Part 3

The administration reports of some of these gentlemen may vie with those of our best English officers; and the names of Sir Dinkar Rao, Sir Madava Rao, Sir Salar Jung, and others, give full indication that among the natives of India may be found men eminently qualified for the task of government. Wittingly or unwittingly, English officials in India are preparing materials which some day or other will form the groundwork for a native empire or empires. I was thrown closely into contact with the Civil Service whilst I was in India, for I employed all my vacations in travelling through the country, mostly at a foot's pace. Everywhere I went I found a cultivated English gentleman exerting himself to the best of his ability to extend the blessings of civilisation--justice, education, the development of all local resources. I firmly believe that no government in the world has ever possessed a body of administrators to vie with the Civil Service of India. Nor do I speak only of the service as it existed under the East India Company, for, from all that I have heard and observed, competition supplies quite as good servants of the State as did in earlier days the patronage of the Court of Directors. The truth is, that the excellence of the result has been attributable in nowise to the mode of selection, but to the local circumstances which call forth in either case, in the young Englishman of decent education and of the moral tone belonging to the middle classes of this country, the best qualities of his nature. But in these energetic, high-principled, and able administrators we have a danger to good government which it is necessary to point out. Every Englishman in office in India has great power, and every Englishman, as the late Lord Lytton once observed to me, is in heart a reformer. His native energy will not enable him to sit still with his hands before him. He must be improving something. The tendency of the English official in India is to over-reform, to introduce what he may deem improvements, but which turn out egregious failures, and this, be it observed, amongst the most conservative people of the world. Some of the most carefully devised schemes for native improvement have culminated in native deterioration. A remarkable illustration of this position is afforded by the late inquiry into the causes of the riots among the cultivators of the Deccan. It has been one of the pretensions of British administration that they have instituted for the first time in India pure and impartial courts of justice. And the boast is well founded. In the Presidency of Bombay also the Government has substituted long leases of thirty years on what may be called Crown Lands for the yearly holdings formerly in vogue. They have also greatly moderated the assessment. The result has been that land in the Bombay Presidency from being unsaleable has acquired a value of from ten to twenty years' purchase. But the effect of these two measures upon the holders of these lands has been disastrous. Finding themselves possessed of property on which they could raise money with facility, they have indulged this national propensity out of all proportion to their means; and the money-lenders in their turn drag the improvident borrowers before a court of justice, and obtain decrees upon the indisputable terms of the contract, which no judge feels competent to disregard.

Another danger of the same sort arises from the short term of office which is allowed to officials in the highest places in India. When the Portuguese had large dominions in India, they found that their Viceroys, if permitted to remain a long time in the East, became insubordinate, and too powerful for the Government at Lisbon to control. They accordingly passed a law limiting the tenure of office to five years. This limitation seems to have been adopted tacitly in our Eastern administrative system, and has undoubtedly been observed for more than a century. But the period of five years is very short to enable either a Governor-General, or Governor, or member of Council to leave his mark on the country; and there is a temptation to attempt something dazzling which would require for its proper fulfilment years to elaborate, but which, if not passed at the moment, would fail to illustrate the era.

It is needless to observe that a series of ill-considered changes, a constant succession of new laws to be followed by amended laws in the next session, attempts to change manners and practices (not immoral in themselves) that have prevailed for centuries, all tend to make a government, especially a foreign government, odious. But there is one other rock which it is above all essential to avoid when we are considering the problem how best to preserve the duration of British government for the benefit of India. Every ardent administrator desires improvements in his own department; roads, railways, canals, irrigation, improved courts of justice, more efficient police, all find earnest advocates in the high places of government. But improved administration is always costly, and requires additional taxation. I fear that those in authority too often forget that the wisest rulers of a despotic government have always abstained from laying fresh burdens on the people. It is, in fact, the chief merit of such a government that the taxes are ordinarily light, and are such as are familiarised by old usage. New taxes imposed without the will, or any appeal to the judgment, of the people create the most dangerous kind of disaffection. But if this is true generally, it is especially true in India, where the population is extremely poor, and where hitherto the financier has not been enabled to make the rich contribute their due quota to the revenue of the country.

