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PART II.—THE BRITISH CROWN

CHAPTER THE LAST.—CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.—1858-1886

§1. Awakening of the British Nation. §2. Government Education in India: Toleration. §3. British Rule after the Mutiny: Legislative Council of 1854 and Executive Council: Wrongs of Non-Official Europeans. §4. Mr. James Wilson and his Income-Tax. §5. New Legislative Council of 1861-62. §6. New High Court: proposed District Courts. §7. Lord Canning leaves India. §8. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. §9. Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69: Governments of Madras and Bombay: Migrations to Simla: Foreign Affairs. §10. Lord Lawrence leaves India. §11. Lord Mayo, 1869-72. §12. Lord Northbrook, 1872-76: Royal visits to India. §13. Lord Lytton, 1876-80: Empress Proclaimed. §14. Second Afghan War. §15. Political and Judicial Schools. §16. Constitution of British India: proposed Reforms.

Extinction of the East India Company.

The great and grand East India Company was brought to a close after a busy life of two centuries and a half, extending from the age of Elizabeth to that of Victoria. It was still in a green old age, but could not escape extinction. The story of mutiny and revolt raised a storm in the British Isles which demanded the sacrifice of a victim, and the Company was thrown overboard like another Jonah. In July, 1858, India was transferred to the Crown by Act of Parliament. In the following November proclamation was made throughout India that Her Majesty Queen Victoria had assumed the direct government of her Eastern empire. The Governor-General ceased to rule in the name of the East India Company, and became Viceroy of India. The old Court of Directors, which dated back to the Tudors, and the Board of Control, which dated back to William Pitt the younger, were alike consigned to oblivion. Henceforth India was managed by a Secretary of State in Council, and Great Britain was an Asiatic power.

Alarm and panic in Great Britain.

§1. The sepoy mutinies awakened the British nation from the lethargy of forty years. At one time it was aroused by the discovery that the East India Company had acquired an empire larger than that of Napoleon; but was soon immersed once more in its own insular concerns. The sepoy revolt of 1857 stirred it up to its innermost depths. The alarms swelled to a panic. Exeter Hall clamoured for the conversion of Hindus and Mohammedans to Christianity. Some called aloud for vengeance on Delhi. The inhabitants were to be slaughtered as David slaughtered the Ammonites; the city was to be razed to the ground and its site sown with salt. Others, more ignorant than either, denounced the East India Company and Lord Dalhousie; demanded the restoration of British territory to Asiatic rulers, and the abandonment of India to its ancient superstition and stagnation.

British ignorance.

In the olden time India was only known to the bulk of the British nation as a land of idol-worshippers, who burnt living widows with their dead husbands, tortured themselves by swinging on hooks, thrust javelins through their tongues, prostrated themselves beneath the wheels of Juggernauth's car, and threw their dying and dead into the holy Ganges, under a child-like faith that the safest way of going to heaven was by water. Educated men knew that the greater part of India had been previously conquered by Mohammedans, just as Syria and Persia were conquered by Arabs and Turks. It was also known that Mohammedans hated idolatry, broke down idols and pagodas, built mosques in their room, and forced many Hindus to accept Islam. But few, excepting those who had lived in India, knew anything of its affairs, or cared to know anything about them, except when war was declared against Afghans, Sikhs, or Burmese, or when Parliament was about to renew the charter of the late East India Company.

Missionary and educational movements.

But the instincts of the British nation are generally healthy and sensible. It subscribed largely to missionary societies, and was led by flaming reports to expect the speedy conversion of Hindus and Mohammedans. Such aspirations, however, were not to be realised. The devout were obliged to wait and pray; the sensible urged the East India Company to provide for the secular education of the masses. For centuries the rising generation had learnt something of reading, writing, and arithmetic from village schoolmasters, mostly Brahmans. These hereditary schoolmasters taught the village boys from generation to generation, in the same old-world fashion, with palm-leaves for books, sanded boards and floors for writing lessons, and clay marbles for working out little sums. Christian missionaries had established schools from an early period, especially in Southern India; and to this day nearly every Asiatic servant in the city of Madras can speak English indifferently well. Meanwhile the East India Company had done little or nothing for the education of the masses, nor indeed had much been done by the British government for its own people in those illiterate days.

