IX. Small cause courts. CHAP. against the poor man, who practically was without a remedy at law until the introduction of small cause courts. These have long been established in the three presidency towns, with a jurisdiction over suits not exceeding 1,000 rupees, and limited to the class of cases which can be dealt with by the English county courts, and similar courts have been gradually established in every considerable town throughout the country. The judges are chosen, in the presidency towns from the European and native bar of the High Court, and elsewhere usually from the native judiciary. In the majority of cases, however, the office of judge of a smallcause court is held in conjunction with some other judicial office, but with separate records and procedure. The fees of these courts are moderate, the procedure simple, and no appeals are permitted from their decisions, except in special cases and under certain narrow conditions. Altogether, the introduction of these courts is one of the greatest improvements in legislative procedure which has been conferred upon the country. civil ser tributed in two executive and judi cial. Higher It will have been understood from this account of grades of the district administrative system, that the official trainvice dis- ing of the civil servant up to a certain point is the same for all. It begins with his first appointment as an branches, assistant magistrate and collector, and he continues to be employed on both magisterial and revenue duties until he reaches the position of joint magistrate and collector. In no other way could a better or so complete a knowledge of the people and their institutions. be obtained. The great mass of the people being engaged in agriculture, most of them as owners in whole or part of land, a thorough knowledge of the complicated systems of Indian land tenure is the first qualification needed for efficient administration. This, which is needed equally by the judge as by the executive officer, can best be gained in the district revenue courts, while the conduct of the magisterial courts gives the needful ex perience in the criminal law, and an officer can become fit either for the charge of a district-and the efficient administration of the district is the first condition for the proper government of India-or for the exercise of higher judicial functions, only by training in the two kinds of business, the land revenue and the criminal law. On reaching the grade of joint magistrate and collector the civilian has, for further advancement, to make his final choice between the executive and judicial lines, electing either to remain in the administrative line and succeeding to the charge of a district, when the appointments of commissioner of a division (or group of districts) and to the board of revenue are available; or passing on to the office of district judge, with the prospect of eventual preferment to a seat on the high court of the province. Still higher appointments are the Lieutenant Governorship of a province or a seat in Council, but these, the prizes of the service, are practically monopolised by the secretaries to the different governments, whose services, if involving less real responsibility, bring them more prominently under the notice of the dispensers of patronage than are the administrative officers scattered about the country. CHAP. IX. The civil service employed district It will also be understood from this account that by much the greater part of the civil service is engaged on district work. The men attached to the special depart- mainly on ments and offices outside the regular line are the excep- adminis tions, but exceptions which the tendency of the times tration; is to increase, as with the greater complexity of modern government the necessity is assumed to arise for creating new departments to deal with technical business. To the extent to which this goes on, and men are withdrawn from district-work to duties in offices at the headquarters of the different governments the business of which is carried on in English, the efficiency of the administration as an instrument for keeping the government in touch with the people necessarily suffers. The IX. CHAP. increasing acquaintance of the educated Indians with the English language operates in the same direction to diminish the necessity for a thorough familiarity with the vernaculars, and there is always a tendency among those in high places to forget that if a few thousand Indians can speak English, there still remain the millions whose thoughts and feelings can be arrived at only through the medium of their own tongue. A man may gain credit and preferment as a secretary who has forgotten what he once knew of the language and sentiments of the people, and can scarcely converse with even a native gentleman, much less with a peasant. And in the distribution of honours and pre ferments it seems to be too little borne in mind that the men who are actually administering the country, the magistrate-collectors each ruling over his million or million and a half of people, for whose well-being he is mainly responsible, and to whom he is the embodiment of the government, are really doing more important work than the office men at headquarters whose services come more immediately into view, still more than the irresponsible officials in England who to the advantages of well-paid and easy duty in a good climate may add whatever a large share of the titular honours bestowed for public service may be deemed to be worth. Yet if arduous duties carried on in a bad important climate, with little relaxation or leave, receive but scant recognition, nevertheless the district officers and the superior officers who rise from their ranks are the mainstay of Indian administration. Of late years the tendency has been to overweight this class with an excess of multifarious duties arising out of the everincreasing central departments at the headquarters of the provincial government, and with calls for reports and returns upon every conceivable description of public business. And the further this is carried, and the more the district officer is tied to his desk, the less efficient of all duties. must he become for the discharge of the primary and most important of his duties—the administration of his district, which can be properly conducted only by leaving him sufficient freedom and leisure to make himself thoroughly acquainted with all parts of it and its people. CHAP. IX. CHAP. CHAPTER X THE NON-REGULATION PROVINCES In the foregoing account of the civil administration and of the duties of district officers, the system described is the Indian that obtaining in what are termed the 'Regulation' Nature of Regula tions. provinces-Bengal, the North West Provinces, Madras, and Bombay. The Regulations referred to, are, as has been explained in earlier chapters, the enactments of the Government which for many years constituted the body of public law. Statutory powers were first given by an Act of Parliament passed in 1773,1 amended by an Act of 1781,2 to the Governor General and Council at Fort William in Bengal, to make and issue . . rules, ordinances, and regulations for the good government of the settlement.' It appears to have been tacitly assumed that the Act of 1773 gave also validity to all Regulations made previously to that year, but the matter was placed on a clearer footing in 1793, when the Bengal Government annulled all the Regulations promulgated by it up to that time, and began a new series of enactments, the first forty-eight of which, for the most part re-enacting in new form what had gone before, were passed on the same day (May 1) of that year. These and all subsequent Regulations, were extended to the North West Provinces on their annexation in 1801. Acts of Parliament passed in 1797, 1800, and 1807 gave to the Governments of Madras 113 Geo. III., C. 63. 2 21 Geo. III., C. 70. |