It has been said by some that we have not yet reached the limits of taxation in India, but to them I would oppose the memorable saying of Lord Mayo towards the close of his career. "A feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction existed," in his opinion, "among every class, both European and native, on account of the constant increase of taxation that had for years been going on;" and he added: "The continuance of that feeling was a political danger, the magnitude of which could hardly be over-estimated." The Earl of Northbrook quoted and fully endorsed this opinion in his examination before the House of Commons in the present year.[12]

But although this constant aim at improvement among our English administrators too often leads to irritating changes, harassing legislation, and new fiscal charges on the people, causes are at work which tend to eliminate these obstacles to good and stable government. In our experimental application of remedies to evils patent on the surface, our blunders have chiefly arisen from our ignorance of the people. Institutions that had been seen to work well in Europe might, it was thought, be transplanted safely to India. Experience alone could teach that this is often a grievous error; but experience is being daily afforded by our prolonged rule, and by our increasing acquaintance with the habits, wants, and feelings of the people. The tendency also to change and improvement, which I have before observed upon as leading to ill-considered measures, operates here beneficially, for there is never any hesitation in a local government to reverse the proceedings of its predecessors when found to work injuriously for the community.

But the most cheering symptom of future good government in India is the increased disposition of British rulers to associate natives of character and ability with themselves in high offices of administration. Parliament so long ago as 1833 laid down the principle that no native shall by reason of his religion, place of birth, or colour, be disabled from holding any office. Her gracious Majesty also in 1858 proclaimed her will "that so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge."

Many obstacles have hitherto prevailed, chiefly arising out of the vested interests of a close Civil Service, to prevent full operation being given to a policy so solemnly laid down. But it is no breach of official propriety to announce that Lord Cranbrook has earnestly taken up the proposals of the present Viceroy to clear away the difficulties which have hitherto intervened, and has sent out a despatch to India which it may be fairly anticipated will meet the aspirations of educated natives, and will greatly strengthen the foundations of British government in the East.

It will thus be seen that several factors are at work which cannot fail, under the continued rule of the British Government, to have most beneficial effects on the national character of India. A system of education is being established which is opening a door for the introduction of all the knowledge accumulated in Europe, and which sooner or later must greatly dissipate that ignorance which is at the bottom of so many obstacles to good government in the East. Equality before the law and the supremacy of law have been fully brought home to the cognisance of every inhabitant of India, and they form a striking contrast, fully appreciated by the Hindus, to the arbitrary decisions and the race prerogatives which characterised their former Mahomedan rulers. Continuous efforts at improvement are witnessed in every zillah of India, and if they sometimes fail in their operation it is still patent that the permanent welfare of the people is the constant aim and object of Government. Moreover, the ready ear tendered to any expression of a grievance, the minute subjection of every act of authority in India, from the deputy magistrate up to the Governor-General, to the scrutiny of the Home Government, secure to the meanest inhabitant of India a hearing, and inspire the consciousness that he also is a member of the State, and that his rights and interests are fully recognised. The association of natives with ourselves in the task of government, which has been commenced in the lower branches of the judicial administration with the greatest success, and which is now about to be attempted on a larger scale, as I have before noted, is also a fact of the greatest gravity. On the whole, after very close attention to Indian administration for nearly forty years, of which about twelve were spent in the country itself in a position where I was enabled to take an impartial view of what was going on around me, I am of opinion that a bright future presents itself, and, if I could see my way more clearly on the very important questions of caste and of the future religion of India, I should say a brilliant future, in which perhaps for centuries to come the supremacy of England will produce the happiest results in India.

V.

But I must not close this article without reference to the very different views which have been lately put forth in this Review under the sensational title of the "Bankruptcy of India." Mr. Hyndman, after much study of Indian statistics, has arrived at the conclusion that "India has been frightfully impoverished under our rule, and that the process is going on now at an increasingly rapid rate." The revenue raised by taxation is about 36,000,000_l._, and "is taken absolutely out of the pockets of the people," three-fourths of whom are engaged in agriculture. The increase of 12,000,000_l._ in the revenue which has occurred between 1857 and 1876 "comes almost entirely out of the pockets of the cultivators," and "the greater part of the increase of the salt, stamps, and excise is derived from the same source." The cost of maintaining a prisoner in the cheapest part of India is 56_s._ a head, or, making allowance for children, 46_s._; but the poor cultivator has only 31_s._ 6_d._, from which he must also defray the charges "for sustenance of bullocks, the cost of clothing, repairs to implements, house, &c., and _for taxation_."