Government High Schools, 1841: Hindus and Mohammedans.

§2. In 1841, when a British army was still at Cabul, the British government established high schools at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Hindu boys flocked to the new schools, but Mohammedans kept aloof. The followers of the Prophet would not accept an education which rejected the authority of Mohammed and the Koran. Meanwhile there was an agitation for teaching the Bible in the government schools. Had it succeeded, respectable Hindus would probably have followed the example of the Mohammedans.

State education, 1854.

At last, in 1854, a State system of education was introduced, beginning with primary schools and middle-class schools, and ending in British colleges with professors and lecture-rooms. The whole system in every presidency, and gradually in every province, was placed under the control of a Director of Public Instruction. Grants in aid were made to schools established by missionaries and others, according to the educational results of their teaching. A University was established at Calcutta, another at Madras, and a third at Bombay, for the conduct of examinations and the granting of degrees. In a word, secular education was proceeding on a liberal scale, and some Hindus, who took high degrees, got appointments in the revenue and judicial departments, whilst others entered the service of Asiatic rulers, and rose to the rank of ministers.

Bible teaching.

Then followed the terrible sepoy mutinies, and wild cries from the British Isles for teaching Christianity and the Bible in every government institution. Had British statesmen yielded to the demand, the general population would have felt that the rebel sepoys were in the right; that they had fought, not from childish terror, but for the defence of their religion and caste; that they were martyrs to their faith, who had been crushed by the European red-coats to clear the way for the conversion of helpless Hindus and Mohammedans who were without arms.

Toleration proclaimed, 1858.

Fortunately, the Royal Proclamation of 1858 was drafted by a statesman who felt that the machinery of government had no more to do with religious movements than the machinery of workshops. It announced, in clear and unmistakable language, that the British government had neither the right nor the desire to interfere with the faith of its Asiatic subjects, and the question of religious toleration in India was settled for ever.

Hostility of non-official Europeans.

§3. The sepoy mutinies had paralysed the executive government of India. To make matters worse, the non-official Europeans—the merchants, bankers, planters, and lawyers—had been hostile to the government of Lord Canning from the very beginning of the outbreak. The cause of this collision is important. It suggested the necessity for future reforms. It will be seen hereafter that something was done in this direction in 1861-62; but something else was undone, and further reforms are still needed.

Representation in the legislative council.

The legislative assembly of 1854 has already been described as the earliest germ of representative government in India. This was due to the fact that in addition to the executive members of council, the legislative chamber included four representative members, each one chosen from the civil service of one or other of the four Presidencies; also two judges of the old Supreme Court, who were not in the service of the East India Company, but were appointed by the British Crown, and were consequently independent legislators.

Controlled by the executive.

In every other respect, however, the executive government, including Lord Canning and the members of his executive council, exercised supreme control over the Indian legislature. They introduced what measures they pleased. They excluded what measures they disliked. Being mostly Bengal civilians, they were accused of ignoring the representative members from Madras and Bombay, and Madras and Bombay had some ground of complaint. No member of the legislative council of India had the power to introduce a bill without the consent of the Indian executive; nor even had the power, common to every member of the British parliament, to ask any question as regards the acts of the executive.

Class legislation.

At this period there was a nondescript body in England known as the "Indian Law Commissioners." These gentlemen prepared an act cut and dried, and the Court of Directors sent it to India in 1857, and recommended that it should be passed into law by the legislative council of India. This act began with asserting the equality of Asiatics and Europeans in the eyes of the law; but laid down a still more invidious distinction between non-official and official Europeans. It proposed to subject all non-official Europeans to the jurisdiction of Asiatic magistrates, but to exempt from such jurisdiction all Europeans who were members of the Indian civil service, or officers of the army or navy.

Agitation and withdrawal.

