principle (§ 87), that no native of India or other subject of the king should be debarred by race, colour, or religion from holding any office whatsoever under the British raj; and it made provision (§§ 103-05) for the proper training and testing of civil servants.

Not less remarkable than this great Act was the elaborate and exhaustive report of a parliamentary committee on the state of India, by which it was preceded. The survey was such as to give good reason for pride. But the Report was not content merely to boast of a huge dominion acquired by the sword, or even of a just and peaceful rule afforded to millions. It laid down the principle that the Indian Empire did not exist for the sake of Britain, but for the welfare of the Indian peoples. It urged that to the largest possible extent Indians should be employed in Indian administrative work. Above all it proclaimed as "an indisputable principle" the remarkable and noble doctrine "that the interests of the native subjects are to be consulted in preference to those of Europeans, whenever the two come in competition " (No. 112). Is there any parallel in history to this declaration of a ruling race in regard to its recently conquered subjects? Yet that declaration was perfectly sincere. It represented the new spirit of British rule.

101. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

From a Minute of Lord William Bentinck, 1804.

(Bentinck was Governor of Madras when this passage was written. The subject of the Minute was the results likely to follow from Lord Wellesley's conquests. It glories, not in the mere exhibition and extension of power, but in the opportunity of "founding British greatness upon Indian happiness," towards which Bentinck was himself at a later date to labour.)

If the annals of Indian history are retraced, and more particularly the events of later years, it will be found that this vast peninsula has presented one continual scene of anarchy and misery. Constant revolutions, without even a proposed legitimate object, have succeeded each other. Wars of great and petty chieftains, unwarranted in their origin and un

principled in their conduct, for the sole object of robbery and plunder, have depopulated and laid waste the general face of this unhappy country. Justice, order, consideration of public and private rights nowhere appear in relief of this melancholy picture. Happily a period has arrived to these barbarous excesses. For the first time the blessings of universal tranquillity may be expected. That system of policy which could embrace the whole of India, which could comprehend in one bond of mutual defence and reciprocal forbearance the predatory chiefs of this great Empire, deserves the admiration of all the civilised world. That system, which has founded British Greatness upon Indian Happiness, demands in a particular manner the thanks and applause of this country. (Boulger, Life of Lord W. Bentinck, 22.)

102. THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

From a Minute by Sir Thomas Munro, 31st Dec. 1824.

(Sir T. Munro was Governor of Madras from 1820 to 1827. He was one of the ablest of the remarkable group of men whom the Company's service produced in the early nineteenth century. Like Elphinstone, Malcolm, Metcalfe, and Hodgson he thought and wrote much on the huge problem of government presented by the establishment of British supremacy over all India.)

There is one great question to which we should look in all our arrangements: What is to be their final result on the character of the people? Is it to be raised, or is it to be lowered? Are we to be satisfied with merely securing our power and protecting the inhabitants, leaving them to sink gradually in character lower than at present; or are we to endeavour to raise their character, and to render them worthy of filling higher situations in the management of their country, and of devising plans for its improvement? It ought undoubtedly to be our aim to raise the minds of the natives, and to take care that whenever our connection with India might cease, it did not appear that the only fruit of our dominion there had been to leave the people more abject and less able to govern themselves than when we found them. Many different plans may be suggested for the improvement of their character, but none of them can be successful, unless it be first laid down as a main principle of our policy, that the improvement must be made. This principle once established,

we must trust to time and perseverance for realising the object of it. We have had too little experience, and are too little acquainted with the natives, to be able to determine without trial what means would be most likely to facilitate their improvement. Various measures might be suggested, which might all probably be more or less useful; but no one appears to me so well calculated to insure success as that of endeavouring to give them a higher opinion of themselves, by placing more confidence in them, by employing them in important situations, and perhaps by rendering them eligible to almost every office under Government. It is not necessary at present to define the exact limit to which their eligibility should be carried, but there seems to be no reason why they should be excluded from any office for which they are qualified, without danger to the preservation of our own ascendancy.