He states the debt of India to be "enormous," amounting to 220,000,000_l._ sterling, principally accumulated in the last few years. The railways have been constructed at ruinous cost, for which the "unfortunate ryot has had to borrow an additional five or ten or twenty rupees of the native money-lender at 24, 40, 60 per cent., in order to pay extra taxation." Irrigation works "tell nearly the same sad tale. Here again millions have been squandered--squandered needlessly." Moreover, the land is fast becoming deteriorated or is being worse cultivated. In short, through a long indictment of twenty-three pages, of which I omit many counts, he cannot find a single act of British administration that meets his approval. All is naught. It is true that the Civil Service of India is composed of men who have gained their posts by means of the best education that England can supply, and who from an early period of manhood have devoted their lives to the practical solution of the many difficult problems which Indian administration presents. But Mr. Hyndman finds fault with them all.

The article itself is couched in such an evident spirit of philanthropy that one feels unwilling to notice pointedly the blunders, the exaggerations, and the inaccuracies into which the writer has fallen. But Mr. Hyndman has entered the lists so gallantly with a challenge to all the Anglo-Indian world, that he of course expects to encounter some hard knocks, writing, as he does, on a subject with which he has no practical acquaintance. He has already received "a swashing blow" respecting the agricultural statistics on which he bases the whole of his argument. On data supplied to him by an able native writer, whom I know intimately and for whom I have the highest respect, he has drawn conclusions which are so manifestly absurd, that all practically acquainted with the subject are tempted to throw aside his article as mere rubbish. But Mr. Dadobhai, like himself, has no knowledge of the rural life of India, or of agriculture generally, or of the practical business of administration. He is a man who has passed his whole life in cities, an excellent mathematician, of unwearied industry, and distinguished, even among his countrymen, for his patriotic endeavours to improve their condition. But the mere study of books and of figures--especially of the imperfect ones which hitherto have characterised the agricultural statistics of India--is not sufficient to constitute a great administrator; and when Mr. Dadobhai, after making himself prominent by useful work in the municipality of Bombay, was selected to fill the high office of Prime Minister to the Gaekwar of Baroda, he was not deemed by his countrymen to have displayed any great aptitude in statesmanship.[13]

The alarming picture drawn by Mr. Hyndman on data thus supplied attracted the attention of the greatest authority in England on agricultural matters; for intrinsic evidence clearly shows that the letters signed "C.," which appeared in the _Times_ of the 5th of October and the 9th of October, can proceed from no other than Mr. Caird. His refutation of Mr. Hyndman's pessimist views is so short, that I give the pith of it here:--

The conclusions arrived at are so startling that though, like Mr. Hyndman, I have never been in India, I, as an alarmed Englishman, have tried to test the strength of the basis upon which they rest. The only _data_ I have at hand are taken from the figures in the last year's report of the Punjab. The number of cultivated acres there agrees with those quoted by Mr. Hyndman--say 21,000,000 acres--and I adopt his average value of 1_l._ 14_s._ per acre.

The Government assessment is 1,905,000_l._, to pay which one-sixth of the wheat crop [the produce of 1,120,000] would have to be sold and exported. There would remain for consumption in the country the produce of 5,500,000 acres of wheat and of 12,000,000 acres of other grain, the two sufficing to yield for a year 2 lb. per head per day for the population of 17,000,000, which is more than double the weight of corn eaten by the people of this country. Besides this, they would have for consumption their garden vegetables and milk; and beyond it the money value of 845,000 acres of oil-seed, 720,000 acres of cotton and hemp, 391,000 acres of sugar-cane, 120,000 acres of indigo, 69,000 acres of tobacco, 88,000 acres of spices, drugs, and dyes, 19,000 acres of poppy, and 8,800 acres of tea; the aggregate value of which, without touching the corn, would leave nearly twice the Government assessment.

Mr. Hyndman has committed the error of arguing from an English money value at the place of production upon articles of consumption, the true value of which is their food-sustaining power to the people who consume them.

When an argument is thus found so completely _pecher par sa base_, it is needless to pursue it further. But I conceive that Mr. Hyndman, when studying this overwhelming refutation, must feel somewhat conscience-stricken when he reperuses such sentences of his own as the following:--"In India at this time, millions of the ryots are growing wheat, cotton, seeds, and other exhausting crops, and send them away because these alone will enable them to pay their way at all. They are themselves, nevertheless, eating less and less of worse food each year, in spite, or rather by reason, of the increasing exports." Thus a farmer is damaged by finding new markets for his produce! And he sells his wheat, which is the main produce of his arable land in those parts of India where it flourishes, to buy some cheaper grain which his land does not grow! The youngest assistant in a collector's establishment could inform Mr. Hyndman that the food of the agricultural population of India consists of the staple most suitable to the soil of the district: in the Punjab wheat, in Bengal and all well-watered lowlands rice, on the tablelands of the Deccan jowari (_holcus sorghum_) and bajri (_panicum spicatum_), on the more sterile plateau of Southern India the inferior grain ragi (_eiuesyne coracauna_).

