The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-23 00:00:00

THE CIVIL S.E.RVIER IN INDIA.

The following is an extract of a letter, dated
Danigepore :—" What I am now paying as much
attention to as possible is the thorough mastering
of the details of the magistrates' offices and super-
intendence of native officers. The latter is out and
out the hardest kind of work a magistrate has ; his
subordinates, if not well looked after and kept
under constant check and control, become his most
dangerous enemies ; work falls into arrears, cases
are distorted, undue influences set into action, and
the confidence of the people in the magistrate's
sense of justice entirely and irremediably impaired.
It is very much to be regretted that a magistrate
is precluded by law from administering such sum-
llary punishment to his official subordinates as
Would at once convince the natives at large, that
he heartily hated their malpractices, and would be
always willing to protect every man against their
tyranny; but, unluckily, such is not the case.
Every offence, on the part of a subordinate of
whatever grade, must be proved in a most clear
way; and, what is more objectionable, in a legally
clear way. The latter method is in this country
quite impossible ; the nature of the evidence ad-
duced in courts is never of the same trustworthy
character which, under similar circumstances, it
would be in England; witnesses easily perjure
themselves, are constantly bought off, and docu-
mentary evidence is still more dangerous .To
expect that a magistrate shall go by the strictly
legal evidence in any case is, in my opinion, a
very prejudicial system, and exemplifies in is
consequences most clearly the great evils ,
which arise from applying English ideas to
the government of this country. But when the
same principle applies to the supervision exercised
by magistrates and others over their subordinates,
it 'becomes not only generally prejudicial but essen-
tially dangerous in its effects upon the influence
and position of the representatives of the Civil
power in India. Every native • looks, as a matter
of course, with the greatest contempt upon a man
who is bound in his conduct towards subordinates
by all the formalities of law. You will doubtless
have heard it said that the mutinies arose to a very
considerable extent from the circumstance that the
powers of regimental officers were diminished and
weakened to such a degree as to destroy the imme-
diate influence they possessed over their men. The
same system has been applied to the Civil service,
and though, of course, the same results have not
followed so quickly as they did among men with
arms in their hands, I have no doubt that if it
be persisted in we shall have another revolution,
not of the military, but of the civil classes. The
gist of the system is to weaken the executive, both
military and civil. Its evils in the first case have
shown themselves in so clear and palpable a light
that I do not suppose any one will attempt to in-
troduce the system afresh, but in the civil line a
similar, though more lurking, danger exists, and I
am afraid that its existence is comparatively ignored,
owing to its not having as yet so clearly manifested
itself. That it will do so some time or other there
can be no manner of doubt, but I hope that the sad
experience lately gone through will open the eyes
of Government to the faults of a system in defence
of which I have not heard any argument, with the
exception of those absurd ones founded on the still
more absurd assumption that natives are worthy of
being treated in the same way as freeborn English-
men."