The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

governed in India. (Hear, hear.) That is a fundamental
law which we did not make, which we cannot alter, and
to which we should do our best to conform our legislation.
(Hear.) While such an extent of ocean and of continent
lies between Calcutta and London, India must be governed
there, and not here. Ay, in spite of all the improvements
which science has made, a dispatch from India is not road
in London until six weeks after it was sent from Calcutta.
'Suppose it is answered on the very day when it reaches
Isere, six weeks more must elapse before the answer arrives
at Calcutta. But no such dispatch is answered on the
mane day as that of its arrival—very rarely indeed in the
same month. The double government, whatever be its
merits or demerits, is unquestionably not an expeditious
government. When a dispatch is received, it must be con-
sidered, and both branches of the governing body at home
must have opportunities of offering suggestions as to the
answer to be sent out ; and when you reflect on all this—
when you take into consideration the delay which is the
effect of your machinery and tho effect of distance—you
will see that when a dispatch reaches Calcutta it is a
dispatch not calculated to meet the state of things existing
on its arrival, but such as extended six months before. No
empire can be governed by a dispatch shaped to meet a
condition of circumstances which existed six months be-
fore. (Hear.) All our own experience proves that this is
impossible. We all remember when, upon a July, a Royal
speech congratulated Parliament on the increasing
opros.
our
verity of the country ; and yet within 24 hours
parting before Christmas we had a famine. AVe all, too,
recollect when, in autumn all Europe seemed in
a state of
profound peace ; and yet, in the next year, from the is .
tula to the Bay of Biscay there was nothing but war and
insurrection.
(Hear.) Of what use in such a conjuncture
would be the ablest and clearest instructions on foreign
policy drawn out six months previously? (Hear.) It is
therefore impossible that India can be really governed, ex-
cept in India. The instructions sent out there are gene-
rally exposition of principles, the business of the home
authorities being rather to suggest what is best than to
give positive directions as to the future ; and when the
instructions are most positive there is almost always a pro-
viso that, after all, the local authorities must, on a view of
the circumstances existing wnen the instructions arrive,
exercise their own discretion as to what is to be done. The
whole history of the Indian Government is full of instances
to this effect ; but from my own experience I think I can
illustrate this proposition in the clearest manner, for when
I had a part in the government of India I can venture to
say that every day important measures were taken by the
Government—indeed, every measure of which history will
hereafter make mention, was taken without any authority
whatever from the home Government. (Hear.) I believe
that almost every one of those measures or acts was re-
garded with disapprobation at home ; yet not one of them
was rescinded or annulled, but every one of them was suf-
fered to stand, the language of the home authorities gene--
rally being such as this—" You have done wrong, but
what you have done is done." That was most eminently
the case with respect to that great reform made in 1835 by
Lord W. Bentinck before his departure from India on the
subject of native education. Such was the case with re-
spect to the abolition of the transit duties. On that occa-
sion a severe reprimand came out with respect to the
distinguished functionary who bore the chief part in
that transaction. Nevertheless, the transit duties were
abolished; and that great boon was conferred on the
people of India. The same was the case with respect
to the act which established the liberty of unlicensed
printing. (Hear.) A severe reprimand came out to
India on account of the rashness imputed to the legis-
lative authorities there, but, nevertheless, they were not
directed to annul the act. The same, too, was the case
with respect to the act in regard to the uniformity of coin-
age. Here, again, a reprimand came out, but still the act
was allowed to remain. These four instances, all taken
from a period of less than a year and a quarter, are suffi-
cient to give a general idea that the organisation of the
government of India is really of more importance to the
happiness of the people of that country than the organisa-
tion of the home Government. (Hear.) Without meaning
to speak with the least disrespect of the functions exer-
cised by the home Government, I am not sure whether the
most important of all their functions is not the choice of
the Governor-General, and I should be inclined to say that
even upon the character of the Governor-General much
less depends than on the general character and spirit of