It must have been under the dominion of the idea produced by Mr. Dadobhai's statistics as to the thoroughly wretched state of the agricultural population of India that Mr. Hyndman has been led into exaggerated statements which his own article shows he knew to be inaccurate. A dreadful case of misgovernment existed in India, and, thoroughly to arouse his countrymen to the fact, it was necessary to pile up the agony. Thus, in one part of his article he states that the "enormous debt" of India amounts to 220,000,000_l._, but in a later portion he admits that it is only 127,000,000_l._, and he knows full well that the amount of 100,000,000_l._ of guaranteed railway debt is not only not a present debt due from Government, but is a very valuable property, which will probably bring in some millions of revenue when they exercise their right of buying up the interests of the several guaranteed companies.

Again, he speaks throughout his article of the excessive taxation imposed on the poor, half-starved cultivators; and he gives the following table as showing the amount "taken absolutely out of the pockets of the people:"--

Land revenue L21,500,000 Excise 2,500,000 Salt 6,240,000 Stamps 2,830,000 Customs 2,720,000

He thus maintains that the portion of the rent paid to Government for occupation of the land is a tax upon the cultivator, which is about as true as to state that the 67,000,000_l._ of rental in the United Kingdom is a special tax on the farmers of this country. The amount derived from excise is chiefly produced by the sale of intoxicating liquors, the use of which is forbidden by the social and religious views of the natives; and any contribution to the revenue under this head is clearly a voluntary act on the part of the transgressor. The revenue from stamps proceeds chiefly from what may be called taxes on justice; they are, in my opinion, extremely objectionable, but weighty objections may be urged against nearly every tax, and a large portion of this tax falls on the wealthier class of suitors. The amount contributed by the population under the head of customs, although it may take money out of the pocket of the rayat, actually adds to his store; for, unless he could buy in the bazaar a piece of Manchester long-cloth cheaper than an article of domestic manufacture, it is manifest that he would select the latter. There remains only the single article of salt on which the cultivator undoubtedly is taxed, and which forms the sole tax from which he cannot escape. This tax also is extremely objectionable in theory, more perhaps than in practice, for it amounts to about 7-1/2_d._ per head. But even if we take the whole amount of taxation as shown by Mr. Hyndman, excluding the land revenue or rental of the land, the average per head is only 1_s._ 6_d._, of which more than one-third can be avoided at the pleasure of any individual consumer. It is not, then, a misstatement to aver that the population of India is more lightly taxed than any population in the world living under an orderly government.

I have thus far thought it my duty to expose what I believe to be grave errors in Mr. Hyndman's sensational article. But I should do him great injustice if I did not admit that he has brought out in vivid colours some very important facts. It is true that these facts are well known to Indian administrators, but they are facts disagreeable to contemplate, and are therefore slurred over willingly; but they have such important bearing on the proceedings of Government in India that they cannot be too frequently paraded before the public eye.

The first of these truths is the undeniable poverty of the great bulk of the population. But here Mr. Hyndman does not appear to me to have taken full grasp of the fact, or to have ascertained its causes. The dense population of India, amounting in its more fertile parts to six and seven hundred per square mile, is almost exclusively occupied in agricultural pursuits. But the land of India has been farmed from time immemorial by men entirely without capital. A farmer in this country has little chance of success unless he can supply a capital of 10_l._ to 20_l._ an acre. If English farms were cultivated by men as deficient in capital as the Indian rayats, they would be all thrown on the parish in a year or two. The founder of a Hindu village may, by aid of his brethren and friends, have strength enough to break up the jungle, dig a well, and with a few rupees in his pocket he may purchase seed for the few acres he can bring under the plough. If a favourable harvest ensue, he has a large surplus, out of which he pays the _jamma_ or rent to Government. But on the first failure of the periodical rains his withered crops disappear, he has no capital wherewith to meet the Government demand, to obtain food for his family and stock, or to purchase seed for the coming year. To meet all these wants he must have recourse to the village money-lender, who has always formed as indispensable a member of a Hindu agricultural community as the ploughman himself.