THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 ill 1 
 
 
 IAIRIE C. KLINCKSIECK jl 
 
 K, PARIS. ||
 
 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA
 
 BEITISH WOEK IN INDIA 
 
 BY 
 
 E. CAKSTAIES 
 
 , 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCXCI 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 T>S 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE WORKERS, . . . . - . . 1 
 
 II. STATESMANSHIP, ....'.. 4 
 
 III. THE PEOPLE, ...... 9 
 
 IV. FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT, .... 23 
 V. BONDAGE, 33 
 
 VI. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA, .... 61 
 
 VII. RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS, ... 83 
 
 VIII. SOCIAL REFORM, . . . . . 135 
 
 IX. CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, . . 155 
 
 X. THE LAW, ....... 189 
 
 XI. THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS, . . 215 
 
 XII. THE LAW COURTS HOW THEIR DEFECTS CAN BE 
 
 REMEDIED, ...... 253 
 
 XIII. CONCLUSION, ...... 297 
 
 3023559
 
 BEITISH WOBK IN INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WORKERS. 
 
 THE intention of this book is not so much to 
 give a historical account of the past as to show 
 how the British nation stands, and what there is 
 for it to do in India now. On the one side we 
 hear orators cry, " Crush ! By the sword the 
 empire was won, and by the sword it must be 
 held." On the other, we hear men cry, in the 
 name of holy freedom, "Ketire: India for the 
 Indians ! Stand aside, and let the people of 
 the country work out their own destiny ! " 
 Meantime, while politicians are debating, some- 
 times wisely, sometimes foolishly, thousands of 
 workers are busy with their daily tasks, living 
 and dying, spending their strength and health
 
 2 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 and the prime of their life in heavy toils, noted 
 by few and soon forgotten. To some are al- 
 lotted the rifle and cannon, sword and lance. 
 They stand on guard that their brethren may 
 do their peaceful tasks in peace. To some it 
 is given to curb oppressors, robbers, and evil- 
 doers ; to prevent riots ; to protect the honest 
 and peaceful in the enjoyment of their own. 
 To some it is given to judge between man and 
 man, upholding the law. Some let in light by 
 spreading knowledge ; or cause wealth to spring 
 up by opening communications, manufactures, 
 or mines. On every side, in offices under 
 Government, and still more in private enter- 
 prise, British workers are to be seen in India, 
 doing various kinds of work, all busy. Are 
 they doing good ? Are they doing as much 
 good as they might do ? As a humble worker 
 in the field, the writer thinks he has a few 
 practical suggestions to offer, which, if there is 
 anything in them, might guide all this throb- 
 bing energy into more profitable channels, and 
 get more good out of the stream of life-blood, 
 that most precious of her gifts, which Britain 
 pours out on her great dependency. These 
 suggestions are more especially directed to the 
 work of the Government, which suffers from 
 two troubles viz., the want of personal in- 
 terest on the part of most workers, and in-
 
 THE WORKERS. 3 
 
 creasing interference with the work by persons 
 who know little about it. 
 
 As the British worker in India grows older, 
 he begins, if he is at all given to thinking for 
 himself, to look beyond the narrow groove of 
 his daily routine, and to realise that it is in 
 his power to be an explorer and a pioneer, 
 opening up new fields of labour, new resources 
 for his own people and for the peoples of India. 
 As an explorer, the author offers the observa- 
 tions which follow, in the hope that, amid the 
 many errors and defects that they are sure to 
 contain, some thoughts may be extracted from 
 them which may be useful to future explorers.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 STATESMANSHIP. 
 
 THE work of the statesman, like that of the 
 engineer, to a great extent consists of the know- 
 ledge and study of forces. He has to know the 
 materials he is dealing with ; to understand the 
 forces that are in them and act on them ; and 
 to know in what directions those forces act. He 
 has to determine what tendencies ought to be 
 encouraged, and what ought to be checked ; and 
 he has accordingly so to place the materials, so 
 guide the forces, that the results shall answer his 
 wishes. Above all things, he must recognise 
 the limits of his power, and not go beyond 
 them. For the British statesman in India this 
 caution is especially needful. At home, his 
 powers are limited, being dependent on those 
 he governs ; before the eyes of the oriental 
 despot, who, with all his nominally absolute
 
 STATESMANSHIP. 5 
 
 power, has to conciliate the opinion of his sub- 
 jects, the limits on his power are, less obviously 
 but just as really, kept by circumstances. But 
 the British ruler in India is not checked by 
 the opinion of those he governs, and therefore 
 needs caution against acting as a despot. For 
 though he is not tempted in the same way 
 as the oriental despot ; though as a rule his 
 hands are clean and his intentions honest, and 
 he knows that the nation he represents wishes 
 to do well by the people over whom he has been 
 placed, he is not wholly free from snares. 
 
 There is ignorance of the people, and this 
 ignorance, which in men on the spot is by 
 degrees corrected, acquires undue influence from 
 two causes viz., the too frequent interference 
 in Indian affairs of English politicians, and the 
 centralisation of power in India. As to the 
 former, the Englishman whose experience is 
 gained in English society feels contempt for 
 those who cannot boast of experience in his own 
 special field. True, the Anglo-Indian is only a 
 fellow-countryman who has moved into another 
 field and gained experience there ; but the 
 Englishman holds to the opinion that his views 
 are the broad views, and that those of the 
 Anglo-Indian, though perhaps formed after a 
 careful study of different facts, are, if opposed
 
 6 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 to or different from his own, but narrow pre- 
 judices. The Anglo-Indian returns the compli- 
 ment, and, failing to see the underlying principle 
 in the opinions of the Englishman, attributes 
 any difference to the latter's ignorance. So 
 these two tilt at one another, like the valorous 
 knights of the fable, about the colour of the 
 shield ; and before the English politician, who 
 is one of the courtiers of the British nation, 
 master of India, the Anglo - Indian must go 
 down. 
 
 As to the second cause of ignorance, the con- 
 centration of power at the headquarters of large 
 provinces in the hands of a few men stirs up 
 in their minds a passion for uniformity. Every- 
 body is expected to do what every one else is 
 doing, and no one is to be singular. Now there 
 is, in the East especially, a great tendency 
 among subordinates to flatter the man who 
 wields power, agreeing with all he says, reason- 
 able or unreasonable, making little of objections, 
 and seeking to carry out his will in all things. 
 They hold up, as it were, a mirror before them 
 in which he sees reflected his own thoughts and 
 wishes. This holding up of the mirror is not 
 unknown even in England, where the people 
 wield the power, and the result is a fancy pic- 
 ture in the mind of him who thinks he sees, very
 
 STATESMANSHIP. 7 
 
 far different from the reality. The fancy picture 
 is not likely to be blurred by the peoples of India, 
 whose instinct is to screen themselves behind 
 the mirror, and show the master what they think 
 he would like to see. One of the great difficul- 
 ties felt by the searcher after truth in India, 
 especially if he be a European, is this insincere 
 complacency ; and when, as is the case now in 
 India, the ruler is separated from the ruled by 
 distance, and his knowledge of facts is derived 
 from summaries and averages, he is apt to 
 become impatient of such facts as do not fit 
 in with what he knows, or thinks he knows 
 already, and of such opinions as are not in 
 accordance with his own. Where, also, the 
 single ruler has to do with such masses of 
 people, to perpetuate mistakes is easier than 
 to set about attempting to correct them ; and 
 they are thus carried down by tradition. 
 
 To this ignorance may be added the evil in- 
 fluence of what is known in England as red-tape. 
 What the office does is perfect ; what it omits 
 to do is of no importance ; and what it is pleased 
 to ignore has no existence. The subservience 
 
 o 
 
 demanded by English politicians, the centralisa- 
 tion of power in India, and the deadening in- 
 fluence of red-tape, have caused the British 
 rulers in India to do or omit many acts which,
 
 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 with a better knowledge of the facts, they would 
 not do or omit. 
 
 The statesman needs more knowledge and 
 closer contact with his materials, and states- 
 manship should have in it more of mind and 
 less of the machine than it now has.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 THE statesman who has to reckon up his forces ; 
 to decide what he will do, and on what means 
 he can count for doing it, looks on the people, 
 studies the people the men and women living 
 in the State at once his problem and its solu- 
 tion. The will, the energies of the people, 
 form the forces which, according as they are 
 guided in harmony for good purposes, or get 
 into confusion and clash, give the State pros- 
 perity or weakness. Before we consider British 
 work in India, we must form a distinct idea of 
 the peoples of India among whom it is to be 
 carried on. To hear some politicians talk, one 
 would think that it matters little what the 
 people are like, so long as they have good in- 
 stitutions. The magic spell of the suffrage or the 
 representative assembly can transform the peoples 
 in India into a second edition of the people in
 
 10 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 England. In the opinion of others, again, the 
 people are well enough without institutions. 
 Both sides are, in a way, right, and both are 
 wrong. The people are the material, and the 
 institution is the shape. For the making of a 
 good steel sword we need good material, and we 
 also need a good shape. The civilised society 
 is the shapen material. We must suit the shape 
 to the material if we are to have a successful 
 result. Let us, then, learn about the people, 
 before we begin to say what is good for them. 
 Before entering on a study of the peoples of 
 India, it will be profitable to call to mind of 
 what stuff and in what shapes are the people of 
 Great Britain. The British nation have got so 
 much accustomed to themselves that they some- 
 times forget that all the world is not like them. 
 
 It is undoubtedly the stuff of the people that 
 has determined their shapes, rather than the 
 shapes that have made the stuff. Of what 
 stuff, then, are the British people ? There is 
 in the Bible a famous passage where St Paul, 
 to explain the meaning of faith, quotes instance 
 after instance, taken from the history of his 
 race, of acts of faith. We will imitate this, not 
 out of a spirit of bravado for other nations, 
 too, have their roll of fame, and the British 
 nation are not all heroes but simply as the 
 best Way of illustrating the qualities which
 
 THE PEOPLE. 11 
 
 Lave gone to the building up of the British 
 nation. In the first place, then, they are 
 tough, very hard to break or beat. Their hard- 
 est wars have been with one another. On the 
 field of Agincourt, and in the wars of Spain, 
 British arms faced and beat enormous odds ; 
 British armies broke the power of Napoleon at 
 Waterloo, and clung to the trenches at Sebas- 
 topol ; a few clerks at Madras rallied under 
 Olive and gained for Britain a new empire ; one 
 small British garrison held Lucknow to the ad- 
 miration of the world, and another defended 
 itself in Arrah against fearful odds. The same 
 dogged pluck has carried men of the same 
 race through desperate struggles in America 
 and Africa. On the sea history rings with 
 the exploits of Drake, Blake, Nelson, Colling- 
 wood, Benbow, and other naval heroes, who 
 reached fame through the noble stuff of their 
 captains and crews. On sea and on land, in 
 great armies and in small detachments, before 
 the eyes of the world and in lonely corners out 
 of sight and hearing, the men and women of 
 this people have shown the stuff they are 
 made of. 
 
 Then, again, the British people are strong 
 in their devotion to duty, to law and order. 
 A whole regiment went down in its ranks 
 with the Birkenhead, while the women and
 
 12 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 children were sent ashore. The small band of 
 colonists who landed at what is now the great 
 city of Melbourne began by electing a magis- 
 trate. All round the British coasts lifeboat 
 crews risk their lives in every storm to save 
 their fellow-men ; rescue - parties for the same 
 object carry their lives in their hands down the 
 coal-mine after an explosion ; missionaries go 
 out, most of them to discomforts, many to 
 danger, some to death and martyrdom, to spread 
 their faith ; captains every year go down with 
 their vessels sooner than leave while there is 
 any one else on board ; the records of the 
 Victoria Cross, Albert medal, and Royal Hu- 
 mane Society teem with accounts of devotion 
 to duty. Europe, America, Australia, Africa, 
 and the whole world can tell of it. 
 
 Again, the British people are adventurous, 
 seeking to extend knowledge, to improve and 
 to acquire. To the North Pole, with its frost 
 and darkness ; to Central Africa, with its mal- 
 aria and heat ; on the mountains and seas, and 
 in the forests, wherever there is danger, there 
 swarm the men of this race. They have rail- 
 ways, canals, roads, harbours, tunnels, bridges, 
 steamships, factories, mines, and institutions of 
 all kinds for gaining profit ; drainage schemes, 
 water-works, gas-works, and all means of con- 
 venience and health ; schools, colleges, libraries,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 13 
 
 churches, museums, and all means of spreading 
 knowledge. 
 
 Again, the British people are mutually help- 
 ful, as is shown by their charities, hospitals, 
 lifeboats, and benevolent institutions of all 
 kinds. 
 
 Thus the British people are tough, devoted 
 to duty, adventurous, and helpful to one 
 another. 
 
 Now, let us see how they were shaped. 
 First, by such pounding as would have shat- 
 tered less tough material; pounding by one 
 another, and then on all the anvils of the 
 world. The pounding by foreigners has welded 
 them into a solid mass, which can resist all 
 attempts to crush or break. The need of union 
 to meet the foreign foe forced on strong and 
 equal parties peace on honourable terms for 
 both, in place of the mutual pounding of earlier 
 days. Good laws and just courts were estab- 
 lished to settle differences. The right of every 
 man to enjoy his own was recognised ; and 
 where authorities were necessary, those author- 
 ities were chosen from among and with the 
 approval of the local people. From these and 
 other safeguards it came to pass that each 
 person in the British nation has been brought 
 up in a*n atmosphere of freedom, can enjoy his 
 own goods and go his own way without fear
 
 14 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 or hindrance. The great treasure of the people 
 has indeed been this freedom, which, though 
 threatened with dangers, it will no doubt be 
 able to defend as doughtily against mobs and 
 demagogues as of old it did against foreign and 
 domestic tyrants. 
 
 Then what a number of leaders, teachers, and 
 guides this free people needs ! How it organ- 
 ises itself in every part ! Look at the army of 
 clergymen, teachers, lawyers, and doctors it em- 
 ploys to look after its body, mind, and soul. 
 Then every parish has its vestry ; every county 
 and town its council ; every trade its union ; 
 every constituency its two or more political 
 parties, each with a meeting-place, office-bearers, 
 and often a newspaper of its own. There is a 
 club or society to forward every view, to carry 
 out every benevolent or political purpose, to 
 conduct all sports or games, to keep up the 
 discipline of every profession ; and companies 
 are formed for trade or manufacture. What 
 more shall we say ? From the crown to the 
 beggar on the street, the people is organised. 
 It is an organic being, jointed and strung to- 
 gether, living as one, with a mind to think, a 
 heart to feel, and hands to do. It needs no 
 control from without, for it is a law unto itself. 
 It makes, respects, obeys, and enforces its own 
 laws, and in this work all have to aid, since the
 
 THE PEOPLE. 15 
 
 law is the best guarantee for the freedom of 
 each. Its institutions are innumerable. It is 
 made up of institutions which cross one another 
 and are interwoven in every direction the signs, 
 not the causes, of its life. The body is knit to- 
 gether with a close network of communications, 
 roads, railways, canals, rivers, and harbours, en- 
 abling people and goods to be moved about 
 freely. The people have a common language, 
 race, manners, customs, and history. 
 
 And finally, it is animated by a great life- 
 principle the fear of the Lord. This is the 
 greatest factor in the shaping of the British 
 nation. From childhood to old age, the British 
 people are taught that over all, knowing, lov- 
 ing, guiding all, 'is an " almighty and ever- 
 lasting Father, Maker of all men, Judge of all 
 flesh," who looks upon all men as His chil- 
 dren ; whose command is to love Him and 
 love our fellows ; who has taught that the 
 highest law is that of love, harmony, or char- 
 ity ; and who requires men to show their love 
 by obedience to this highest law ; who is pres- 
 ent with every one of His creatures, ready to 
 hear the feeblest prayer, to help the weak and 
 distressed, needing no interpreter to approach, 
 no sacrifice to propitiate Him. The fear of the 
 Lord implants in the people one by one a sense 
 of duty and honour, which enables them to defy
 
 16 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 all dangers, even death itself, and overcome all 
 difficulties. It inspires a loving reverence for 
 God's creatures, which at once restrains from 
 cruelty and oppression, and urges to protect 
 the weak and help the helpless. Some say 
 that the religious faith of the British people is 
 dying out, doomed to give place to a better. 
 This may be so, or it may be that the new 
 faith, when it comes, will be but a shadow of 
 that we have, to vanish with it. There are 
 hypocrisy, indifference, hostility; but all these 
 are the dross which is mixed with the fine 
 metal in the ore. When the change comes, if 
 it is to come, new institutions will be wanted ; 
 for the life of all the great British institutions 
 in the present day is the fear of the Lord. 
 