those servants by whom the administration of India 'is
carried out. (Hear, hear.) A test, then, by which I am
inclined to judge of the present bill is the probable effect
it would have on the character of the civil service in
India. (Hear, hear.) Is it likely to raise or to lower
the character of that distinguished body which furnishes
India with its judges and collectors ?—for, without mean-
ing the slightest disrespect to the Court of Directors, I
must say that three or four or six incompetent directors
would cause far less evil to the people of India than a
, single incompetent collector in a district where a settle-
ment is to be made between the Government and the vil-
lagers. Though many hon. gentlemen fancy they know
what the functions of a collector of revenue are, yet there
exists, and I am surprised at it, a strange ignorance as to
the power and importance of functionaries of that class in
India. Some gentlemen seem to imagine, putting the In-
dian collector at the very highest, he is something like a
commissioner of taxes or stamps in this country, while the
truth is that the collector of revenue in many parts of
India is the sole consul of a great province, the district
assigned to him being about the size of one of the four
provinces of Ireland, of Leinster or of Munster, and the
population therein about 1,000,000 of human beings. In
all that district there is not a single village—there is not
a single bsst--in which the difference between a good
and a bad collector may not make a difference between
happiness and misery. (Hear.) The difference between
a good and bad collector to the people in such a dis-
trict is infinitely greater than the difference between the
very best and the very worst government that we have
ever seen, or aro likely ever to see in England, can be to the
people here. (Hear.) I have been assured by those who
have had the best opportunities of judging, that you might
read the character of the collector in the eyes and in the
garb of the population—in the appearance of the fields and
of the houses. When there was an incapable collector the
peasantry there were broken-hearted. In the first place,
the ornaments of the women, on which the peasantry "t
India place so much value, are sold—then the r-ensure
overcame their fondness for the village to whion they be-
longed, and emigration by hundreds and thousands took
place. The villaze. idle jungle encroached
tine country before cultivated, and wild beasts made
dens where human habitations stood before. But let a
good collector replace the bad one, and the whole scene is
altered. Cultivation reappears, the jungle recedes, the
tigers and beasts of prey return to their former haunts,
and the fugitive population come back to their villages.
Such a power as that which collectors in India have over
the people is in no part of the world possessed by any class
of functionaries—(hear)—and I can conceive that if we
made the best arrangement with respect to the Home Go-
vernment we should be rendering far smaller service to
those millions whose interest, in the first place, we have to
consider, than if we raised the capacity for the civil ser-
vice. (Hear, hear.) Some gentlemen for whose ability I
have great respect—though I cannot agree with them—
think the best mode of improving the government of India
is by giving the public appointments to the Governor-
General, and letting him choose his instrument for the admit
nistration. There will be no want of ability, they say, if
you only give him the freedom to choose those who serve
under him. There is something plausible in the proposi-
tion that you should allow him to choose able men where-
ever he finds them. But my firm opinion is, that the day
on which the civil service of India ceases to be a close ser-
vice will be the beginning of an age of jobbing the most
monstrous, the most extensive, and the most perilous that
ever existed.
(Hear.) Every Governor-General would, in
such case, carry out with him, or would soon be followed
by, a crowd of relatives, nephews, first and second cousins,
friends, and political hangers-on, while every steamer ar-
riving rom the Red Sea would carry to India adventurers
bearing with them letters from some powerful man in Eng-
land, all praying for employment. Then upon these persons
so recommended the Governor-General would have it in his
power to distribute residences, seats in the Council Board,
and places of from 4,000/. to 6,0001. a-year, upon men with-
out the least acquaintance with the character or habits of
the natives, and with only sufficient knowledge of the lan-
guage to be able to call for a bottle of pale ale, or to desire
their attendants to pull the punkah harder. (Laughter.)
These men would be sent to exercise authority in different
districts. One might bo sent to a great station as a ruler;
and Mysore, not inferior to Scotland in extent and popu-
lation, might be made subject to his absolute power.
