this shocking maladministration of justice 
 which directly produces that ' fearful state of demoralisation and 
 anarchy ' to which the missionaries bore witness, in their petition to 
 Parliament in 1857 ; and it cannot be too distinctly explained, nor too 
 often reiterated, that this cruel mockery of justice is due, not to the 
 badness of the laws, but to the want of professional qualifications in the 
 men who administer the laws. As it was well observed by the late 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Mr. Halliday, in, I think, the very last 
 Minute he penned, before quitting the public service in 1859: 'We 
 are no nearer than we were twenty years ago to a system of judicial 
 training for our civil officers ; and while we are supposed to be improv- 
 ing our civil and criminal procedure laws, we are doing nothing what- 
 ever to improve our Judges.' " 
 
22 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 his condition, lie is even more to blame than if the misfortune 
 had come on him suddenly and unexpectedly. Once for all, it 
 must he admitted that in former days a man was not only a fool 
 but worse — " une faute est pire qu'un crime " — ever to accept 
 the position of an Indigo Planter in Lower Bengal under a 
 Civilian Government. All that can be pleaded in extenuation 
 is, that the temptation was sometimes greater than poor weak 
 human nature could easily resist. It was hardly possible not to 
 be seduced in the good old days of the Civilian Planter, when 
 misconduct and oppression bore different names to those which 
 have since been used to designate these acts, and when profits 
 flowed in merrily and fortunes were made rapidly. It was 
 almost equally impossible to resist the temptation in the palmy 
 days of the old Agency houses, when Indigo was selling at 300 or 
 350 rupees per maund, when profits were large, capital abundant, 
 and money to be had for the asking, when estimates were not 
 scrutinized minutely, and all went well. After the failure of 
 the great houses and that of the Union Bank, he must have 
 been a very strong minded man who could resist purchasing for 
 30,000 or 40,000 rupees properties which had never before 
 been valued at less than three or four lakhs, and which had 
 made the fortunes of A, and B, and C, in times gone by. 
 
 In addition to the financial temptations, came the fact that it 
 would be difficult to find in the whole world a pleasanter occupa- 
 tion than that of Indigo planting. It had all the pleasures of 
 farming in this country without any of its disagreeables. The 
 work is light and the occupation healthful and pleasant — living 
 entirely by himself and thrown on his own resources, a spirit 
 of manly independence is engendered which calls forth and 
 exercises all the best feelings and energies of a man's nature ; 
 while it would be difficult to place any man in a prouder posi- 
 tion than that of governing and guiding a docile people with 
 whom all his relations are of the most pleasant and patriarchal 
 kind. Even the uncertainty of the seasons adds a zest to the 
 occupation, and afford an excitement most pleasing to hopeful 
 and energetic minds. It would, in fact, be difficult to say too 
 much of the delights of a Planter's life in the abstract. But in 
 the midst of all this — " surgit amari aliquid " — there is a curse 
 
THE PLANTER. 23 
 
 that poisons all his enjoyment — a sword of Damocles continually 
 suspended over him. He never can help feeling that he has 
 embarked his fate and fortune in the purchase of a concern to 
 which he has about as good a legal title as the sailor Jias to the 
 waves his ship is ploughing through ! 
 
 So long as he is feared by his equals and respected by his 
 inferiors, all may go right, provided no native as powerful as him- 
 self casts a longing eye on his property, and no Civilian with a 
 crotchet is appointed to the district. But these and other con- 
 tingencies may arise any hour — he must watch and work, and be 
 prepared to defend himself at all risks against all comers — one 
 moment of weakness and all may be lost, not from any fault of 
 his own, but because he happens to live under a government 
 that cannot afford to its subjects the security of property which 
 is the first element of civilization or national prosperity. 
 
 The disputes and difficulties in which the Planter become invol- 
 ved in consequence of this insecurity of property were very rarely 
 with the ryots themselves. They arose in a vast majority of cases 
 from differences with men as powerful as himself. It may be from 
 disputes about a lease, as in the case of the Kaleekota Village ; but 
 they most frequently arise from some natives casting a longing 
 eye on the planter's crops of Indigo. Seeing what a profitable 
 business Indigo planting is supposed to be to the European, why 
 should not the native Zemindar build a couple of vats on his own 
 land, in his own village, and put into cultivation if only some 
 twenty or thirty begahs to begin with? The law of course can- 
 not interfere to prevent this — God forbid that it should. If the 
 Planter does, he is guilty of a gross interference with the rights 
 of property. It is allowed— at the end of the season it is found 
 that the native has made some thirty or forty maunds of Indigo, 
 when, according to the rates per begah of the European's culti- 
 vation, he ought to have had only three or four. He is lucky, 
 and what is more extraordinary, his run of luck sticks to him. 
 Year by year, his proportion of produce increases, while that of 
 the Planter decreases, till the latter vanishes altogether and he 
 disappears from the scene. 
 
 No one who knows Bengal is at a loss to explain the pheno- 
 menon. The native is landlord, and is willing to take his rents 
 in kind ; he has made no advances, run up no loans, paid nothing 
 
24 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 for seed, and runs no risk, consequently can afford to allow liber- 
 ally for the plant. The ryots are probably in his debt ; his loan 
 bears interest at 16 or .24 per cent., and is payable on demand. 
 The Planter's loan bears no interest, and is never redemanded. 
 It is far better for the ryot to get rid of the debt to his master 
 than of that to the planter. The native has power and influence, 
 the factory has little and is getting weaker (if this were not so 
 his factory would not be there) — he can take what the ryot will 
 not give. Then the factory has some private cultivation (neez, as 
 it is called) — it is easy for him to double or treble the pay of 
 the factory servants if they will connive at his boats coming in 
 the night and assisting in carrying the plant ; all this is easy, 
 and has been done hundreds of times. The remedy is, of course, 
 an appeal to the Courts of law. Let us follow the suits through 
 their various phases — 
 
 1st suit. You prove that Ramdhun, who previously owed you 
 eighty rupees, took this year a further advance often or twenty 
 rupees, on the understanding that he would cultivate ten begahs 
 for the factory. An understanding is not an agreement, — but 
 that is got over. 
 
 2nd. Which ten begahs? — again not specified; but as it 
 was a certain well-defined ten begahs last year, it is admitted 
 that these were intended this. 
 
 3rd. What right had Kamdhun to the property ? — where are 
 his titles ? Neither he nor any ryot has any title, and no one 
 knows how he got possession of the land ; but he has cultivated 
 it for the last ten years — good. 
 
 4th. He did cultivate it for the factory this year, and sowed 
 the factory seed in it — this is admitted — and he brought the 
 produce to the factory ; but the season was bad, and he only 
 reaped half the usual quantity. It requires no small amount of 
 evidence to prove this account false — but it is done. 
 
 5th. Hunted out of all these holes, he at last admits that he 
 sold half his produce to the native factory. On this the judge 
 decrees that a man has a perfect right to sell his produce in the 
 highest or in any market. But, objects the Planter, what is to 
 become of my 100 rupees ? Oh, says the judge, you have your 
 remedy at law ; you can enter a suit for the recovery of the debt. 
 But the man has no property — nothing beyond the rag round 
 
THE PLANTER. 25 
 
 his loins ? I am sorry for you, Mr. Planter; if you have made 
 a foolish loan, you must be content to bear the result of your 
 own imprudence ! This is the legal remedy ; four or five, or, if 
 well supported by the native Planter, perhaps a dozen of suits. 
 ( The practical remedy is either that the Planter takes the bull by 
 the horns at first, and either by taking a lease of the village or 
 by fighting it out then and there, he prevents the factory being 
 established within his cultivation. If too weak and too timid to 
 do this, there is nothing for it but, every manufacturing season, 
 to have a large body of men to protect his property ; the native 
 planter does the same. When the Planter sends men to cut 
 plant which he knows to be his, the native sends men to prevent 
 them cutting what he swears belongs to him. They fight, and 
 the victorious party carries off the plant, and the Civilian shakes 
 his head and says — What villains these Planters are ! A Planter, 
 however, must make up his mind to accept the villany at once, 
 or the sooner he packs up his traps and quits the Civilian- 
 governed province the better for him and his employers. 
 
 Questions such as these arise every day in Bengal, and cannot 
 be avoided, because the boundaries of villages have never been 
 defined, and much less so the divisions and distributions of 
 property within them. There have been no surveys ever made, 
 there are no maps or plans, no titles, no registration. In plain 
 English there is no real property in Bengal.* 
 
 Till very recently, landed property, as between the natives, 
 
 * The following remarks by the Lieut-Governor of Agra, dated 1849, 
 and published in a Blue-book, dated August, 1850, bear, with tolerable 
 clearness, on this subject. " The effect of the settlement (for land re- 
 " venue) is most striking in diminishing, or rather terminating one 
 " class of crimes which used to be common, and very pernicious in their 
 " consequences, viz., affrays on account of land. The difficulties of 
 I " bringing a suit regarding land to adjudication, and the risk of making 
 " good in the civil Courts a really just right were formerly so great, 
 " that resort was frequently had to blows and violence, as the readiest 
 " and almost the only means of bringing a dispute to a termination." 
 There were no planters in those cases, but the usual mode of holding or 
 transferring property was the stick. The Civilians of the North-west 
 have by their industry, defined titles, and so stopped this mode of 
 tenure. The Civilians in Lower Bengal have been too lazy to attempt 
 it, and therefore lay the whole blame of their negligence on the Indigo 
 Planters, who have never ceased to pray for better titles since they 
 undertook the cultivation of Indigo. 
 
26 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 was transferred by the stick and held by the stick in Lower 
 Bengal as it used to be before the recent settlement in the 
 Upper Provinces. The Planters, however, have lately intro- 
 duced the novel mode of purchasing villages and farms for 
 money, and paying cash for them. So new and unexpected is 
 this mode of transfer, that they have had the pick of whatever 
 they wanted, and with sufficient capital could buy up all Bengal 
 at very reasonable rates. 
 
 As before stated, in the exact ratio in which they have 
 acquired rights have outrages ceased. But it has had this evil 
 effect. It has rendered the Planter independent and saucy ; 
 he stands up for his rights, and has bearded the Civilian on the 
 bench, and " horresco referee/' he has defied a Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Lower Bengal. The service can no longer conceal 
 from themselves that the hour of the struggle is come, either 
 the upstart Planter must be put down, or the Civil service will 
 no longer have the absolute and unquestioned control over the 
 lives and properties of their subjects. They have struck the 
 first blow and their victim is prostrate, whether he is ever to 
 rise again, remains among the secrets of futurity. 
 
 As soon as the Civilians found the Planters getting so inde- 
 pendent as to talk of equal rights and equal laws, they tried 
 hard to put a stop to it by the enactments which were most 
 properly called "Black Acts." The object of these was to 
 deprive British born subjects of their birthright of trial by jury 
 and to subject them to the Civilian institution of trial by per- 
 jury. The thing, however 3 was too monstrous. It is true the 
 Hon. Ashley Eden says he would prefer to be tried by one of 
 the Company's Courts, but as he belongs to a body of men who 
 are above all law, and who cannot be tried under any circum- 
 stances by these, or practically by any Courts, he was tolerably 
 safe in saying so, and can hardly be considered a fair witness, 
 The protest against this measure was so universal that even the 
 Council in Calcutta, though principally composed of Civilians, 
 dared not pass it, and the older Civilians shrewdly suspected 
 that though it might be very pleasant to put their feet on the 
 necks of the Planters, it might be a dangerous amusement. If 
 they only imprisoned or hanged one influential Planter for a 
 crime they had no means of investigating, they probably would 
 
: 
 
 THE PLANTER. 27 
 
 not soon hear the end of it, so they have let it drop for the pre- 
 sent, and only tried to insult their fellow-countrymen by passing 
 disarming acts, refusing him the privilege of keeping a gun to 
 shoot wild ducks or Florikin, and whenever they could, during 
 the mutiny, classing him with the rebellious natives. All this 
 is so petty as to be merely ridiculous, and so it was felt by both 
 parties till it moved John Peter Grant to stir up a revolution 
 in the hopes of settling the question at once by eradicating the 
 Planters altogether at one fell swoop. 
 
 The obvious answer that suggests itself to this sketch of the 
 position of affairs in Bengal is, that we are talking of events 
 which occurred twenty-five years ago, and that since that time 
 forms of procedure and increased industry and intelligence on the 
 part of the Civil service have improved the dispensation of 
 justice to a very considerable extent, so that these strictures are 
 no longer applicable. Let us hope it may be so. If it is so, it is 
 all the Planter asks for, and what he certainly does not consider 
 he has obtained. Whether this is so or not, they cannot be con- 
 sidered as irrelevant, inasmuch as Mr. Grant on the 17th Decem- 
 ber last commences his Minute on the Indigo Report, by publish- 
 ing with a great flourish of trumpets, the iniquities alleged 
 against four Planters in the year 1810, and after quoting 
 triumphantly Lord Minto's minute on the subject, he adds 
 (para. 6) : — " These proceedings half-a-century ago, when con- 
 " sidered in connexion with late events, will be seen to be of great 
 " interest now, and to have a strong practical bearing on the 
 " present position of affairs/' Substitute " quarter of a century " 
 for half a century in the above paragraph, and it proves that 
 what is stated above has twice as much bearing in the present 
 crisis as Lord Minto's minute could possibly have. In fact, if 
 Mr. Grant, with all the records of Government at his command, 
 is obliged to go back fifty years, in a country where things 
 change so rapidly as they have done in India, before he could 
 find an example with which to head his pleadings, he admits that 
 he has no case which will bear examination. It is difficult to 
 conceive a cause so weak as to require such distant aid, or a logic 
 so feeble as that contained in the assertion, that the Planters of 
 the present day should be expelled, because four men misbehaved 
 themselves in 1810, when they were avowedly interlopers and 
 
28 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 probably of the lowest class. Besides this they were then under 
 the protection and influenced by the example of the lawless 
 Civilians of those days. 
 
 There is, however, this connexion between the two events 
 which may justify Mr. Grant in referring to it. It proves that 
 neither fifty nor twenty-five years nor twenty-five days ago could 
 the Civil Service afford protection to its subjects against the 
 evil purposes of any other class ; that then as now, the strong 
 could oppress the weak in spite of their so-called Courts of 
 Justice, that property was insecure and the administration of 
 justice convulsive and irregular. 
 
 Turn it which way you will, no impartial person can read all 
 these minutes and reports without perceiving that all the Planters' 
 faults and misdeeds arise from the fact that he is living in a 
 country where justice is a mockery, and property a shadow, and 
 he consequently must either take himself off at once or hold 
 on to what he can in the scramble, and take the obloquy which 
 his unhappy position forces upon him. 
 
 With the Civilians the case is different. For more than a 
 century they have had absolute control over the country, and 
 during this time they have not been able to give to any class of 
 their subjects security to either person or property. With the 
 best intentions in the world the least that can be said of them is 
 that they have undertaken a task they have proved themselves 
 unable to perform ; and it is rather amusing to see them now 
 trying to escape the blame they so richly deserve, by abusing the 
 unfortunate victims of their incapacity, and trying in the blaze 
 of revolution to obliterate the records of their own misdoings. 
 
 To all this we shall return presently. We must turn to the 
 Ryot first, and try to explain what part he bore in this Kalee- 
 kota business. 
 
 Section IV. 
 
 The Ryot. 
 
 In order to understand the relative position of the Ryot in 
 this embroglio, it is only necessary to assume that the Civilians 
 have governed India with the strictest impartiality, that they 
 have shown no favour to their fellow countrymen, and no bias 
 
THE RYOT. 29 
 
 against them, and that they have been equally unprejudiced as 
 regards their native subjects They cannot ask for more than 
 this admission, yet what results from it? Either their Courts 
 are a farce, mere moonshine, or the agreements between the 
 Planters and the Ryots are fair and equitable on the whole. If 
 this were not so, we come to the staggering fact that 200 or 300 
 Europeans have been able to force on 200,000 or 300,000 
 natives, engagements which were unjust in principle, and 
 unfair in their operations ; that they have annually been able 
 to renew these agreements during the last 30 or 40 years, and 
 during the whole of the time, the Courts have been absolutely 
 powerless to redress this evil, almost in one single instance. So 
 far from being able to check it, it has spread under their very 
 noses. Thirty years ago, a great deal of the cultivation of Bengal 
 was necessarily carried on by the Planter on his own account, 
 year by year; that has been abandoned as unprofitable and 
 ryottee substituted. So that, in the beginning of last year, 
 there was probably as much ryottee cultivation in Lower 
 Bengal as at any previous period. Where were the Courts 
 when they allowed this iniquity to grow up and establish itself? 
 Was the Government a farce ? Could it not, at least, check the 
 growth of the plague spot ? The plain truth is, had the ryot- 
 tee system been as oppressive as it is now pretended it is, it 
 could not have lasted an hour. It would have broken down 
 years ago. The ryots liked it, and they at least never would 
 have rebelled, though their masters the zemindars might. 
 
 Let us look a little more closely at one of these agreements 
 and see what it consisted of, when perhaps we shall be better 
 able to judge of its merits. A ryot is in want of money — a cir- 
 cumstance which may happen to him as well as to other men 
 without capital, in spite of Mr. Grant's facetious assertion that 
 he is the real capitalist of Bengal ; he comes to the factory and 
 offers to cultivate ten begahs of plant. He gets 20 rupees paid 
 to him by the planter himself in hard cash, and as so much bright 
 silver is or was seldom seen in the Mofussil in former times, he 
 signs an agreement to cultivate the land and bring the produce 
 to the factory. We will presume he is unfortunate, and his land 
 only produces enough to pay back 10 rupees— he is only entitled 
 
 \ 
 
30 
 
 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 to, and gets a like sum. But shortly afterwards he returns to 
 explain that his bullocks have died. He wants to bury his 
 mother — it is astonishing how many mothers ryots have. His 
 landlord is pressing him for rent ; — on every occasion, in fact, 
 he rushes to the factory to beg for money, and in nine 
 cases out of ten gets it. No interest is charged, but it is no 
 uncommon thing to see men who have never cultivated more 
 than 10 begahs, owing the factory from 200 to 300 rupees, 
 every penny of which must have been given him in hard cash, 
 in addition to money, he may have received for plant brought 
 in. There is something almost ludicrous in the way an old 
 ryot feels his power over his master, and the grim satisfaction 
 with which he explains to him, that he owes him, say, 200 
 rupees. That he has no property in the world, except the 
 clothes he has on, which, in that climate, are not much, either 
 in extent or value, and that if master will not advance him 
 money, he must bolt, and then where will the 200 rupees be ! 
 