 Now we turn to the peoples of India. How 
 is it possible to convey to the British reader a 
 true understanding of the stuff they are made 
 of and the shapes they take ? We must begin 
 by a confession of ignorance about them, which 
 ought to disqualify us for any attempt at de- 
 scription, but for the fact that this ignorance 
 is widespread, and not fully recognised or ad- 
 mitted. If it had been the custom to publish 
 maps of Africa full of imaginary details which 
 were known to be untrue, or not known to be 
 true, he would do a real service to the cause 
 of truth who should wipe out all these details,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 17 
 
 even if he were not able to put in a single line 
 in their place. Now there is no doubt that the 
 ordinary Briton carries in his mind a picture of 
 the ordinary natives of India which he does not 
 know to be true. He dresses them as an old 
 master used to dress the wise men of the East, 
 or Pharaoh's daughter, in the clothes of his 
 own time and country. It will be necessary 
 to smudge out some of these pictures, even if 
 true pictures cannot be painted in their stead ; 
 and this can be best done by giving a negative 
 description of the peoples of India, and showing 
 not so much what they are as what they are 
 not. The description, it may be well to ex- 
 plain, applies more especially to the province 
 of Lower Bengal, with which the author is 
 acquainted. This is the part of India from 
 which come the loudest demands for reform, 
 and therefore it deserves to be looked at with 
 special interest. As the richest and most pop- 
 ulous of all the provinces of India, and the one 
 which claims to be the most enlightened, it may 
 be looked on as possessing great importance. 
 
 The people, in the first place, lack the fight- 
 ing power of the British. There are some races 
 in India, such as the Goorkhas, Sikhs, Pathans, 
 Kajpoots, and others, which are as warlike as 
 any in the world ; but the natives of the pro- 
 vince of Bengal are not of them.
 
 18 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 This is the province which, with seventy mil- 
 lion inhabitants, supplies few if any soldiers for 
 the army. The fact may be mentioned, since 
 the Bengalis have sometimes called themselves 
 the Scotch of India ; and in this important 
 point, at least, the comparison does not hold 
 good. Of the Bengalis, a Mussulman speaker 
 said that they hide under the table at the 
 sight of a bare steel blade ; a bearded man 
 among them thinks no shame of lying down 
 and howling if he is struck ; they fall back in 
 heaps over one another if the drunken sailor 
 whom they are jeering turns on them. To 
 give them their due, they have great powers 
 of endurance, and quietly run risks that an 
 Englishman would shrink from. They face the 
 risk of death or disease with indifference, and 
 without making any great effort to escape. It 
 would seem that they want the instinct of re- 
 sistance. If they can flee, hide, propitiate, they 
 do it they will not resist or attempt to drive 
 off; and as a compensation they have a largely 
 developed power of passive endurance. Now 
 this is an important thing to remember, for 
 in such a community the members cannot be 
 trusted to resist oppression, nor to wield power 
 temperately and with consideration. Cowards 
 are proverbially cruel. In such a community, 
 the same value is not put on freedom, and the
 
 THE PEOPLE. 19 
 
 same sacrifices will not be made to win or pre- 
 serve it, as in the British nation. 
 
 The next picture that has to be smudged over 
 is the British idea of what a man is in India. 
 The great Scottish bard stated what in British 
 eyes was a truth so obvious and commonplace 
 as to be hardly worth telling, when he said 
 
 " A man's a man for a' that." 
 
 But this is simply to Indian minds not a fact. 
 The two great divisions of men in India are the 
 Hindoos and Mussulmans. 
 
 To the Hindoo a man is not a man, but a 
 member of some Hindoo caste, or else is one of 
 some other order of beings. Caste is divided 
 from caste by impassable gulfs, the men of some 
 castes being reckoned as gods, and of others as 
 no better than beasts. The caste is not like the 
 trade -union, for the workman in England is 
 brought up as one of a single community. When 
 he grows up, he adopts the trade he prefers, and 
 out of working hours he still belongs to the 
 single community. The Hindoo member of a 
 caste is born in his trade, and must die in it. 
 He must marry in it, eat and drink in it, and 
 in fact live in it apart from others. 
 
 To the Mussulman, believers are brothers and 
 so far the creed of the Mussulman is wider than 
 that of the Hindoo ; but all who are not Mussul-
 
 20 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 mans are beyond the pale of humanity, whose 
 blood would be a pleasing offering to God. The 
 Indian Mussulmans, too, have caught, or more 
 probably never lost, the narrow caste prejudices of 
 the Hindoos, from whose religion many of them 
 were in former days converted. The British 
 faith that " all nations are of one blood" is not 
 commonly held in India. Again, while men in 
 India do not belong to one great sensitive body 
 as~ do the people of Britain, each of them is at- 
 tached far more closely to the more limited body 
 of which he is a member. We cannot imagine 
 the ordinary Hindoo or Mussulman going off 
 into the backwoods, building himself a house, 
 clearing a farm, and living a lonely yet con- 
 tented life with his wife and family. The Eng- 
 lishman is a man first, and a member of society 
 afterwards ; the native of India has hardly yet 
 grasped the meaning of "man" he is only a 
 member of society. He does not understand, 
 value, or seek 
 
 " The glorious privilege 
 Of being independent." 
 
 The bond which attaches him to his caste or 
 the society to which he belongs is too great to 
 be broken without a shock. In most cases where 
 the bond is broken, the person detached is shat- 
 tered. The bonds of religion and of society seem
 
 THE PEOPLE. 21 
 
 to bind the member of the society so close that 
 he cannot live when detached. Every man be- 
 longs to some comparatively small body, which 
 has its own joys and sorrows, its own hopes and 
 fears and interests, and cares little or nothing 
 for anything outside. Until these smaller bodies 
 are broken up and destroyed, or their whole 
 nature changed, there can be no hope of the 
 formation of that great single body, thrilling 
 with the same joys and sorrows, the same hopes 
 and fears, feeling in every part what touches 
 any, which in the Englishman's mind, and there 
 alone, exists as the " Indian nation." 
 
 Again, nearly all classes and religions in India 
 unite in degrading their women. Neither Hindoo 
 nor Mussulman will trust his women outside the 
 zenana ; and within it there is suspicion, with 
 its handmaid deceit. If all tales be true, the 
 atmosphere of the zenana, in which native chil- 
 dren are reared, is an atmosphere of trickery and 
 intrigue, of falsehood and impurity. When such 
 is the case, "honour" has to Indian minds a 
 different meaning from what it has to English. 
 The touchstone is not so near the heart. Men 
 think not so much of God and their conscience 
 as of what the neighbours will say. 
 
 Again, setting aside the Mussulman religion, 
 the common key of the Hindoo and ordinary 
 native religions is that they are all more or less
 
 22 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 religions of fear. Men have to propitiate gods 
 or Bramins in whose justice or benevolence they 
 have no confidence. The Mussulman has a 
 higher ideal of God, but even his religion is 
 wanting in that broad element of love which, 
 embracing believers and unbelievers alike, is the 
 living principle of the Christian religion. Thus 
 there are, among the natives of India, certain 
 wants which make them different from the 
 British nation. They want a uniform fighting 
 power, unity, independence, honour to women, 
 and love in religion. It is necessary, with such 
 differences in material, to study carefully the 
 shapes or institutions that are best adapted to 
 make it useful. A slavish imitation of British 
 institutions would most probably end in failure.
 
 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
 THE general guiding principle of the British 
 nation in India being, as all agree, the welfare 
 of the peoples of India, we must begin by de- 
 termining their real nature. Are the defects 
 pointed out in the last chapter caused by circum- 
 stances, and capable of remedy, or are they per- 
 manent ? This is a question that might be 
 argued till doomsday without either side being 
 proved. It can only be solved by experiment, and 
 the experiment must be begun by assuming the 
 truth of one side. As the experiment is to be 
 made by the British nation, the assumption must 
 be in harmony with the faith of the British 
 nation, which is that there is no man, woman, 
 or child, however low in the social scale, who 
 cannot be cleansed, strengthened, and raised. 
 In the words of the great Scottish bard
 
 24 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 " It's comin' yet for a' that, 
 
 When man to man, the warld o'er, 
 
 Shall brothers be for a' that." 
 
 The British nation, then, has to break down 
 barriers, and to promote brotherhood among all 
 the various races and communities in this vast 
 land. The task is a mighty one. How is it to 
 be accomplished ? The key to this great task is 
 a great word Freedom. If ever the weak are 
 to be strengthened, the strong restrained, the 
 ignorant enlightened, the listless interested, the 
 lazy made active, the spendthrift made thrifty, 
 the coward made brave, the brave made merciful, 
 if ever the barriers of caste, religion, race, and 
 custom are to be cleared away, and the reign of 
 brotherly love established, it must be by freedom. 
 
 " Ah, freedom is a noble thing ! 
 Freedom makes men to have liking. 
 Freedom to men doth safety give ; 
 They live at ease who freely live ! " 
 
 A hackneyed quotation ! Yes, because it has 
 sunk deep into the heart of the nation. All 
 down the history of the British Isles this cry of 
 freedom, the praise of freedom, has been on the 
 lips of the people and of their organs of ex- 
 pression, the poets, orators, and writers, carried 
 on from century to century, because it came 
 from their hearts. This most precious heritage, 
 to guard which they have freely spent their
 
 FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 blood and treasure, this Palladium of all their 
 rights, this is the gift which the British nation 
 seeks to bestow on every human being who 
 touches British soil, this gift it wishes to be- 
 stow on its millions of brethren in India. 
 
 " Freedom makes men to have liking." 
 
 It gives them a relish for life, makes them brisk 
 and busy, thrifty and self-respecting. There is 
 need of courage, and wisdom, and energy to 
 pursue it. It is not a gift that can be given 
 without trouble, nor can the coward or the fool 
 keep it when he has got it. What then ? We 
 believe that cowardice, folly, and all such defects 
 can be cured. Freedom is health ; and it is the 
 heavy but noble task of the British nation to 
 restore to health the suffering peoples of India. 
 
 The British nation, as ruler of India, having 
 determined to give freedom to the peoples of 
 India, how is it to set about the task ? By 
 retiring, say some, and leaving India to settle 
 its own affairs. Such an action, as will be seen 
 by-and-by, would not make the peoples of India 
 free. It would merely deprive the British nation 
 of any opportunity of doing the work. There- 
 fore the British nation must remain ruler of India. 
 
 The first condition necessary for freedom is 
 order. Now there are two ways of keeping 
 order either to enforce order, or to prevent
 
 26 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 disorder. These two ways, in appearance so 
 similar, are as widely different as despotism and 
 freedom. The former means perpetual drill ; the 
 latter, freedom protected from attack. Men 
 should do their own business without inter- 
 ference as far as possible ; and the State should 
 never interfere, unless to stop disorderly conduct 
 which causes injury to others. God's one com- 
 mand to Adam in Eden was a prohibition. All 
 but one of His six commands given for the 
 guidance of men in their dealings with men 
 begin with the words " Thou shalt not." 
 
 We want, then, an effective will, able to pre- 
 vent disorder, and forbearing as far as possible 
 from interference with men's freedom. 
 
 In England this has been brought about by 
 the introduction of a system of self-government. 
 The governed choose their rulers, and obey the 
 rulers of their choice. As there are many who 
 think the same system can be introduced in 
 India, we may shortly consider how this system 
 arose in England. It is to be noticed, in the 
 first place, that no foreign Power exercises any 
 control in the British Isles. They are self- 
 contained and independent. The only effect 
 foreigners have had on the people of the British 
 Isles has been to unite them more closely for the 
 purpose of resistance. This independence enables 
 them to have a will of their own.
 
 FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT. 27 
 
 Again, the people have, roughly speaking, an 
 equal fighting value in all parts. Celt, Scot, 
 Pict, Saxon, Angle, Jute, Dane, Norseman, and 
 Norman battered and crushed each other until 
 nothing but hard grit remained in the nation ; 
 and when it came to fighting, if both sides were 
 equally in earnest, numbers gained the day. 
 Cornwall or Yorkshire, the Scottish Highlands, 
 the wilds of Galway, or the streets of London, 
 no matter what part of the country it was, could 
 send forth its band of stout fighting-men, able to 
 make its voice heard and its opinion respected. 
 
 Now the old custom, when there was a differ- 
 ence of opinion, was to fight it out. The will of 
 the side that was found to be the stronger would 
 then prevail. To modify this old custom several 
 influences acted. The first was the need of all 
 the forces of the nation to meet foreign foes. 
 The dreadful destruction of the national forces 
 caused by intestine fighting became apparent, 
 and efforts were made to prevent this destruc- 
 tion and preserve the national forces. Then the 
 Church was constantly at work in the cause of 
 peace, and its influence was all-pervading, since 
 all the people had a common religion whose 
 principle was love. Again, among the ancient 
 customs of nearly all the races that made up 
 the British nation was one by which the people 
 assembled and were consulted. Based on the
 
 28 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 fact that all the people were of equal fighting 
 power, a system sprang up the main principle 
 of which is the vote. The leaders of the nation 
 are carried into its great council no longer by 
 the spears but by the votes of the people. But 
 now, as formerly, the vote is worth exactly the 
 fighting force behind it, and no more. The 
 force, like the bank reserve of cash, is latent, 
 while words and paper do its work ; but the 
 words and paper cease to have any effect unless 
 there is the force behind them. To find proof 
 of this we have only to go back to the American 
 civil war, when the party beaten at the poll 
 contested the right of the winning side to im- 
 pose their will on the country by an appeal to 
 arms. The only difference now from former 
 times is that we count heads instead of break- 
 ing them. Every great political contest is a 
 symbolical war, in which victory by agreement 
 goes to a majority of the combatants, and this 
 agreement exists because the people are every- 
 where of equal fighting value. 
 
 The will thus ascertained is intrusted for 
 execution to the leaders of the majority, in 
 whom the majority has faith, and who may be 
 supposed to believe in the principles that are to 
 be acted on. They control the whole machinery 
 of Government, and are responsible for it. The 
 navy, army, police, civil service, everything
 
 FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 is under their hand. Thus the single will has 
 been secured, and can be executed, because it 
 is the will of the majority, and intrusted for 
 execution to the leaders of the majority. There 
 is no earthly power except the people of the 
 country themselves that has any right to con- 
 trol the majority of their representatives. 
 
 Turning now to India, we have to see how far 
 this system of government by vote exists there. 
 