Liberal treatment has always been found the most effectual way of elevating the character of any people, and we may be sure that it will produce a similar effect on that of the people of India. The change will no doubt be slow; but that is the very reason why no time should be lost in commencing the work. We should not be discouraged by difficulties; nor, because little progress may be made in our own time, abandon the enterprise as hopeless, and charge upon the obstinacy and bigotry of the natives the failure which has been occasioned solely by our own fickleness, in not pursuing steadily the only line of conduct on which any hope of success could be reasonably founded. We should make the same allowances for the Hindus as for other nations, and consider how slow the progress of improvement has been among the nations of Europe, and through what a long course of barbarous ages they had to pass before they attained their present state. When we compare other countries with England, we usually speak of England as she is now; we scarcely ever think of going back beyond the Reformation; and we are apt to regard every foreign country as ignorant and uncivilised, whose state of government does not in some degree approximate to our own, even though it should be higher than our own was at no very distant period.

We should look upon India, not as a temporary possession, but as one which is to be maintained permanently, until the natives shall in some future age have abandoned most of their superstitions and prejudices, and become sufficiently enlightened, to frame a regular government for themselves, and to conduct

and preserve it. Whenever such a time shall arrive, it will probably be best for both countries that the British control over India should be gradually withdrawn. That the desirable change contemplated may in some after age be effected in India, there is no cause to despair. Such a change was at one time in Britain itself at least as hopeless as it is here. When we reflect how much the character of nations has always been influenced by that of governments, and that some, once the most cultivated, have sunk into barbarism, while others, formerly the rudest, have attained the highest point of civilisation, we shall see no reason to doubt that if we pursue steadily the proper measures, we shall in time so far improve the character of our Indian subjects as to enable them to govern and protect themselves.

(Arbuthnot, Minutes of Sir T. Munro, 573.)

103. THE PROTECTION OF THE RYOTS

From a Minute of Sir Thomas Munro, Dec. 31, 1824.

The peculiar character and condition of the ryots require that some laws should be made specially for their protection. The non-resistance of the ryots in general to oppression has been too little attended to in our Regulations. We make laws for them as though they were Englishmen, and are surprised that they should have no operation. A law might be a very good one in England and useless here. This arises from the different characters of the people. In England the people resist oppression and it is their spirit which gives efficacy to the law in India the people rarely resist oppression, and the law intended to secure them from it can therefore derive no aid from themselves. Though the ryots frequently complain of illegal exactions, they very seldom resist them: they more commonly submit without complaining, and they often abscond when they have no longer the means of paying for them.

It is in vain to caution them against paying by telling them that the law is on their side, and will support them in refusing to comply with unauthorised demands. All exhortations on this head are thrown away, and after listening to them they will the very next day submit to extortion as quietly as before. Some of the more bold and intelligent, it is true, withhold payment and complain; but the number is so small

as to have no sensible effect; for the great mass submit quietly, and will continue for generations to submit, until a total change shall have been wrought in their character. There is nothing extraordinary in this: it is the natural consequence of their condition. They had always, under their native princes, been accustomed to implicit submission to the demands of the Government officers. . . . As, therefore, they will not protect themselves by resisting injustice, we must endeavour to protect them by laws which would be unnecessary in England, or in almost any other country not under foreign dominion; and we must, for this salutary purpose, invest the Collector and Magistrate, the person most interested in their welfare, with power to secure them from exaction, by authorizing him to make summary inquiry into all illegal exactions, to recover the amount, to restore whatever is recovered to the ryots, and to punish the offenders.

(Arbuthnot, Minutes of Sir T. Munro, 258.)

104. AN ANALYSIS OF THE INDIAN VILLAGE SYSTEM IN THE DECCAN

From the Report on the Territories conquered from the Peshwa, by Mountstuart Elphinstone.

(Elphinstone, who had been resident at Poona down to the outbreak of the last Mahratta war, was placed in control of the reorganisation of the territories annexed after the fall of the Peshwa. His admirable Report on these provinces shows not only profound knowledge, but a real sympathy with Indian customs, and a strong desire that they should be disregarded as little as possible in the new system.)

In whatever point of view we examine the native government in the Deccan, the first and most important feature is, the division into villages or townships. These communities contain in miniature all the materials of a state within themselves, and are almost sufficient to protect their members, if all other governments were withdrawn. Though probably not compatible with a very good form of government, they are an excellent remedy for the imperfections of a bad one; they prevent the bad effects of its negligence and weakness; and even present some barrier against its tyranny and rapacity.

Each village has a portion of ground attached to it, which is committed to the management of the inhabitants. The boundaries are carefully marked, and jealously guarded. They are divided into fields, the limits of which are exactly