The first reading was followed by alarm and indignation. The press thundered, outside orators raved in public meetings, and European petitions against the bill poured in like a rushing stream. For a long time not a single member of the legislative chamber raised a voice against such vicious legislation. The Penal Code had not become law, and judges and magistrates, whether European or Asiatic, administered the law very much at their own discretion, by the light of "equity and good conscience," and voluminous regulations. Then, again, the time was out of joint for such an innovation. Mutiny and revolt were at work in the upper provinces, and isolated European planters might soon be at the mercy of Asiatic magistrates who sympathised with the rebels. At last, however, Sir Arthur Buller, one of the ablest judges of the old Supreme Court, rose from his seat in the legislative chamber, and virtually tore the bill to shreds. From that day it was doomed. Bengali baboos vainly petitioned the British government to pass the bill in all its integrity. It perished in the maelstrom of the mutiny, and was then formally withdrawn by the Court of Directors.

Executive council remodelled.

When the mutiny was over, Lord Canning remodelled the executive council into the form of a cabinet. He divided the administration into six branches, namely:—foreign, home, legislative, military, financial, and public works. The Viceroy was the prime minister, who sat as president of the council. He took charge of "foreign affairs." The other members were ministers; each had charge of a separate department, and transacted the bulk of its business. All important business, however, was transacted by the whole cabinet of ministers, which held its regular sittings at Government House, as it had done in the days when the governor or president was only the head of a factory.

Ministers and secretaries.

The post of minister was not, and is not, doubled up with that of secretary, except during the earlier years of the public works department. In the present day there is a minister for every department. Every minister transacts the business of his branch at his own house; leaving the secretary and under-secretary to control the office of his particular department, conduct the correspondence, and carry out orders.

Mr. Wilson, Finance Minister, 1860.

§4. In 1860 an English financier, the late Mr. James Wilson, was sent out from England to put the Indian budget to rights. He was a famous man in his day; a noted leader of the anti-corn law league, and had a large reputation as a sound financier. He freely conferred with Calcutta merchants and bankers, and so far poured oil on the troubled waters; but in those days the merchants of Calcutta were as ignorant of India outside the city of palaces as Mr. Wilson himself, who was sent out to tax the people.

Income-tax.

Mr. Wilson quoted the laws of Manu in the legislative chamber, and proposed an income-tax. It was not an ordinary tax on incomes above 400l. or 500l. per annum, with which India has since been burdened. It included a tax on Asiatic incomes rising from eight shillings a week to twenty shillings. It was as oppressive as the poll-tax which drove Wat Tyler and Jack Cade into rebellion. But India was prostrate. British red-coats were masters; and British financiers might do as they pleased.

Protest of Sir Charles Trevelyan.

Sir Charles Trevelyan was Governor of Madras and knew India well. He protested against the tax and sent his protest to the newspapers. The Viceroy and the Secretary of State were filled with wrath at an act of insubordination which amounted to an appeal to the public opinion of India against the ukase of the supreme government. Sir Charles Trevelyan was removed from the government of Madras, but within two years he was revenged. The obnoxious clause had filled 600,000 households with weeping and wailing, in order to collect 350,000l., of which 100,000l. was spent on the work of collection. Accordingly the clause was repealed.³⁴

Independent Judges.

Later on, the two judges who sat in the legislative chamber were guilty of a still more flagrant act of insubordination. Whilst 350,000l. was exacted from 600,000 poor Asiatics in the shape of income-tax, the Secretary of State for India overruled a previous decision of Lord Dalhousie, and capitalised half a million sterling, in order to improve the pensions of the descendants of Tippu! The controversy is obsolete; the two judges ventured to question the justice of this measure, and the heinous offence was punished in due course.

Legislative council remodelled, 1861-62.

§5. In 1861-62 the legislative council of India was reconstituted by act of parliament. The two judges were excluded from the legislative chamber, and European merchants, and Asiatics of wealth and influence, were nominated in their room. The control of the executive was thus stronger than ever, but it is doubtful whether the legislature has profited by the change.

Legislative councils at Madras, Bombay, and Bengal.

Legislative councils, on a similar footing to that of India at Calcutta, were granted to the governments of Madras and Bombay, as well as to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. They include both European and Asiatic members, who are nominated by the local government. They legislate on purely local measures, such as port dues, hackney carriages, canal tolls, and municipalities. They are, however, under the immediate control of the executive, and have no power to make laws, or to initiate legislation in the legislative council of India.

New High Courts.