 There, as elsewhere, we find a prevailing will, 
 under which the people are united. India is, 
 however, an Eastern country, and, as in all 
 Eastern countries, the will of the people is not, 
 and never has been, expressed by means of votes. 
 We can very well see how it is that in India 
 the vote has never been, and could never have 
 been, a practical way of ascertaining the effec- 
 tive will of the country. In the first place, the 
 people are not of equal fighting value. Bengal 
 with its teeming millions might outvote the 
 Punjaub, but it could never turn out and fight 
 for its will against the Punjaub. To the people 
 of Bengal the vote would be a cheque-book 
 with no effects at the bank. Then the Mussul- 
 mans, who ruled the country till shortly before 
 the British took it over, would never have 
 agreed to be bound by a majority of votes, 
 when the Hindoos outnumbered them five or 
 six fold, and the Hindoos were evidently un-
 
 30 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 able, numerous though they were, to impose 
 their will on the Mussulmans. Then, among 
 the Hindoos, the high-caste Bramin would never 
 have consented to the low-caste sweeper casting 
 an equal vote with himself, nor would the war- 
 like Eajpoot value his vote at no more than that 
 of the greasy oilman. There was never, in a 
 word, that evenness of texture which enables 
 us to measure fighting force by votes as we do 
 wealth by money. No large community ever 
 agreed to abide by the will of the majority ex- 
 cept the Christian communities of Europe and 
 their offshoots. The vote is only accepted when 
 the way has been prepared for it by Christianity. 
 In India, as in all Eastern countries, the prevail- 
 ing will has always been expressed through a 
 despot or master. He makes the laws ; what he 
 bids is right, and what he forbids is wrong. He 
 can do what he will with any of his subjects. 
 Yet, with all this want of check, there are bounds 
 which the despot dare not overstep without risk- 
 ing his crown and life. He must have sufficient 
 force at his back to make his will prevail, and he 
 must act so as not to rouse against himself a 
 stronger force than that which he has to support 
 him. In Eastern countries, India among them, 
 the normal state of the great masses of the 
 people is a passive state. Their wills are dor- 
 mant, their force is asleep. With them, the 
 master is he who has succeeded in rousing into
 
 FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 activity a sufficient amount of force to bear 
 down any active force which may be in op- 
 position. The active forces for or against the 
 despot are commonly but a small proportion of 
 all the force in the country, unless the despot 
 has made himself very obnoxious. We hear 
 tales of cruelty and oppression, but these are 
 very often tales of weakness. The despot has 
 to watch for and destroy all rival forces which 
 in this chaos of sleeping forces may arise, since 
 his own supporters are not many, and may be 
 outmatched if his rivals are suffered to make 
 head. The despot gains his throne in no 
 scientific or constitutional way. He is simply 
 strong enough to take it, and there is no one 
 strong enough to turn him out. It is a position 
 of this sort that the British nation holds in India. 
 There is no one strong enough to turn us out. 
 But the British nation differs in one way from 
 all other Eastern despots, in that it has an 
 overwhelming reserve of power at its back. 
 There is no force in India that it need fear ; and 
 therefore there is no need for the British ruler 
 to watch for and crush rival forces. On the 
 contrary, the policy of freedom requires that 
 the British nation should awaken those dormant 
 wills ; arouse into activity, organise and direct 
 for good purposes, those sleeping forces among 
 its many millions of subjects in India. 
 
 This is not to be done by merely withholding
 
 32 BRITISH W011K IN INDIA. 
 
 our hand. The pictures of the dumb millions 
 of India writhing in their agony, with the cruel 
 British gripe on their throat, longing to be 
 free ; of the huge masses which, ready to move 
 together, can, by the force of numbers, sweep 
 the British into the sea pictures drawn to 
 impress the British public, are imaginary and 
 false. The " dumb millions " ask for peace, and 
 not independence ; and they are not likely for 
 some time to come to move anywhere, or to 
 move together for any purpose, least of all for 
 that of sweeping away their best friends and 
 protectors. 
 
 Vast numbers, great masses, may mean any- 
 thing or nothing. A few pounds of iron or 
 lead make a more dangerous missile than tons 
 of loose sand ; and to get up a scare because 
 Bengal has seventy million inhabitants is about 
 as reasonable as to make a sensation because 
 100 cubic miles of water fall on its surface 
 every year. The weight of our task in India 
 is to raise up, not to hold down ; to keep our 
 power, which is ample, pure from misuse by 
 sycophants ; to save our good name from being 
 tarnished by the misconduct of unworthy agents. 
 Our power has to be used for freedom and good, 
 instead of for tyranny and evil ; and so shall 
 the British rule in India be strengthened beyond 
 possibility of overthrow.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BONDAGE. 
 
 As the most interesting study to the physician 
 who is to restore the health of a patient is that 
 of the diseases or defects from which the patient 
 suffers, so for him who would give freedom to 
 a people, the study most essential for success 
 is that of the bonds by which they are held. 
 All men are bound or tied. They can no 
 more exist without bonds than a tree can live 
 without roots. Freedom means not the absence 
 of all bonds, but the destruction of bonds that 
 are evil and the strengthening of such as are 
 good. If we go below the surface into the 
 heart of the matter, the influences that control 
 man are found to be two love and fear. He 
 is attached by his faith to certain objects, and 
 these objects, through the medium of his faith, 
 inspire him with love or fear. He cannot either 
 love or fear unless he believes. Faith is of 
 
 C
 
 34 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the essence of man's life on every side. On his 
 faith depends every act of his life. The wise 
 man alone may be able to reason, but the most 
 foolish can believe. The objects to which a 
 man is attached by faith shape his conduct ; and 
 it is necessary, if we are to meddle with men, 
 that we study their faiths or beliefs for other- 
 wise, with the best intentions, we may be led 
 into doing harm instead of good. 
 
 The world is full of facts, and each human 
 being is placed in connection with some of them 
 by his faith. If he have not this connection 
 with a fact, then, however real or important it 
 may be, for him it does not exist. If, on the 
 other hand, his faith attaches him to that which 
 is false or unreal, for him it is real and true. 
 The true fact may at any time seize on his 
 faith ; from the false his faith may be loosened ; 
 but it is by faith that a man apprehends takes 
 hold of that which he loves and fears, and 
 through his faith, while his faith is attached, 
 the object of it influences him by love or fear, 
 or both. 
 
 The principles of love and fear are sometimes 
 contrasted together, as if they were good and 
 evil. Love is, no doubt, the nobler, the more 
 lasting, the stronger. It is the principle of 
 harmony or attraction, while fear is the prin- 
 ciple of discord or repulsion ; and, of course,
 
 BONDAGE. 35 
 
 the highest development of men and of nature 
 is worked out by love. Yet fear is rather the 
 handmaid than the foe of love. It attaches the 
 faith of a man. When he is asked to love, he 
 may trifle ; but when he sees an object of fear, 
 he has no choice he must believe. Fear 
 deters men from the love of unworthy objects. 
 As love is the positive, fear is the negative 
 guide to goodness. Some who would not be 
 deterred from taking poison by knowledge that 
 they are better without it, may be deterred by 
 the knowledge that it will kill them. Evil itself 
 may induce faith in good, by awakening men, 
 through fear, to the need of protection from 
 itself. 
 
 The faith of the British nation in this matter 
 is, that in love or harmony alone is to be found 
 perfect freedom. If all men are to be free, then 
 hate, fear, discord must be banished from among 
 them. What, then, are the faiths of men and 
 women in India ? above all, what are the fears 
 that bind them ? 
 
 The fears or bonds which will be noticed here 
 are religion, the fear of death, and the social 
 bond. 
 
 Religion is the bond which connects a man 
 with the being whom he considers the greatest 
 in the universe. Every man has a religion; 
 indeed most men have two that which they
 
 36 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 profess and that which, they follow. When a 
 man follows one religion while professing an- 
 other, he is a hypocrite. We are sometimes 
 told that the great thing in religion is a strong 
 faith, and that it matters not much to what our 
 faith attaches us, so that it be strong. One 
 might as well say that it matters not in what 
 cause a man fights, so long as he fights valiantly. 
 If a man is to do any good in the world, his 
 faith must be strong; but however strong his 
 faith, he cannot hope to have a chance of doing 
 much good unless it is attached to the right 
 object. It is, indeed, beyond the power of man, 
 whose knowledge and strength are small, to 
 judge the faith of his neighbours. Our Saviour 
 Himself has left on record a rebuke which He 
 gave to His narrow-minded disciples when they 
 would have stopped those who were doing work 
 for Him not in their way. Yet we must always 
 remember that the toleration shown by the 
 State for all forms of religion is not because 
 religion is beneath notice, but because religion 
 is too high to meddle with. The religious faith 
 of a man is considered, though of supreme im- 
 portance both to the man himself and to the 
 community of which he is a member, to be a 
 matter which the State cannot profitably under- 
 take to direct. Nevertheless, since a man's
 
 BONDAGE. 37 
 
 conduct is mainly governed by his religious 
 faith, the State is bound in prudence to gain 
 a knowledge of what that is in each of its sub- 
 jects, not with the object of controlling his 
 faith, but in order to know what faith should 
 be placed in him in his turn. 
 
 In England the prevalence of Christianity has 
 given the word "religion" a different meaning 
 from that which is used here. To be religious 
 is to be bound by the Christian faith, and to 
 be irreligious is to be free from its bond. The 
 Christian is bound ; the irreligious man free. 
 Yet every man has his religion, and the differ- 
 ence between the Christian and other men is 
 a difference between their gods, not the differ- 
 ence between bondage and freedom. The God 
 of the true Christian demands and receives from 
 him obedience, and if we know what the com- 
 mands of his God are, we know what his con- 
 duct will be. He is certain, to use the summary 
 given by our Lord Himself, to love his neigh- 
 bour as himself. He is certain to be without 
 fear of men, confident in the power and the will 
 of God to protect him from all evil, and sure 
 that God will permit nothing to happen to him 
 except for his good. He is certain to have a 
 strong sense of honour and duty, counting his 
 life, comfort, property but as dust in the balance
 
 38 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 against honour and duty. Of such a man we 
 may be sure that he will be a useful citizen. 
 By such men the preciousness of our great 
 heritage of freedom was recognised, and the 
 heritage itself was bravely won and stoutly 
 guarded. 
 
 But he who has not the religious faith of the 
 Christian has some other religious faith, which 
 indeed he is free to have, but which yet is not 
 altogether his own private business. It matters 
 to the State as well as to himself, and that quite 
 apart from the question whether the religion is 
 false or true. While his faith holds, the false 
 has as great an influence over his conduct as if 
 it were true, and is as good an indication of 
 what his conduct will be. 
 
 There are acknowledged religious faiths, and 
 those which are unacknowledged. The Chris- 
 tian, the Hindoo, the Mussulman, the Buddhist, 
 and others, profess their religious faiths ; while 
 the followers of the false gods of the ancient 
 world, avarice, lust, pride, and the other pas- 
 sions, practise their religions without making 
 open profession of them. With these latter 
 we need not concern ourselves. They make 
 no claims for consideration, and deserve none. 
 They should be put down, if possible. 
 
 The great mass of the people of India profess 
 the Hindoo and Mussulman religions. For the
 
 BONDAGE. 39 
 
 most part, there is nothing in these religions 
 which should bring upon them the active hos- 
 tility of the State. Detached practices and 
 doctrines there are for which it can have no 
 toleration, such as the burning of widows, and 
 suicide before the Jugarnath car, among the 
 Hindoos ; and the Wahabi doctrine among the 
 Mussulmans, whom it teaches that rebellion 
 against a Christian ruler is a duty : but, for 
 the most part, there is no necessity for inter- 
 ference with their religious faiths and practices. 
 As it is necessary, however, to adapt our 
 methods of work to the character of the people, 
 and one chief factor in the making of that 
 character is their religious faith, we must ex- 
 amine the nature of that faith, not so much in 
 the doctrines of the religion as in the fruits 
 which are produced. There are two reasons 
 why attention should be fixed rather on the 
 fruit than on the doctrines. One is, that the 
 State is interested in the religious faith of the 
 people only as it affects their conduct. If doc- 
 trine implied conduct, there would be no need 
 of any human law to restrain Christians from 
 theft, fraud, or murder. The Christian religion 
 is not the only one in which practice falls short 
 of precept ; and we cannot, therefore, infer con- 
 duct from doctrine. The second reason is, that 
 in every society, as men are born and die, and
 
 40 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 grow old, opinions change. That which to the 
 father was a reality may seem to the son a 
 sham, and the father's abomination may be the 
 son's delight. In every old religious society 
 there are many who outwardly belong to it, 
 whose faith is nominally its faith ; who to 
 all appearance respect its doctrines, and who 
 yet are held in their place by their neighbours, 
 not being themselves attached by faith to the 
 religion of their society, and possibly being 
 hostile to it. Till some great convulsion comes, 
 to shake out all except those who are firmly 
 attached by faith to their professed religion, 
 it is not easy to say whether a man is or is 
 not attached by faith to the religion he pro- 
 fesses. He may be placed as if he were, 
 without being, so attached, and then its doc- 
 trines have no real hold on him, and cannot 
 influence his conduct. That is influenced not 
 by his professed religion, but by some other 
 religion, or by society. Hence it is safer to 
 look at the fruits than at the doctrine. We 
 can only judge of the working power of a re- 
 ligion by what it does, not by what it teaches. 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 The fruits of religion in India which will be 
 noticed here are (1) ignorance; (2) divisions; 
 (3) Bramin worship ; (4) the degradation of 
 women. These may be abuses which are capa-
 
 BONDAGE. 41 
 
 ble of reform, or they may be inseparable from 
 the systems to which they belong. Anyhow, 
 they are facts to be reckoned with. 
 
 We know what an amount of labour and 
 expense is undergone to attach, confirm, and 
 keep alive the faith of the Christian from his 
 youth upwards. The danger alluded to above, 
 of changes in the substance of society, is seen 
 and guarded against. Teachers are set apart, 
 carefully prepared for and constantly employed 
 in the work of catching and fixing the faith of 
 the young. 
 
 Now the ordinary Mussulman or Hindoo is 
 not more intelligent, not naturally better, not 
 less in need of teaching, than the ordinary 
 Christian ; yet Mussulmans and Hindoos do 
 not get teaching, and grow up ignorant, except 
 that the Mussulman is expected to learn by 
 rote his holy book, the Koran, which he does 
 most often without any notion of its meaning. 
 
 The Mussulmans have no trained priests, for 
 taking charge of the people -in groups; the 
 Hindoo priests are ill - trained and ignorant, 
 receiving from their fathers their flocks as a 
 hereditary property, and knowing more of the 
 form than of the spirit of their religion. They 
 are needy men, mostly hangers-on of the rich 
 man of their neighbourhood, and ready to be 
 his tools.
 
 42 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 The religious professions of ignorant masses 
 made up in this way of blind followers, and 
 blind or careless teachers, are dangerous, and 
 can never be useful to the State. If these 
 professions are sincere, the people who make 
 them are fanatical, and can be played upon by 
 agitators or conspirators ; if they are not sin- 
 cere, they but cloak and conceal the real nature 
 and designs of those who make them. False 
 rumours spread like wildfire, and are believed 
 by people who have a blind religious belief or 
 none at all. It was a false rumour touching 
 religion that started the Indian Mutiny, and 
 false rumours are to this day being freely 
 manufactured and issued by the friends of 
 disorder. 
 
 Next we come to divisions. There is the 
 great division between Mussulmans and Hin- 
 doos. The Christian is taught by his faith to 
 look on all men, Christians or heathen, as his 
 brethren. The Mussulman is taught to look in 
 the same way on his brethren of the faith, but 
 unbelievers are human beings to be forcibly con- 
 verted or slain. There are extremists among 
 Mussulmans who deny the right of Christians 
 to their obedience, and who keep up an armed 
 camp on the north-west frontier of India as a 
 standing declaration of war against British rule. 
 
 If we examine Hindoo society, we find impass-
 
 BONDAGE. 43 
 
 able chasm after chasm whereby the brother- 
 hood of men is denied ; and for all who are not 
 Hindoos, the Hindoo religion has no description 
 but that of demons or monkeys. Through the 
 caste system the Hindoos are split up into many 
 races, practically as far apart as men, cattle, and 
 sheep. The Christian form of government is 
 based on the assumption that men are or ought 
 to be united like one large family, but in India 
 we find nothing but disunion and divisions. The 
 great working power for union in the Christian 
 world is the Church ; religion in India perpetu- 
 ates divisions. 
 