 It is difficult to prove from the want of reliable data to what 
 extent the Indigo crop is really remunerative to the ryot, but the 
 large sums of money which are paid for plant at the end of every 
 manufacturing season by every factory, show that something 
 considerable must be gained by somebody, while probably very 
 little is expended. The best land for Indigo is the highest, or 
 the open sandy churs, both of which are unfitted for rice, or any 
 class of cultivation the natives themselves indulge in, and ac- 
 cording to the most reliable statistics which can be obtained 
 only from l-16th to l-20th of the arable land of Lower Bengal 
 is occupied by Indigo cultivation. 
 
 The cultivation must cost very little. Every ryot must have 
 bullocks and ploughs to cultivate his other crops. He may 
 plough his Indigo land whenever it may be convenient to him 
 between October and March. He does his weeding and cutting 
 himself at seasons when he can do nothing else. His seed is pro- 
 vided for him. He does not disburse one farthing in cash, and 
 his labour so apportioned must be of very little value to him. 
 Putting what he practically disburses against what he practically 
 receives, any one will understand why he did not complain be- 
 fore, and why it required all the influence of the Lieut. -Governor 
 and his subordinates, to stir him up to discontent. 
 
THE RYOT. 31 
 
 Once the jacquerie was fairly afoot, Mr. Grant turned round 
 with the most benign complacency and said — You see how deep- 
 seated this discontent must have been ; the permission not to 
 sow has been availed of in nearly every concern in Lower Ben- 
 gal. To try a parallel case : suppose the British Parliament, in- 
 stead of attempting to pass an Act for the relief of Insolvent 
 Debtors, so complicated that it broke down last year, had only 
 taken a leaf out of Mr. Grant's book, and declared that no man 
 who owed more than he could conveniently pay need trouble 
 himself any more about the matter ; his debts were forgiven him. 
 Would not a very large class have availed themselves of the new 
 law ? Creditors might have objected, and it is not easy to see 
 how business could be carried on under its provisions; but the 
 new law would be a godsend to many, though, in this country, 
 no honest man would avail himself of its provisions, and those 
 who could pay, but did not, because of the new law, would, pro- 
 bably, be called swindlers or worse. In Bengal the case is dif- 
 ferent. On the 16th of January last, the Committee of the 
 Bengal Indigo Association write, "In no instance that the 
 " Committee are aware of has the ryot come forward to free 
 " himself from his engagements and liabilities by paying or ad- 
 " justing the balance he owes the planter. Universal and un- 
 " scrupulous repudiation of all liabilities has been the rule among 
 " the ryots, and the Government of Bengal, in every document 
 " relating to the subject, has steadily ignored the existence of 
 " all contracts or engagements between planter and ryot." 
 
 As the principal indictment against the Planter is, that once a 
 ryot gets into his books he never can free himself from his in- 
 debtedness, but becomes a slave for life,* is it not strange that 
 none should have availed themselves of this simple mode of free- 
 ing themselves from bondage ? It cannot be want of ability, for 
 there are tens of thousands of ryots who receive fresh advances 
 every year, and whose debts, in consequence, must be very light 
 and could be paid without an effort ; but why should they ? The 
 Civilians have told them they need not pay, and they laugh in 
 
 * This only applies to Lower Bengal : in Tirhoot, where the Ryot is 
 never allowed to get into debt, the cultivator regularly renews his agree- 
 ment year after year. 
 
32 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 the Planter's face ! In any Court of honour or of justice in 
 Europe, men who encourage such a course of action would be 
 held liable as accessories before the fact. In the case of Bengal, 
 the bad characters were the first, who not only availed themselves 
 of the Government permission not to pay, but took care that the 
 good men should follow their example. Their only chance of 
 continued immunity was, that all stood out alike, and, in cases of 
 revolution or rebellion, the bad always drag the good with 
 them, and make them eventually pay the penalty of their own 
 crimes. 
 
 If we are to take the Civilians' interpretation of the contract 
 the Planters must be the most beneficent and benevolent body 
 of men in existence. Fancy a kind-hearted man settling him- 
 self down in the Mofussil with a heavy bag of bright rupees, 
 which he lends without stint and without charging interest, to a 
 set of paupers, who can give no security and have no property. 
 The good kind man never asks for re- payment, but allows it to 
 go on from year to year increasing, till it is morally impossible 
 it ever should be re-paid. The modest Planter repudiates the 
 imputation that it was mere benevolence that induced him to do 
 all this. He did it because there was a distinct stipulation per 
 contra that his debtor should cultivate a certain quantity of In- 
 digo for him annually. Oh ! no, says the Civilian, it is a mere 
 ordinary book debt. There is no other consideration. If you 
 wish to recover your balance our Courts are open ; a chancery 
 suit will not take more than two years, nor cost more than 10 
 times the amount of the debt. But that is all you can claim. 
 Do they believe this ? or are they only mocking the men whose 
 ruin they have predetermined ? 
 
 There is one other point of view from which this Kaleekota 
 case should be looked at, before leaving it altogether. The 
 Indigo Report, at the instigation of the missionary member of 
 it, tries hard to fix on the Planters the stigma of kidnapping, by 
 seizing ryots illegally, shutting them up in their godowns for 
 days together — in fact, till they sign*these agreements or pay their 
 debts. It is true there is only one case brought forward that will 
 hold water at all, and that breaks down at last ; all the rest are 
 admitted to be mere hearsay. Still, as it is not impossible that 
 
THE RYOT. 33 
 
 such events may have occurred;, it is hardly wortli while to stop to 
 contradict them. One thing, however, is certain, that the 
 kidnappings, as they arc called, do occur every day among 
 the natives themselves. If a ryot does not pay his rent 
 — or a poor man will not or cannot pay his debt — the agent 
 of the Zemindar or Mahajun instantly sends out peons, seize 
 the man, confine him in an outhouse, and frequently 
 — what never has been alleged against the Planter — beat 
 and torture him. It is the usual, universal custom of the country. 
 Every Civilian knows it, and knows also that he and his police 
 are utterly powerless to prevent it. But is it clear that we are 
 free from this foul stain even in this country ? It is only last 
 month that the public were as much amused as horrified at hear- 
 ing that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge was 
 in the habit of kidnapping milliners' girls, and shutting them up 
 in a godown of his own, without any form of trial, and keeping 
 them there just as long as suited his good pleasure — and this, 
 too, in legal, well-ordered, constitutional England ! 
 
 Mr. Edwin James tried hard to rouse indignation against this 
 most illegal act, but the public took it very quietly. If it was 
 not quite legal it was customary ; and, after all, there was no 
 great harm done — and it is very doubtful if Parliament will take 
 the trouble to give an order which would put an end to it at once. 
 Had Edwin James only have been in the position of Seton Karr, 
 and had his power, he would have raised the under-graduates to 
 a man against this nefarious interference with their privileges. 
 He would have closed the Colleges and abolished the University. 
 This, at least, is the way slight abuses are reformed in Bengal. 
 Because it is suspected that an Tiidigo Planter may have been 
 guilty of kidnapping and some other similar offences, a whole 
 province is delivered over to anarchy and rebellion. Factories 
 of greater pecuniary value than the Colleges of Cambridge are 
 confiscated and closed, and an institution of far more value and 
 importance to India than a University is to England is abolished 
 and swept from the face of the earth ! * 
 
 * The case against the Planters on which the greatest stress is laid 
 in Mr. Seton Karr's Report is that discussed in paras. 91, 92 and 93 ; 
 and the voluminous evidence by which it is sought to establish the fact 
 
 D 
 
34 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 So usual and so time-honoured is the institution of kidnapping 
 among the natives themselves, that when not abused — that is, 
 when only employed against men who have wrongfully refused 
 to do what they ought to have done — it is probable the natives 
 themselves would hardly be found to object to it. What they 
 do most seriously object to is, being seized by the police, dragged 
 to a distant station, tried by some strange hocus-pocus they 
 cannot comprehend, and condemned, like the Kaleekota ryots, 
 to be imprisoned among felons, and forced to hard labour in irons 
 for years, when they know they are guiltless of the crimes of 
 which they stand convicted. 
 
 What the natives do also object to is being seized by the 
 police for their own private purposes — dragged to the Tannah — 
 imprisoned — tortured — robbed — for the benefit of the Darogah 
 and his subordinates ! The Civilians — the missionaries — every 
 one in fact admits that this is of almost daily occurrence all 
 over Lower Bengal, and all that is pleaded in extenuation, is 
 that the police are and always have been corrupt. This may be 
 true, but when the Civilian admits that he practises these ini- 
 quities through his subordinates, the accusation against the 
 Planter should come from some one whose hands are cleaner 
 than his are. At all events he should not be surprised to hear 
 that the ignorant native prefers the treatment he receives from 
 the Planter's Gomastah to that which he receives from the 
 Civilian's Darogah. 
 
 that an individual Planter hsd abducted a native married woman for 
 immoral purposes. 
 
 This case, which is the most heinous that could be discovered, and 
 the only one of its class that was brought forward, breaks down, like 
 all the rest, when examined into, and is dismissed even by Mr Karr. 
 It would, therefore, be hardly worth while alluding to it now, were it 
 not for two curious points that leak out from its examination. First, 
 The fact so creditable to the Planters, that among so large a body of 
 men so situated, and among a people so prone to false accusations, only 
 one crime of this class should be alleged against them. Secondly, It 
 is assumed throughout the Report, that if this one case had been esta- 
 blished against this individual Planter; that it would have justified all 
 that the Civilians have done towards the abolition of Indigo planting in 
 Bengal ! 
 
 Would it not sound strange if a Member of Parliament were to bring 
 in a Bill to abolish hep planting, because an individual hop planter had 
 committed an outrage on one of his tenants' wives 1 The connection 
 between the two things does not appear clear to the English mind. 
 
THE RYOT. 35 
 
 If the truth were known, it would be found that one-half of 
 those confined in the Government gaols are not criminals, but 
 political prisoners — sent there because they have offended some 
 man more powerful than themselves, and to gratify spite and 
 revenge. It is so easily managed. A native renders himself 
 obnoxious to some great man, and is either too powerful or too 
 clever to allow himself to be seized and dealt with by the ordi- 
 nary process of native justice ; a case is concocted against him 
 by the retainers of the great man ; it is agreed that A shall be 
 accuser, B, C, and D witnesses; a complaint is lodged; the 
 Darogah sent to inquire. A/s property is found in the criminal's 
 house, the Darogah, being properly feed, reports a clear case of 
 robbery, and sends it for trial. The evidence of the witnesses is 
 written down in a corner of the Court by a mohirir, who must 
 also be feed ; it is read out and sworn to in the presence of the 
 prisoner ; there is no cross-examination; he may protest his 
 innocence as he likes — the evidence is clear, and he goes to 
 gaol for six or seven years, as the case may be. 
 
 It is vain to reason with uneducated men about people who 
 are strange to them, and whose manners and customs they do not 
 understand. It is no use telling him that Brown is justified in 
 shutting up a man who has committed no offence for six years, 
 but that Smith is not justified in shutting up a man for six days 
 though all the world admit he richly deserved punishment. 
 Somehow or other the native cannot be brought to see the dis- 
 tinction between the two men. " Caesar very like Pompey — 
 specially Pompey " — and if he were to give a candid opinion, 
 he would admit that he prefers the. illegal justice of the Planter 
 to the very legal injustice of the Civilian. The Planter lives 
 among them — they know his every act, and if they suspect him 
 in dispensing justice of a leaning to his own interest, they under- 
 stand this and take their measures accordingly. The Civilian 
 lives apart, utterly inaccessible for all practical purposes, and is 
 universally believed by the lower class of natives to be as corrupt 
 as his Omlah. The better class of natives and Europeans know 
 this to be absolutely and entirely false, but it would be impossi- 
 ble for the Omlah to carry on the system on which they thrive, 
 if they could not disseminate and sustain the belief that the 
 
 d 2 
 
3d indigo and its enemies. 
 
 Sahib shares in the bribes they received ; and when they can point 
 to snch cases as that of Kaleekota which took place in broad day- 
 light, and which everybody in the district knew all about except 
 the magistrate, and he decided it as he does in fifty other cases, 
 against the known facts, but in conformity with the known bribes, 
 it is difficult to persuade natives that Europeans in power are not 
 as corrupt as their own people. If it were possible to conceive 
 such a thing, and an independent Commission were established 
 to inquire into the administration of justice in theZillah Courts 
 of Lower Bengal, with an experienced Planter as chairman, it is 
 just within the bounds of probability that a revelation might be 
 made that would make Mr. Seaton Karr's document pale before 
 it. We have hitherto only had the lion painted by the man. It 
 would be curious to see the man painted by the lion. There are 
 always two sides to a story, hitherto we have only had one. 
 "What if after all it should turn out that the great Bengal Civil 
 Service was only what we dare not write. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COVENANTED AND UNCOVENANTED. 
 
 There is another peculiarity in the position of an Indigo 
 Planter in Bengal, which it is extremely difficult for any one in 
 Europe to understand, but which it is necessary should be 
 thoroughly understood, or the nature of the present crisis must 
 for ever remain a mystery. The best mode of illustrating this 
 will be by an example, and in order not to offend the feelings 
 of any one now living, an example must be taken so far back 
 that all the actors have passed away. 
 
 In the year 1829, Robert Maxwell, was collector and magistrate 
 of Jessore, an estimable man in every relation af life, and an ex- 
 cellent servant of the Government. At the same period, Alan 
 Colqohun Dunlop was the principal proprietor of one of the 
 largest and best managed concerns in the district. By birth, by 
 education, and, more than this, by his integrity and upright 
 
COVENANTED AND UNCOVENANTED. 3? 
 
 bearing, Dunlop was a gentleman in every respect. From the 
 possession of these qualities he acquired immense influence over 
 the natives ; and, so careful was his own administration, and so 
 strict his supervision over his subordinates, that his and their 
 Courts of arbitration were daily crowded by the natives of the 
 neighbourhood, and justice was dispensed free of expense, but so 
 equitably that no native from the Meergunge's concern ever 
 thought of appealing to the magistrate's Court at Jessore. How- 
 ever satisfactory this might be to the natives, it was by no means 
 pleasing to Maxwell — practically a large slice of his district had 
 been abstracted from his control. There were two kings in 
 Brentford, and the older and more legitimate monarch chafed 
 at the usurpation of the interloper. What was the immediate 
 cause of the outbreak was never exactly known. Some said 
 Dunlop had neglected to take off his hat to the great man when 
 in the Station ; others, that some busybody had reported some 
 imprudent speech. It is of little consequence what spark set fire 
 to the train. What is known is, that Maxwell, when sitting on 
 the judgment-seat one day, declared that he was determined to 
 bring the proud Planter's nose to the grindstone ; that he would 
 no longer be bearded in his own district by another, and ended 
 by intimating that he would be glad to hear any complaint 
 against him. No sooner said than done. In a very short time 
 there were lodged in Court against Dunlop some six or seven 
 cases of murder, as many of arson, three or four of rape, severaL 
 for decoity. Robbery, with violence, was a daily occurrence, and 
 the minor offences of kidnapping, coercion, &c, would fill a 
 page to enumerate. Every servant in every factory was a prin- 
 cipal in some crime, or accessory before or after the fact to some 
 other. Admitting all these cases to be false, which they were, 
 it will strike every one that there must have been a mass of dis- 
 content festering in the concern to produce on a sudden such a 
 cry of complaint. Nothing, however, is so easy to account for. 
 Of course where a concern extends over a district containing one 
 or two hundred thousand individuals, there must be some men 
 who have a grudge against the factory or some of its servants, 
 and who gladly avail themselves of such an opportunity as this 
 to pay it off. But this is not the principal source. Any three 
 
 35464 
 
38 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 men who can club together 8 annas to buy a stamp, and one of 
 whom can write, can present a petition to the Court. One takes 
 the part of plaintiff, the other two are witnesses. Numbers of 
 men disappear, no one knows how in a country where there is no 
 registration and no police. It is easy to suggest a murder ! Fires 
 are common in mat and thatch villages — it is arson ! But any 
 crime will do. It is not intended the case should go to trial ; 
 but when the Sahib is in difficulty, when it is important that his 
 servants should be released from thraldom, or from attendance 
 at the Station, 30 or 40 miles off, a negociation may be opened, 
 and for a small sum beyond expenses the case may be cancelled. 
 In nine cases out of ten the Planter would willingly pay to get 
 rid of these complaints ; but it is like the Byzantine Emperors 
 buying off the barbarians— the more you pay the more certain 
 they are to return. In the present case the matter was too 
 serious, after such a declaration as that by Maxwell. All the 
 men without characters rushed in to share the plunder they felt 
 sure must be distributed to buy them off, but it was overdone 
 — it was too serious. Every servant belonging to the concern 
 had bolted or was in hiding. The police took possession of 
 every factory. It was between the sowing and manufacturing ; 
 the indigo was being eaten down by the- bullocks of the villages, 
 and there was no one to " abduct them." If it lasted 
 another month, the season would have been lost, the con- 
 cern closed, and every one connected with it ruined. A 
 weak man would have temporized, and have been lost. 
 Dunlop was equal to the occasion. He sent his partner to the 
 Station to do what he could to stay the tide. He himself went 
 straight to Calcutta, demanded an interview with Lord William 
 Bentinck, told his story, and his Lordship, after listening pa- 
 tiently, promised to inquire. What steps he took to do this were 
 never known, but the effect was that a few days afterwards 
 MaxwelPs Sheristadar appeared in Calcutta, and sent a message 
 to Dunlop, to say that he wished to speak to him privately on 
 secret business of importance. Dunlop refused absolutely to 
 hold any private communication with him, but offered to see him 
 in the presence of witnesses, and on the understanding that he 
 might make what use he pleased of what was said. The poor 
 
COVENANTED AND UNCOVENANTED. 39 
 
 man twisted and wriggled, and tried every possible expedient to 
 turn Dunlop from his purpose, hut in vain. So at last he con- 
 fessed that his mission was to say that if Dunlop would not go 
 back to Lord William, or say anything more about it, he was 
 willing to make it up, and settle the whole business. This was 
 instantly reported to his Lordship, and the result was that in a 
 few days afterwards Dunlop received a note from his partner, 
 saying, "You may return at once to the factories. Maxwell 
 called on all the cases against you and the factory servants this 
 morning, and dismissed the whole" Maxwell was promoted, 
 and there the matter ended. 
 
 Many on reading this narrative will exclaim, how very 
 badly Maxwell behaved in this matter — how wrongly. They 
 never were more mistaken. Maxwell's only fault was, that he 
 was a Civilian, and he only did what every member of the service 
 would have done in like circumstances, if he had had the courage. 
 He felt what he conceived to be his legitimate influence inter- 
 fered with ; he determined to recover it. He made his spring ; 
 thanks to the energy of Lord William Bentinck, it failed. But 
 after all, he was only following the precedent set a few years 
 before by one of the best of men, and one of the highest 
 ornaments of the service. 
 
