Civil servants, military officers, merchants, mechanics, go there now, as they did in the earliest days of intercourse, with the purpose of returning to Europe as soon as their pecuniary necessities or requirements are satisfied. Their number has never reached 50,000; at present it includes 31,000 soldiers, exclusive of commissioned officers :-the latter, together with civil servants, may amount to 7000.

Many writers still dispute whether this system of continual immigration without settlement has, on the whole, been advantageous to the security of our empire? We, however, are not among the adverse critics of a system from which, in the first place, it has arisen that the British master caste has never degenerated: while another result equally merits reflection—namely, that as we have but slightly interfered with the occupation of the soil, the natives, undisturbed upon the fields of their fathers, have been more tolerant of the dominion of strangers. Our rule has already exceeded in duration that of dynasties, and yet the fluctuating instrumentality seems to take from it the character of permanency, and thereby diminishes jealousy. The people of India look at it as the peasant at the stream:

Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis: at ille

Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.

The history of the Company, and of the progress of the British dominion, is, however, so generally known, that we need not enter more largely on the subject. It is sufficient that we recommend to such as lack information the neat summary of events by Mr. Macfarlane, and the comprehensive view of statistics by Mr. Martin. From the volume entitled 'Modern India and its Government,' for which the public is much indebted to Mr. Campbell of the Bengal civil service, we shall have to make various citations as we proceed.

The year 1720 is the date from which the governments now existing in India may be most conveniently traced. It was our fortune that the Mahomedan and Hindoo powers broke their forces against one another; for when the Mahrattas had broken the Moghuls, and the Afghans had again broken the Mahrattas, there was among the natives of India somewhat of a balance of power.'-p. 113.

We should rather say an absence of all concentrated power and regular government. But in the same year, 1720, as he goes on to say :

'The French also appeared in India—and a private French company established themselves for trade at stations near Madras and Calcutta.

For

For trade they showed little aptitude; but in politics they found a field much more suited to their genius; and though much more recently established, and with greatly inferior resources, they first led the way in brilliant political success, and, had their efforts been backed by the same resources, and by the same support from the mother country, it seems highly probable that they and not we might have been the present masters of India.'

We believe that the existence of our present empire in India is to be traced to the successes of Lord Clive in Bengal. We from that period made the productive provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa the base of our military operations, as they were the support of our finances. We found there a population industrious but unwarlike, and we had to contend against weak, debauched, and at the same time tyrannical native princes. We probably never should have been able to force our way to empire either from the South or the West; and it was therefore from the North-Eastern coast that we directed our advance to the Mahomedan capital of India.

Our next extract will indicate much of the author's opinions and purposes:

'We have then at last reached the limit, and become supreme in India. We have seen how and with what obligations we acquired our present territory. We have noted the origin of the native States, and may judge how far they are in the possession of nationalities, how far they have any right better than those who may conquer and succeed them. It appears that hardly one of the native princes had so ancient and legitimate an origin as ourselves; that many of them were in fact established by us-and especially that many of those nominal princes who draw the largest political stipends from our treasuries are not ancient, national, or rightful rulers, but mere creatures of our peculiar policy.'-Campbell, pp. 148, 149.

There is truth in this description, but the statements are too general and the conclusions too absolute. No doubt, if we assume the Emperor of Delhi to have been the sole rightful sovereign of India, the Nabobs of the Carnatic, the Chiefs of Mysore, the Nizams of the Deccan, the Viziers of Oude, the Nabobs of Bengal, and the Mahratta Chiefs had no more right to independent sway than the Christian merchants who subdued them. But we are precluded from the absolute application of this description by the fact, that we have throughout our progress of conquest dealt with these usurping and rebel chieftains as if they were legitimate rulers; and while the East India Company was officially styled the slave' of the Emperor of Delhi, that 'slave' did not hesitate to accept the cession of large territories in entire sovereignty from other imperial vassals, who had no authority to confer it.

VOL. XCII. NO. CLXXXIII.

E

We

We derive our title from the sword, but it is undeniable that our conquering sword has almost invariably been forced from the scabbard either by hostile intrigues, or by the positive aggression of the native princes, who, on their part, it must be confessed, followed a very natural course. They could never shake off the feeling that our continuance in India as sovereigns of any considerable part of it was incompatible with their independence; and no wonder—for it is indeed as inevitable that barbarian states must succumb in the contiguity of regular governments, as it is for hunter-tribes to be gradually extinguished by the proximity of civilized and agricultural immigrants.

We now come to the latest and perhaps the most important of these publications—a skilful and condensed argument, by, as we understand, a gentleman who lately held the high position of Member of Council at Madras, against the whole system of our Indian administration, at home and abroad. Such a production, published at such a moment by such a person, must attract many readers, and seems to demand our best attention.

This Friend of India,' in his opening pages, says 'it is the interest' of his own countrymen in the East, of all classes,— 'that establishments should be kept at the maximum; that as large a revenue as possible should be drawn from India; that our territory should be extended to its utmost limits, in order that the field for the employment of Europeans should be co-extensively enlarged. It is the interest of the native millions, on the other hand, that the Government of India should be administered with the greatest economy, that the smallest amount of revenue should be drawn from their pockets, that our territory should be rather abridged than extended, because the extension of territory is the creation of a field of employment and emolument for Europeans at the expense of the natives.'-p. 3.