 We come now to Bramin worship. This, of 
 course, is a Hindoo institution. The numerous 
 gods of the Hindoos are, unlike the single, all- 
 wise, almighty, all-loving God of the Christians, 
 only exaggerated personifications of humanity, 
 such as were the gods of the ancient Greeks. 
 They are, as it were, the images of men cast on 
 the fog ; and about them the most extravagant 
 legends and traditions are taught to the people. 
 There are Hindoos who say that this is because 
 their religion has been degraded; that the Hindoo 
 god is one, and that men are one family, not 
 divided by caste. With this doctrine we are not 
 concerned, since few Hindoos give their faith to 
 it. There is a priestly caste of men the Bra- 
 mins who; unless their own religious doctrines
 
 44 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 are true, are a specimen of the length to which 
 sacerdotalism will go, if it gets the chance. In 
 most religious systems, the priest is given high 
 honour and much influence, as the medium of 
 intercourse between the Deity and His worship- 
 pers. He is essentially a minister, a servant of 
 God, an agent to do His work among men on 
 earth. Among the Jews a family were set apart 
 from among their brethren. Among the Roman 
 Catholics, who give a very strong position to 
 their priests, the priests are chosen man by man 
 from among ordinary families, and are not allowed 
 to found families of their own. Among Protes- 
 tant Christians, the priest or minister is allowed 
 to marry and found a family ; but he is not 
 allowed any special sanctity himself, and his 
 children are as other men. The Bramins hold 
 themselves out to be a separate race from other 
 men, claiming distinction, not from a Norman 
 Conquest or a Levi, but from a separate creation. 
 Bramins alone can be priests of the gods ; through 
 them alone can access to the gods be obtained, or 
 their favour won. More than this, as was to be 
 expected, a Christian would say, with faineant 
 gods, the clever ministers have diverted the faith 
 of ignorant worshippers from their deities to 
 themselves. They leave to the poor and needy 
 among the Bramins the duties of priest or min- 
 ister, and teach the people to look on a Bramin
 
 BONDAGE. 45 
 
 as a god on earth ; to cherish and worship him ; 
 to cringe before his curse ; to protect him from 
 injury, even deserved punishment ; and to give 
 him their obedience and their property. They 
 have perpetuated and exaggerated the divisions 
 of caste by stamping the very Bramin priest with 
 the caste of those for whom he ministers, so that 
 he can only minister for those of one caste. The 
 Hindoo system has sadly discouraged the growth 
 of common interests in a place, for in a single 
 village there may be half-a-dozen caste priests, 
 while one priest goes round many villages. The 
 priest conducts worship household by household, 
 and his religion does not encourage the assem- 
 bling of neighbours. Moreover, the priest is 
 under no religious discipline. His flock is his 
 property, with which it would be impertinence 
 to interfere. 
 
 It is beneath the dignity of the Bramin to 
 use his hands, except perhaps to cook with. He 
 is degraded by having to do any work except 
 such as implies authority or command. Times 
 are hard for the Bramins, who no longer com- 
 mand, even among Hindoos, the awe and rever- 
 ence they once received. They swarm in the 
 country, and must work for a living. Year by 
 year Bramins are found to be doing things they 
 would have refused to do before. Bramins used 
 to be masters of the proudest ; now they are
 
 46 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 dependent on the rich and powerful ; and that 
 faith which they have concentrated on them- 
 selves, much of which they still hold, is at the 
 disposal of their patrons, to lead the people by, 
 whither their patrons will. 
 
 We come last to the degradation of women. 
 There is no need of going into this matter at 
 length as regards the Moslems. With them 
 woman is a plaything and pet, highly valued as 
 such, but without a soul. They shut her up in 
 the harem, and put keepers over her as they 
 would over any other valuable animal. The 
 Hindoos might perhaps take exception to the 
 charge that they degrade women, and point to 
 their traditions of noble and learned women. 
 They do, indeed, often respect and love women. 
 The Hindoo's reverence for his mother is beauti- 
 ful to see. Still they degrade their women ; and 
 the Hindoo religion encourages this degradation. 
 Hindoo women live under a constant suspicion, 
 which is in itself deeply degrading. They are 
 secluded from men ; they are not trusted alone 
 with their nearest male relatives ; the girl who 
 approaches maturity has to be married for fear 
 she should by incontinence disgrace her family ; 
 and for the same fear the Hindoo religion ap- 
 proves of the widow's suicide by burning herself 
 alive on the funeral pyre of her husband, though 
 she should by this insane act of devotion deprive
 
 BONDAGE. 47 
 
 his young children of their best and truest friend 
 and guardian. The Hindoos may have allowed 
 and approved this cruel practice, not from lack 
 of affection, but out of an extravagant regard for 
 the honour of the woman and of her family. 
 If so, it proves at least that their attitude 
 towards woman was one of deep suspicion, when 
 they considered that she was not to be trusted 
 to live in honour. From the same feeling of 
 suspicion, women have been for many hundreds 
 of years mewed up in zenanas, until they are not 
 fit, and do not expect or wish, to be let out. 
 This does not prevent their having thoughts, 
 and they have to spend their time ; but, brought 
 up in seclusion and ignorance, living in an atmo- 
 sphere of suspicion, the women of India have 
 distorted souls. In place of realities, they see, 
 or think they see, a world outside peopled by 
 their imagination ; and the suspicion which sur- 
 rounds them produces its natural fruits of in- 
 trigue and impurity. The women are so much 
 secluded that Europeans see or know little of 
 them. Many of them are certainly beloved by 
 their husbands and sons, and looked on with 
 respect as well as love. It seems all the more 
 a pity that their religion should degrade them, 
 so that they are unable to live that full life of 
 usefulness which might otherwise be within their 
 reach. The degradation of women degrades also
 
 48 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the men, for they emerge from that atmosphere 
 of suspicion, intrigue, and impurity which has 
 been created in the women's quarters, and are 
 strongly affected by it all their lives. 
 
 These, then, are all obstacles which religion 
 places in the way of freedom viz., ignorance, 
 divisions, Bramin worship, and the degradation 
 of women. The State must leave the peoples of 
 India to remove these obstacles for themselves ; 
 but, till the obstacles are removed, the people 
 must be dealt with as out of health, and cannot 
 hope to attain freedom. 
 
 Having touched on the spiritual bond of re- 
 ligion, we come now to notice the moral bond of 
 society. 
 
 There seem to be two great classes of men 
 those who consider that society is for men, and 
 those who consider that men are for society. 
 The former start from the point of view that a 
 man is complete in himself, soul and spirit, and 
 can live his own life without communication with 
 any man. They look upon society as merely a 
 convenient means of keeping in harmony with 
 one another the various complete and independent 
 lives that are in contact with one another. The 
 latter look on man as a limb of some larger 
 society, which is composed of a section of man- 
 kind, and from which to be cut off is to be de- 
 prived almost of life itself. The British nation
 
 BONDAGE. 49 
 
 is a specimen of the former class, and the peoples 
 of India of the latter class. 
 
 Religion and society are very closely knit 
 together. It is natural that the relation of a 
 man towards his neighbours should be strongly 
 affected by his relation towards his God. Taking 
 the Hindoo first, we find that all who are not 
 Bramins are taught that the Bramin is essential 
 to their existence, and that no other Hindoo 
 can enter the race of the Bramin or do his 
 duties. The way to make men accept this state 
 of things as natural would be to extend the 
 system over the whole community, and teach 
 every Hindoo to believe that he himself belongs 
 to a class which, in race and occupation, is not 
 merely excluded, but exclusive. This is the 
 caste system, and it springs naturally out of 
 Bramin worship. The carpenter, the blacksmith, 
 weaver, potter, &c., have each his caste occupa- 
 tion, from which others are excluded ; while they, 
 in turn, are excluded from all occupations except 
 their own caste occupation. Thus society is not, 
 as in England, made up of a number of separate 
 individual men and women, but is rather the 
 unit of which the men and women who compose 
 it are fragments. The life of the society is not 
 a combination of many lives, but a single life, 
 permeating all its members, without which none 
 of its members can live. Every Hindoo needs 
 
 D
 
 50 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the services of others. At the family shrine of 
 each household the Bramin, who is the family 
 priest, has to come and conduct worship ; he has 
 also to preside over the ceremonies on occasions 
 of family sorrow, such as funerals, or rejoicing, 
 such as weddings and the naming day of children. 
 The barber, washerman, and other village servants 
 must give their services when needed. Then 
 there are the obligations of society. The Hindoo 
 daughter who is not married when she has reached 
 the age of ten or twelve, is impure ; so a suitable 
 husband must be found. On every occasion there 
 must be a feast, to which all friends in the caste 
 must be asked. Not to invite any person is an 
 insult, and to refuse an invitation is an insult. 
 Now it will be observed that the Hindoo is 
 greatly at the mercy of society, which means in 
 practice these who lead it. Supposing the Bra- 
 min, the barber and washerman, and the neigh- 
 bours to be under the influence of some one, that 
 person can withdraw from the Hindoo all the 
 services and the society on which he depends, 
 and without which his life is a misery. That is 
 exactly what happens in practice. Hindoo society 
 is at the mercy of wire-pullers, who control the 
 will of the Hindoos, and work them like pup- 
 pets. 
 
 Many of the Mussulmans in India have formed 
 themselves into societies, which resemble to some
 
 BONDAGE. 51 
 
 extent the caste system. Perhaps this is owing 
 to the example of the Hindoos, with whom they 
 are mingled; partly, no doubt, it is owing to 
 memories of caste, many of them being Hindoo 
 by descent ; and partly to the ignorance by which 
 they, in common with the Hindoos, are oppressed, 
 and which makes it more convenient to deal with 
 bodies of men like flocks of sheep than like intel- 
 ligent beings. 
 
 Under this system of castes or societies the 
 individual man is not able, as in the British 
 nation, to act alone ; nor is he free to combine 
 in that great body called by the British the 
 public. If the caste or society be, as some say, 
 the only possible means of managing the people 
 of India, if it is to nourish on, strong and 
 vigorous as in the past, one dream at least must 
 fade out. That single great nation of freemen 
 of which some have dreamed can never be. To 
 form a great nation of freemen, men must be 
 men, with wills of their own, and not mere parts 
 of great bodies, bound to move with those bodies. 
 A nation made up of castes may be great, but it 
 must be governed despotically. If the rulers of 
 the land, anxious to make the people free, loosen 
 their hold, the rulers of the castes are thereby 
 enabled to tighten their own grip. The people 
 will be less, not more free. 
 
 There is one additional social matter besides
 
 52 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 that of caste which may be noticed, and that is 
 the position of women. This needs short notice 
 here, since it has already been touched on under 
 the heading of religion. It is part of the British 
 faith that no society can rise in which women 
 are degraded. Degradation of woman means 
 degradation of society. Indian women are not 
 in all probability naturally worse than women 
 in Europe ; but they are so brought up and 
 trained that they do not get a fair chance. 
 Their minds are kept vacant by want of educa- 
 tion, and want of intercourse with the outside 
 world ; their imagination debauched with legends 
 and gossip ; their moral sense distorted by the 
 custom of child-marriage, whereby they are bar- 
 tered away before they are old enough to under- 
 stand the problems of life ; and by the custom 
 of perpetual widowhood, whereby many women 
 grow up without hope, and without honour from 
 their friends their innocence sullied by the 
 atmosphere of suspicion which surrounds them, 
 breeding impurity and guile. This is the home 
 in which the Indian is born and brought up ; to 
 which he retires from his daily duties ; the home 
 to his credit be it said in which his affections 
 are often centred, and which exerts over him a 
 strong influence. That influence can only be 
 bad, directing his ambitions to false ends, ob- 
 structing his progress by narrow prejudices, pre-
 
 BONDAGE. 53 
 
 venting his enterprises by foolish fears a fatal 
 obstacle in the path of freedom. 
 
 Having looked at the spiritual and moral bonds 
 by which men are held in India, we come now to 
 what may be described as physical bonds by 
 which they are held bonds, that is, in which 
 their minds do not acquiesce, from which they 
 would fain escape, but cannot. These bonds 
 come under the general description of the fear 
 of death, since the extreme danger, to avoid 
 which men accept these bonds, is death. The 
 two principal objects of fear are hunger and 
 violence. In order to appreciate their meaning 
 in India, let us look at a particular example. 
 The mass of Indians are cultivators of the soil, 
 and poor. We will take the poor ryot who cul- 
 tivates his little patch of land, and will look at 
 these two dangers from his point of view. Cir- 
 cumstances vary so much in various parts of 
 India that any detailed description of one part 
 would not suit another. It will be enough to 
 say that the ryot generally lives with his family 
 in a village, which, with its lands, is about the 
 size of an English farm ; that he cultivates part 
 of the surrounding land, his fields being scattered 
 over the village, interspersed among those of the 
 others, and without fences ; that he has to build 
 and maintain his own house, and find his own 
 cattle, implements, seed, and labour. There is
 
 54 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 generally a rent to pay, and a landlord to receive 
 it, sometimes a private person, and sometimes 
 the State. He is a member of some caste or 
 society, and has duties to marry his sons and 
 daughters, to give and attend small feasts, to 
 find expenses for religious ceremonies, to feed 
 and clothe his family, and generally to keep 
 respectable. 
 
 The ryot depends for his existence on his land. 
 He cannot, when out of work, go to the towns, 
 because there are none. He cannot give up his 
 land in the hope of getting better land ; for the 
 land is filled up near at hand, and he will not 
 face the wrench of separation from all his past, 
 which emigration to a distance would involve. 
 Severe is the pressure for existence where the 
 rural population sometimes reaches 1000 to the 
 square mile A ryot who loses his fields is in 
 a very bad way. 
 
 In former days it was a favour to the land- 
 lord to take his land ; nowadays there is a fierce 
 competition among ryots for land, and the first 
 fear which attacks the ryot is that he may 
 lose his land. Now the ryot has generally cer- 
 tain definite rights, and there have been in most 
 parts of India strong efforts made by the State 
 to ascertain those rights. Those efforts have 
 in most places left the landlord face to face 
 with the individual ryot, and landlord and ryot
 
 BONDAGE. 55 
 
 have mutual rights and obligations which bring 
 them in direct contact. The expense of en- 
 forcing those mutual rights, and of resisting 
 encroachments on them, is large in proportion 
 to the amounts involved, which are generally 
 petty; and consequently it is in the power of 
 one side to exert, within the law, severe pres- 
 sure on the other by causing trouble and ex- 
 pense in enforcing or defending rights. The 
 tenants have sometimes the advantage of the 
 landlord, and use it to destroy him. But 
 where, as is most often the case, the landlord 
 has the upper hand, the ryot is obliged to be 
 on good terms with him, and yield to his de- 
 mands, whether they be legal or not. The 
 consequence of resistance, to the ryot, is most 
 likely to be ruin and the loss of his land. 
 
 The next fear of the ryot is the loss of his 
 crops. He has found labour and seed, and 
 sown and cultivated his crops; he has fed his 
 cattle, fed and clothed his family, kept his house 
 in repair, all in the hope that he will renew his 
 funds by selling his crops. But a year of 
 drought comes, and he sees his crops withering 
 away. The grain shrivels up, and his hope is 
 disappointed. What is he to do ? He has 
 probably no reserve stock of grain ; he has to 
 find the rent, on pain of losing his rights; he 
 must feed his family and cattle, and keep things
 
 56 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 going during another season of toil. Where is 
 he to look for help ? He looks to the ryot's 
 providence the money-lender; and he actually 
 takes comfort when he is well in debt, for now 
 there is some one interested in keeping him 
 alive his creditor. Every ryot who is not 
 himself a money-lender is in debt to one. He 
 knows not any year whether the crops may not 
 fail, and is aware how dangerous it is to offend 
 the money-lender, even though the risk of loss 
 be not immediate. The money-lender may be 
 an extortioner ; he may, and often does, destroy 
 all chance for the ryot of ever becoming free 
 or prosperous ; he may exact from the ryot 
 services and payments to which he has no legal 
 right, and which are most damaging to the 
 welfare of the State : but, for all this, an agree- 
 ment with him is looked upon as a life insurance, 
 which must be effected at all costs. 
 
 There are times when all resources are ex- 
 hausted. Crops fail, cattle die, men starve. 
 This is famine, and the State steps in. But, 
 short of the interference of the State, which 
 comes only in exceptional circumstances, the 
 ryot's chief bulwark against hunger is the 
 money-lender; and he takes care to keep on 
 good terms with his protector. The fear of 
 hunger, then, is a bond which places the ryot 
 in the power of his landlord and his banker,
 
 BONDAGE. 57 
 
 and the strength of that bond lies in the fact 
 that they have monopolies respectively of land 
 and capital. The ignorance of the ryot, and 
 bad communications, prevent alike the compe- 
 tition of land and of capital which can enable 
 the ryot to get fair terms. 
 