 When Mr., afterwards Lord Metcalfe, was appointed Resident 
 at Hyderabad, he found everything in disorder and confusion. 
 In the stern exercise of what he conceived to be his duty, he 
 dismissed a Minister who was a favourite with the Sovereign, 
 and put up one whose principal merit was that he was devoted 
 to himself. He insisted on the finances being reformed, expenses 
 reduced, the administration of the provinces improved, and fifty 
 other things, all right and proper no doubt, but singularly dis- 
 tasteful to the Nizam and his Court, and which rendered him 
 more hateful to this corrupt Court than perhaps any one who 
 had preceded him. 
 
 Before he arrived there, an English firm had been established 
 at Hyderabad, under the title of William Palmer & Co.'s, a 
 branch of Palmer & Co., of Calcutta. With the command of a 
 very long purse, the firm lent money to the Nizam and his cour- 
 tiers, on what they considered singularly easy terms, and became 
 
40 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 in consequence not only popular but influential. When the 
 Resident stormed, and insisted that the contingent should be 
 paid and the finances reformed, they came forward and offered 
 to lend the money required at 12 per cent., or less than half the 
 usual rate in that country. When the revenue was in arrear 
 they were at hand, and ready to assist the State in all its diffi- 
 culties. To most men it would have occurred that this was just 
 the engine that was wanted to reform the finances, and to equalize 
 the inequalities of a reckless native mismanagement. By the 
 introduction of European capital, the burden of interest might 
 be reduced, one half; by their regularity and business habits the 
 vices of the administration might be reformed. If the State 
 was to be saved, this seemed to be the means. This was not the 
 view the Resident took. Anything was better than that there 
 should be two Kings of Brentford. While the Resident was 
 scolding, reforming, and cutting down expenses, and making 
 himself as disagreeable as possible, the Merchant was advising, 
 assisting, lending money, helping to collect the revenue, and 
 doing all that could be done to make himself useful and agree- 
 able. The same obtuseness which prevents the Ryot from 
 distinguishing so clearly as he ought to do between the Civilian 
 and the Planter, prevailed also at Hyderabad. They did not 
 appreciate as they ought to have done, the difference that existed 
 between the Civilian who was " Resident," and the merchant 
 who was only " Residing.' 5 The one was a monitor and a master, 
 and they got out of his way whenever they could ; the other was 
 a friend and guide, and they clung to him in spite of his caste. 
 It soon, in fact, became apparent that Palmer & Co. had more 
 influence at the Court of Hyderabad than Sir Charles Metcalfe. 
 It was impossible that this could be tolerated. The Resident 
 made his spring, and crushed the firm. 
 
 The ruined merchants applied to the Governor-General. Un- 
 fortunately for them the Marquis of Hastings was not a Lord 
 William Bentinck. He was angry, pouted a little, but he 
 wanted to go home and not to be bothered, so he was recon- 
 ciled to the Resident, and left the Firm to its fate. 
 
 Baffled in this directum, the merchants next appealed to the 
 India House against this act of Pro-consular tyranny. If the 
 
COVENANTED AND UNCOVENANTED. 41 
 
 Court had listened, they might have been called on to com- 
 pensate. They were powerful enough then to resist, and to 
 prevent Parliament too from taking up the case. Without 
 compensation, without even a hearing, their wrongs are now 
 buried in oblivion, and scarce even serve as a warning to those 
 who may be rash enough to measure their strength with the 
 Great Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 It is not very long since the public in England were startled 
 by an exhibition of feeling on the part of the Governor of 
 Madras, which seemed to them strange and unaccountable, 
 though, had they resided in Bengal, they would have known at 
 once what it meant. When a Bengal Civilian, as Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan was, saw an " uncovenanted'' Wilson proposing to 
 restore the Finances of India, on principles unknown to the 
 crude, political economy of the Civil Service, and to introduce 
 reforms unheard of in their antiquated repertoire, his wrath 
 knew no bounds. All the blood of the Bengal service boiled in 
 his veins. In spite of his long residence in Europe, and his 
 long official life, the feelings of the " twice born" rushed back 
 in all their pristine freshness, and he made his spring. Thanks 
 to the prompt decision of the Home Government, it was not 
 fatal ; but it inflicted a wound that seriously crippled the useful- 
 ness of the measures of the " interloper," and caused him 
 trouble and anxiety, which may have hastened his untimely and 
 lamented death. 
 
 The last exhibition of this feeling, is the one that most con- 
 cerns us now, and so far as we can at present see, it promises to 
 be far more disastrous in its results, than any that have 
 hitherto preceded it. It cannot, however, be said that it was 
 unexpected. Those who knew anything of India, felt that 
 the struggle between the old child of Monopoly, and the new 
 born offspring of Free Trade, must some day come to a crisis, 
 though no one pretended to have foreseen what form it would 
 take, nor to predict the result. 
 
 During late years, the Planters have been gradually acquiring 
 a large amount of landed property in Bengal. With the 
 property they have been acquiring rights, and like most English- 
 men they have not been slow in asserting their rights, or 
 
42 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 backward in resisting any infringement of them. Unfortunately 
 for them, Calcutta possesses a free Press, always ready to open 
 its columns to the recital of their grievances. The Planters 
 have been by no means averse to availing themselves of this 
 channel to communicate their sorrows to a sympathising public, 
 and in telling their own story. Sometimes, it is to be feared, 
 they have done so with that tinge of feeling, which few can 
 avoid, when constituting themselves judges of their own case. 
 The Press has not been slow in commenting on these trans- 
 actions with more or less acrimony, and it must be added, that 
 the Service has not been backward in replying. Few men can 
 wield the pen more readily than the present Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal, or are more adepts of sarcastic retort. 
 Gaily has he rushed into the affray, and though he has proved 
 himself a master of fence, he has received some ugly blows, 
 which have by no means improved his temper. Had it been 
 a mere literary contest, it probably would have ended in both 
 parties making themselves ridiculous, and all the world would 
 have laughed, but a struggle of crimination and recrimination 
 between the members of a Despotic Government, and a class of 
 its subjects which the law barely recognises, could hardly end 
 otherwise than this one has done in the ruin of the weaker 
 party. 
 
 To accomplish this, however, it was necessary that the supreme 
 power in India should be in the hands of a man as supine and 
 apathetic as the present Viceroy — that he should have a deputy 
 as clever and as reckless as the present Lieut.-Governor of Ben- 
 gal — that there should be a clique of Civilians about the 
 Government House ready to follow their leader, regardless of 
 the consequences either to themselves or to the country entrusted 
 to their government. It was required also that the question 
 should be so complex, that the authorities at home could be 
 mystified regarding it, and so little understood that Parliament 
 were afraid to meddle, for fear of making matters worse. This 
 fatal conjunction of planets, however, has taken place. John 
 Peter Grant made his spring— Lord Canning is not a Lord Wil- 
 liam Bentinck, and his victim lies prostrate at his feet. 
 
 In order to understand more clearly how all this was done, it 
 
RANT. 43 
 
 is necessary to go back a little, and to enter into personal mat- 
 ters which ought never to be alluded to, but so completely is all 
 this a mere matter of personal feeling, and so utterly indepen- 
 dent of political wisdom, that it is only by explaining how these 
 feelings came into play, that matters can in any way be 
 explained. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Any one who cast his eye over the law reports which appeared 
 in the " Times" and other morning papers on the 16th of Janu- 
 ary last, may have observed a case in Sir Cresswell CresswelFs 
 Court, headed " Bellew versus Bellew and Eden." It wore a 
 very ordinary aspect, and few were aware that whether rightly 
 or wrongly it was supposed by some that the fate of our Indian 
 Empire was more essentially involved in it, than in any judicial 
 investigation since the trial of Warren Hastings. The report 
 simply narrated that the wife of Mr. Bellew left the roof of 
 that celebrated preacher and went to reside with the Honour- 
 
 , able Ashley Eden, Member of the* Bengal Civil service, and 
 
 ; whilom Magistrate of the district of Baraset. 
 
 As old Herodotus says, there never was any mischief in the 
 world that there was not a woman at the bottom of it. The 
 (< teterrima causa " in all this disturbance was said to be this 
 lady. Of the Planters in Mr. Eden's district, some were married 
 men, living with their wives — others men of more or less inde- 
 pendence, and it is asserted that they refused, or at all events 
 neglected to show that respect to this lady that they were bound 
 to do in their position. 
 
 Time wore on, and on the 17th of August, 1860, a rescript 
 was issued by this Magistrate to his subordinate officers in the 
 following terms : — i( You will perceive that the course laid down 
 
 * " for the police in the Indigo disputes, is to protect the Ryot in 
 " the possession of his lands, on which he is at liberty to sow any 
 " crop he likes without any interference of the Planter or any one 
 
44 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 " else. The Planter is not at liberty under pretext of the Ryots 
 iS having promised to sow Indigo for him to enter forcibly upon 
 " the land of the Ryot. Such promises can only be produced 
 " against the Ryot in the Civil Court, and the Magisterial authori- 
 " ties have nothing to do with them, for there must be two 
 " parties to a promise, and it is possible that the Ryots, whose 
 " promises or contracts are admitted, may still have many 
 " irresistible pleas to avoid the consequence the Planter insists 
 (i upon." After what has been said above, it is hardly necessary 
 to say what was the consequence of this proclamation. Every 
 one understood it as a distinct order on the part of the Magis- 
 trate, that Indigo was no longer to be cultivated in his district, 
 and Mr. Eden knew that it would be so understood when he 
 issued it. In all such cases the bad controlled the good ; but 
 even the best men saw no harm in standing out — the Planter they 
 thought must soon go down on his knees to them — they could 
 then cultivate if it suited them, but it would be on their own 
 terms. The police felt themselves bound to second what they 
 knew to be the wish and intention of their lord and master, and 
 took all proper precautions that no Indigo should be cultivated. 
 (What a harvest of bribes were in prospect !) In a few months 
 Indigo ceased to be cultivated in Baraset, and the contagion was 
 extending. The Planters, who saw their property swept from 
 under them, and themselves brought to beggary, were loud in 
 their exclamations. Putting two and two together, they 
 declared that it was because they had refused to fall down 
 and worship the idol which had been set up in the 
 Garden of Eden, that judgment had come upon them. In 
 this they were wrong — doubly, trebly wrong. They were 
 wrong to assert what, from the very nature of the case, they 
 knew it was impossible they could prove. It was wrong 
 and impertinent in men of their position to express any opi 
 nion as to the morals or manners of a person so immeasure 
 ably superior to themselves, as a Bengal Civilian must, from his 
 position, be. They were stupidly wrong to provoke the enmity 
 of a man who held their destiny in his hands. He may only at 
 first have wished to box their ears to teach them manners ; he 
 now sought to exterminate them. The old race of Planters were 
 
45 
 
 wiser in their generation. When they saw tilings go wrong they 
 held their tongues ; when they heard the members of the Civil 
 service lauding themselves as belonging to the wisest and most 
 wonderful of human institutions they put their tongues in their 
 checks and said nought. They knew their places and the service 
 spared them. 
 
 Finding they could get no redress in that quarter, they first 
 appealed to Mr. Grote, the Commissioner, Mr. Eden's immediate 
 superior. He condemned the acts of his subordinate in the 
 most unhesitating manner, but he had not the power to redress 
 the evil that had arisen ; and both parties then appealed to Mr. 
 John Peter Grant, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. He 
 stuck by his subordinate officer with a courage that does infinite 
 credit to his heart whatever may be said of his judgment. He 
 endorsed the edict, and added — " I am myself of opinion that 
 " the Indigo cultivators (the ryots) have, and long have had, 
 " great and increasing ground of complaint against the whole 
 (< system of Indigo cultivation.''* He not only thought and said 
 so, but acted energetically on the opinion. The epidemic under 
 his guidance soon spread over all Lower Bengal, but not so ra- 
 pidly but that a considerable breadth of cultivation had been 
 secured by one means or another. All this would have been 
 destroyed had not the Legislative Council come forward at the 
 last hour and passed a short declaratory Act, legalizing the cul- 
 tivation of Indigo for six months longer. This enabled the last 
 crop to be gathered in, but not without serious difficulties and 
 heavy deductions. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Grant was not idle. It is alleged, not only 
 in the papers, but in a petition solemnly addressed to the 
 Supreme Government, that he was tampering with the sources 
 of justice ; that he had promoted those magistrates who gave 
 decisions under the temporary Act in accordance with the inter- 
 pretation he put upon it, and removed those who interpreted it 
 in a sense that did not meet his approval, tie is accused of 
 putting forward false accusations, more especially in the cele- 
 brated case of the forged mooktearnamah, and generally of aid- 
 
 * Public letter addressed to Mr. Sconce, 23rd March, 1860. 
 
46 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 ing and abetting the Ryots in their resistance to the Planters. 
 All this and mnch more that is said, may or may not be true. 
 The time is not yet come for giving a judgment ; the facts are 
 not yet all before the public ; we have not yet heard all that may 
 be said on the other side. It will be time enough to give an 
 opinion on these points when all the evidence is before us ; it is 
 only necessary to allude to them now to show the spirit in which 
 the controversy is being carried on. Whether they are true or 
 false, it is certain that in all he has done Mr. Grant has shown 
 all the zeal and fervour of a most uncompromising partizan, and 
 has written on all occasions with a sarcastic bitterness most 
 unfeeling towards those whom, whether rightly or wrongly, 
 he has ruined, and which is most unbecoming in a person placed 
 in his high position. 
 
 If it was not so serious in its consequences there would be 
 something grimly ludicrous in the accounts that have been pub- 
 lished of a Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, pretending to go 
 and survey an extension of the Eastern Bengal Railway, in order 
 that he might make a triumphant progress through his emanci- 
 pated provinces and proclaim a millenium of insolvency to all 
 who would worship him as the tenth Avatar ! and preaching his 
 new socialistic theory of government to a set of men as little re- 
 moved from the state of barbarism as can well be conceived, 
 and whose political horizon is commanded by the wants of the 
 hour. 
 
 Shortly after this most successful expedition through the dis- 
 tricts of Lower Bengal, the Tirhoot Planters heard with horror 
 and dismay that the Lieutenant-Governor intended honouring 
 their hitherto peaceful province with a visit. By what benign 
 influence this calamity has been averted is not yet known, but 
 it is admitted on all hands that had he gone there he would have 
 brought ruin and misery in his train, as he had in the countries 
 more immediately under his control, for there is not one of the 
 politico-economico sophisms by which he justifies his interference 
 in Lower Bengal which would not apply with equal — possibly 
 with more force — in the upper country. The fact being that the 
 Ryot in Tirhoot receives actually less than his fellow cultivator 
 in Bengal for the area he cultivates, and not half as much, if 
 
47 
 
 wc estimate its value by the mode in which the work is clone ; 
 and it is also a fact that all the lands used in Tirhoot for the 
 cultivation of Indigo are far better suited for cereal crops than 
 are nine-tenths of the land used for that purpose in the Delta — 
 Why, then, does he too not rebel ? 
 
 It cannot be that he is in debt to the Planter, and so bound 
 down by his agreements that he cannot free himself without 
 Government assistance, because the arrangement the Tirhoot 
 Planter makes with his Ryot is to pay him a certain fixed sum for 
 cultivating a began for Indigo; the Planter finds the seed, and 
 takes the risk of the crop, so there can be no indebtedness on 
 the part of the Ryot, and as very few have agreements binding 
 beyond the year, the planter has no hold whatever on him after 
 the season is over. 
 
 It cannot be that the Planters combine and oblige them to 
 cultivate by force or fraud, and simply because the more manly 
 up-country Ryot would not for one moment stand, what the 
 more womanly Bengalee absolutely requires, before he ever 
 thinks of performing an agreement. The truth is, that when an 
 up-country man makes an agreement, or borrows money, he 
 means to perform the one, and to repay the other, either in kind 
 or in cash ; the Bengalee never dreams of doing either, except 
 under pressure. 
 
 The consequence of this higher character of the up-country na- 
 tive is that truth is more respected, the laws better administered? 
 and property more secure ; latial fights, kidnapping, and all the 
 peccadillos alleged against the Bengal Planter, are and always 
 were entirely unknown to his brother in Tirhoot, (though fre- 
 quently the same individual) and would be unknown in the lower 
 country, if the people were as honest and the laws as well adminis- 
 tered. It must also be added that the Tirhoot Ryot finds that in the 
 long run Indigo cultivation pays him better than any other crop 
 ie can grow, and so the Bengal Ryot found and thought till the 
 Civilian undeceived him. From all these circumstances, it 
 lappens, that up to the time when the last mail left, Tirhoot was 
 | is contented and as prosperous as Bengal was before the Civilians 
 r tirred it up, and will continue as uncomplaining, unless Mr. 
 f jrant either goes there himself, or sends his emissaries to excite 
 
48 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 the people against the Planters. If he does— he is very clever 
 — he may be as successful there as he has been in Bengal. 
 
 While passing the short Act respiting the Planter for six 
 months, the Government took another step, which was the wisest 
 and most proper they could take under the circumstances. They 
 appointed a Commission of five members to inquire into the 
 whole question of Indigo planting, and to suggest what measures, 
 if any, were necessary for its regulation. It may have been 
 unavoidable, but the composition of the Commission was most 
 unfortunate. The Chairman, Mr. Seton Karr, was a Civilian, a 
 Secretary of Mr. Grant's, known to chime in with his views ; 
 the second member, Mr. Sale, was a missionary, a member of 
 that body, some of whom, Germans by birth, had come forward 
 as the public accusers of the Planters, and had committed them- 
 selves to assertions which in nine cases out of ten crumbled into 
 dust when inquired into by the Commission, and only served to 
 prove how far that body were pledged, and to what lengths they 
 were prepared to go to gain their ends. The third member was 
 a Baboo, in Government employ — like most natives, too wise in 
 his generation to kick against the powers that be, and perhaps 
 in the bottom of his heart not sorry the Planters should go, and 
 if the truth must be told, even that the Civilians might follow 
 soon after. As soon as their names were announced, it was 
 surmised how these three members would vote, and they have 
 not disappointed public expectation. 
 
 The fourth, Mr. Temple, was a Punjaubee Civilian. Having 
 never resided in Lower Bengal, he had none of that jealousy of 
 his fellow-countrymen which characterises his brothers in the 
 service, and as little conception of the lawless condition of Lower 
 Bengal, or that the character of its inhabitants differed so essen- 
 tially from that of the natives he had been accustomed to deal 
 with. He did not care to dispute Mr. Karr's preamble, but 
 granting it, he saw that if the alleged evils existed, they could 
 easily be remedied by a better administration of the laws, and 
 that it was not necessary to create a revolution to assist the police. 
 He reported — not in these words — that the mode of roasting 
 pigs by burning houses was expensive, uncertain, and dangerous 
 — that the improvement in kitchen ranges in civilised countries 
 
ROTIIIEMURCIIUS RANT. 49 
 
 was such, that roast pork might be had at a moderate expense 
 for fuel, and no risk even to the cook ! 
 