Judges in council.

§6. A still more important measure was carried out at this period. A new High Court of Justice was created at Calcutta, and also at Madras and Bombay, by the amalgamation of the Supreme Court and Sudder, which had been separate and rival courts ever since the days of Warren Hastings. In other words, the barrister judges appointed by the British Crown, and the civilian judges appointed by the Indian governments, sat together in the new High Court. Moreover, as a crowning innovation, an Asiatic judge was appointed to each High Court, to sit on the same bench as the European judges. The amalgamation of the two courts is an epoch in British rule in India. The coalition of barrister and civilian judges, and the presence of an Asiatic judge on the same bench, enlarged and strengthened the High Court. It was, however, unfortunate that a European and an Asiatic judge did not also sit in the legislative chambers. Such an addition would have converted the chambers into schools of legislation. An Asiatic judge, who had graduated in the High Court, would have taught something to his Asiatic colleagues in the legislative council; whilst a European judge would have smoothed away many of the asperities which have sprung up of late years between the acts of the Indian executive and the rulings of the High Court.

European and Asiatic magistrates.

The mixed constitution of the High Courts might be extended with advantage to the District Courts. If European and Asiatic judges sit on the same bench, why not European and Asiatic magistrates, deputy-magistrates, and subordinate judges? Such an amalgamation would prove a school for Asiatic magistrates and judges; whilst the evil spirit of race antagonism, which was raised by the unfortunate bill of 1857, and revived a few short years ago, would be allayed for ever.

Lord Canning leaves India, 1862.

§7. Lord Canning left India in March, 1862, and died in England the following June. His administration had been more eventful than that of any of his predecessors. At first he hesitated to crush the mutinies, and was named "Clemency Canning"; but he never lost his nerve. After the revolt at Delhi he rose to the occasion. Later on, non-official Europeans, as well as officials, learned to respect "Clemency Canning," and his sudden death was felt by all as a loss to the nation as well as to the empire.

Lord Elgin, Viceroy, 1862-63.

§8. Lord Elgin succeeded Lord Canning. He was a statesman of experience and capacity, but cumbered with memories of China and Japan. Lord Elgin's reign did not last two years. He died in November, 1863.

Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69.

§9. In those days of imperfect telegraphs, there was an interregnum of two months. Meanwhile, Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, acted as provisional Governor-General. With great presence of mind, he sanctioned all the measures which he had previously sent up from Madras for the confirmation of the government of India. In January, 1864, Sir John Lawrence landed at Calcutta as Viceroy and Governor-General.

Sir William Denison at Madras.

Sir William Denison returned to Madras. He is said to have been hostile to competitive examinations, and anxious to govern Southern India without the help of an executive council. But his ideas of government were not in accord with those in power, and competitive examinations and civilian members of council have remained to this day.

Sir Bartle Frere at Bombay.

At this period Sir Bartle Frere was Governor of Bombay. He was an Anglo-Indian statesman of the first order, with capacity and experience combined with diplomatic tact. He had done good service as commissioner of Sind. Since then he had graduated in the Indian executive as Home member of Lord Canning's cabinet. But, like many Indian civilians, he was too self-reliant, and fell upon evil times when Indian experiences could not help him.

American war: cotton famine.

Sir Bartle Frere was transferred from the cabinet at Calcutta to the government of Bombay at the moment when war was raging between the North and the South in the United States of America. A cotton famine was starving Manchester, and Indian cotton rose from threepence a pound to twenty pence. Bombay cultivators loaded their women with jewels, and shod their cattle with silver shoes. The spirit of speculation was rampant. Europeans and Asiatics, shrewd Scotchmen and cautious Parsis, rushed blindly into the wildest gambling. Mushroom companies sprung up in a single night like the prophet's gourd, and flourished like the South Sea Bubble. Clerks and brokers woke up to find themselves millionaires, and straightway plunged into still madder speculations, dreaming, like Alnaschar, of estates as large as counties, of peerless brides, and of seats in the House of Lords.

Crash and panic.