 Then there is the fear of violence. On the 
 skirts of all societies there are ruffians who are 
 ready, by annoying respectable and quiet people, 
 to extort services or goods from them. They 
 can of themselves do little against the honest 
 men, unless protected. But there is often a 
 man of influence in the neighbourhood to whom 
 their services are convenient, and by whom they 
 are employed as acknowledged or unacknowledged 
 retainers. The master's enemy is pretty sure 
 to suffer at the hand of the servant, while from 
 that hand the master's friend is safe ; and the 
 ryot knows this. True, the threats are veiled ; 
 the consequences of giving offence are not openly 
 talked about, and the contracts by which they 
 are avoided are tacit ; but the understanding 
 between the parties is clear and undoubted. 
 What is the ryot to do ? The curling mous- 
 tache, the heavy scowl, and the big club of 
 the hired bully, though hard enough to resist, 
 may be withstood ; but how is he to meet those 
 incessant, secret, petty annoyances that are put 
 in motion against him ? He is hustled on the
 
 58 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 road ; his women are insulted when fetching 
 water; slanders are circulated against him and 
 his ; his crops are trodden down and damaged ; 
 his cattle are let loose and stray ; stones are 
 thrown into his homestead at night, and per- 
 haps even his thatch is fired. He is only too 
 glad to go and make his peace, and keep at 
 peace with the man at whose nod such per- 
 secutions go on or cease. 
 
 The ryot, then, is under bonds by which he 
 can be controlled being bound by his religious 
 faith, by society, by his landlord, by the money- 
 lender, and by the man of influence who employs 
 the village ruffians. 
 
 All these bonds consist in powers of annoy- 
 ance wielded by one man over another, which 
 enable the former to dictate to the latter what 
 he shall do. 
 
 A Christian may well doubt whether any 
 other result can be looked for where the people 
 do not worship the true God in the true way. 
 The fear of the Lord alone can cast out and 
 overcome all other fear. The love of the Lord, 
 and the faith in Him through which that love 
 reaches out to Him, alone can weaken and de- 
 stroy that faith in men which sooner or later 
 seems to lead men into bondage to other men. 
 
 The various influences which inspire fear in 
 the ryot beset him in his home and his daily
 
 BONDAGE. 5 9 
 
 business. There is no getting away from them. 
 They are generally under the control of some 
 local man of influence whose hangers-on the 
 Bramins and faction-leaders are who employs 
 the village ruffians, who is generally himself the 
 landlord, or, if not the landlord, the money- 
 lender to whom the landlord is in debt. At 
 his will he is able to turn against the ryot who 
 offends or resists him all the various powers of 
 annoyance. Through the Bramins he can ex- 
 communicate ; through the faction - leaders he 
 can boycott ; through the village ruffians he can 
 harass ; through the landlord he can worry the 
 ryot out of his holding ; and through the money- 
 lender he can drive the ryot into beggary and 
 starvation a fivefold power irresistible and sel- 
 dom resisted. 
 
 This power is what is known in India as dakhl 
 or " local influence." He who has it is absolute 
 monarch of his territory. If he be a small man, 
 there is generally a greater despot whose courtier 
 he is : if he be a big man, he has generally under 
 him smaller despots who are his courtiers. The 
 whole of India is overspread with these local 
 despots, whose will overrides that of the Crown 
 among the ryots. Disputes for the position of 
 local despot are carried on with all the despera- 
 tion, and little short of the violence, of war. 
 Since open fighting, accompanied by pitched
 
 60 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 battles and slaughter, was stopped by the Gov- 
 ernment, the war has been transferred to the 
 law courts, where lawyers are the hired cham- 
 pions, and perjury, forgery, bribes, and threats 
 are ordinary weapons. 
 
 If freedom be health, every one of these petty 
 despots is a symptom 6f disease. The causes of 
 disease lie deep, and ought, if possible, to be re- 
 moved. An attempt will be made in the latter 
 part of this book to indicate how that is to be 
 done.
 
 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 
 
 THE British nation finds itself in the position of 
 supreme despot in the midst of a land full of 
 despotism ; and before considering how it should 
 behave, we may glance for a little at its present 
 position. 
 
 The object of British rulers in India has all 
 along been to prevent disorder, and the measure 
 of success which they have attained is apparent 
 to all. British peace the pax Britannica 
 reigns everywhere. Yet in this work the British 
 nation has not so far had much help from the 
 people ; and its work has drifted is drifting 
 still into the Continental method of enforcing 
 order. This gradual advance of the machine 
 method of government, alarming, distasteful as 
 it is to the British rulers of the land, is inevi- 
 table while the people give no help and their 
 wills are dormant. Not only is the machine
 
 62 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 system in existence, but the machinery is get- 
 ting worse, and the work of governing is be- 
 coming more difficult to do and worse done. 
 For if the people have no ambition, the Gov- 
 ernment has ; and, being both poor and am- 
 bitious, is bent on making a show at as little 
 cost as possible. 
 
 To take a concrete instance, perhaps a clear 
 understanding will be gained by a comparison 
 between the method of inspecting schools in 
 Britain and that in India. We will take the 
 Scotch Education Department for comparison 
 with that in Bengal. 
 
 Scotland, whose area is 30,000 square miles, 
 and its population 3f millions, is divided for 
 purposes of inspection into nineteen districts, 
 grouped into three divisions. Each district has 
 an inspector, four having additional inspectors, 
 and two a subinspector each. For each division 
 there is a chief inspector. All the inspectors 
 but three have an assistant each ; none has 
 more than one assistant ; and the subinspector 
 or assistant nearly always lives in practically 
 the same place as his inspector. All the officials 
 are practically one service, and the service is 
 entered at a minimum salary of 150 a-year, 
 with allowances besides. Of the districts, eleven 
 are 1000 square miles or more in area, and eight 
 are less than 1000 square miles. There are three
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 63 
 
 districts which are both large and fairly popu- 
 lous, and all of these have extra officials, two 
 of them having an extra inspector and assist- 
 ant each, and the two subinspectors being also 
 posted in two of them. The remainder of the 
 large districts are thinly populated, their aver- 
 age population being about 50 to the square 
 mile. The eight smaller districts cover some 
 5500 square miles, with a population of about 
 2,100,000. Two of them are exceptional viz., 
 those which contain the cities of Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow and have a stronger staff. The 
 rest have an inspector each, and one of them 
 has an extra inspector. Of the nineteen dis- 
 tricts, some are large and some are small ; some 
 are thickly populated, and in some the popula- 
 tion is sparse ; some are chiefly town, and others 
 are mostly rural : but in all alike the main part 
 of the work is done by inspectors. All the sub- 
 ordinate help an inspector gets is that of one 
 assistant, who lives beside him ; and all the 
 supervision is exercised by a commission with 
 a secretary and two clerks. The inspection of 
 schools is a work requiring skilled labour ; for 
 doing it the requisite number of skilled men 
 are employed, and they are employed, time, 
 labour, and brains, in actually doing the work. 
 Taking now Bengal, we find a different sys- 
 tem. Bengal, with an area of some 150,000
 
 64 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 square miles, about five times that of Scotland, 
 and a population of about 70,000,000, over 
 eighteen times that of Scotland, is divided into 
 five divisions, each of which has an inspector 
 with his assistant. The inspector is not paid 
 better than a chief inspector in Scotland, and 
 the post of inspector in Bengal, considering the 
 hardships and the exile which a native of Britain 
 must undergo to occupy it, cannot be so attrac- 
 tive as that of chief inspector in Scotland. With 
 so vast an area to manage, and communications 
 in so backward a state, the inspectors could not 
 possibly manage to do the work of inspection 
 alone. At first, in the early days, when schools 
 were very few, inspectors did a great part of 
 the work themselves. But there had to be 
 created an office unknown in Scotland that 
 of deputy inspectors, of whom there are some 
 forty. The deputy inspectors were placed at 
 a distance from the inspectors, and were given 
 districts averaging over 3000 square miles in 
 area. Still, the distances were such that, as 
 schools increased in number, the deputy in- 
 spectors could not manage the work, and so 
 their districts were split up into subdistricts, 
 and subinspectors were placed in charge. There 
 are two subinspectors in all Scotland, and these 
 are posted at inspectors' headquarters ; but in 
 Bengal there are three or four to each deputy
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 65 
 
 inspector, isolated from him. Even this grade 
 is not the lowest, for the subinspector's sub- 
 district is divided into circles, each of which 
 has a circle pundit in charge. Over all is the 
 director of public instruction, with a huge army 
 of clerks. The deputy inspectors get less pay 
 than assistants in Scotland, while subinspectors 
 are paid less than office head-clerks in Bengal, 
 and inspecting pundits are paid less than sub- 
 ordinate clerks. Deputy inspectors have less 
 brains and character than assistants in Scot- 
 land ; and as for subinspectors and pundits, 
 they are hardly expected to have character or 
 brains at all, only accomplishments. They are, 
 indeed, supposed to be trustworthy, since men 
 holding such posts ought to be trustworthy ; 
 but they are not trusted, and do not deserve 
 trust. 
 
 The inspectors are now, instead of capable 
 workmen with their own work to do, and their 
 time, skill, and brain free to do it, employed as 
 overseers of the work of others, not so good 
 workmen as themselves, and isolated from them 
 and from one another. Their deputies are like- 
 wise employed chiefly as overseers of others, 
 again, on a lower grade as to character and 
 skill, isolated from them, and these again have 
 others, lower still. Now, however much super- 
 vised, the work will be that of those who do it, 
 
 E
 
 66 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 such as they can do not that of those who 
 supervise the doing. Inspectors and their 
 deputies being chiefly occupied with the con- 
 duct of their own subordinates, with accounts 
 and returns, with reports and correspondence, 
 the main part of the actual work is done by 
 the subinspectors and pundits, and is of a 
 correspondingly low class. But by the time 
 the returns are tabulated, and the reports are 
 filed and summarised at headquarters, it will be 
 found that the point in the work which attracts 
 attention is the quantity, while the quality is 
 taken for granted. The fact is, there is no one 
 to criticise the quality, and neither inspectors 
 nor their deputies are disposed to lay too much 
 stress on defects which cannot be remedied, and 
 are those of the system rather than of the men. 
 The men may be doing the best they can, and 
 the real defect is the perfectly well-known one 
 that they ought not to be there at all. So we 
 find accounts of the work presented to the 
 British nation, stating how many miles were 
 travelled, how many schools visited, how many 
 pupils at the schools, how many pupils passed, 
 and if they were more, it is satisfactory, if less, 
 unsatisfactory. But what about the quality? 
 Can it be pretended that the cheap agency is 
 as efficient as the more expensive ; or that the 
 higher paid man at a distance can by super-
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 67 
 
 vision keep up the quality of the work turned 
 out by cheap agency ? If so, it is astonishing 
 that in canny Scotland this great and economical 
 truth has not been discovered. Or is it that 
 in Bengal the work needs less skill, less char- 
 acter, less zeal ; or that skill, character, and 
 zeal in Bengal are cheaper articles than in Scot- 
 land ? The education department in India is 
 still to a great extent of a missionary character. 
 It has still to convince the people of its useful- 
 ness, and arouse in them such an active desire 
 as will cause them to seek and work for its 
 benefits. As yet, from an educational point 
 of view, they are deadly sick, and need careful 
 treatment to restore them to health. For such 
 work as this, not less but more skill, character, 
 and zeal are wanted. These qualities are not 
 cheaper in Bengal than in Scotland. They are 
 rare so rare that they are seldom found, and 
 when found, are snapped up eagerly by those 
 who know what is what. The lower -grade 
 officers are not trustworthy and not trusted. 
 They are watched because they are untrust- 
 worthy ; and yet they are employed to do such 
 work, and in such a way that watching can do 
 little or no good. 
 
 Now this department has been selected from 
 among others to illustrate the method in which 
 British work in India is done, because it is more
 
 68 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 nearly parallel to British work in Britain of the 
 same class, and because, as it has come into 
 existence in comparatively recent days, its pro- 
 gress can be traced. The defects in the system 
 may be summed up in one word, degradation 
 degradation of the work, of the labourers, of 
 the employer, and of the cause. The work is 
 degraded, because unfit workmen cannot but 
 turn out bad work ; the few good labourers are 
 degraded, because they have to spend their 
 time, labour, and brain in the vain effort to 
 make bad workmen do good work, instead of 
 doing good work of their own ; the employer, 
 by employing unfit men and accepting their 
 bad work, loses reputation ; and the cause itself 
 is identified with the bad execution, not with 
 the good design. 
 
 The British nation desired to give to the 
 peoples of India, the benefits of education, which 
 had been felt so greatly by itself. The work 
 was begun well, and so long as there were few 
 schools, the few inspecting officials were enough 
 for the work, and of a high class. But to ex- 
 tend the work schools were multiplied, and 
 because of the expense, instead of more high- 
 class officials, there were added cheap men of 
 an inferior stamp, wanting in skill, character, 
 and zeal for the efficient discharge of their 
 duties. Instead of pride in their work, these
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 69 
 
 men had pride of place, and, without the know- 
 ledge or the wish to be efficient, eager to 
 please their masters, they found that this could 
 be done by keeping up the quantity of work 
 turned out. The intention of the British nation 
 in giving education was to form and bring up 
 wise, enlightened, and honest citizens, who 
 would be a strength to the State, and so 
 many centres of good influence. Its servants 
 are interested chiefly in providing statistics, 
 in which the one thing needful is to show 
 that a larger quantity of food has been dis- 
 tributed this year than last year. As to the 
 quality, the food is not for the British nation 
 to eat ; and whether it has been thrown away 
 or eaten, and whether, if eaten, it has been 
 wholesome in its effects, few questions are 
 asked. 
 
 But the Indian ryot, who has to consume the 
 food, and has to bear the consequences of doing 
 so, cares nothing at all about quantity and 
 everything about quality. What is it to him 
 that vast quantities of the same thing that he 
 gets are being given to others ? He looks at 
 the quality of his own small portion. When 
 a boy has been sent back from school with the 
 stamp of a successful examination on him, the 
 education department has done with him, and 
 takes no further interest. But the interest of
 
 70 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 his friends begins here. When they see him 
 come back with a smattering of reading and 
 writing, soon'to be forgotten ; without reverence 
 for God, parents, or society ; with little wisdom 
 and no morality, discontented with his lot, and 
 with no improvement in prospects, they come 
 to the conclusion that this thing called educa- 
 tion, which the authorities are always prais- 
 ing and urging on them, is not wholesome or 
 beneficial, and they have no appetite for it. 
 Now, if we had none but conscientious workmen, 
 taking a pride in their work, they would refuse 
 to give their employers any but good and effici- 
 ent work. The standard would be maintained ; 
 the reputation of the workmen, their employer, 
 and the cause they work in, would be high ; and 
 if the actual amount turned out were less in 
 bulk, from the exclusion of the vast quantity 
 of rubbish now mixed with it, what remained 
 would be good, and would be sought by the 
 people with a keen appetite. 
 
 From this example it will be understood how 
 the British Government in India, being poor 
 and ambitious, is engaged in making a show 
 with small means. The same system has pene- 
 trated, as will be seen later on when we enter 
 into details of work, into every department. 
 Quality is sacrificed to quantity, and the stand- 
 ard is lowered. In the administration of jus-
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 71 
 
 tice, the pressure placed by the Government 
 upon its servants to turn out masses of decisions ; 
 the satisfaction felt when the returns show that 
 pressure to have had effect ; the displeasure when 
 the pressure is resisted ; and the addition to its 
 staff of many cheap, inferior men, who are good 
 for quantity but not for quality, have damaged 
 the reputation of the law courts. Engineers 
 are employed to look after public works, and 
 these are given so many various and widely 
 scattered works to attend to, that their depart- 
 ment has got a name for inefficiency which they 
 themselves do not deserve, but their department 
 does. And so it is in every department of 
 State business. In its desire to be everywhere, 
 to do everything, the State has multiplied its 
 staff of servants by the addition of many men 
 who have neither the character, the zeal, nor 
 the skill for real honest work, and bring dis- 
 credit on their employer. 
 