 The fifth member, Mr. Fergusson, a merchant, who though 
 never a Planter, nor then interested in any factories, had been 
 connected with Indigo for more than 40 years. He denied the 
 indictment of the Preamble as unfair and unjust, and not war- 
 ranted by the evidence, but concurred in the recommendations 
 of Mr. Temple. He reported that even if the evils alleged 
 against the Planters did not exist, additional courts and additional 
 means for administering justice could not be anything but a 
 benefit to both parties, but especially to the Planters. If the 
 evils did to any extent exist, this was the proper and reasonable 
 mode of remedying them. 
 
 The Report was thus divided : — Three out of five were in favour 
 of doing nothing, but of letting revolution take its course. They 
 w r ere the majority, and their views coincided with those of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor. Lord Canning went up the country, and 
 Mr. Grant was left to take his course, and a most successful one 
 it has been. During the short 18 months that it has lasted, 
 there has been more fighting, more broken heads, more outrages 
 against property and person than during the previous 18 years 
 were alleged against all the Planters and all the latials in all the 
 districts. So frightful have these become, that the military have 
 been oalled out to hold provinces, in which, when they were held 
 by the Planters, no soldier was ever seen, and no disturbance 
 ever took place that could not be quelled by the civil authorities. 
 The ryots, reading Mr. Grant's proclamations by the reflec- 
 tion of his actions, have put upon them the only interpretation 
 any man who knows the Bengallees could ever fancy they would 
 put upon them, and have universally refused to pay the Planter 
 rent for the land he holds in talook or perpetual lease, 
 
 The Indigo agreement was a small and frequently a very 
 profitable grievance. Rent is always in all countries an intoler- 
 able nuisance, and Government having declared that Indigo 
 planting should be abolished, and that all agreements with 
 Planters were null and void, why should he pay him rent ? The 
 one is no more a debt than the other ! On this perfectly logical 
 conclusion they have acted, and by the last accounts were still 
 
 E 
 
50 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 holding out. ' How far this interpretation will suit the purposes 
 of a government which is sending home piteous appeals to this 
 country for money to meet their deficiencies remains to be seen. 
 They may depend upon it it will not stop where it is, and the 
 Ryots, who with the assistance of Government, are enabled to 
 escape the payment of rent to the Planter, will try next what 
 they can do with their own Zemindars, and the Government may 
 find its own revenue deficient at the very moment when it is 
 most important that it should be paid with punctuality. 
 
 There is no means available for ascertaining to what extent 
 loss has been sustained from these sources hitherto, but by the 
 last account in the four districts of Nuddea, Jessore, Pubna, 
 and Fureedpore twenty-seven concerns had been successfully 
 closed, the blocks of which were valued at £1,244,000, and the 
 annual produce at 25,165 md. or about half-a-million sterling. 
 Pretty well for a beginning by a Government on the brink of 
 insolvency, and which wants every shilling it can obtain, either 
 from its own subjects or from any one who will lend it a few 
 rupees to go on with, but who still think they may indulge in 
 the expensive luxury of a revolution, in order to cure evils which, 
 if they do exist, are merely the effects of the imperfect adminis- 
 tration of the laws by the present Government itself. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRICE OF PRODUCTION INDIGO. 
 
 Putting on one side all the criminations and recriminations 
 which fill nine-tenths of Mr. Karr's voluminous Report, the 
 whole gist of the complaint against the Planter is contained in 
 paragraphs 50 and 51, which state that "Another inequality is 
 " this : the planter on a fair calculation looks to a return of twc 
 i{ seers of dye from 10 bundles of plant, which is the fair average 
 " of one begah. Two seers would sell for 10 rupees when In- 
 " digo is selling at 200 rupees a maund. But the return fronl 
 
30 
 
 is 
 
 V 
 
 PRICE OF PRODUCTION — INDIGO. 51 
 
 u the same 10 bundles to the Ryot could not be more than rupees 
 <l 2*8 at four bundles the rupee. 5 1 . Thus the Planter would look 
 M to derive from the contract about four times the profit which 
 " could ever fall to the Ryot." What is alleged is this, and what 
 has been asserted from the beginning is that the Planter's bar- 
 gain with the llyot is an unfair one— that he does not pay for 
 the plant what he ought to do, and is obliged to use force and 
 oppression to obtain the fulfilment of an unjust and unprofitable 
 contract. It is, in fact, the old quarrel between labour and 
 capital. Something was said about it by the Gracchi in the 
 old Roman times. It was the root of the French jacquerie and 
 of the Revolution of '89. It was the watchword of Louis Blanc 
 and LedruRollin in 1848, and we hear a good deal spouted in 
 the same strain as the Indigo Report whenever a strike takes 
 place in this country. The great peculiarity of an Indian strike 
 is that both the capitalists and their victims were contented and 
 peaceful when war was stirred up between them by Mr. Eden 
 and his class ; and the Lieutenant-Governor of the province 
 condescended to take upon himself the role so recently and 
 so brilliantly performed in this country by Mr. Potter, and his 
 subordinate civilians took upon themselves the functions usually 
 performed in this country by trade delegates. 
 
 If the Government of this country had only had the courage 
 to do as much for the oppressed building trade during the strike 
 last year that Mr. Grant has done for the Ryots; had they 
 only endorsed Mr. Potter's statements and arguments, it is pos- 
 sible we might have seen something equally grand. There is, 
 however, in this country, a strong feeling that labour and capi- 
 ; tal should be left to settle their bargains without the interference 
 of Government, and a sort of pious horror of raising a revolu- 
 tion to settle the price of a yard of brickwork. It remains to 
 be seen whether the result of the Bengal strike will encourage a 
 lder line of policy on the part of our timid rulers. 
 If we put the political economy of this Report into English it 
 equivalent to this : — When the value of wheat in the sheaf is 
 iqual to 40* per quarter, the 4 lb. loaf should be sold for Ad. 
 This doctrine is not new, but when proposed the farmer objects 
 ;hat he must carry and stack his corn, must thrash it and take 
 
 e 2 
 
52 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 it to the mill. The miller objects to grind it without being 
 paid for his outlay and trouble. The baker complains that he 
 has rent and wages to pay, to find fuel and to support his family, 
 and consequently insists on getting 80s for what cost 40s in the 
 sheaf. 
 
 Mr. Grant would teach him better ; but meanwhile let us see 
 what the Planter does with his money. 
 
 The argument in the Report is, that while Indigo is selling at 
 200 rs. per maund, the Planter gives the ryot only 50 rs., and 
 puts 150 rs. into his own pocket — lucky dog ! "What does he do 
 with it ? He certainly does not send it to the credit of his ac- 
 count with his agent or remit it home — or one year's profit would 
 send every planter home with his fortune. It is not asserted he 
 spends it in riotous living. It is spent, however ; and if the 
 Civil service do not know what becomes of it, most men of busi- 
 ness have a shrewd guess how it disappears. To explain this, it 
 is necessary to divide the expense of a maund of Indigo under 
 several heads, thus — 
 
 1st. Cultivation. 
 
 2nd. Factory expenses. 
 
 3rd. Law expenses. 
 
 4th. Interest and charges. 
 
 For the first we will take the Commissioner's estimate, 50 rs, 
 per maund. 
 
 The second it is extremely difficult to estimate, as no two 
 concerns are alike in these respects ; but the following will at 
 least explain what the usual items are. It is composed firstly 
 of a European establishment, which on an average of a concern 
 producing 1000 maunds of Indigo, may be estimated at 1000 rs. 
 per mensem, this sum including commission, horse allowance, &c. 
 
 The Native establishment of each factory may be taken as 
 follows : — one gomastah at from 15 to 20rs., one mohirir at 10, 
 a second ditto or buxee at 6, 4 ameens at 7, and 8 classies at 5 ; 
 a chowkeydar at 8, and a second ditto or peon at 5 : with extra 
 assistance say 120 rupees per month. This, for 8 factories, would 
 be 960. Some of the factories would not, of course, have so full 
 an establishment ; but to this must be added the Head Quarter 
 Staff — so that we shall not be far wrong in putting it at 1000 
 
PRICE OF PRODUCTION INDIGO. 53 
 
 per month, the same as the European establishment, or 12 rs. 
 per md. The two together making 24 or 25 rs. per maund. The 
 manufacturing charges have never been put down below 20 rs. per 
 maund. The recent rise in the price of labour has made it 25 
 at least. Repairs and buildings are never less than 5000 rs., or 
 say 5rs. per maund. Seed, if not given, is always sold at a fixed 
 price, and leaves a loss to the factory of say 3 rs. per maund. 
 Kent, and the loss on farm villages, is another serious item in 
 some concerns, and varies from 5 to 15 rs. per maund, say 10. 
 Add for live stock, petty cash, incidental expenses, and sundries, 
 10 per cent on outlay, or say 12,000 rs, — or, to be moderate, say 
 10 rs. per maund. We have thus for factory expenses 77 or 'J 8 rs. 
 per maund. This probably may be extreme in some items, but 
 of that hereafter. Law it is obviously impossible to estimate ; 
 one year's fees to police and omlah, with law expenses, may not 
 be more than 3 or 4000 rs.— another year they may be 10 or 
 20,000 ; let us say 5000, or 5 rs. per maund. 
 
 Interest and Charges — A factory producing 1000 maunds of 
 Indigo is — or rather, was — worth 3 to 3^ lakhs of rupees. The 
 interest of this, at ten per cent., is 30,000 rs. or 35,000 rs. The 
 interest on an outlay of say 1 20,000, with commission and charges 
 averages about 16 or 17 percent., say 20,000 rs. If we add these 
 items together, it will be found that the price of a maund of 
 Indigo is composed of — 
 
 Cultivation charges . . . 50 
 Factory expenses, say ... 75 
 
 Law 5 
 
 Interest and charges ... 50 
 
 180 rupees. 
 Leaving, consequently, when Indigo is 200 rs. per maund, 10 per 
 cent, profit to the Planter to cover risks of seasons and the 
 chances of a fall in price. This would, perhaps, suffice, if a 
 Planter got a fair start, and had one or two good seasons at the 
 beginning of his career, and if Indigo could be maintained at 
 200 rs. per maund. But if he begins with bad seasons or lower 
 prices, he becomes a worse slave to the agent than the ryot does 
 
54 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 to the Planter, and quite as much in need of a revolution to save 
 him from the effects of his involvements. 
 
 As before explained, 200 rs. is quite an exceptional price of 
 Indigo. For many years its average price was not more than 150 ; 
 and if we take 175 rs., we certainly take a fair and high average. 
 And if the above statement is at all near the truth it leaves no 
 profit to the Planter, and no margin out of which a larger price 
 can be paid to the ryot. But, if he must be paid more, the 
 money must be got somewhere, or saved from some other 
 quarter. 
 
 Any man of ordinary abilities, and with any knowledge of 
 business, looking on the above statement, would see at once how 
 the case stood. The pi ice of Indigo being settled in Mincing 
 Lane by circumstances over which no one has any control, there 
 is nothing to be done in that direction; but a wise man, wishing 
 to benefit the ryots, would first try and find out if nothing could 
 be done to economise in the "factory expenses.'* If the Euro- 
 pean establishment is too high, something might be saved there. 
 Eut, as the good management of a concern generally depends 
 on the efficiency of its European establishment, it may be very 
 bad economy to cut in this direction ; and whatever is saved in 
 that direction must be added to the Native establishment, for 
 the rise in the price of everything in Bengal has forced a cor^ 
 responding rise in wages and salaries of all sorts ; so that though 
 you may decrease the number you must increase the rate per 
 head to even a greater extent. There is no saving to be made 
 here, nor is therein manufacturing charges. In some instances 
 Planters have been obliged to raise the wages of coolies from 4 
 to 8 rs. per month, so as nearly to double the manufacturing 
 charges, while the demand for skilled labour consequent on the 
 extension of railways have fully doubled the expenses of repairs 
 and materials. This rise in the price of every thing tells on 
 every item of factory expenditure ; and it may safely be asserted 
 that if in former years it w T as possible to keep down factory ex-* 
 penses to from 60 to 65 rs. per maund, it is not possible now to 
 screw them below 70 to 75rs. per maund. 
 
 There are three items in the above accounts, however, for the 
 
PRICE OF PRODUCTION INDIGO. 55 
 
 extent of which the Government is more or less responsible. 
 With anything like security of property, it would not be neces- 
 sary to take or farm villages at such a loss. It is true this is a 
 great benefit to the ryot as he pays less rent, and pays it to a 
 landlord whose interest it is to protect and cherish him, and who, 
 being a European, and consequently in spite of all that may be 
 said against him by his own countrymen, is a fairer dealer and a 
 more just master than any Bengallee. It is nevertheless a 
 serious item in the expenditure of many concerns. 
 
 The law expenses are wholly under Government control. With 
 an efficient police and cheap and speedy justice, this item might 
 be reduced to a minimum ; but the great saving must be in 
 interest and charges. There is abundance of money to be had 
 in London at 5 per cent., and there are very considerable sums 
 obtained for the purpose of Indigo planting at that rate, and 
 with a consolidated charge for commission and expenses amount- 
 ing altogether to less than one half of what is usually paid for 
 these items in Bengal, and money can be obtained to any extent 
 on these terms, when the personal security of the borrower is 
 good. 
 
 Here then was a practical issue ; any man of common sense 
 and wishing the ryots well, would at once have said : — Now I 
 see my way — I will make landed property so secure that I will 
 render it unnecessary to take villages in which there is such a 
 loss ; I will so improve the police and the administration of jus- 
 tice that ' ' law expenses " shall disappear, and I will render 
 Indigo property so secure, that the Planter shall be able to bor- 
 row on mortgage of his block at 5 per cent. ; and I will thus 
 save 30 or 35 rupees per maund. I will insist that this be given 
 to the Ryot. Need he have added the last sentence ? The Planter 
 would have been only too happy to give it, and have blessed the 
 man that enabled him to do so. 
 
 This would have been the legitimate action of the Govern- 
 ment, and nothing would have been so easy as to carry it through, 
 because it would have conciliated every interest, and every one 
 would have aided in carrying it out. 
 
 If instead of 50 rupees per maund, the Planter had been 
 able to distribute 80 or 85 among his ryots, the crop would 
 
56 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 have paid so largely that every ryot would have been anxious 
 to cultivate. There would have been no need of Ameens 
 and Classees to hunt him up, and make him plough, he would not 
 have baked his seed nor sold it to the native factory ; he would 
 not have allowed his bullocks to eat down his crop ; he would 
 have exerted himself to save it from being drowned as the river 
 rose, and endeavoured to bring it to the factory in the best pos- 
 sible condition. 
 
 The Planter would have been in the seventh heaven ; his crop 
 secure ; his profit certain ; no more squabbling or fighting ; every 
 one around him pleased, and all getting legitimately rich 
 together. 
 
 The Government would have gained as much as others ; their 
 rents would have been paid with regularity ; their customs and 
 taxes easily collected and hourly increased ; their people con- 
 tented and prosperous. 
 
 If Mr. Grant could not have accomplished all this himself, he 
 might at least have laid such a foundation as would have secured 
 its ultimate realization. This was the last thing Mr. Grant and 
 his associates thought of attempting. By hasty and ill-judged 
 proclamations and appeals to the feelings and passions of the 
 natives, they at one fell swoop rendered Indigo property so in- 
 secure, that those who before were willing to lend on its security 
 at 8 or 10 per cent., would not now look at it under 12 and were 
 asking 15 per cent. The Agents who before were content with 
 16 per cent, "interest and charges," advanced the money most 
 unwillingly at 20 per cent. 
 
 It became necessary, in order to secure any cultivation, to 
 take any villages that might be offered at any rent that might 
 be asked, and the fees to the police, and Omlah must be 
 doubled if the Courts were to be approached, after it was 
 understood the Civilians had declared their intention of ruining 
 the Planters, while on the other hand, the cry of the Civilians 
 was, you have your only remedy at law. 
 
 By this course of action, at least 25 or 30 rupees have been 
 added by Government to the cost of the production of Indigo. 
 In some cases it would be fairer to say 50 rupees, and where is 
 this money to come from? The price is fixed, the factory ex- 
 
PRICE OP PRODUCTION — RICE, 5j 
 
 penses cannot be reduced. Either the Planter or his Agent must 
 pay it out of their own pockets, or it must come out of the share 
 of the Ryot. The real fact is, the Planter must be utterly ruined 
 unless he can work off his old balances, and can now force the 
 ryot to work for half the remuneration he was wont to receive. 
 Instead of having 50 rupees to distribute among his ryots, he 
 has now only 25, or more probably only 20. He cannot get 
 money, he cannot coin it. It does not exist. If then a fall in 
 the price should occur, say to 1 80, one bad season, any accident, 
 and he is ruined. But this does not help the ryot, the truth 
 being that the effect of Mr.* Grant's legislation has been to 
 transfer both the ryot's share, and that of the Planter, to the 
 money-lender and the lawyer, and even they are not benefited, 
 for even the highest interest does not compensate the capitalist 
 for the badness of the security. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PRICE OF PRODUCTION — RICE. 
 
 Notwithstanding all his power and all the animus of his 
 secretaries, Mr. Grant would never have been able to raise the 
 ryots to the extent he did, had it not been for the extraordinary 
 rise in the price of rice, which occurred about two years ago. It 
 has puzzled the best commercial heads to say to what this 
 sudden dearness is to be ascribed. Some think it owing to the 
 extraordinary influx of specie, which occurred immediately after 
 the mutiny, and others to the disturbance of relations between 
 the provinces, which threw the burthen of supply on the 
 principal rice-producing districts ; but whatever the cause, the 
 effect is certain that the price of rice has more than doubled 
 within the last few years, while the price of Indigo, from the 
 nature of the arrangements under which it is produced, remains 
 practically nearly the same. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the ryot 
 
58 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 should wish to abandon his Indigo cultivation, and to turn at 
 least that portion of the Indigo fields which were fit for the pur . 
 pose, into a rice cultivation. It is probable that, at the time 
 the outbreak took place, it may have paid better, and if so it is 
 a hardship that a man should grow a less profitable crop when 
 he might produce one that would pay him better. Under any 
 civilized Government, and where there was any security of pro- 
 perty, the thing would have been easily adjusted. Where the 
 Planter is Zemindar, which is nearly everywhere, it would have 
 paid him better to have allowed his ryots to grow rice, if he 
 could have arranged for a share* of the profits ; where he was 
 not proprietor it might have paid him better, instead of his Neez* 
 cultivation at least, to have grown rice himself, or let the ryots 
 grow it for him on some equitable arrangement. Indigo is by 
 no means so profitable a speculation that any one would prefer 
 it to the easier and far more certain crop of grain if he were 
 allowed to realize that. But here the Government step in and 
 say — Oh ! no, we cannot allow this. The ryot is the sole and 
 only proprietor of the land; his rent is fixed in perpetuity, and 
 as long as he pays that no one can interfere with him. 
 