Suddenly the American war collapsed, and cargoes of cotton were hurried from the States across the Atlantic. Prices fell to zero. There was joy at Manchester, but weeping and wailing at Bombay. The Bombay Bank had been drawn into the vortex of speculation, and loans had been advanced on worthless shares. How far Sir Bartle Frere was implicated is a disputed point; but the bank stopped payment, and Sir Bartle Frere lost his chance of becoming Viceroy of India.

Civilian experiences of John Lawrence.

The Viceroyalty of Sir John Lawrence was altogether exceptional.³⁵ Most Viceroys are noble peers, who land in India with parliamentary and diplomatic experiences, but with no special knowledge of Asiatic affairs, beyond what has been "crammed up" at the India Office during the interval between acceptance of office and embarkation for Calcutta. In 1864 Lord Lawrence knew more about India than any previous Governor-General, Warren Hastings not excepted. He, and his foreign and home secretaries, the late Sir Henry Durand and the late Sir Edward Clive Bayley, were, perhaps, better versed in Indian history than any other men of the time. Lord Lawrence had gone through the ordeal of the mutiny with the salvation of the Empire in his hands. Since then he had sat on the council of the Secretary of State at Westminster, and learnt something of public opinion in the British Isles on Indian affairs.

Yearly migrations to Simla.

Lord Lawrence hated Bengal, and could not endure her depressing heats and vapour-baths.³⁶ He was the first Governor-General who went every year to Simla, and he was the first who took all his cabinet ministers and secretaries with him. Old Anglo-Indians disliked these migrations, and likened them to the progresses of the Great Mogul with a train of lords and ladies, in tented palaces, escorted by hosts of soldiers and camp-followers, from Agra to Lahore, or from Delhi to Cashmere. But the migrations of the British government of India required no army of escort, and entailed no expense or suffering on the masses. Railways shortened the journeys; telegraphs prevented delays; and civilian members of government, whose experiences had previously been cribbed and cabined in Bengal, began to learn something of the upper provinces.

Sir John Lawrence and Sir Henry Durand.

Lord Lawrence, like his immediate predecessors, took the Foreign Office under his special and immediate charge. At that time Colonel, afterwards Major-General Sir Henry Durand, was foreign secretary to the government of India. Both Lawrence and Durand were firm to the verge of obstinacy, but Sir John was sometimes hasty and impetuous, whilst Colonel Durand was solid and immovable.

Foreign and political.

The main business of the Foreign Office is that of supervision. It directs all negotiations with the Asiatic states beyond the frontier, such as Afghanistan, Cashmere, and Nipal. It controls all political relations with the feudatory states of Rajputana and Central India, which are carried on by British officers known as political agents and assistants. In like manner it controls the political relations with other courts, which are carried on by "Residents." It also overlooks the administration in newly-acquired territories, which, like the Punjab, are known as "non-regulation" provinces.³⁷

Afghanistan: death of Dost Mohammed Khan.

The main question of the day was Afghanistan affairs. Dost Mohammed Khan died in 1863, after a chequered life of war and intrigue, a labyrinth which no one can unravel. He had driven his enemy Shah Shuja out of Cabul; he had been robbed of the coveted valley of Peshawar by Runjeet Singh; he had coquetted with Persia, Russia, and the British government. He had abandoned his dominions on the advance of the British army in 1839-40; fled to Bokhara; then surrendered to Macnaghten; was sent to Calcutta as a state prisoner; played at chess with the ladies at Government House; and finally returned to Cabul. He seized the valley of Peshawar during the second Sikh war. Finally he had become friends with the British government, and made no attempt to take advantage of the sepoy mutinies to recover Peshawar.

Jacob versus Esau.

But old Dost Mohammed had a patriarchal weakness for youthful wives. He had been beguiled by a blooming favourite into nominating her son as his successor, to the exclusion of the first-born. It was nearly a case of Jacob versus Esau, and when the old man was gathered to his fathers, the younger son and the first-born, with their respective partisans, tried to settle the succession by force of arms. The British government did not interfere, but left the brothers to fight on, until the elder was carried off by death, and the younger, the late Shere Ali Khan, gained the throne.

Mysore.