'If India is hereafter to be governed for her own sake, we shall require to make some change in our arrangements; but if it is still to be treated as no other than a carcase for a certain number of English to prey upon, to be considered as a patronage preserve for a President of the Board of Control and twenty-four East India Directors, then we need no change, for the existing system is admirably adapted for that object.'*-p. 7.

If the foregoing allegations were supported by facts, it is not some change in our arrangements that should be made, but an entire change, if not the abandonment of India altogether by Great Britain. The system of administration would not merely

In M. Thiers's book on the Consulate and the Empire there is the following passage-India, in fact, under the sceptre of England, is only a conquest ruined by the progress of European industry, and made use of to support some officers, some clerks, and some magistrates belonging to the metropolis. It will be, no doubt, gratifying to The Friend of India' to find this agreement in opinion between himself and so sincere a Friend of England.'

be

6 great

be what it is called in a subsequent paragraph, a sham,' but a monstrous wrong, sufficient to consign the perpetrators to eternal infamy. Can the author, with an utter forgetfulness of the despatches from the Court of Directors which he has himself read-which he was bound officially to act upon -and which enjoined reduction of posts and salaries, and the strictest economy in every branch of the administration-persist in affirming that the governing bodies at home encourage wasteful expenditure - including even the frequent creation of utterly needless places-for the benefit of the Company's servants, civil and military? As to the actual scale of official emoluments in the author's own walk, may we venture to ask whether he considers himself to have been extravagantly paid?-does he feel that the competency which he has acquired was not well earned by thirty years of zealous and laborious service? We will go even further, and ask whether he believes that the important duties intrusted to him in the highest offices of revenue administration would have been as well and as uprightly performed by native officers, who, we readily admit, would have thought themselves well off with much lower salaries?

He tells us―

The Slave kings ruled a mighty empire. About the year 1300 Alaoodeen completed the conquest of the Deccan, and he and his successor, Mahommed Toglak, appear to have been emperors of all India, the Hindoo chiefs of the south being at least tributary. Their empire was great and prosperous, and there yet remain great public works to testify their magnificence and munificence.'-ib. p. 14.

A similar description applies to India under the reign of Akbar and his immediate successors, that is, during a period of 150 years, employed by them in extending their rule over the whole of India. Why, then, we ask, should our intelligent native subjects, reasoning from these historical epochs, deplore the extension of the British territories? Where objections to this extension exist, it is not from any fear-far less experience-of misgovernment or extravagant expenditure, but because of the inevitable substitution of European for native agency in many departments it is not, accordingly, from the inhabitants of our old dominions that the murmur of discontent is heard-the feeling exists only among the official class in the new acquisition. It is quite true that, as extension of empire has been the consequence of success in war, great expense has been incurred in the first instance; but, as the territory acquired has brought large increases of revenue, no augmented burthen has really fallen upon our earlier possessions; the public debt has been increased, but so have the funds for the payment of it.

The author indignantly demands (p. 7), 'Shall we then continue to legislate sordidly and hypocritically for class and caste objects, or shall we begin to legislate for humane and national objects?' Parliament, it is to be hoped, will continue to legislate for the maintenance of the British rule, which implies a sedulous anxiety for the security of life and property among 100 millions of British subjects, and every possible exertion for the development of the resources furnished by a fertile soil to an industrious population. But-however The Friend of India' may vituperate our bigotry-we make bold to add that it is impossible for us to retain India without what he calls caste legislation by a British Parliament. The English are the master caste in India, and we cannot weaken this position without incurring the risk of losing it altogether. The Home Administration of our Indian empire, in whatever hands it may be placedwhether divided, as at present, between two executive bodies, or confined to one-must be exclusively European; even the 'Friend' indeed does not propose that the Board of Control and the Court of Directors should have a large infusion of Asiatic blood. With respect to his recommendation of a much more extensive employment of natives in the civil administration of our Eastern dominion itself, we may observe that even at present, according to what seems a fair calculation, 97 per cent. of the business is done by them, leaving 3 per cent. to European agency. We should, however, feel more distrust than we actually do in differing from such great authorities as the 'Friend' quotes in support of his view on this subject, were we not convinced that their arguments, if admitted, must lead directly to the conclusion that the civil administration of the country, except in a very few high offices, should be given up to the natives: a conclusion as much opposed, in the present condition of the Indian people, to good government as to British supremacy.

Sir Thomas Munro, it seems, has written thus:

'It certainly would be more desirable that we should be expelled from the country altogether than that the result of our system of government should be such an abasement of a whole people. If we make a summary comparison of the advantages and disadvantages which have occurred to the natives from our government, the result, I fear, will hardly be as much in its favour as it ought to have been. They are more secure from the calamities both of foreign war and internal commotions; their persons and property are more secure from violence; they cannot be wantonly punished, or their property seized, by persons in power; and their taxation is on the whole lighter. But, on the other hand, they have no share in making laws for themselves, little in administering them, except in very subordinate offices; they can rise to no high station, civil or military: they are everywhere

regarded