 After this declaration there was nothing left but for the 
 Planter to hold on by what he had. Forty years' use had given 
 him a sort of prescriptive title to sow Indigo in certain lands. 
 The Ryots were his debtors, and to the debt was attached a con- 
 dition to sow Indigo for the factory ; so that he had, by custom, 
 acquired a certain sort of title, and he felt that if he once gave 
 way, if he once admitted the smallest flaw, the deluge would 
 soon flow in and overwhelm him. 
 
 Throughout all their reasonings on the subject, the Civilians 
 insist on asserting that whatever applies to Neez cultivation, must 
 also apply to Ryottee, and as all their reasoning as to expenses 
 and losses is based on this fallacy, it is necessary to point out the 
 difference, which is indeed so great, that if they had not shown 
 such ignorance on other points it would be difficult to believe 
 they were sincere in this. 
 
 * The word Neez, or private, is used to describe the lands which the 
 Planter cultivates himself, in contradistinction to that cultivated by the 
 Ryots under their agreements, and called Ryottee. 
 
PRICE OF PRODUCTION — RICE. 59 
 
 In the first place, every farmer knows that a man that culti- 
 vates only one crop, has no chance against a man who cultivates 
 several, for the simple reason that after that crop i3 sown, his 
 cattle have nothing to do but to eat their heads off, and his 
 servants to sit with their hands before them till it is ripe. It is 
 only by having various crops cultivated at different seasons, that 
 he can find constant employment for all, and so make each bear 
 its proportion of the fixed charges of the farm. 
 
 Let us suppose, for instance, a Planter with a large private 
 cultivation, and he will require, at least, say 1000 bullocks. The 
 first thing that strikes one is the impossibility of any Planter, 
 even with any reasonable amount of assistance, superintending 
 such a herd, and getting a fair amount of work out of them, 
 especially in a climate like India, where Europeans cannot be 
 out in the open air all day. 
 
 The next point is, that though he may keep them fully em- 
 ployed from November to March, they must necessarily be idle 
 from the time the Indigo is sown till the land is dry again after 
 the subsidence of the inundation ; for more than nine-tenths of 
 the plant being brought in boats, they are not required for that 
 service in Lower Bengal. 
 
 A third point is, that during the half-year in which they can 
 be employed, they are too many when the ground is hard and 
 cannot be touched, and too few at seasons of pressure, such as 
 the sowings, which must be completed in 48 hours after the first 
 rains, or the season is lost. The way Planters have hitherto met 
 this last difficulty, is by hiring the bullocks of the ryots. To do 
 this, however, it is necessary to make an advance, without which 
 nothing is done, or can be done, in Bengal ; and it is also neces- 
 sary to have the power of enforcing your contract at the time 
 it comes into play — in other words, fetching the bullocks from 
 the villages — for no Bengalee has the smallest possible idea of 
 ; ever performing a contract he is not forced to fulfil. But now 
 the Civilians say — iC This will never do ; you are seizing the bul- 
 , locks, kidnapping the men ; you must not interfere with the free 
 and independent yeoman of the plain ; if he does not perform 
 his contract, our Courts are open to you V To this the Planter 
 objects, that unless the contract is fulfilled at the moment the 
 
60 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 rain falls, the season is lost ; that a suit in Court will take a 
 month, it may be six months, to decide, and after having spent, 
 it may be £10 in law costs, he may find that the whole property 
 of the capitalist with whom he contracted is not worth the ten 
 shillings he originally advanced. There is no help for it, the 
 law must be respected ; so in addition to the greater expense, 
 for the reason stated above, it seems likely that the Neez culti- 
 vation may become impossible, from the meddling of the 
 officials. 
 
 On the other hand, there are one or two small items which 
 are sedulously kept out of sight by the Civilians, but which tend 
 to diminish the expense to the Ryot a good deal. The first is, 
 that if the stumps are left, the ryot gets a crop of Indigo seed 
 from the land for which the Planter pays at the fixed rate of 
 4 rupees per maund. If the stumps are removed, he sows the 
 land with mustard, kollai, or some cold weather crop, which he 
 cuts before the time for sowing Indigo arrives, or with the 
 October sowings he throws in a crop of wheat, barley, or seed* 
 which he cuts in January, and the proceeds of which goes into 
 his pocket. 
 
 But the great fact is, that only from 1-1 6th to l-20th of the 
 cultivated land of Bengal is sown with Indigo at all, and conse- 
 quently the power of ploughs and bullocks that is required to 
 cultivate 15 or 19 begahs with rice or any other crop, can culti- 
 vate one with Indigo at a very small expense ; indeed, considering 
 that the ryot does it at his own time, and does it in the most 
 slovenly and careless way, practically it costs him next to 
 nothing. 
 
 AH the above reasoning is based on the assumption that a 
 rice cultivation pays the ryot better than Indigo, and it is so 
 stated because throughout Mr. Seton Karros report this fact is 
 assumed as incontrovertible ; and Mr. Grant, in his minute, on 
 that report, not only endorses it, but after his triumphant appeal 
 to Lord Minto's minute, and the delinquencies of four Planters 
 in 1810 — which, by the way, have as much to do with the real 
 question at issue as the acts of the three tailors in Tooley- street 
 •^■his whole reasoning is based on this assumed datum, and over 
 and over again he alleges it as justifying his interference. As it 
 
PRICE OF PRODUCTION — RICE* 61 
 
 is in fact the real charge against the Planter, we must try, even 
 at the expense of being considered unnecessarily prolix, to put 
 this question in its true light. 
 
 The first fact that strikes us on the threshold of the inquiry is, 
 that while the Commission was sitting, rice of a certain quality 
 was, from some cause or other, selling at R. 2.8 per maund ; 
 while by the last advices the same quality is selling at just half 
 that price, at R. 1.4 per maund; and as the ordinary average 
 price of rice to the ryot on the spot is from 8 to 12 annas per 
 maund, it is possible we may see it at that again before long. 
 Unless, indeed, the famine, which Civilian mismanagement has 
 just got up in the North-west Provinces, comes in time to aid 
 their calculations. At all events, the fall of 50 per cent, in the 
 price is something in the meanwhile, and it is just possible that 
 this slight incident may in itself have upset all the Civilian cal- 
 culations — but let that pass ! 
 
 So strong is Mr. Grant on the point of price, that he adds to 
 his minute an appendix, in which he gives at length his reasons 
 for stating that the loss to the ryot in cultivating Indigo instead 
 of Rice is enormous. In this he quotes certain calculations by 
 the Hon. Ashley Eden, which prove that by cultivating Indigo 
 instead of tobacco or any such crop, the ryot loses 20 rs. 6 annas 
 per begah. Here is a discovery that ought to spread joy and 
 felicity all over Bengal. Instead of 20 rupees, which we showed 
 above was all a Planter could hope to gain by cultivating 20 
 begahs to produce one maund of Indigo, here are 400 at his dis- 
 posal, or twice the full price of a maund of Indigo, without 
 deducting any charge for cultivation, manufacture, &c. &c. In 
 other words, instead of £200,000 a year, which is probably as 
 much net profit as the Planters get out of any crop, here are 
 £4,000,000 a year pure profit, if they will only forsake their 
 wicked ways, and cultivate tobacco instead of Indigo. 
 
 " O fortunatos minium sua si bona norint." 
 
 It is true Mr. Grant rejects the calculation of his deputy as 
 excessive, so we will not lay any stress upon it ; but we thank 
 him for quoting it, as it shows how utterly ignorant Mr. Eden is 
 of the most elementary principles of business or political 
 
62 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 economy, and how childish the reasoning was on which the hub- 
 bub was got up. 
 
 Mr. Grant's own calculation is " that the net loss of the ryot 
 " in Indigo comes out at R. J. 1." Even this is rather a start- 
 ling fact, for the conclusion is that the silly Planter prefers a 
 profit of one rupee per begah by the cultivation of Indigo, which 
 we have shown above is all he can expect — and which by the 
 way he does not get out of his Neez — to making seven rupees 
 per begah from sowing rice, which of course he could do in his 
 Neez cultivation if he chose ; in other words, instead of 20 
 rupees per maund, he might from the same land get 140 rupees, 
 which no maund of Indigo under any circumstances could give 
 him. There are Planters in Bengal who for the last twenty or 
 thirty years have been labouring under a burning sun, anxious 
 to realize a slight competence to return to their native land, and 
 had they realized 20 rupees per maund on the Indigo, they 
 would not be there now. Did it ever strike Mr. Grant as 
 strange that not one of these hard working men ever thought of 
 trying a little rice cultivation, if only in addition to his Indigo? 
 Being agriculturists, knowing the people, knowing exactly what 
 everything cost, and what it sold for. Is it not strange that it 
 should be left to a Lieutenant-Governor to make this discovery? 
 to a man who never ploughed a field, and never bought or sold 
 a maund of anything ? But there is a still more strange phe- 
 nomenon. According to the statistics of Mr.Grant's own Minute, 
 the natives of Lower Bengal produced last year 10,982 maunds 
 of Indigo; and as this will sell at about 140 rupees per maund, 
 what fools these men must be ! Cheaply as they can produce it,j 
 it must cost something for cultivation, for manufacturing, fori 
 seed, for repairs, &c. ; say 80 or 100 rupees per maund. On\ 
 the other hand, there are no reasons why they should growi 
 Indigo, even if Europeans must or will. They at all events! 
 might grow rice, and it is tolerably certain that they would, if; 
 they could realize 140 rupees from a certain quantity of land,i 
 instead of 40 or 50 which, on the extremest calculation, is alii 
 they can now get. 
 
 Unfortunately, the statistics of the report are so extremelyj 
 loose, that it is very difficult to state the question of price, wit] 
 
PRICE OF PRODUCTION — RICE. 63 
 
 such precision as would carry conviction to the mind of any one 
 familiar with the more exact reasoning of Europeans. As it is 
 so important, however, we must try. 
 
 In the first place, the average produce of a begah of rice, is 
 stated to vary (in Appendix IV.) from 4 to 20 maunds. The 
 latter is clearly exceptional, the former too low, but on a 
 fair review of the whole, perhaps 6 maunds may be taken. It 
 is more than Mr. Grant takes, if he estimates its value at the 
 then current price of It. 1*4 to R. 1*8 per maund. 
 
 The produce of a begah of Indigo, is stated to average from 
 10 to 12 bundles of plant, and the price at 6 bundles to 1 
 rupee is say 2 R. ; at 4 bundles is say R. 2*8 to R. 3. 
 (It should be observed that the larger concerns are generally 
 those which gives the highest price, so that the average is 
 nearer the latter than the former sum) ; — against 7'1 at which 
 Mr. Grant puts the produce of a begah of rice. This at first 
 sight is sufficiently startling. But, in the first place, it should 
 be observed that the money value of the produce per acre, is not 
 the only test of the value of a crop. The return in cash from 
 an acre of wheat, as compared with one of barley or oats, 
 is very different indeed. A crop of potatoes, or turnips, or 
 peas, show also great differences between themselves ; but also 
 differ materially from the produce of cereals; or if a farmer 
 grows hops or cabbages, or has a cherry or apple orchard, he 
 will find these differences increase rapidly on his hands. If he 
 admits Mr. Grants test, he will have no difficulty in determining 
 which pays him best ; though this question puzzles most persons 
 in this country ; and if he will follow the advice of the Civilians, 
 he will abandon all, and cultivate alone that article which gives 
 the heaviest yield per acre. It is probable he will be ruined if 
 he does — but let that pass. Let us see if we can explain the 
 above discrepancy from any facts that leak out in the 
 evidence. 
 
 In the first place, the normal price of rice in Bengal to the 
 
 'ryot, is not more than 8 to 12 annas per maund, or at 6 
 
 \ maunds to a begah, say, R. 3. to 4*8, and from this has to be 
 
 deducted the expense of shelling, which falls on the producer, 
 
 md he has also to provide the quantity required for seed, which 
 
64 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 must also be deducted. So that from these causes the real dis- 
 crepancy cannot in fact even amount to 1 rupee per begah, and 
 may frequently be the other way. 
 
 In the next place, the preparation of the rice lands is ex- 
 tremely careful, almost like garden cultivation ; that of those 
 devoted to Indigo, as above remarked, extremely slovenly. If 
 the Indigo lands were as carefully prepared as the rice lands, 
 the produce would be from 20 to 24 bundles per begah, and 
 the Planter would too gladly, and generally does pay at the rate 
 of 4 bundles, or It. 5 to K. 6 per begah, and in that case Indigo 
 would pay best, and the produce per begah be largest. 
 
 It must also be remarked that the chur lands, which are 
 those best suited for Indigo, are not suited for rice ; and the 
 high Cl matial " lands are also unsuited for profitable rice cultiva- 
 tion, and the one must lie waste, and the other return to the 
 primaeval jungle from which they were rescued by the capital 
 and enterprize of the Planter, if Indigo ceased to be cultivated ; 
 and this has already frequently occurred. 
 
 It may also be added that though the price of rice in the 
 bazaar may be quoted at 8 to 12 annas per maund, or even 
 higher, the ryot never sees a penny of this. — Where there are 
 no Planters there is no cash. — One portion of his crop goes in 
 payment of rent, another in payment to the Buniah or shopkeeper 
 for " necessaries *' he has had during the year. In both which 
 transactions the ryot is cheated to the extent of at least 50 per 
 cent, of the value of his produce, and has no possible means of 
 redress. He consumes a certain portion and retains another for 
 seed, so that altogether it comes to this, whatever the price may be 
 he gets enough left him to feed himself and family, and whether 
 he has the pleasure of eating rice worth 8 annas or worth 2 
 rupees per maund is of uncommonly little consequence. On the 
 other hand, if he cultivates Indigo he has only to bring it to the 
 factory. He gets a receipt for whatever he brings, and as sure as 
 the manufacturing is over he is paid in hard cash by the Planter's 
 own hands for whatever he can produce receipts for. It is the 
 only cash he ever sees, and the value of so certain a. market for 
 his produce, and the certainty of being paid in cash, are advan-' 
 tages it is almost impossible to overrate in so poor and ill-go- 
 
PRICE OE PRODUCTION — RICE. 65 
 
 verncd a country as this. It would be easy to say more on this 
 subject, but the above will suffice to show that the discrepancy 
 between the value of Rice and Indigo, as an article of produce, is 
 not so great as Mr. Grant would have us believe, in fact does 
 not exist, and that the oppression which forces the ryot to 
 devote l-16th of his cultivation to this article is not so frightful 
 under these circumstances, as to require a revolution to remedy 
 its horrors. 
 
 If it were otherwise — if the Planter did actually rob the ryot 
 annually of from 5 to 10 rupees per begah. If, indeed, all that 
 Mr. Grant tells us were true, it would be the best possible reason 
 for abolishing the Civil service altogether, and a revolution for 
 that purpose would be perfectly justifiable. If for 50 years they, 
 having absolute control over the whole country, have allowed 
 this iniquity to go on year after year, without in one single in- 
 stance granting redress to one of their oppressed subjects, it 
 must be confessed that they are the most incompetent set of 
 men who ever undertook to govern a country ! If it was in- 
 competence — they claim for themselves the title of fools — if con- 
 nivance, a worse title must be applied to them, and the Planters 
 are certainly entitled to their places, who, during a whole half 
 century at least, have shown themselves so clever, and so tho- 
 roughly competent to mange their own affairs. But, in sober 
 earnest, it is none of this. The bargain between the ryots 
 and the Planters is, on the whole, on an average of years, a per- 
 fectly fair and equitable one, and works well for all parties under 
 ordinary circumstances. But, in a country where there is no 
 law, and where civilized men are dealing with others in a very 
 low stage of civilization, it is extremely difficult to adjust a per- 
 manent bargain to temporary circumstances ; and if the Govern- 
 ment of that country, instead of trying to keep things quiet till 
 (they return to their normal state, at every moment of dis- 
 turbed averages, cry "war and haro," then you see what is now 
 happening in Bengal, and of which that very Government has 
 vet to reap the bitter fruits. 
 
 It is hardly worth while to pursue the subject further. The 
 truth is, with a sufficient number of figures, a man may prove 
 anything ; and if he is, as a Civilian necessarily must be, perfectly 
 
 F 
 
66 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 ignorant of business, he may convince himself of anything. 
 With a knowledge of business, men do not always reason rightly, 
 as for instance, it is not very many years ago that an Indigo Com- 
 pany got statistics and calculations which proved beyond all sha- 
 dow of a doubt, that if they would only cultivate Sugar instead 
 of, or in conjunction with, Indigo, they would certainly realize 
 from 200 to 300 per cent, profit from the first, instead of the 10 
 or 20 per cent, they were getting from the latter article. They 
 persevered for two or three years in the attempt, and at the end 
 of that time found they had lost upwards of £30,000, and earned 
 the prospect of losing £10,000 a year ! Or take another ; a 
 large establishment in London wanted some time ago a contrac- 
 tor for their refreshment department. A clever active Director 
 of the John Peter Grant school, went round all the pastry 
 cooks 5 shops in the city of London and ascertained the exact prime 
 cost of jam tarts, and Bath buns, how many cups could be 
 decocted out of a pound of tea or coffee, how many slices cut off 
 a ham, how many bottles of six shilling Sherry could be squeezed 
 out of a hogshead of indifferent Cape, &c. The result was the 
 profit was proved to be from 100 to 200 per cent., and in some 
 cases more. He consequently urged on his associates that they 
 should take the matter into their own hands. The more 
 experienced heads overruled this, and gave it to a man who pro- 
 mised to pay them an amount calculated to be about 12 or 
 15 per cent, of the gross take. The result was, that the 
 contractor lost so much, that he was forced to give it up — the 
 profit was not sufficient to cover the expenses. 
 
 When Mr. Grant comes home, which please God he will do 
 be r ore long, he will find his breakfast table covered with prospec- 
 tuses of Companies for brewing, baking, brush-making, anything 
 and everything. All these prove incontestably from facts and 
 figures, that the profits on trades are so enormous, that by club- 
 bing together it is easy to realize 40 to 50 per cent, by the 
 venture. Men of business put these in the fire. The principal 
 dupes of the schemers are the Bengal Civilians and retired 
 Indian officers, and many a hard-earned fortume has perished in 
 the gulf of the 50 per cents., and no one pities them. They may 
 do what they like with their own. But when they are in the 
 
THE SEPOY MUTINY. 67 
 
 position of Governors of provinces, their ignorance of business 
 is quite another affair, and it is most sad to think that the des- 
 tiny of India depends on such crude calculations as those that 
 disgrace the productions of Mr. Grant and his subordinates, 
 Mr. Scaton Karr and the Hon. Ashley Eden. 
 