 The composition of the public service is thus 
 early noticed, because it has a most serious 
 effect on any programme of work which may 
 be framed. Even good laws are only useful as 
 they are enforced. We find politicians claiming 
 for particular classes of her Majesty's subjects 
 the right to serve her Government, to the ex- 
 clusion of other classes. Thus for some time 
 a rule was made, and is even now practically in
 
 72 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 force, that in certain branches of the service 
 only persons of pure Asiatic descent should be 
 admitted. Now, if the work be for the worker, 
 surely the native of Britain, which rules India, 
 has at least as great a right to employment in 
 its Government as any native of India ; but if, 
 as seems more reasonable, the worker is for the 
 work, then such claims to exclusive employment 
 as a right merely on account of race ought not 
 to be entertained on one side or on the other. 
 We should first examine the work that is to 
 be done, and then look about for fit agents to 
 do it. 
 
 The nation must have agents whom it can 
 trust, and who are fitted for the work they 
 have to do. This is a serious matter. The 
 agents are the instruments, the weapons of the 
 British nation. As on the quality of sword or 
 bayonet the life of an army may depend, so on 
 the truth and strength of Britain's agents de- 
 pends that for which hundreds of thousands of 
 her sons have shed their blood and spent their 
 substance the honour of the British nation. 
 The question is not whom the ruler ought to 
 trust, whom he would like to trust, who ought 
 to be trustworthy, but whom he does trust. 
 Now there is on the part of British politicians 
 a reluctance to make what are called invidious 
 distinctions, and a tendency to assume that all
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 73 
 
 men are equally useful for the public service, 
 ignoring the effect of blood, training, traditions, 
 and associations. The pretence is made that 
 the native of Britain and the native of India 
 are of the same quality; that the one can do 
 what the other can do, and no more than he, 
 and can do it equally well. This is called a 
 pretence, because no one really believes it ; and 
 yet in these days courage is required to de- 
 nounce it, so many are in love with it. To 
 believe in it, or to profess belief in it, is in 
 many eyes a sign of enlightened liberality, while 
 he who withholds his faith from it earns thereby 
 a reputation for narrow prejudice. But yet, if 
 the British nation approaches its work in the 
 spirit of this pretence, it is preparing for itself 
 disaster, discredit, and disappointment in the 
 future. 
 
 There is no business man, in any line of life, 
 who does not know how fatal carelessness in 
 the choice of his agents will be to his chance 
 of success. No wise shipowner will send his 
 ship to sea with a captain and officers whom 
 he does not trust, simply because he does not 
 like to give offence by avowing his distrust. 
 Every man who does work works by faith ; the 
 difference between the wise man and the fool 
 being, that the former places his faith in the 
 right objects, the latter in the wrong. But
 
 74 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 when we place our faith in any object, we dis- 
 criminate. And so must the British nation dis- 
 criminate when it chooses its agents. There 
 can be no doubt as to the folly of covering all 
 the widely different materials we have to choose 
 from with the paint of pretended equality, and 
 then treating them as if they were the same. 
 It may be that the qualifications sought for are 
 to be found in natives of India ; but consider- 
 ing that the British nation achieved its own 
 freedom, and the peoples of India sank into 
 a state of bondage, this should by no means 
 be taken for granted. We do not choose stone 
 that has crumbled to make a pillar which is to 
 support a great building, nor metal that has 
 yielded to forge a strong anchor. 
 
 The British nation has work to do in India, 
 and if that work is to go forward and be suc- 
 cessfully accomplished, the rulers of India must 
 be free to go for their agents wherever they are 
 to be got best fitted for the work. 
 
 Stress is laid on this point, since the pro- 
 portion of natives of India to natives of Britain 
 in the service of the Government of India is 
 being greatly increased ; and the increase of 
 this proportion, without due regard to its effect 
 on the work to be done, seems to be, in the 
 eyes of many, a political end. The increase 
 would be a sign of success in the great work
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 75 
 
 of giving freedom to India, if it came in as an 
 accidental consequence of that work. But there 
 is fear that the work is being sacrificed in order 
 to manufacture favourable symptoms, and make 
 the British nation believe that things are more for- 
 ward than they really are. We should resolutely 
 fix our eyes on the work, and the work alone, 
 which should not be prejudiced by a consider- 
 ation for the personal interests of any class 
 of her Majesty's subjects. The British nation 
 has abolished race distinctions in favour of its 
 own people, and should not revive them in 
 favour of Asiatics. The proper test for those 
 who seek employment is fitness for the work, 
 and that is ascertained not by logic but by 
 faith after scrutiny. 
 
 The great work of the British nation in India 
 is twofold viz., to look after British interests, 
 and to look after the interests of the many 
 millions of inhabitants whose destiny is in the 
 hands of the British nation. As regards the 
 former, we have to remember that India is a 
 vast country, with every variety of people in it, 
 and that in every part of it there are important 
 British interests. Being at home there, the 
 British nation does not employ ambassadors or 
 consuls, as in foreign countries. Out of its 
 80 ambassadors and attaches, and its 300 paid 
 consuls and vice-consuls, besides many who are
 
 76 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 not paid, not one is in India, though British 
 interests in India and the responsibility of the 
 British nation to British subjects there are 
 greater than in all the world outside Great 
 Britain and the colonies. The work in India 
 that is done in foreign countries by ambassadors 
 and consuls must be provided for, even if India 
 were entirely independent ; and it is customary 
 to entrust such work to men of British race- 
 not from favouritism, but because no others are 
 qualified for the work. They must have the 
 confidence of and understand British subjects ; 
 and there is no one whom a Briton will confide in, 
 or who can understand a Briton, like a Briton. 
 
 With regard to the second division of the 
 work viz., looking after the interests of the 
 many millions of Indian subjects of her Majesty 
 we have seen that the policy of the British 
 nation is in its essence to give them freedom, 
 and that, if left to themselves, they are not 
 likely to get it. 
 
 In a wise book, written by a wise man the 
 ' Water-Babies,' by Charles Kingsley there is 
 a very striking scene, where Tom finds his way 
 into Peace Pool, and sees Mother Carey sitting, 
 while all around her there come into being living 
 creatures. Tom asks Mother Carey how she 
 manages to make all these creatures while she 
 sits doing nothing, and her answer is, " I make
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 77 
 
 them make themselves." That is the British 
 spirit. The British nation would fain sit and 
 watch, meddling as little as possible, and leav- 
 ing the people to develop in their own way. 
 But in order to be able to work in this way, 
 the British nation must be where, even though 
 it does not interfere, it may see and hear, and 
 know what is going on. Can it be said that the 
 British nation is present, seeing and hearing with 
 British eyes and ears, and judging with a British 
 mind, if its agents its eyes and ears are natives 
 of India? This cannot be said; and therefore, 
 since the British nation must be present by its 
 agents at the doing of its own work, those agents 
 must be of British race. 
 
 There must be in India, while the British 
 nation rules there, a sufficient number of British 
 agents to watch effectually British interests, and 
 to watch and direct the progress of British work 
 for the natives of India, and these agents must 
 be of British race. To help them in the latter 
 class of work, there is need of agents who may 
 be natives ; and we have now to consider shortly 
 what qualities these agents ought to have. 
 
 First, they must have faith in the work, and 
 in the brotherhood of man. No man can do 
 heartily a work which he believes to be going 
 on false principles ; and unless he does his work 
 heartily, it will come to grief.
 
 78 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 Next, they must have honour. They are in 
 charge of the interests of a great State, and of 
 many millions of people. They are placed in 
 situations where it is impossible to control them. 
 When King Louis said, " Ipsos custodes quis 
 custodiet ? " Quentin Durward answered, " Their 
 Scottish honour;" and no better answer has been 
 found during the centuries that have passed since 
 that time. 
 
 Then, they must be staunch. It is now more 
 than thirty years since the British nation was 
 horror-stricken by the tales of disaster and peril 
 that came from India, and then moved with 
 pride and admiration by the courage and devo- 
 tion of its sons and daughters there, who were 
 a strength to their country far exceeding the 
 strength of riches or numbers. Since that time 
 there has besn no such general disturbance, but 
 not a year passes in which an agent of the British 
 Government does not face death, violence, or 
 disease in the course of his duty, though little 
 is heard about it. The British agent must be a 
 rallying-point in time of danger and disturbance; 
 a shelter for the poor, the weak, and ^the op- 
 pressed against the strong oppressor ; a steadfast 
 and calm umpire when all around are in a turmoil 
 of passion and excitement. Therefore he must 
 be staunch. 
 
 Again, the British agent must be a good man
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 79 
 
 of business. He has enormous interests to 
 adjust, numberless affairs to manage. If he be 
 wise, millions are the better; if he be foolish, 
 millions suffer. By the wisdom or folly of its 
 agents, too, the British nation makes or loses 
 great sums of money. So that, putting the 
 question on the lowest ground, it does not pay 
 to have agents who are not good men of business. 
 
 Last of all, and perhaps least necessary of all, 
 comes a good education. This is more easily 
 acquired and less necessary than any of the other 
 qualities mentioned above. 
 
 So the British agent should have faith, honour, 
 staunchness, good business capacity, and educa- 
 tion. Men of this stamp are sufficiently rare in 
 all countries, and are especially hard to find in 
 India, where religion, society, and circumstances 
 alike are unfavourable to the growth of such 
 qualities. It would seem necessary, therefore, 
 that even among the posts that may in the end 
 be held by natives, many must for the present 
 be held by Europeans chosen from the British 
 race. 
 
 It will be said that to exclude the natives of 
 India from a share in the management of Indian 
 affairs is impolitic and costly. As to the cost, 
 prudent expenditure is never costly ; while the 
 employment of an unsuitable agent to do the 
 work is so bad for the work, that the work would
 
 80 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 be often better left undone altogether. One 
 chief reason why the employment of cheap and 
 unsuitable men is allowed, is the belief that what- 
 ever happens the programme of work must be 
 got through. There is no necessity for this. 
 The proper course, when we find it impossible 
 to get the work done by fifty costly but efficient 
 men, is not to employ in their stead a hundred 
 and fifty cheap and inefficient men, but to reduce 
 the size of the programme. The standard should 
 be kept up at all risks, and quality is of more 
 importance than quantity. As regards the polit- 
 ical question, a system under which the natives 
 are kept helpless, and unable to manage their 
 own affairs, is a bad system, and should be aban- 
 doned as soon as possible. But this helplessness 
 must continue so long as the British nation is 
 obliged, through its agents, to guard their in- 
 terests. The system will not be nearer coming 
 to an end if among those agents there are more 
 natives, to whom it is natural that a despotic 
 ruler should be all in all, and fewer Europeans, 
 to whom such a state of things is unnatural. 
 The work of Mother Carey, which in India means 
 rousing and organising the dormant wills of the 
 people, and guiding them into the proper way 
 of doing things for themselves giving them 
 freedom, in short is British work, which Indians 
 cannot do. Besides this, great masses of work
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 81 
 
 are now undertaken by the British nation simply 
 because the people in India do not take it up 
 and carry it on as they ought. To employ 
 native agents, responsible to the British nation, 
 is not to shift the burden from British to native 
 shoulders, but only to increase the burden already 
 resting on British shoulders. The political effect 
 of such a course is also bad, since it reconciles 
 both the British nation and the educated classes 
 in India to a bad system, and makes them believe 
 that a reform has been accomplished which has 
 not yet been begun. 
 
 The position of the British nation in India is 
 as follows. Besides the protection of British 
 interests, it has undertaken the protection of 
 the natives by giving them that freedom which 
 they cannot gain for themselves. For that work 
 agents are wanted who will be pioneers, guides, 
 and examples to the people. The British nation, 
 through its agents, is doing work which ought to 
 be done by the people, a great deal of the work 
 being now done so badly that it would be much 
 better left undone, to await the time when the 
 people can take it up themselves. The first 
 condition of success in the special work of the 
 British nation securing the freedom of the 
 peoples of India is a very careful choice of 
 agents. The British nation ought to be as 
 
 F
 
 82 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 jealous for the character of its agents as it is 
 for that of its coin. 
 
 Having laid down the policy to be followed, 
 and the first condition of its success, we may 
 now proceed to examine the work itself, and 
 consider how it can best be done.
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 
 
 WE are now to consider certain means by which 
 the unwholesome bondage in which the masses 
 of the Indian peoples are held may be loosened. 
 The means suggested are not the only ones avail- 
 able ; but these, at all events, if used, will be a 
 powerful aid in the work. The three means for 
 relaxing physical bonds which are to be dealt 
 with here are connected respectively with land, 
 water, and communications. First as regards 
 land. The part of India chosen for considera- 
 tion is Bengal, first, because the author has 
 seen something of that province ; and second, 
 because, the Government having less hold over 
 the laud there than anywhere else, whatever 
 can be done there can be done elsewhere. 
 
 The Legislature has already enacted a succes- 
 sion of laws with the object of giving the ryot
 
 84 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 a certain degree of independence. These laws 
 have given rise to controversy, the landlords, 
 on the one side, protesting against the principle 
 of dual ownership which is embodied in them ; 
 and the advocates of the ryots, on the other 
 hand, claiming that they have always had even 
 larger rights than are now conceded to them, 
 and that the laws, so far from establishing rights 
 for the ryots, have for many years been used to 
 deprive the ryots of their rights. 
 
 There seems little doubt, whatever may be 
 the rights and wrongs of this controversy, that 
 at least one new principle has been introduced 
 into the country by English law, and that is 
 the principle of transfer of rights. The right 
 of the Hindoo or Mussulman in immovable 
 property was always a right which he could 
 himself exercise, which no one but the State 
 could take from him, but which he could not 
 alienate. Like his life, he could enjoy, but 
 could not give away or sell his land. 
 
 Though chiefly concerned with the ryots, we 
 may say a few words here about the landlords, 
 their partners in the land. 
 
 It is well known that Lord Cornwallis, by 
 his Permanent Settlement in 1793, a bold and 
 sweeping measure, designed to establish in Ben- 
 gal a class of landlords who should correspond 
 with, and do the work of, the nobles and squires
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 85 
 
 of England. He freed the landlords of Bengal 
 from all fear that they would have to pay higher 
 revenue to the State. This was done in the hope 
 that the landlords, seeing that the profits from 
 all improvements would be secure from the hand 
 of Government, would, with a liberal hand, set 
 about improving their estates, and would cherish 
 the ryots on them ; so that, with prosperous land- 
 lords and contented ryots, the land might become, 
 like England, prosperous and strong. 
 
 Certain causes prevented this hope from being 
 fulfilled. The first was the personal unfitness of 
 the landlords. They were, as a class, immoral, 
 weak in body and in mind, steeped in debauchery 
 from childhood, lazy, never stirring out of doors, 
 and never attending to their own business. The 
 conduct of their affairs fell into the hands of their 
 servants, who, after the manner of the country, 
 delegated their duties to others, and these again 
 to others ; so that each estate was covered with 
 a swarm of locusts, who devoured it. It may be 
 that this was recognised, and that the hope was 
 entertained of things improving. They did not 
 improve. Thus it came to pass that the land- 
 lord, if he had money, squandered it in debauch- 
 ery, and in feeding a horde of retainers, whose 
 position enabled them to extort from the ryot 
 the greater part of his little store. The land- 
 lord, when his money ran out, quickly ran into
 
 86 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 debt, and became tied hand and foot, a slave 
 to the money-lenders. 
 