(Hear, hear.) In what way could you put a check on such
proceedings ? Would you—the House of Commons—con-
trol them ? Have you been so completely successful in
extirpating nepotism and jobbing at your door, and in
excluding all abuses from Whitehall and Somerset-house,
that you should fancy that you could establish purity in
countries the situation of which you do not know, and
the names of which you cannot pronounce. (Cheers and
laughter.) I believe most firmly that instead of purity
resulting from that arrangement to India, India would
soon be tainted by it ; and that, before long, when a son
or brother of some active member of this house went out
to Calcutta, carrying with him a strong letter of recom-
mendation from the Prime Minister to the Governor-Ge-
neral, that letter would be really a bill of exchange drawn
on the revenues of India for value received from Parlia-
mentary support. (Hear, hear.) That would be no new
traffic, but only an old traffic revived. We are not with-
out a guide and experience on this point. We have only
to look back to those lamentable and shameful years which
followed the first establishment of our power in Bengal.
Then, as may be well-known if you only look to any poet,
satirist, or essayist of those times, you may see in what
manner the system of appointments operated. Looking
over, only yesterday, for another object, a file of news-
papers of 1771, I was struck by a paragraph stating that
Mr. So-and-So, who went out with the Governor-Gneral
only three years ago, had just landed with 40,0001. (Hear,
hear.) These were the sort of men, who took no office,
but simply got the Governor-General to pay a species of
ransom, laying upon him a sort of tax—what the Mah-
rattas call choret and the Scotch blackmail—that is, the
sum paid to a thief, in consideration that he went away
without doing harm. (Laughter.) There was a tradition
in Calcutta, where the story was very circumstantially
told and generally believed, that a man came out with a
strong letter of recommendation from one of the Ministers
to Lord Clive • and when Lord Clive saw that ho was not
only unfit for, would positively do harm in any office,
his lordship said, in a way peculiar to him, " Well, chap,
how much do you want ?" Not being accustomed to be
spoken to so plainly, the man replied that he only hoped
for some situation in which his services might be useful.
" That is no answer, chap," said Lord Clive, `•How
much do you want ? Will 10,0001. do ?" The person
replied, that he should be delighted if by laborious ser-
vice he could obtain that competence. Lord Clive then
wrote out an order for the sum, and told the applicant to
leave India by the ship he came in, and, once in England
again to remain there. (Hear, and laughter.) I think the
story is very probable, and I also think that the people
of India ought to be grateful for the course Lord Clive pur-
sued ; for though he pillaged the people of Bengal to give
this man a large sum, yet the man himself, if he had re-
ceived an appointment, would not only have pillaged, but
misgoverned the people. Against abuses of this kind the
only security is that the civil service be kept close, and the consequence of keeping the service close is, that though
the Governor-General has a wide choice, he must choose
from among a certain set of instruments whichh finds
prepared. It is in the highest degree im probable thate an
ys
one, upon going out as Governor-General to India, should
find any relatives or friendsrainadthuencnivilrupniserotce
G;
oavnednitohre.
consequence is, that e
General would dispose of sanpatron.age under the present
system more properly than upright Governor-General,
under a system by which he sho
Geovaet liberty to appoint
any one. Even an unscrupulous ?pr-General when
etnds, comes to
he finds he cannot oblige relations and
men
the conclusion that the best thing
appoint.ht_oisdeohiosn?e,eoamall
wend do the most credit to
y.
the
puhliirservice.to on most easily and successfunll
beene(n2 month
hear.) That valuable man (Lord W.Bentincekn) in
ow
in my hearing,. I" I have he left India, said,
years; and during that timehave had dispose of
seven.
immense -luerative patronage, and I have never but once
in all that tirthabeen able to do a single service to a single
English frientr There was the office of. a police magistrate
vri.cantats Cid
outta, not strictly belonging to the civil Der.