 It no doubt is a misfortune to the Planter that the imperfec- 
 tion of the law does ffot admit of his raising and reducing the 
 price of his crop concurrently with that of other articles of pro- 
 duce, as it has enabled his enemies in an exceptional moment, 
 when everything was in an abnormal state, to make a home thrust 
 at him, from which he may probably never be able to recover. 
 If he could have waited twelve months longer, the fall in rice 
 noticed above would have brought things back to their usual 
 level, and he either could have shown that Indigo paid the ryot 
 as well as rice, or he would joyfully have abandoned the culti- 
 vation of the dye and taken to growing rice himself. His 
 experience hitherto has been that of a Neez or private cultivation 
 of Indigo — putting Byotty aside for the moment — though it does 
 not pay him 1 rupee per begah, is a better speculation than a 
 Neez cultivation of rice, though Mr. Grant assures him he would 
 get 7 rupees per begah by the exchange. 
 
 But when a Government once takes up the cry " Guerre au 
 chateau, paix a la chaumiere," the end of the capitalist, whatever 
 form he may take, is not far off; and the Government measures 
 were certain to have killed the Planter in a few years, if per- 
 severed in, without the aid of the Revolution, which Mr. Grant's 
 impatience has provoked. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SEPOY MUTINY. 
 
 The answer to all this will probably be an appeal to the great 
 maxim, " Eiat justitia ruat ccelum." If the oppression of the 
 Planter is such as is asserted by some of the Missionaries, and 
 believed in by the Civil Service, it is better that our Indian 
 
 f 2 
 
68 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 Empire should perish than that we should uphold such a system 
 of iniquity. 
 
 When the Civilians quote triumphantly the assertions made 
 by the Natives to the Missionaries, with regard to the general 
 oppressiveness and hardship of being forced to cultivate Indigo 
 for the Planter, they know perfectly well that there is not one of 
 these men who in all probability has not satfl to the Planter him- 
 self, that he was his father and his mother, his God and his 
 protector, that without him he must perish or leave the country, 
 &c. &c. Unfortunately for themselves, the natives of Lower 
 Bengal are quite prepared at any time to state whatever they 
 think will be most agreeable to the person they are addressing, 
 and they state it with a picturesque wildness of expression which 
 is wonderfully impressive to those who do not know that their 
 praise or their blame have as little meaning as the song of the 
 birds. 
 
 This will probably be conceded, and no one would have at- 
 tempted to base any argument upon it had it not been for the 
 action that followed on their expression. No sooner had certain 
 German Missionaries, who brought with them to India those 
 doctrines of dreamy impracticable Socialism, which is the curse 
 of their own country, and had preached in the village that all 
 men were equal, and no one bound to serve the other— no sooner 
 had the Civilian declared that no one was entitled to collect 
 from him debts, or to ask for the fulfilment of an agreement, 
 except through the intervention of the Courts of justice — than 
 one and all the ryots rose and shook off the detested thraldom 
 with an unanimity which proves how hateful their previous con- 
 dition must have been ! Fortunately there is a parallel event, 
 which may enable us to form a clearer opinion on this subject 
 than might otherwise be possible. 
 
 It is not so long since the great mutiny of the Bengal army 
 took place, but that its principal features are still fresh in the 
 memory of most men. The great characteristic of that event 
 was that a whole army rose almost as one man against the Go- 
 vernment they had sworn to serve. Men whose fathers had 
 fought and bled under the Company's standard, who had hoped 
 that their sons might succeed to the post which it had been the 
 
THE SEPOY MUTINY. 69 
 
 ambition of their lives to attain to, threw at once away pay, 
 pension, rank, honours, all that makes life worth having, and 
 sacrificed all those principles of gratitude and faith, which arc as 
 keenly felt by a high caste native as by an European gentleman. 
 Having cast themselves loose from all social tics, these men 
 rushed into crime, murdered their own officers without remorse, 
 and engaged in a death-struggle with their masters. They were 
 beaten and defeated. The mutiny was stamped out, but there 
 was no cry for pardon on the part of the mutineers, no expres- 
 sion of sorrow for what they had done. Their cause was too 
 sacred in their eyes, and they were content to perish rather than 
 return to the allegiance they had left. And why was all this ? 
 If we are to judge of causes by their effects, there must have 
 been some frightful oppression at the bottom of all this. Was 
 it that the men were forced into the service — kept there by the 
 fear of frightful retribution if they deserted ? Were they brutally 
 treated by their officers, cheated of their pay, defrauded of their 
 honours? Their religion insulted! what was it? Will some 
 Civilian who talks so glibly of the unanimity of the ryots in 
 resisting the oppression of the Planters, explain what causes 
 produced the frightful effects of the mutiny ? 
 
 In the case of the ryots, we had the preaching of some of the 
 Missionaries, the proclamation of the Government House offi- 
 cials, and the organization of all the bad characters in Bengal 
 going about telling the ryots that they had only to hold out a 
 few months, and that the Planters must come down to their 
 terms, and agree to whatever they asked for, and that meanwhile 
 they were sure of the support of the Government. With such 
 inducements, there is not a single mechanic in Great Britain 
 that would not have "struck'' also; but even then all the ryots 
 did was to refuse to pay their debts, and to perform their agree- 
 ments. If we compare this with what the Sepoys did, and 
 what temptation they had, we can only arrive at the conclusion 
 that if the oppression which induced the ryots to refuse to work 
 is representedby 10, the oppression which drove the Sepoys to 
 the excesses they committed must be represented by 10,000. 
 The truth of the matter in both cases is that we are dealing with 
 a set of excitable Asiatics, as little amenable to reason as chil- 
 
70 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 dren, and as liable to panic as a flock of sheep, and it is 
 consequently absurd to judge their actions by the standard of 
 European intellect, and doing so sure to lead to the most 
 fallacious conclusions. 
 
 There is another lesson to be learned from the Sepoy mutiny, 
 which has even a more direct bearing on the subject in hand, 
 than to attempt to appreciate the causes of the two mutinies 
 from the relative greatness of their effects. There was a time 
 when from Patna to Delhi every regiment had mutinied, and all 
 civil authority was in abeyance, and scarcely a single military 
 post was ours except the Fort of Allahabad. When even at 
 Calcutta, Barrackpore, and Berhampore, not a single native sol- 
 dier could be trusted with his arms, and every European was 
 required to watch his native comrade. When the Governor- 
 General hardly dared to face his own body-guard. When every 
 native believed, and many Europeans feared, that the Company's 
 Raj was gone and European rule in India was extinguished for 
 ever. Then was the time for the Ryots to bring forward their 
 complaints. If they had rights to demand, neither the Govern- 
 ment nor the Planter would have dared to refuse to redress them. 
 If they had wrongs to avenge, they might easily have murdered 
 the solitary Planter with far more ease than the Sepoy could his 
 armed and dauntless officers. Every one will recollect the out- 
 break at Benares — the mutiny at Dinapore — the house at Arrah, 
 all events occurring in the midst of Indigo districts — and what 
 was the result ? The Planter quietly pursued his usual avocation. 
 Rode out unarmed over his lands during the day, and slept 
 soundly at night in his solitary bungalow. He sowed, he reaped 
 his crops, and despatched them to Calcutta with the usual regu- 
 larity as if nothing was happening, and made on the whole a 
 fair average season. What is even more wonderful, during the 
 siege of Delhi, the Messrs. Saunders pursued their avocation as 
 Planters in the district of Allyghur, within the sound of the 
 guns fired in that deadly struggle, while Civilians and soldiers 
 were cowering in the citadel at Agra, and any soldier who left 
 the lines in front of Delhi was shot down like a dog, no hand 
 was raised against the solitary Planters. Had the city held out 
 a little longer, they might have despatched their crop in safety, 
 
THE SEPOY MUTINY. *J I 
 
 but when driven out of it, a band of disappointed rebels in pas- 
 sing by, vented their spite by setting fire to the factories, as they 
 did to every village they came across ; but what men would not 
 have done the same in similar circumstances ? When the 
 Civilians fled in hot haste from Azimghur, and not before it was 
 time to be off; a Planter, Mr. Venablcs, took charge of the 
 district, and kept order till the turning tide of war enabled them 
 to resume their places. 
 
 Some Planters, it is true, perished in the struggle, but it was 
 only those who took up arms and went out to fight side by side 
 with the servants of the Government. Men, all the world over, 
 must take the consequences of their associations, and if Planters 
 chose to keep company with persons so hated as the servants 
 of Government then were, they could only expect the treatment 
 they then got. But the great fact still remains, that during the 
 whole of the struggle not one Planter who stuck to his business, 
 and minded his own affairs only, was injured, or even hindered 
 in the prosecution of his business. Not one word was said of 
 Indigo grievances, or of the oppression of the Planters. 
 Wherever they were numerous there was no disturbance and no 
 mutiny, and their presence was alone sufficient to insure peace 
 and order when the power of Government was in abeyance. 
 
 It would be well if the Government of India would ponder 
 over these events before it is too late. If they read them rightly 
 they will probably see what a suicidal policy they are pursuing, 
 not only in a financial but a political point of view, and may 
 discover before it is too late that it is only by the free introduc- 
 tion of free European settlers that India can be held. They 
 not only cost nothing but contribute largely to the exigencies 
 of the State, but they and they only are the class that can ever 
 take root in the soil. 
 
72 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE IMPENDING FAMINE. 
 
 As it is so extremely difficult to place the matters in dispute 
 between the Planters and the Civil service in an intelligible light 
 before the British public, we may perhaps be excused if we 
 diverge slightly from the subject immediately before us, to look 
 for an illustration of the working of the system in the impend- 
 ing famine in the North- Western Provinces, which will probably 
 occupy the attention of the public in a painful manner for some 
 months to come. 
 
 According to the last accounts from India, four great districts 
 in the North- West Provinces, containing between four and five 
 millions of inhabitants, are on the verge of starvation, and many 
 are dying daily of hunger and sickness, consequent on deficient 
 nourishment — and all this, as the Times' Correspondent most 
 properly remarks, in consequence of the socialistic tendencies of 
 the Bengal Government. 
 
 The last great event of this sort in the Bengal Presidency took 
 place in 1838. In the previous cold weather the usual supply 
 of rain had failed, the crops were consequently deficient, and the 
 ryot capitalists, having no capital to buy food withal, died of star- 
 vation in numbers, of which no record was ever made. For the 
 sake of humanity let us hope it never may be known. 
 
 The causes of this famine were not then, nor are they now, a 
 mystery to any one. For many years previously, and especially 
 since the passing of Regulation VII. of 1822, the Civilians had 
 been trying to reduce the North- Western Provinces to what 
 would be practically a ryotwar settlement, similar to that exist- 
 ing in that paradise of poverty the Madras Presidency, where 
 famines are of periodic occurrence and of frightful severity. A 
 better system was introduced by Lord William Bentinck in 1833, 
 and if the Regulation IX. of that year had been fully carried out 
 the famine might not then have occurred. Its provisions, how- 
 ever, met with the most direful opposition from the Civil service, 
 
THE IMPENDING FAMINE. 73 
 
 and all that was done in the next four or five years was to un- 
 settle every tenure, to distract men's minds with unexpected 
 changes which nobody understood, and in fact to add uncertainty 
 to the previous evils of a ryotwar tenure; the practical working 
 of the system being that the Civilian claimed two-thirds of the 
 net produce of the land as his right for rent, and his Omlah took 
 as much of the nominal balance as the ryot could be forced to 
 
 Pay- 
 Under these circumstances, when the rain failed and the crop3 
 
 were short, the inevitable consequences were a famine. The 
 first thing that happened was that the ryots bullocks died. 
 Where the landlord avowedly only leaves the tenant enough to 
 support himself and family, there are of course no stores of 
 provender, no stocks of fodder, and when the soil does not 
 produce the supply required, the animals go first. As his own 
 stock of grain diminished, the ryot naturally turned to see how 
 he could raise some money to buy enough to maintain himself 
 till better times. His land, unfortunately for him, is by order 
 of Government, his indefeasible and inalienable property, he 
 cannot sell, and consequently cannot mortgage it. His real 
 property wont help him in his need ; his personal property 
 consists of his plough, value say five rupees, his wife's spinning 
 wheel, value one rupee, a charpoy, two rupees, some cooking 
 utensils, and two brass lotahs. A rich capitalist of John Peter 
 Grant's class, may possess property to the extent of two pounds 
 sterling ; the ordinary class say one pound. This in ordinary 
 times would go some way, but, in times of distress, the ryot finds 
 the same difficulty in realising his property, as is experienced by 
 his brother capitalists in Europe. When any extraordinary pres- 
 sure or panic occurs in Lombard Street, and every man wants 
 to realize his securities at the same time, it is found that 
 purchasers vanish in some mysterious way, and many a solvent 
 firm has been ruined by not being able to turn its property 
 into cash at the moment it was most wanted. So it happened 
 in Bengal in 1838. Ploughs and spinning wheels, and brass 
 lotahs, were a drug in the market ; nobody could eat, and 
 nobody would buy them at any sacrifice. So there was nothing 
 left for the poor capitalist, but to drag himself to the nearest 
 
74 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 city, in the hopes that the alms of the rich might support him 
 till the rain fell. 
 
 Agra was then the capital of the North- West provinces, and 
 the Government were doing something to relieve the necessities 
 of the people, and subscriptions were raised in Calcutta, and 
 among private individuals throughout the country, which were 
 being distributed by Committees in that city. The conse- 
 quence was, that half the population of the neighbouring 
 districts crowded towards it, and such was the pressure that in 
 a few months, upwards of a hundred thousand souls perished of 
 fever and of starvation within its walls. Not because there was 
 not food to feed them, but because there was not money to buy 
 it. The Government did not feel itself justified in going beyond 
 a certain length, private benevolence was unable to cope with 
 so frightful a catastrophe, and there were no middle men, no 
 landlord class, who had any interest in supporting the poor 
 famishing ryots. 
 
 Of course, it will be suggested that all this happened because 
 there was no food in the country available for their support. 
 Nothing can be further from the truth. Bengal was teeming 
 with grain, and the demand from the Upper Provinces had hardly 
 raised the price to an appreciable extent. In front of the citadel 
 of Agra itself, there was a string of boats laden to the gunwale 
 with grain. The supply was amply sufficient for present pur- 
 poses, and ten times more could easily be obtained, but who was 
 to pay for it ? Alas for the poor capitalists, they could not, so 
 they lay down in hundreds on the banks of the river and died of 
 want, and their emaciated corpses clung to the cables of grain- 
 boats, and choked the stream, till the whole air became foetid 
 with the smell of putrifying human beings.* 
 
 It may be argued that all this was the act of God, and that it 
 is most unfair to blame the Civil Service for the badness of the 
 season ! Let us look at a parallel instance. For the first half 
 century after the Battle of Plassey, the Civilian reigned supreme 
 
 * In the last received copy of the " Friend -of India," the following 
 paragraph occurs : — 
 
 " The first want of the famine-struck districts is — for the present at 
 least — money. There is every reason to believe that food is available 
 for purchase at high-rates indeed, but in sufficient quantities." 
 
THE IMPENDING FAMINE. 7^ 
 
 in Lower Bengal. There was nothing between the ryot and the 
 Government collector of rent, and the result was there was a 
 great famine about every ten years, and a smaller one every five 
 years on an average. The last great event of this class took 
 place in 1795, when it is said one-fourth of the population 
 perished of want. Shortly after this Lord Cornwallis passed the 
 famous Perpetual Settlement Act, the meaning of which was 
 simply to free the provinces then possessed by the English 
 Government from the eternal meddling of a helpless, though 
 well-intentioned Civilian, and from the exactions of his rapacious 
 Omlah. Another half century passed, and you search in vain in 
 the annals of any perpetually settled province. The word famine 
 never again occurs. The rights of labour, capital, and property 
 are left to adjust themselves, and peace and plenty follow in their 
 train ; and not only is nine-tenths of the real wealth of India 
 centred in these provinces, but out of their abundance they are 
 always able to supply the deficiencies of the ryotwar provinces to 
 the extent to which they can pay for their assistance. 
 
 On theoretical grounds it is, no doubt, difficult to defend 
 Lord CornwalhVs Act. It certainly was hasty, and frequently 
 assigned property to persons who had no real right to it ; but, 
 in its general result, it has been by far the wisest and the most 
 beneficial of all the Acts of the East India Company. The 
 Civil service have always writhed under the infliction of an Act 
 that abstracted from their direct control the revenues of the 
 fairest provinces of India. They never ceased to try and abro- 
 gate or undermine it. Numberless resumption Acts have been 
 passed, and every begah to which a Zemindar could not prove 
 his absolute title has been resumed, and hatred to this perma- 
 nent settlement is, — apart from the personal question, — the real 
 basis of the whole of this unhappy dispute. In all their rea- 
 soning, Mr. Grant and his subordinates are ringing the changes 
 on their cry, " that the ryots are the free yeomanry of this 
 if country, and indeed, strictly speaking, the virtual owners of 
 11 the greater part of the land in the old cultivated parts of Een- 
 " gal ;"* the Government resumptions, it is presumed, forming 
 the other part. The ryot, it is repeated over and over again, is not 
 
 * Para. 33 of Mr. Grant's minute. 
 
76 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 only the proprietor of the soil, but the capitalist, the only man 
 in fact the law recognizes. But, to make way for the establish- 
 ment of his rights, the Planter must first be got rid of, then the 
 Zemindar. When these obnoxious classes are disposed of, Bengal 
 will be like the happy lands of Madras and Bombay, where there 
 is nothing between their pet pauper capitalist and the Civilian, 
 and where the latter consequently reigns in unquestioned su- 
 premacy over an abject, though frequently a starving people, 
 separated from him by a vast, immeasurable, and unfathomable 
 gulph. If John Peter Grant and his socialists are allowed to 
 have their own way, it is possible that the latter years of the 
 nineteenth century may be marked by horrors as great as those 
 which disgraced the last half of the eighteenth in the annals of 
 Bengal. Let us hope that there is yet time to save that misgo- 
 verned country from anything so atrocious. 
 