 The second cause of disappointment was the 
 native law of inheritance. This gave every 
 member of the family an inherent right in the 
 family property, so that, except in the case of 
 a few estates which by custom were kept un- 
 divided, the right in an estate came to be split 
 up into sometimes as many as a hundred shares. 
 The ownership of property tends to prevent the 
 owner from working for a living ; and thus, in 
 place of the English family, in which the eldest 
 son takes the property with its income and 
 duties, and the younger sons go out into the 
 world and seek a livelihood by labour, we have 
 the Hindoo or Mussulman family, with its mass 
 of pauper proprietors, letting the family resi- 
 dence fall into ruins ; dividing the family wealth 
 till it is no longer wealth but poverty ; spending 
 their time, if one becomes a little less poor than 
 another, in fighting over their rags of rights, 
 and paralysing the management of the estate ; 
 till, finally, the miserable carcass of the estate, 
 ruined by their squabbling, passes out of their 
 hands entirely. The evil day is sometimes post- 
 poned if there should arise some wise and strong 
 member of the family to keep things together. 
 It comes not all at once, but after generations 
 have caused the family tree to send forth many
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 87 
 
 branches : come it does, however, sooner or 
 later. 
 
 The third cause of disappointment is the 
 alienation of permanent rights which the English 
 law has sanctioned. In former days, before 
 the Permanent Settlement, the landlord was a 
 proprietor, with a fairly sure tenure of his estate, 
 but he had also duties to perform, on failure to 
 perform which he was liable to be deprived of 
 his estate. If in the opinion of the ruler he 
 neglected his duties or abused his position, out 
 he went, with all who derived their interest from 
 him, and the estate was handed over to another. 
 This system is mentioned not as the best possible 
 system, but as that which was superseded by the 
 Permanent Settlement. The system which suc- 
 ceeded it has had the effect, whether intended or 
 not, of narrowing down the landlord's duties to 
 the single one of paying in the revenue. The 
 other duties, such as those of police, which he 
 nominally retained, he has first neglected and 
 then given up, without his property being 
 touched. To secure the one right of the Govern- 
 ment, it was enacted that the rights of the land- 
 lord who failed to pay in the revenue on the 
 appointed day should be sold by auction. Then 
 proprietors were allowed to sell their rights, or 
 to sublet them by temporary or permanent 
 leases ; as a property was split up, each partner
 
 88 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 in the estate had this right separately ; and the 
 law courts could attach the share of any one of 
 them and dispose of it for the benefit of his 
 creditors. Sublessees in their turn could sublet, 
 and we sometimes see a chain of tenants stretch- 
 ing from landlord to ryot. 
 
 We need not here discuss whether this system 
 is good or bad, or how it can be mended. We 
 can easily see how it throws the power over the 
 land into the hands of hard speculators and 
 masters of intrigue ; how the resources and 
 attention of the landlord are diverted from the 
 management and improvement of the estate to 
 fighting rivals, or preserving pauper owners from 
 starving. The loser in a struggle will sell or 
 sublet his rights to a richer or more cunning 
 man, who will carry on the war. If the pro- 
 prietors, having got into a hopeless muddle, sell 
 to a new man, his family will in time fall into 
 the same trouble. The courts seize and sell to 
 strangers fragments of the estate, which is sure 
 to be wasted away by extravagance, quarrels, or 
 litigation. While we can imagine remedies for 
 such a state of things, we may be contented now 
 with noting it, and passing on to consider how 
 the ryots are to be protected from harm while it 
 exists. 
 
 The Permanent Settlement changed the rela- 
 tion between the landlord and his ryots from a
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 89 
 
 personal to a business relation not expressly, 
 for it fixed the relations between Government 
 and landlords, not between landlord and ryots ; 
 not immediately, nor everywhere, for on some 
 estates the change has not taken place to this 
 day : but by the Permanent Settlement the 
 change has been made possible on any estate at 
 any time, and on many estates it has actually 
 taken place. In old times both landlord and 
 ryots were strongly bound by custom, which 
 regulated their relations. Then came in the 
 English law, which recognised no right in the 
 ryot except such as he held by lease from the 
 landlord ; and so great was the trouble caused by 
 this as soon as the landlords, losing reverence for 
 custom, began to act on the law, that statutes 
 were enacted fixing the mutual rights of land- 
 lord and tenant, and the guardianship of those 
 rights passed from custom to the law courts. 
 
 Now let us look at the agricultural village in 
 India, and try to realise what it is like. The 
 people are generally a sort of large family, of one 
 origin and one caste or religion. The houses are 
 in a cluster, standing in the midst of the village 
 fields, approached by the same paths, using the 
 same well. The fields of each ryot are scattered 
 among those of his neighbours, over the village, 
 without fences. A man cannot get from his 
 house to his field without passing through the
 
 90 BKITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 fields of his neighbours. The ryots probably 
 irrigate from the same source ; get fuel from the 
 same wood ; frequent the same market. Their 
 cattle are herded together; their children play 
 together, and often marry one another ; they 
 employ the same barber, potter, oilman, washer- 
 man, blacksmith, and carpenter, and deal with 
 the same grocer, each having a running account 
 with him, and with the same money-lender. In 
 prosperous years they rejoice, in drought they 
 suffer together. They must live in harmony as 
 one body, or there is no peace or comfort for 
 them. 
 
 In this village the landlord has rights, of rent, 
 over trees ; perhaps on land of his own ; over 
 waste, forest, and non - agricultural holdings. 
 He is bound to know and report to the authorities 
 what goes on in the village. He may make im- 
 provements roads, reservoirs, plantations, and 
 the like ; and he may forbid the introduction of 
 bad tenants or misuse of the land. The mutual 
 rights and duties of landlord and tenant bring 
 them in contact often and in many ways, and it 
 is most important that there should be as little 
 friction as possible, since friction causes irritation 
 and loss. 
 
 The old customary law of the land provided a 
 safeguard against friction in the village headman, 
 who had authority to act for the ryots in their
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 91 
 
 dealings with the landlord and the outside world, 
 and as chief over the ryots in their dealings with 
 one another. He preserved their rights, trans- 
 acted their business, and kept discipline among 
 them. In him was, in short, concentrated the 
 village will. But the English customary law, 
 which came to be administered by the courts, 
 ignored this official. The law courts held that 
 the landlord had a direct business relation with 
 each of his tenants. The tenant was no longer 
 the village community, but the individual ryot. 
 The ryot had no longer to look to the village 
 head for adjusting disputes with his neighbours, 
 or keeping his accounts, or settling land, but 
 had to go to the landlord. The landlord became 
 the trustee of village common rights, such as 
 pasture, fuel, irrigation, and the like ; and in him 
 instead of in the headman was concentrated the 
 will of the village : but instead of personifying, 
 he dominated the village will. 
 
 The village ordinarily formed part of an estate 
 of many villages, and the landlord seldom was a 
 resident. Even if a resident, he was not suited 
 by his habits and qualifications for the work of 
 managing, nor could he give the time and atten- 
 tion required for the proper care of the many 
 minute interests of village life. He usually 
 employed a servant to represent him in the 
 village, or, abandoning all personal connection
 
 92 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 with the village, let out his rights in it on a lease. 
 The servant, when one was employed, received, 
 as was inevitable, very low wages, and was ex- 
 pected to make his living out of the villagers ; 
 the farmer's business was to turn the ryots and 
 their land to as profitable a use as possible dur- 
 ing the currency of his lease. As will have been 
 gathered from the account of the village given 
 above, so many are the points of contact between 
 the villager and the landlord, that the servant or 
 lessee who represents the landlord and exercises 
 his rights, is able, in the absence of a village head 
 in whom are gathered up the interests of the 
 villagers, to cause to each villager the greatest 
 unhappiness, not by asserting rights which do 
 not exist, or destroying rights that do, but simply 
 by his attitude. If he takes up a hostile attitude, 
 pushing rights to extremes, raising disputes about 
 trifles, and calling in the lawyers at every turn, 
 he can make to the ryot, who with small means 
 has to maintain his family, and has nothing to 
 spare for extra expenses, to whom law expenses 
 mean debt and extortionate interest, a misery of 
 life. Therefore the ryot has been described as 
 being in a state of bondage to his landlord. 
 When there is one landlord, things are bad 
 enough, for the landlord, fearful of collusion 
 between his servant and the ryots, most often 
 encourages friction between them. But when,
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 93 
 
 as is often the case, there are several proprietors, 
 all of whom have rights over each of the ryots, 
 the burden is greater ; for there are more servants 
 to please, more leeches to satisfy. When there 
 are several persons disputing for the village, and 
 to please one means to irritate another, still 
 worse is it for the villagers. Each of these 
 claims to be the landlord or chief of the village, 
 attempts by force or otherwise to exercise his 
 rights, and fights in the law courts and else- 
 where all who oppose or who do not support 
 him. The position which enables a man to de- 
 termine whether the villagers shall be happy or 
 miserable has been turned into a property, to 
 be passed from hand to hand for money ; to be 
 seized and sold to strangers by the courts ; to be 
 split up and alienated by its occupiers at will ; 
 and to be occupied almost entirely without re- 
 sponsibility for the manner in which its duties 
 are done. 
 
 There is a step which should be taken at 
 once, if the work of giving freedom to the ryots 
 is to go on, and that is, restore the old village 
 system, giving each village, or in large villages 
 each quarter of a village, its own head. The 
 impossibility of the present system being ever 
 worked satisfactorily arises from the fact that 
 some one in the position and doing the work 
 of the village head is needed, and that some
 
 94 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 one is at present usually a badly paid servant 
 or a grinding lessee. The position is one that 
 should be held not as a property but as an office, 
 by one who is reasonably likely to deal fairly 
 by all concerned ; and therefore the office of 
 headman, where it does not now exist, should 
 be created, and filled by a man who is or ought 
 to be acceptable to the villagers, the landlord, 
 and the State. The holder of the office should 
 be substantial and independent, and therefore 
 it should be well endowed, and not subject to 
 the control of either landlord or tenant. He 
 should be under proper discipline, and therefore 
 made responsible to the State through its trusted 
 officers, who should from time to time ascertain 
 that he faithfully represents and efficiently con- 
 trols the village, and that there is no reasonable 
 ground of complaint against him, from the point 
 of view of the villagers, the landlord, the police, 
 the public, or the State. If he is found unfit 
 for the office by reason of negligence, miscon- 
 duct, or incapacity, he should be, after proper 
 warning and opportunity for reform, removed 
 from it. There are still parts of Bengal where 
 the system of village heads is in existence, and, 
 on the whole, works well. 
 
 To the landlord, to the general public, and to 
 the State, not the individual ryot but the col- 
 lective village, as represented by its head, should
 
 RELIEF PROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 95 
 
 be known. Any dealings which the State or 
 the outside world may have with the individual 
 ryot should be through the headman. The head- 
 man should settle internal disputes, maintain 
 village common rights and the rights of vil- 
 lagers, and bring to justice any of his people 
 who may be charged with offences against the 
 law, protect the interests of the landlord which 
 may lie in the village, and see that the land- 
 lord's rent is paid. In general, he should pro- 
 mote the welfare and keep up the character of 
 the village. Each village would then become 
 a free corporation instead of a disjointed collec- 
 tion of slaves a great advance. 
 
 It follows that, if the village is to be dealt 
 with as one body, of which the ryots are mem- 
 bers, the ryots cannot be allowed each to do 
 as he likes with his land, alienating it by sale, 
 mortgage, or lease at pleasure. The question 
 to whom and how a ryot is to dispose of land 
 that he cannot himself use, is one which need 
 not be gone into here ; but there should rest 
 in the head of the village a right to veto in 
 behalf of the village the introduction, whether 
 by the landlord or by a ryot, of a ryot who will 
 prove an irritant. The right of free sale would 
 seem at first sight to be a boon to the ryot, but 
 is far from being so. In the first place, it en- 
 ables the foolish ryot to " sell his birthright for
 
 96 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 a mess of pottage," when the loss falls on him- 
 self, his wife, and family. There are hardly any 
 circumstances short of emigration that would, 
 in these days of close competition for land, 
 justify a man in parting, for a temporary gain, 
 with his permanent means of living. In the 
 next place, any of the ryots may replace him- 
 self by some one who will be a nuisance to 
 the village. Lastly, if the ryot has a right to 
 sell his holding, his land is a disposable asset ; 
 and it would be just, in the event of his owing 
 money which they nearly all do that the 
 court should, if required by his creditors, seize 
 and sell the land for their benefit. Thus the 
 right of selling involves liability to seizure and 
 sale against the ryot's will, and is a disaster to 
 him as well as a nuisance to the village and the 
 landlord. 
 
 Free sale involves also the minor rights of 
 free letting and mortgaging. The practical re- 
 sult of free sale, letting, and mortgaging, is that, 
 if the ryot's rights are worth having, they are 
 quickly cozened or forced out of his hands, and 
 instead of the ryot being raised by any measure 
 enacted for his benefit, others will climb over 
 his shoulders, while he stays in the mire. 
 This has been proved repeatedly by experi- 
 ence. No doubt it is necessary occasionally to 
 admit new members into the community, and
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 97 
 
 to enable members who are leaving to dispose of 
 their improvements and fixtures ; but this should 
 be done with careful precautions against abuses. 
 
 The community should be well provided with 
 common land for roads, grazing, fuel -supply, 
 and other common purposes. Not the least 
 evil brought on the villages by the breaking 
 up of the communities has been the appropria- 
 tion by the landlord or by ryots of the common 
 land which there was no one to guard, and of 
 whose use the villagers have been deprived. 
 
 One other point in connection with land may 
 be mentioned, and that is the control by the 
 State of land that, for the public good, ought 
 to be used in a particular way. Especially is 
 this the case with forests, lines of road, arterial 
 drains, and other lands necessary to the welfare 
 of the people at large. This need hardly be 
 said, but that immense damage has been done 
 to the public by the manner in which private 
 interests have been allowed to override public 
 interests, and by the too free licence allowed 
 to greedy or ignorant proprietors in managing 
 or disposing of their property. 
 
 We come now to the next physical relief 
 by water. 
 
 One of the most dreadful of all calamities 
 which can befall a country is famine, and the 
 chief cause of famine is drought. We have seen 
 
 G
 
 98 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 that the ryot's main bulwark against famine is 
 the money-lender, who has consequently become 
 a master and the ryot his slave. Unless we 
 can do something to weaken the bond by which 
 the money-lender holds the ryot, farewell to all 
 hope of freedom. One chief strand in the cord 
 is famine. 
 
 Now the State has already taken on itself a 
 certain amount of responsibility for the people 
 in times of famine. It has undertaken to save 
 them from the consequences of famine so far as 
 to preserve their lives ; not entering the field 
 as rival to the money-lenders, but taking charge 
 of such persons as the money-lenders refuse or 
 are unable to help. A money-lender, as a man 
 of business, must look for a reasonable chance 
 for a return on his outlay, and his resources are 
 small. In famine - time many are driven to 
 borrow, or to borrow more largely, because of 
 extraordinary losses ; while the same reason 
 causes them to contract their charities, and 
 throw on the State the burden of supporting 
 the poor, to whom the money-lender never gives 
 credit. 
 
 No attempt is here made to discuss famine, 
 and how to deal with it, further than is neces- 
 sary to show in what way the grip of the money- 
 lender can be loosened from the throat of the 
 ryot so as to make him a free man.
 