Mysore was another vexed question. Lord Wellesley had acquired Mysore by the conquest of Tippu in 1799. He incorporated some provinces into the Madras Presidency, but formed the remaining territory into a little Hindu state, and placed a Hindu boy, a kinsman of the Raja who had been supplanted by Hyder, on the throne of Mysore. The boy grew to be a man, and turned out a worthless, extravagant, and oppressive ruler, deaf to all remonstrances and warnings. His subjects rebelled against his tyranny and exactions. Even Lord William Bentinck, a sentimental admirer of Asiatic principalities, was disgusted with his conduct and deposed him, and placed Mysore territory in charge of a British commissioner, and brought it under British rule.

Restoration of Hindu rule.

Thirty years passed away. There was an outcry in the British Isles against annexation. It was proposed to restore the ex-Raja to his throne, but Mysore had become to all intents and purposes a British province. In the teeth of these facts, it was determined to restore this flourishing territory to the rule of the worthless Hindu who had been deposed by Lord William Bentinck a generation previously. Sir John Lawrence fought against the measure, but was overruled. At last there was a compromise. It was decided to place an adopted son of the ex-Raja on the throne, and to remove the British administration from Mysore, and place an Asiatic administration in its room. The ex-Raja was extremely annoyed at this arrangement. It put an end to all his aspirations. He did not want an adopted son, and would willingly have left his territories to the British government, had he been only allowed to handle the revenues during his own lifetime.

Opposition of Durand.

Sir John Lawrence, like every practical administrator in India, was most unwilling to replace Mysore under Asiatic rule. He submitted under pressure, but not without misgivings. Colonel Durand, however, opposed it tooth and nail. Had he been a Roman general, ordered to restore the island of Albion to an adopted son of Boadicea, or had he been an English lord of the marches ordered to restore the principality of Wales to a son of Llewellyn, he could not have felt more indignation. Durand was, of course, powerless to resist, and the restoration was carried out. The future alone can decide the merits of the question.

Oudh talukdars.

Next arose a controversy about the Oudh talukdars. Lord Canning had dealt liberally with the talukdars, restored most of their so-called estates, and converted them into landed proprietors. Sir John Lawrence discovered that the rights of joint village proprietors had been overlooked. Again there was a paper war, which ended in another compromise. The talukdars were eventually confirmed in the possession of their estates, but the rights of under proprietors and occupiers were defined and respected.

The cabinet and legislature.

Meanwhile Colonel Durand was transferred from the Foreign Office to the executive council, with charge of the military department. As a member of the council he had a seat in the legislative chamber, and on one occasion he voted against the other ministers. This raised a question as to the right of a member of the cabinet to vote against the majority of his colleagues in the legislative chamber. It was argued on one side that in England a cabinet minister must vote with his colleagues in parliament; in other words, he must either sacrifice his conscience for the sake of party or resign his post in the executive. On the other side it was urged that an Indian cabinet had nothing whatever to do with party, and that any cabinet minister might vote in the legislative chamber as he deemed best for the public service, without thereby losing his position as member of the executive council.

Sir John Lawrence leaves India, 1869.

§10. Sir John Lawrence retired from the post of Viceroy in 1869. With the exception of an expedition into Bhotan, a barbarous state in the Himalayas next door to Nipal, there was peace in India throughout the whole of his five years' administration. He returned to England and was raised to the peerage. He had strong attachments, but the outer world only knew him as a strong, stern man, with a gnarled countenance and an iron will. He lived for ten years longer in his native country, doing good work as the chairman of the London School Board, and taking an active part in every movement that would contribute to the welfare of his generation, until, in 1879, the saviour of British India found a final resting-place in Westminster Abbey.

Lord Mayo Viceroy, 1869-72.

§11. Lord Mayo succeeded as Viceroy and Governor-General. To him is due the greatest reform in the constitutional government of India since the mutiny. He delivered the local governments from the financial fetters of the Viceroy in Council, and left them more responsibility as regards providing local funds for local wants, and devoting local savings to local expenditure. Hitherto every presidency and province got as much as it could out of the imperial treasury, and spent as much as it could during the current financial year, for any balance that remained was lost for ever by being credited to imperial funds. Henceforth every presidency and province was interested in improving its income and cutting down its expenditure, since it was entrusted with some discretion as regards the disposal of the surplus money.