 But to return to the North- West and the impending famine. 
 Those Civilians who witnessed the horrors of the famine in 1838 
 set to work in right good earnest, and in a few years the whole 
 of the North- West provinces were practically settled at fair 
 rents, on tenures varying from 20 to 30 years. The work was 
 well done, and is a credit to all concerned in it. In the course 
 of a few years however certain defects began to crop up from 
 the very perfection of the workmanship, as applied to a people 
 in a very low stage of civilization. As for instance, a village was 
 assessed to pay a certain sum to its landlord, he paying a fixed 
 rent to Government, and leaving a considerable sum as his 
 fixed profit. The land was surveyed, the title registered, 
 the rent fixed, and easily recoverable. Under these happy 
 circumstances, the landlord naturally wished to see his son 
 comfortably settled and married with a splendour befitting his 
 rank. This required an outlay of at least 10,000 rupees. That 
 was easily obtained from the native banker on mortgage, and 
 probably at 12 per cent. Next year another child was to be 
 married or a parent to be buried, and more and more money 
 was required, and easily to be obtained, though at increasing 
 rates of interest, till the time arrived when the Mahajun 
 thought he had advanced enough, when he presented a petition 
 to the Court to foreclose. There could be no dispute. The 
 
THE IMPENDING FAMINE. 77 
 
 title was clear, the mortgage regular, the interest in arrear; 
 and the estate passed from the old aristocratic family to the 
 greasy banker in the city bazaar. Since we have taken the 
 trouble to make titles so clear that any one may advance with 
 safety upon them, innumerable estates which have been held 
 by old families for centuries, have passed into the hands of 
 usurers, who have no interest in the people, and consequently 
 we have by this act entailed all the worst evils of absenteeism 
 on the properties they purchase. "Whatever discontent there was 
 among the people of the North- West during the great mutiny, 
 arose from this cause ; and now its further effect is becoming ap- 
 parent in the famine. Add to this that the twenty years' tenures 
 are expiring, and the thirty years 5 leases have not long to run, 
 all in the future is uncertainty, no one knows what may happen 
 next, or what he may be called upon to pay; no one conse- 
 quently will hoard, and no one will lend. If in these circum- 
 stances the crops are deficient, the consequences are easily 
 foreseen, and are exactly what are now developing themselves. 
 
 The Government of 1838, horrified at the result of their own 
 doing, undertook, with the most beneficent intention, a number 
 of public works, which they thought would secure them against 
 the recurrence of similar disasters. The completion of the 
 Ganges Canal, for instance, was pushed forward with vigour, 
 and immense sums lavished on its works, and no doubt it 
 will increase the revenue of the Government, and may be a 
 : profitable speculation; but it would be just as reasonable to 
 I expect that high farming would feed our paupers. The im- 
 provement of one man's estate does not enable another poor 
 man to buy food when his unimproved estate will not produce 
 it. It is like the cry we so often hear repeated that railways 
 I will grow cotton. Such notions of political economy are very 
 creditable in a Mogul Emperor, or an Eastern despot of any 
 I sort ; the truth being that neither will roads nor railways grow 
 I either cotton or anything else, nor canals feed people, without 
 I security of property. In fact there is no principle more gene- 
 | rally acknowledged now than that it is the first duty of a 
 | Government, and especially of one so situated as the Indian 
 Government is, to grant to its subjects security of life and 
 
78 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 property. If it can ensure this great desideratum railroads and 
 canals will follow as a matter of course. Produce will be forth- 
 coming of every sort that a fertile soil and industrious people 
 can produce; wealth and capital must accumulate, and famine 
 and financial difficulties be unknown. The tendency however 
 of the Government of India has lately been in a diametrically 
 opposite direction. By the introduction of a dreamy socialistic 
 system they have unsettled the rights of property, destroyed 
 capital, encouraged antipathies between race and race, and set 
 up the rich and the poor as natural enemies to one another. If 
 they persevere in this course they must take the responsibility 
 of every man that perishes of famine in the North-West, and 
 bear both the loss and the odium which their conduct entails. 
 
 When the great famine of 1838 occurred steam communica- 
 tion was not established with India, and the Morning Papers 
 had no Special Correspondents there, so its horrors have passed 
 unrecorded. It is hoped however that the Times will send 
 out a Special Commissioner who may enlighten the public as 
 to the causes and effects of this great calamity, in order that 
 we may derive from it instruction how such may be avoided in 
 future. If any uncovenanted spectator is there, let him ask 
 some famishing ryot whether he would prefer to be shut up 
 for a week in a Planter's godown, or be starved to death by a 
 Civilian collector? An Englishman would of course answer 
 that he would rather die ten thousand deaths than submit to 
 illegal punishment, even when he knew he was in the wrong. 
 But it is suspected that the same sentiment is not so strong 
 among Asiatics, An Englishman is brought up under his own 
 laws which he loves, and they are administered by his own 
 people, whom he respects. An Indian is governed by laws he 
 does not comprehend ; administered by a foreign race, whom 
 he hates; and a little more or a little less justice or injustice is 
 not very appreciable to his senses. But hunger is not a thing 
 to be trifled with, especially when a man sees his wife wasting 
 away, and hears his children shrieking for food ; and it does 
 not alleviate his agonies, or soothe his sorrows, to know that 
 his sufferings are caused by the blundering meddling of a 
 
INDIGO AND COTTON. 79 
 
 Socialist Collector, whom he dies cursing in the bottom of his 
 heart. 
 
 When the Civil Service are able to fix on the Planters the 
 hundred thousandth part of the misery which the Planters 
 could fix on them if they had the opportunity, it will be time 
 to call out about these iniquities. They have hitherto had it 
 all their own way, but surely the other side must one day be 
 listened to. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 INDIGO AND COTTON. 
 
 Jye Jye Juggernaut ! The car of the Government Juggernaut 
 rolls merrily along, and the hideous deity sits grinning within, 
 listening with wooden indifference to the cries of the victims who 
 are being crushed beneath the wheels. The Honourable Ashley 
 Eden* has had his revenge, and John Peter Grant has written 
 his name in the annals of India in a manner that must be 
 gratifying to so vain and so selfish a man, though other men 
 might feel rather ashamed of the bad eminence. 
 
 On the other hand, perhaps, after all, no great harm has been 
 done to the other party — a few insignificant Indigo Planters 
 have been ruined — but the Insolvent Court will open its door 
 wide to any set of men who are brought down by no fault of 
 their own ; perhaps they were not so very prosperous before as 
 not in their secret hearts to rejoice at the relief and the oppor- 
 tunity which other and less precarious employment may afford 
 them. Fever and Cholera soon settle the accounts of those who 
 cannot find employment, and who are forced to nurse in idle- 
 ness the griefs they cannot cure. Things move fast in that 
 climate and that country, and in a few years the generation who 
 suffered from this raid will have passed away and been forgotten. 
 The sufferer who must remain will be the ryot, who, when his 
 
 * Mr. Eden has since been promoted to an important office in the 
 Customs, and now made Special Commissioner to accompany the army 
 to Sikkim. 
 
80 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 rent day comes round, and his cattle die, will look in vain for the 
 Planter and his never empty purse, and his never failing aid 
 against all the oppressions to which a poor man must be exposed 
 in a country where there is no law. 
 
 The principal sufferer, however, is the Government, which 
 cannot die but must live on and expiate the faults of its subordi- 
 nates. Since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — "si magna 
 licet componere parvis," no Government has committed a 
 similar act of folly from the same motives, and none were ever 
 less in a position to indulge their feelings at the expense of 
 their pockets. They have done so however, and the real ques- 
 tion still remains, how is India to be governed in future, and how 
 is it to be made to pay its own expenses ? 
 
 The Civilian theory of how this should be done has, at all 
 events, the merit of simplicity. Let us say they have nothing 
 but European Civilians to govern, and nothing but European 
 Soldiers to keep our subjects in subjection. It is vain to point 
 out to them that the object of governing a people ought to be 
 something more than merely locking up rogues and assisting 
 usurers to collect their debts, which seem practically to be the 
 only duties the Civilian cares to perform, and that an army 
 merely employed to keep down insurrection in a country where 
 there is no external enemy to be found, is not placed in a very 
 dignified or a very useful position. The worst feature of the 
 scheme is, that it wont pay. India in itself is really a poor 
 country, and its people have not in themselves the energy nor 
 the skill to develope its resources, unless under European guid- 
 ance, and must always remain too poor to support so expensive 
 and so unproductive a mode of government. 
 
 It may also be objected to it that such a scheme has never 
 yet been successful. A foreign race merely holding a great 
 country by the strength of its organization, without any admix- 
 ture with the people, or any ties to the soil, has never yet been 
 a permanent institution, nor does it deserve to be so, and if it 
 is all we look to in India, the sooner our connection with the 
 country ceases the better for all concerned. 
 
 Even the old Company, though they hated free settlers with a 
 hate which still lives in the hearts of their servants, never 
 
INDIGO AND COTTON. 81 
 
 dreamed of such a mode of government. They settled their 
 Commercial Residents in every corner of the land, they made 
 advances to all classes of cultivators with a lavish hand, and did 
 what they could in their rude monopolizing way to develope the 
 industrial resources of the land, nor were they so absolutely 
 without connection with the people as might at first sight ap- 
 pear. In the old days of the Company, the army was the 
 great national institution. The officers lived then with and 
 among their soldiers, and were on terms of as complete equality 
 and intimacy with them as the Planter is with his servants or 
 ryots. It was not till recently that officers became civilianized 
 and lived apart from their men, and treated them as another race 
 with whom they could have no communication, except on busi- 
 ness, and it is by no means clear how much of the late mutiny 
 was owing tot his segregation of races. It is of no use the Civilian 
 turning round and asserting that the free settlers are necessarily 
 bad men, and systematically oppress the natives, till they can 
 prove first that they are a different race from themselves — they 
 believe it no doubt — but the two are drawn from the same class, 
 and may be born of the same parents, and have, up to a certain 
 point, the same education, ii' there have been black sheep 
 among the Planters, there have been sheep with very dark fleeces 
 among the Civilians If the Planters have ever shown a 
 lower tone of feeling it is because the miserable state of the law 
 and the misgovernment of the country have prevented the best 
 class of men from seeking employment where they are looked 
 down upon by a bureaucratic class, and where there is no security 
 of property. It rests wholly with the Government what class 
 of men shall settle, and what shall be the tone of the settlers in 
 India ; but in the meanwhile the Planters may well feel proud 
 of having gone through the ordeal to which they have lately 
 been exposed, without their enemies being able to fix one single 
 stain upon them, except such as may fairly be ascribed to the 
 " System." 
 
 The Civil Service must also prove in the second place why 
 the free settler should wish to oppress the native. Common 
 sense would seem to point out that fair dealing and justice 
 would be a far more certain way of attaining his ends than force 
 
 G 
 
82 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 and frauds and where his tenure over either his lands or his 
 people is so slight and so precarious, it seems to be the only 
 mode by which he can hold his own and beat his native rival. 
 Even Civilians have admitted that whatever fault may be charged 
 against the European settler, still the worst Planter is a better 
 man and a fairer dealer than the best native. It stands to 
 reason that it should be so. Except by his superior moral and 
 intellectual qualities the European has no chance with the 
 native of the soil, but by these he conquers and succeeds. Besides 
 all this, the Civilian ought to recollect that all this reasoning 
 applies with ten times more force to himself than it does to the 
 Planter. Why should we employ Europeans to govern a country 
 to which they are strangers, and to administer laws they neces- 
 sarily cannot comprehend ? If there is one single argument 
 which can be adduced for the employment of Europeans in 
 governing the country, that argument applies with ten times 
 the force for the employment of Europeans in developing its 
 resources. Turn it as you will, look at it from every side, 
 it is quite certain that if it is indispensable that we must 
 have Europeans to govern India — Europeans to defend it 
 — it is as certain we must have Europeans to develope its 
 resources. The argument is even stronger than this — natives 
 have governed themselves and would like to do so again. 
 The country has been held by natives, and properly handled : 
 something might again be done in that line, but no native 
 has any knowledge of European markets and of the exigencies 
 of foreign commerce ; they never travel, and they have not 
 those habits of business which will enable them to meet 
 the demand with sufficient steadiness, and their capital is too 
 valuable among themselves to enable them to produce articles 
 at such a price as so compete with other foreign countries. The 
 fact is, of the three functions we have to perform in India, of 
 governing, of guarding, and of developing its resources j the last 
 is the most important and the one to which the other two are in 
 reality subordinate. It is the one which requires European 
 energy and skill, more even than the other two. With proper 
 management we may dispense with the European element to a 
 considerable extent in the two first ; the third is however a 
 
INDIGO AND COTTON. 83 
 
 function for which Asiatics have never displayed any aptitude, 
 and which can only be performed by Europeans. Let us try if 
 by an example this can be made a little more clear. Any one 
 who has passed in his boat through any of the rivers of the 
 Delta will have observed a native indigo factory nestling among 
 the trees on the one side of the river, and the staring factory of 
 the European on the opposite bank, within a gun-shot of 
 each other. The native cultivates his own land in his own vil- 
 lages — his coolies are his own servants — he buys the Planters' 
 seed at half-price— he borrows his plant without paying — he has 
 all the advantage of the skill and knowledge which Europeans 
 have introduced into the various processes ; and can bribe away 
 the skilled labourer whom the European has educated. With 
 all these advantages of course he ought to beat the Planter out 
 of the field, but what is the case ? The European indigo arrives 
 in Calcutta in December, clean, dry, well-sorted and packed, in 
 good marketable condition, it sells for say 200 rupees per 
 maund. The native indigo arrives in January, wet and dirty, 
 badly manufactured, ill-sorted, dishonestly packed — so unmar- 
 ketable as rarely to be seen in European markets — it sells from 
 125 to 150 rupees per maund. and finds its way to the Gulphs 
 or some native market where people are not particular, and if it 
 were not for what he can steal, it would not pay the native to 
 continue the manufacture. He can always make 25 to 50 per 
 cent, for his money by usury : and so unbusinesslike is his mode 
 of going to work, that with all his advantages, while the Planter 
 is satisfied with his return, the native hardly finds it worth 
 while to go on. 
 
 If we apply the same reasoning to Cotton, we shall find the 
 same result. What is complained of in Manchester is not that 
 Indian cotton is bad, but that it is unmerchantable, and the 
 supply irregular. How can it be otherwise ? Each ryot culti- 
 vates his own little patch under advances from the native usurer. 
 When the cotton is ripe he gathers it, unless a native festival, 
 or a marriage, or a death, or something else interferes ; but as 
 this happens oftener than not, it is gathered unripe, or after the 
 pod is withered. It is taken home and thrown into a corner 
 till the ryot has leisure to bow it. It is stuffed as it comes into 
 
 G 2 
 
84 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 a gunny bag, and waits the Brinjaree with his bullocks. In due 
 course he comes round, picks up 5 bales in one village, 10 in 
 the next, and in course of time gathers as many bales as his bul- 
 locks can carry, and starts for the coast. There is no one to look 
 alter him, and he is in no hurry, and what with the delays in 
 collecting and carrying, the chances are the rainy monsoon over- 
 takes him, but if he escapes this, he lands in Bombay a dirty, 
 ill-packed, ill-sorted, unmerchantable article, which sells in 
 Liverpool for 4d, when American cotton of about the same 
 quality sells for 6d. 
 
 Let us now fancy a European taking the trade in hand. The 
 first thing he would do would be to select in some other pro- 
 vince, the seed of the longest stapled, or the cotton best suited 
 to his purposes, and arrange to receive annually his supplies 
 from a distance. This is one of the secrets of the success of the 
 Indigo cultivation ; all the seed grown in the Upper Provinces 
 is annually sent down to Bengal, and the greater part of the 
 Bengallee seed sent to the Upper Provinces. Any European 
 farmer will understand why this is clone. To the natives it is 
 even now a mystery. He sows the same cotton seed in the same 
 cates, that is the lineal descendant of that sown there in the time 
 of Alexander the Great, and we wonder that the produce is not 
 equal to American 1 The European would take care that the 
 weeding, hoeing and watering, were all attended to in their 
 proper seasons. He would have a sufficient number of Coolies 
 engaged when the time came, to ensure every pod being ga- 
 thered as it ripened; another set would immediately gin, or bow 
 it as soon as brought to the factory. When cleared of the seed 
 it would be sorted into bins 1, 2, 3 ; and as soon as 300lbs. were 
 collected in any one bin, it would be passed on to the screw house 
 and made up ready for transport. He would, meanwhile, have 
 made advances to some Brinjaree, who would in consequence 
 be waiting in the factory, and within two weeks, instead of the 
 native's two months, of the last pod being picked, the whole 
 would have started for the coast under the charge of the factory 
 churrandar, and would arrive long before the monsoon was 
 thought of, — a clean, dry, well-sorted article, fit for any market, 
 and might be bought and sold upon its brand. While native 
 
INDIGO AND COTTON. 85 
 
 cotton was selling at fourpence, this certainly would bring six- 
 pence, the supply would be regular and the extent could only 
 be limited by the demand. There are in the Presidency of 
 Bombay and the neighbouring districts, lands once cultivated 
 but now lying waste, sufficient to provide a million of bales in 
 addition to the present supply ; labour is abundant, and though 
 native capital cannot be found for more than the present supply, 
 and none would be employed unless the people made 20 or 30 
 or even 50 per cent , there is abundance of capital in Europe 
 seeking employment, and which could be turned into this chan- 
 nel at an hour's notice. Were this done, the wealth and the 
 revenue of the Presidency might be doubled in a few years, and 
 we should be no longer dependent on America alone for a staple 
 on which one-fifth of our population depend for existence.* 
 
 Why should not all this be done ? The answer is only too 
 easy. Because there is no law — no security for property in 
 India. Before Europeans will risk their capital, they must be 
 able to purchase the fee simple of the waste lands so as to secure 
 themselves against the caprice of Government^ and they must 
 have security for their advances, and not be at the mercy of any 
 socialist Civilian who thinks himself called upon to redress the 
 wrongs of labour at the expense of capital. It is of no use 
 saying that the whole system of advancing is vicious and ought 
 to be abolished — all that may be said against it may be quite 
 true, but'nothing is done or ever was done in India without it. 
 The Government in the olden time advanced for every bale of 
 cotton or of piece goods they bought, for every pound of silk or 
 sugar, or of any article that was purchased, and so it is now — 
 the very Government of Bengal, which is making all this outcry 
 
 * The Bombay Civil Service have hitherto been entirely successful in 
 resisting the settlement of Europeans in their Presidency. So far as is 
 now known there is not one single English " interloper" domiciled in 
 their preserve. 
 
 f Since the above was written, accounts have reached this country of 
 Mr. Grant having refused — in spite of orders from home — to grant 
 waste and forest lands for the cultivation of tea. According to his 
 view of matters the Tiger and the Snake are far better tenants than his 
 own hated countrymen, and have their vested rights that must not be 
 interfered with. 
 
86 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 about the Planter's advances, are at this moment forced to make 
 advances for every chest of opium and every maund of salt they 
 get, and they cannot inspire sufficient confidence to get on with- 
 out practising what they abuse others so roundly for doing. 
 After all, how can it well be otherwise ? Why should the poor 
 man trust the rich ? The more powerful man has no other 
 means of collecting his debts or enforcing his agreements, except 
 by doing so himself, and what redress could the poor cultivator 
 or labourer have against the great man. He knows he has none, 
 and he insists on being paid before hand, rather than incur the 
 certainty of not being paid at all, which among his own country- 
 men, at least, would certainly be the alternative. Besides this, 
 though Mr. Grant insists, with a grim facetiousness, in calling 
 the ryot the real capitalist of Bengal, he is too poor either to 
 buy the necessary tools or to undertake any work, without 
 having an advance which will enable him to relieve his present 
 necessities, and enable him to see his way for a short time be- 
 fore him. 
 
 But will any man in his senses lend one brass farthing on 
 such a security as advances now turn out to be ? So far as at 
 present can be judged, Mr. Grant's proceedings are final, as far 
 as the introduction of fresh European capital into India is 
 concerned. What capital is there may linger on till it can be 
 withdrawn or is confiscated like that already gone; but none 
 but a madman would ever think of risking either hi* money 
 or his labour, where both are dependent on the breath of a 
 bureaucrat who may annihilate the products of either in an 
 hour. 
 
 What is passed is gone — it is of little use crying over spilled 
 milk — the real, permanent, and it is feared immediate mischief 
 that must arise from the recent raid is that it may prove a fatal 
 blow to the introduction of European capital and skill into 
 India, and so postpone her recovering from her present diffi- 
 culties for an indefinite period — it may be for ever. For one 
 thing seems certain, which is that it is only by a fresh influx of 
 European capital and well-directed European energy that India 
 can be saved from the frightful financial difficulties into which 
 recent events have plunged her, and which up to this hour 
 
INDIGO AND COTTON. S7 
 
 is increasing and multiplying in every direction without one 
 sign of alleviation from any quarter. 
 
 It never can be anything but a curse to India that she should 
 go on year after year adding millions to a debt of which she 
 cannot pay the interest, and which must eventually involve the 
 Government and all who have trusted it in bankruptcy and 
 ruin. It can barely suit the British people who have been 
 already practically saddled with £100,000,000 of debt for India, 
 in addition to their own present burdens, that this should go 
 on increasing, while there is really no necessity of its doing so to 
 the extent of one penny piece. India enjoys profound peace, 
 and might be immensely prosperous was it not that a service 
 which was reared in the cradle of the narrowest monopolies has 
 in its old age turned over a new leaf and determined to govern 
 the country according to the newest fangled doctrines of French 
 socialism. Whatever may be said of these theories in other 
 respects, it is admitted that they are enormously expensive, and 
 in consequence have broken down in most European countries, 
 and are consequently singularly unsuited to India at present. 
 
 We are a conscientious nation, and don't like to disturb an 
 institution which has done good service in its day; but the 
 Civil service of India is becoming so expensive a luxury that it 
 is questionable whether we can afford to keep it up much 
 longer. But we may take far higher grounds than such pecu- 
 niary considerations. If we are only to hold India as a 
 conquered province by the strength of our organisation and the 
 number of bayonets we- can maintain within her shores ; if we 
 are to be in fact only a gigantic police to keep the peace among 
 subjected races, the sooner we quit India the better. Such 
 a system of government will never pay its own expenses, and it 
 is besides an unjust and ungenerous use to make of the means 
 which Providence has placed at our disposal. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we can so govern India as to develope 
 her resources, to cultivate her waste lands, to increase the 
 wealth of her people, to carry the example of European energy 
 and the benefits of European civilization to every door, it is well 
 worth our while to persevere even though we may be obliged 
 eventually to abolish the boasted Civil service, in order to make 
 
88 INDIGO AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 way for an army of free settlers who alone can effect these 
 great objects* 
 
 It is not only by governing our Indian empire that we can 
 hope good to come out of it. It must also be by guiding and 
 helping the people that we can hope to dev elope her resources, 
 and to make them both contented and prosperous ; but in order 
 to do that it is indispensable we should turn over a new leaf 
 and discard the narrow class prejudices on which that country 
 has hitherto been so frightfully misgoverned. 
 
 Conclusions. 
 
 The subject treated of in the preceding pages is so unfamiliar 
 to the British public that it has been necessary to go into details 
 which would not be required in addressing an Indian audience, 
 and to use illustrations which might otherwise be deemed 
 irrelevant. Although, therefore, it is drawn out to greater 
 length than might be desirable, it is hoped that the following 
 conclusions have been made tolerably clear. 
 
 1st. That there is no allegation in any of the indictments that 
 any individual Planters, or any section of that body have com- 
 mitted the offences charged against them from any of the 
 vicious motives that generally lead men to commit breaches of 
 the law. No illegal or violent act has been committed from 
 motives of revenge or cruelty, or in order to obtain anything 
 which the Planter did not think, rightly or wrongly, that he had 
 a good title, and to which he could not at least show a good 
 usage title of thirty or forty years 5 standing. 
 
 2nd. Admitting that some of the acts of the Planters would 
 be rightly deemed irregular and illegal under any settled or 
 civilized Government, it is not proved that they were not such 
 as were absolutely necessary for the protection of his property, 
 living under a Government where the administration of justice 
 is avowedly so imperfect and so corrupt as it is in Lower Ben- 
 gal. The law affords him no protection, and he must either 
 himself take measures to enforce the fulfilment of such agree- 
 ments as in the prosecution of his business he may enter into* 
 
CONCLUSIONS. 89 
 
 or he must sit still to be robbed by every one he has dealings 
 with. 
 
 3rd. A Government that either from connivance or incompe- 
 tence has allowed a certain state of things to exist with its full 
 knowledge and consent for more than half a century, has no 
 right to turn suddenly round and inflict condign punishment on 
 those who are only doing what they and their predecessors have 
 always done before. No new fact is alleged or has come to 
 light, except the universal acknowledgment that acts of violence 
 and illegality have yearly become less and less usual, and that 
 with moderate care and diligence on the part of the governing 
 powers, they might soon be made to cease altogether. 
 
 4th. All the Planters ever asked for is a better and more com- 
 plete administration of the law. It is no pleasure and no profit 
 to them to be obliged to enforce their own bargains. What they 
 ask for are, Courts of summary justice, where their contracts can 
 be enforced against their defaulting clients. No one has asserted 
 that any Planter ever refused to fulfil any contract he ever en- 
 tered into, or to pay for what he took at the price his agreement 
 showed he was bound to pay for it. The answer of the Govern- 
 ment to this prayer has been to confiscate in the most outrageous 
 manner the property of the petitioners, to excite a jacquerie of 
 the most frightful character, and to spread ruin and devastation 
 through the most prosperous and most peaceful provinces of the 
 empire, so frightful that it is only kept from more excesses by 
 the presence of a military force where no soldier was ever seen 
 for such a purpose within the limits of this century at least. 
 
 5th. That these revolutionary measures on the part of the Go- 
 vernment must either result in the total extinction of the most 
 important branch of industry in Lower Bengal, or if it is now 
 carried on at all, it must be at such an expense as to be ruinous 
 to the Planter, and be equally disastrous to the ryot, whose 
 share in the transaction is now absorbed in increased interest 
 and charges, increased legal expenses, and the necessity of 
 heavier establishment charges. 
 
 k6th. Besides the destruction of local interests, the action of 
 Government must be nearly fatal to the introduction of Euro- 
 pean settlers and European capital into India, and without this, 
 
92 APPENblX. 
 
 altogether about 8 rupees per month, whilst at the same time he 
 had formal written engagements with the Ryots, under which, in 
 consideration of their sowing one-sixteenth of the land they 
 held from him in Indigo, the other 15-16ths were leased to them 
 at moderate rents ; and so satisfied was he, that all his people 
 were well paid, remunerated, and contented, that he left for 
 England in March 1860, to return in September, to find that 
 not one could be got to work for him, and that all his Ryots re- 
 fused to sow Indigo, or pay rents, but held on by all the lands. 
 
 In May 1859, Mr. Halliday, the Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Bengal, retired from India, and he was succeeded by Mr. John 
 Peter Grant, of whom little was known by the public, except 
 that he was a smart controversial writer, fond of discussions, but 
 without practical knowledge, never having mixed much with any 
 class, and having passed most of his official life in the Secre- 
 tarial Bureau. 
 
 The Honourable Mr. Ashley Eden, was in 1859, Magistrate 
 and Collector of Barraset, a station 14 miles distant from Cal- 
 cutta, and in fact held supreme authority there. Mr. Eden was 
 well known to be strongly opposed to Indigo planting, and to 
 his countrymen as settlers, and both verbally and in writing he 
 lost no opportunity of giving expression publicly and privately 
 to these opinions, which he also repeated in his evidence before 
 the Indigo Commission. 
 
 In the course of that year a discussion with Mr. Eden's 
 official superiors arose, in consequence of some of his orders in 
 connection with the Barraset Indigo concern, and which was 
 pronounced upon in a letter from the Government of Bengal, 
 dated 21st July 1859, in which Mr. Grant first evinced publicly 
 his feeling against Indigo and Indigo Planters. Mr. rtden 
 availed himself of the opportunity which the letter afforded him, 
 of doing injury to Planters, by sending an extract from it, to a 
 Native Deputy Magistrate under him, who, well aware of his 
 superior's feelings, promptly followed it up by ordering his police, 
 by beat of drum, to make a proclamation on the subject to the 
 Indigo Ryots, which the Ryots were quite justified in under- 
 standing to be a declaration on the part of the Government that 
 they might sow Indigo, or not, as they pleased, whatever might 
 be their engagements ; and which they of course took advantage 
 of, not to sow, and at the same time not to repay the advances 
 they had received. In a country without means of communica- 
 tion, such as Bengal is, it was sometime before news of these pro- 
 ceedings spread beyond Barraset, and in the meantime October 
 sowings were everywhere completed, new agreements made, and 
 
APPENDIX. 93 
 
 advances paid, for spring sowings in 1860, and throughout 
 Kishnaghur, Pubna, llajshahye, and Jessore every thing ap- 
 peared much as usual. 
 
 In proof of this it may be stated, that in the month of Decem- 
 ber, 1859, Mr. Reid, the Acting Commissioner, or head authority 
 of Kishnaghur, and the adjoining districts, marched slowly along 
 the line of the New Eastern Bengal Railway, which runs right 
 through the country which last year was most disturbed. He 
 was in daily communication with the people as to the land that 
 was being taken for the railway, as to the rights of road, flood- 
 ways, &c. &c. Mr. Reid is known to be affable and accessible 
 beyond most of his class. He went through the Katcheekata 
 concern, the Manager of which had made agreements with the 
 Ryots to sow 22000 be«ahs, half in October and half in spring. 
 He congratulated the Manager on the flourishing appearance of 
 the villages ; on the beautiful and extended cultivation where 
 there had formerly been so much jungle. At that time the 11000 
 Begahs of October had been sown without a complaint or mur- 
 mur; of the remainder scarcely a begah was sown in March, 
 though engaged for under precisely and identically the same 
 terms and conditions, and the greatest difficulty was experienced 
 in reaping and manufacturing the October plant. 
 
 In the course of February and March the knowledge of what 
 had occurred at Barraset, and of the Lieutenant-Governor's opi- 
 nions and views as to Indigo planting, gradually spread through- 
 out the country, and all sorts of rumours as to the hostile feeling 
 of Government to Planters were disseminated and believed, in 
 the same way as false stories and reports were circulated and 
 credited during the late rebellion. This was followed by ex- 
 tensive repudiation of engagements and refusal to sow, which led 
 to the enactment of Act XI. of I860, for the summary enforce- 
 ment of Indigo contracts. 
 
 The Planters were at first unwilling to avail themselves of its 
 provisions, for it was no advantage to them to put a Ryot in jail 
 when they had expended large sums for seed, for establishment, 
 and for buildings, which were lost and valueless without the 
 : plant which the Ryots had engaged to deliver, and they hoped 
 that the fear of the punishment would induce them to cultivate 
 as usual. 
 
 1 Led away, however, by evil designing men, who persuaded 
 ithem that they had the countenance and support of Govern- 
 Iment, they almost universally refused to sow in Kishnaghur, 
 though in Jessore, Pubna, and Rajshahye, they nearly as uni- 
 versally sowed as usual. 
 
94 APPENDIX. 
 
 The difference was that in Jessore there was an energetic 
 sensible magistrate, who had been sometime in the district, and 
 who was well acquainted with the people. 
 
 To Kishnaghur a young man, Mr. Herschel, had just been 
 sent, who had never been in that or in any other large Indigo 
 district, having previously been only in a subordinate charge. 
 He was no doubt conscientious and hard working, but from his 
 nervous and excitable temperament and want of experience he 
 was utterly unsuited for such a charge, as was proved by his 
 proceedings in a previous case connected with Indigo planting, 
 before he came to Kishnaghur, and in which he was strongly 
 censured by the then Lieutenant-Governor. He lost his pre- 
 sence of mind when his tent was surrounded by a clamorous 
 crowd of natives, and weakly ordered Mr. Forlong to withdraw, 
 from fear of the consequences; he showed an animus against 
 the Planters throughout, and the result was that Indigo cultiva- 
 tion was virtually destroyed in Kishnaghur. 
 
 The evidence and report of the Indigo Commission show how 
 hundreds of Ryots swore that they never had received advances, 
 and had never entered into engagements to cultivate Indigo, and 
 thousands and thousands more were ready to swear the same. 
 They all declared that they believed that Government wished to 
 put a stop to Indigo cultivation, and in all the proclamations by 
 Government and the officials existing contracts were ignored, 
 and the Ryots were warranted in interpreting them as they did, 
 that they need not sow unless they liked. 
 
 The Petition of the Association to the Governor-General, dated 
 26th July, 1860, and the subsequent correspondence, fully set 
 forth all the complaints of the Planters as regards the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor's interference with the course of justice, and as 
 to his measures generally tending to destroy the independence of 
 the officials under him. It is not necessary to go over the same 
 ground again, and it will be sufficient to sketch the position of 
 the Planters since the close of last season in September, and 
 their prospects for the future. 
 
 The Report of the majority of the Indigo Commission recom- 
 mended that the Act for the summary enforcement of Indigo 
 contracts should not be renewed. They considered that no 
 general law of contract was necessary — that there should be no 
 special agency to endeavour to reconcile the ignorant and 
 credulous Ryot with the Planter, and that the latter should be, 
 left to the Civil Courts for the recovery of his claims. 
 
 The only other recommendation was that the police and' 
 magisterial fore.- should be increased, which has been attended 
 
APPENDIX. 95 
 
 ■ 
 
 to, the Lieutenant-Governor having sent large bodies of police 
 and military into those hitherto quiet districts, though not a 
 single instance of violence or oppression had been substantiated 
 gainst the Planters during this trying period. 
 Of course the Ryots looked upon this as a complete triumph j 
 they believed that Government really wished to expel the Planters 
 from the country; they forcibly seized the land, the absolute pro- 
 perty of the Planters, and which had been in their possession for 
 years. The Ryots sowed it down in October with their own crops. 
 The servants of the Planters were intimidated, driven away, 
 threatened with excommunication, if they continued in their em- 
 ployments, and ordinary supplies of milk, fuel, and food were 
 refused to be sold to them, at any price, in the common and 
 public markets. 
 
 No one dared to give evidence in favour of a Planter, and the 
 only remedy he had was a suit for repossession of his own land, 
 under Act IV. of 1840, which was framed for the purpose of 
 enabling a magistrate to keep in possession of land any one who 
 had previously been so, pending the progress of a civil suit, as 
 to the right of property. The proceedings under this Act were 
 intended to be summary, and ought to be confined to an inquiry 
 into the simple fact of previous possession, but they are too fre- 
 quently delayed by the magistrate requiring the production of 
 ,title deeds, and latterly also by the number of the Ryots who 
 icame forward as witnesses to swear that the land had never been 
 in the possession of the Planter, though in some cases the 
 ptumps of the Indigo plant were still in the ground, and the land 
 had been sown with Indigo by the Factory for 15 or 20 years. 
 ! A large quantity of the ground so appropriated has been re- 
 covered, though to little good purpose as regards this season, 
 or in many instances it was too late for October sowings, even 
 tf servants and people could be found to cultivate it. 
 
 There seems little prospect of matters being better for spring 
 owings, unless Government take some prompt and decided 
 hie of action, and this does not appear likely; for though the 
 iovernor-General in Council, under date 25th September, pro- 
 lised the establishment of Summary Civil Courts within the 
 'each of every Planter and Ryot, and a system of cheap and 
 isy Registration of Contracts — no steps have been taken by the 
 jengal Government to carry out these measures — which if fairly 
 ut in force and worked, would tend much to improve the posi- 
 |on of the Planters. 
 
 j At present Ryots firmly believe that they are acting in accord- 
 pee with the wishes and views of Government. 
 \ The Magistrates and Officials seem to believe the same, and 
 
VilC. 
 
 96 APPENDIX. 
 
 * 
 
 seem to wish to be free of all European settlers, so that the 
 Planter almost alone and single-handed — one among hundreds of 
 thousands — has every disadvantage to struggle against, and is 
 endeavouring to hold his own as he best may. 
 
 Virtually, for the present, Indigo planting is at an end in 
 Kishnaghur, Jessore, Pubna, Rajshah} e, and Furreedpore ; the 
 whole of the enormous balances due by Ryots to Planters are 
 confiscated, as it were, by order of Government; for in no case 
 has any Ryot offered to come in and settle his account by paying 
 up, and it will be fortunate indeed if other interests do not 
 equally suffer. 
 
 The Ryots have meanwhile taken one step further in ad- 
 vance by the general refusal to pay rent, especially where 
 they have been successful in repudiating their Indigo liabi- 
 lities. But as this must be followed by the inability of the 
 Zemindars to pay the Land Revenue, it will scarcely suit 
 Government to permit it, and this will probably be put down. 
 Indeed, Mr. Herschel, the Magistrate and Collector of Kishna- 
 ghur, publicly said to a number of Ryots who came in : " Be- 
 4i cause you have escaped from Indigo you expect to escape 
 " from Rents — this is a matter of Government and will not be 
 61 permitted." 
 
 It is the prevalent impression that the movement against In- 
 digo has been promoted by that jealous dislike of European 
 settlers, which from the earliest times characterized the policy 
 of the East India Company, and appears still to pervade all 
 those of the Civil Service nominated by that body. 
 
 It is this feeling which continues to throw obstacles in the 
 way of waste and other land being sold in fee simple ; and if 
 Indigo alone has hitherto suffered, it is because Indigo is the 
 largest and most prominent interest in this part of India. 
 
 Silk, cotton, tea, &c. &c. are all in the same category, and 
 may all meet with the same treatment. 
 
 It is in the hope that this may yet be prevented, — that some 
 security may be obtained, and English interests not left at the 
 mercy of a short-sighted and unwise policy, that the foregoing 
 statement is drawn up. 
 
 By Order of the Central Committee of the Indigo Planters* 
 Association. 
 
 W. F. Fergusson, 
 
 Secretary. ! 
 Calcutta, December 8, 1860. 
 

 If 45 1£ 
 

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