 RELIEF FROM -PHYSICAL BONDS. 99 
 
 Let us think what famine means. Here is 
 a village of fifty homesteads, in each of which 
 dwells a family. The area is some 300 acres, 
 of which 150 acres are under a crop of rice, 
 the staple, and 50 more under other crops. 
 On these crops the fifty families depend for a 
 living. The village is provided with a few 
 small tanks, and, for drinking-water, a well or 
 two. The fields are ploughed by means of 
 cattle. The past season has been bad, crops 
 scanty, and the village money-lender is unwill- 
 ing to give credit. All available grain has been 
 made over to him, and there is not enough 
 stock left in the houses to keep the people 
 alive without help till next harvest. The 
 ploughing season comes on, and the cattle, 
 having had little fodder owing to the drought, 
 are weak and not able to do much work. The 
 rain fails to come, and the seed cannot be sown 
 because there is no moisture. Seeing this, the 
 money-lenders become wary, and will not make 
 advances of grain. We will suppose that the 
 rain has fallen ; the land has been ploughed 
 and the seed sown ; and the rice successfully 
 planted. There comes a break in the rains, 
 and the crops begin to wither for rice needs 
 much moisture ; the fields dry up, first on the 
 high land, then on the lower, and a great part 
 of the crop is lost. We will suppose that this
 
 100 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 crisis is past, that refreshing showers have fallen 
 in time, and that the rice has grown up flourish- 
 ing. The rainy season closes too soon ; the 
 rice which has grown up withers before the 
 ears fill with grain, and the crop is lost. There 
 are these three critical times to be passed every 
 season before the crop is in safety, and if it 
 fail, distress ensues. If the rice fail, the next 
 hope is the winter crop of pulses, by which 
 some food may be saved. But when the rain 
 holds off and the season goes by, little can 
 be sown, and of that little nearly all withers 
 up. Stocks are depleted ; the money-lenders 
 cannot fill up their stores ; and there is a 
 famine. It tells first on the landless and 
 feeble, who have no credit and cannot work ; 
 but when the scarcity becomes famine, all 
 are drawn in, and the pinch is felt by all. 
 The landlord cannot get in his rents, nor the 
 money-lender his dues, and there is a general 
 paralysis. The same want of rain that has de- 
 stroyed the crops has destroyed the fodder, and 
 with it the means of transport. The cattle pine 
 with hunger. The sorrows of famine ! What 
 need to describe them ? 
 
 The loss of crop which must occur before 
 there is a famine is enormous, because a partial 
 loss will not make a famine. There is a partial 
 loss on an average about a fourth of the full
 
 BELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 101 
 
 crop every year. Now let us think what this 
 means. The annual crop of the village lands, 
 if a full one, is, on a moderate calculation at 
 20 rupees an acre, worth about 4000 rupees. 
 The bulk is rice. The ordinary loss, chiefly 
 from drought, is one -fourth of this, or 1000 
 rupees ; while, in a famine year, it comes to 
 about three-fourths, or 3000 rupees. Suppos- 
 ing the annual value of the whole of the crops 
 of Bengal to be 500,000,000 rupees, which it 
 is at least, the annual loss, falling, say, on half 
 the area for large tracts never suffer from 
 famine will be about 60,000,000 rupees in an 
 ordinary, and 180,000,000 in a famine year. 
 That is, the work is done as usual ; there are 
 all the ordinary expenses, perhaps more ; and 
 the return is by so much less than it would be 
 in a good year. The chief cause of this loss is 
 want of water, for which cause also much good 
 land remains barren and untilled ; and in much 
 not one crop out of four comes to maturity. It 
 is to be noted that though the crop lost is not 
 the whole crop, the loss is not equally distrib- 
 uted. That which is saved belongs to the few 
 who have the best lands, and there are many 
 who lose all, and must perish if they get no 
 help. 
 
 Help is provided by the State in two ways, 
 first by irrigation ; and second, by giving em-
 
 102 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 ployment to soften the blow. The labour of 
 the ryot having met with no return, he is given 
 an opportunity of labouring more in hope of a 
 return. Passing by the latter mode of relief, 
 we shall consider the former. With good and 
 unfailing irrigation, the chief cause of failure, 
 drought, is removed so far that it is no longer 
 feared. In large areas the State has established 
 systems of irrigation, which do much good ; 
 but there are still enormous tracts which are 
 not safeguarded from famine, and famine with 
 its fears hangs over the people who dwell 
 there. Famine is like an inveterate foe who is 
 constantly raiding and destroying the country, 
 and is so persistent and implacable that the 
 only way of securing peace and freedom is to 
 attack and destroy him, if it can be done. 
 It can be done, and ought to be done. 
 
 The details of the work are such as only a 
 professional man can attempt to work out. All 
 that will be done here is to place together a few 
 of the data from which the problem is to be 
 solved. 
 
 In the first place, there is the loss to be pre- 
 vented. This is the measure of the usefulness 
 of the work, and will show whether it is worth 
 doing. The loss is, to begin with, the annual 
 60,000,000 rupees lost from short crops to the 
 ryots, and the interest, always high, on debts
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 103 
 
 incurred on account of it. This interest is not 
 all gain for the money-lender, because it means 
 hard work and expenses. Then there is the 
 loss of fodder, and of jungle products, and de- 
 struction of cattle. There is the loss to the 
 landlord, who loses his rents and has to borrow 
 money to make them good, paying interest ; and 
 the loss to the trading classes from the removal 
 of so much capital, which means bad business. 
 There is the loss to the State, which has to 
 remit taxation, to spend large sums in direct 
 relief, and to keep up a vast machinery for 
 watching the rainfall, watching the crops, and 
 carrying relief to the smallest and most remote 
 village, when it shall have suffered that high 
 proportion of loss which paralyses local means. 
 If we add to these the profit that might be 
 made by the cultivation of good crops like 
 sugar-cane, potatoes, wheat, &c., which cannot 
 be grown for want of water, we shall find that 
 the advantage both in loss saved and profit 
 made would be enormous. 
 
 The next important fact is the rainfall. In 
 most parts of India all the densely inhabited 
 parts a drought which causes a famine has 
 not usually the same meaning as the drought 
 which dried up the land of Israel in the days 
 of Elijah. There may have been such droughts, 
 but if so, they are so rare that we may leave
 
 104 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 them out of our calculations. The rainfall in 
 India varies, ranging from the 600 inches a- 
 year at Cherrapoonji, to the two or three inches 
 a-year which fall in the Scinde deserts. In 
 most parts we are able to depend on at least 
 30 inches a-year, nearly all of which falls in 
 one season of about three months. The want 
 of water which destroys the crop is felt, not 
 so much because no rain falls, as because much 
 of the rain that does fall runs away unused. 
 Sometimes it runs away in such quantities and 
 with such violence as to cause floods on the 
 rivers which it feeds, though next week the 
 fields may be withering for want of moisture. 
 Here seems a plain indication from Providence 
 of what should be done. Means should be 
 adopted to store where it falls, and as it falls, 
 a sufficient quantity of the rain-water to make 
 good any deficiency of water later on. At 
 present the whole crop may depend on a single 
 shower, whose failure to fall when wanted may 
 destroy the crop. Besides the great irrigation 
 canals of the State, minor works of various kinds 
 have been made and are kept up in great 
 numbers by the landlords and ryots. There 
 are still, however, great areas where such works 
 do not exist, and where they exist, they are 
 not systematic, substantial, or extensive enough 
 to be of real use in a bad year. The State
 
 RELIEF PROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 105 
 
 should make, or see that others make, provision 
 for the proper supply of such works, so that 
 every village may be safeguarded from this 
 most dreadful enemy. Land should be re- 
 served, stores of water made and safely secured, 
 so that the fear of death by famine may be- 
 come a thing of the past. What a relief this 
 would be both to the State and to the anxious 
 father of a family, who has now to ensure the 
 lives of himself and his wife and children as 
 best he may ! Freedom from this fear would 
 smooth away some of the deepest of the wrinkles 
 that score his brow. 
 
 " They live at ease who freely live." 
 
 The work can be done, because the conditions 
 make it profitable to all. Even if one-twentieth 
 part of the whole area had to be set aside for 
 storage, the increased production of the remain- 
 ing nineteen-twentieths would enable the ryots 
 to pay the cost and still have a profit. With a 
 rainfall of 30 inches, a less area would suffice, 
 not to mention the streams and springs that 
 could be utilised. These water-stores would be 
 useful, not only as an insurance against loss, but 
 as a means of gain. Water ! It means wealth. 
 It fertilises the barren ground, and enables good 
 crops like wheat, sugar-cane, potatoes, and rice, 
 to be grown where they cannot now be grown.
 
 106 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 It means fish for food where fish are now un- 
 known, fodder for cattle, groves of fruit-trees, 
 good drinking-water for all, and no cholera. 
 True, it sometimes brings fever ; but with pre- 
 cautions that could be guarded against. 
 
 As to the cost of making and maintaining the 
 works, that of course w r ould vary with the local 
 circumstances ; but with a margin of 2000 rupees 
 yearly loss to be saved for every square mile, 
 there can be few places where the work would 
 not more than save its" cost, and in most a tenth 
 of this should suffice. The works should be 
 placed on a business footing, those who receive 
 water paying for what they get, and this would 
 ensure its being stable and efficient. 
 
 Another great work, which none but the State 
 can well undertake, and which is closely con- 
 nected with this of water-supply, is the regula- 
 tion of the streams. The rain falls from heaven 
 on every part of the land, and it runs over the 
 land first in streams, then in rivers, to the sea. 
 We know that great difficulty is felt in dealing 
 with the rivers, which bring down their burden 
 of silt or sand, depositing it in navigable chan- 
 nels, and which frequently devastate the low 
 lands by means of floods. In many parts of the 
 country the streams that feed the rivers have 
 been taken possession of by the people ; and by 
 means of much labour their beds have been
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 107 
 
 turned into fields, and the soil has been kept 
 from being scoured away. One of the chief 
 operations in agriculture, where the rain falls 
 with such fury, is to prevent scour. The culti- 
 vator does much on his fields, by means of little 
 ridges, to retard the flow of water, so that it may 
 escape without tearing away the soil with it ; 
 and each field is thus made a means of miti- 
 gating floods. 
 
 But where there is no cultivation, the water, 
 not being retarded artificially, rushes off" with 
 great impetuosity, carrying off the soil and 
 forming ravines. This process has been made 
 more complete of late years by the removal of 
 the natural means whereby the rush of water 
 was broken and the soil retained viz., the 
 forests. These have been extensively destroyed 
 of late years, and their destruction has caused 
 increase of scour and of sudden floods. In great 
 tracts of barren and uncultivated land, denuded 
 of forest, the rain is suffered where it falls to 
 gather, rushing together in great floods, full of 
 sand and debris, till it grows into furious tor- 
 rents which cannot be restrained, and must be 
 passed on, with the devastation they carry, to 
 the plains and the great rivers. It would be a 
 help to the great work of irrigation suggested 
 above, if the State were to take means for con- 
 trolling the rain from the time when it falls to
 
 108 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the time when it enters the sea. This, again, 
 is work for the engineers, who could say in each 
 case how the work can best be done. Any 
 observer, however, can see that the work is pos- 
 sible, and would be profitable. The example of 
 the cultivating ryots themselves has proved its 
 possibility. We see not one, nor a hundred, but 
 thousands of streams taken in hand and tamed, 
 dam after dam being thrown across them, and 
 the water being conducted gently, without carry- 
 ing away the soil, from field to field. This is 
 done simply by preventing the water from rush- 
 ing down steep slopes, when it gathers way as 
 it goes, and scours out the soil, and by causing 
 it instead to descend by broad and easy steps, 
 pausing at each step, and never gathering way. 
 If we take the water from the source where it 
 falls, and arrange steps for it to pass gently 
 down, never giving it, as it were, its head, there 
 will be no need, when it reaches the great rivers, 
 of heroic measures. This great mass of wealth, 
 which nature deposits year by year over the 
 whole breadth of the country, will be taken 
 possession of; so much as can be profitably used 
 will be available for use, and the rest will be 
 passed off harmless to the sea. Barren uplands 
 can be utilised as reservoirs ; streams which are 
 now either dry sandbeds or raging torrents 
 can be made navigable ; irrigation channels can
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 109 
 
 be formed and led over the country, spreading 
 wealth ; and bridges for railways and roads can 
 be made at less than half their present cost, 
 when there shall be no more violent floods to 
 pass through them. 
 
 Neither in the matter of irrigation nor in that 
 of controlling water-courses is it desirable that 
 the State should seek to get the whole of the 
 work into its own hands. In such a work it is 
 desirable that each person who has it in his 
 power should do his share of the work. The 
 control and interest of the State is, however, 
 necessary to ensure that all shall work together, 
 and that the efforts of some are not balked by 
 the negligence of others. Above all, the State 
 should watch carefully those neglected gathering- 
 places of raging torrents the desert uplands. 
 The State should see that every stream is regu- 
 lated from source to mouth ; and where, for any 
 reason, it is not possible to get the necessary 
 works done by private owners, the State should 
 carry them out. 
 
 It would appear that there are not proper 
 facilities for those who are able and may wish 
 to carry on a trade in water. If water is bene- 
 ficial, it is worth paying for. Where a trade is 
 established, the supply will probably be provided 
 according to demand. At present there seem to 
 be only two ways by which a return is got for
 
 110 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 water-supply when the person who uses it does 
 not himself supply it. These are a direct tax, 
 levied by the State ; and enhanced rent, levied 
 by the landlord. Where the concern is not 
 carried on by the State, and where those who 
 use it are not tenants of him who supplies, the 
 water is received as a gift of heaven or of charity. 
 The progress of irrigation would be greatly pro- 
 moted if the supply of water were made more of 
 a eommercial business, in the nature of a service 
 to be paid for a business which any private 
 person could take up. 
 
 While, doubtless, some places cannot be sup- 
 plied with water, there is little doubt that a 
 great portion of the cultivated land in most 
 villages can be protected by water-stores from 
 all practical danger of destruction to the crops 
 by drought, thus removing from the ryot's mind 
 the fear of death from that cause. 
 
 Having considered two means of giving re- 
 lief from physical bonds viz., those connected 
 with land and water we shall go on to consider 
 the third means viz., communications. 
 
 The chief civilising agency in all communities, 
 that which binds together, educates, and enriches 
 a people, is good communication. The great 
 peoples in ancient days were those who used 
 the highway of the sea and the great rivers. 
 The greatest nation of antiquity the Eomans
 
 BELIEF FEOM PHYSICAL BONDS. Ill 
 
 are best remembered, perhaps, for their wonder- 
 ful roads. Next to irrigation, which prevents 
 famine altogether, the best means in India for 
 preventing the worst consequences of famine are 
 good roads. 
 
 Now the importance of roads is not a fact 
 which needs to be impressed at length on the 
 mind. There are, no doubt, those who argue 
 against roads as doing away with the ancient 
 happy contentment with little, low prices, and 
 peace of other days, drawing into the whirl of 
 the great world the thousands of peaceful com- 
 munities which jogged along, forgetting and 
 ignorant, unknown and forgotten. We have 
 all of us a hankering after the blessed inno- 
 cence of Eden, where there was no need of 
 arms or laws or commerce, and all went well. 
 This picture of innocence, isolated, ignorant, 
 peaceful, at its ease, is but an effort of the 
 imagination. Wherever two human beings are, 
 there is a contest of wills. Isolation keeps off 
 friends as well as enemies ; and of all tyrants 
 the worst is the unchecked village tyrant. Iso- 
 lation aggravates the evils of famine, prevent- 
 ing the coming in of aid from without ; it dis- 
 courages industry, for on account of it the fruits 
 of industry cannot be exchanged ; it quenches 
 knowledge, preventing that intercourse by which 
 knowledge is gained. Ignorance breeds cruelty,
 
 112 BKITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 of which the " dark places of the earth " are 
 full. 
 
 In the English backwoods settlement, cut off 
 from all the world, we may look for, and often 
 find, peace and harmony, because it is occupied 
 by English people. In the small, isolated Indian 
 village, however, we are more likely to find fierce 
 discord, or a master and slaves. The Anglo- 
 Saxon races, with their free instincts, have taken 
 the lead in developing their ways by water and 
 land as the best guarantee of safety, wealth, and 
 freedom. 
 
 The Government of India, to the disappoint- 
 ment of those who urge a bold railway policy, 
 is, whether restrained by want of funds or by 
 prudence, going cautiously and slowly on in its 
 development of railways ; and there is not that 
 rush of private capital into railway enterprises 
 in India which might have been looked for, con- 
 sidering the dense population and the large pro- 
 duction of many parts of it. The hesitation of 
 capital seems due to a healthy instinct, for the 
 country is as yet inadequately provided with 
 roads, without which the consumer and the pro- 
 ducer cannot be brought together. Goods will 
 not start on a journey at all, however long a 
 section of it is easy, if somewhere on the line 
 of route, whether near the beginning or near 
 the end, there is an obstacle which cannot be
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 113 
 
 passed without unreasonable expense. In all 
 countries, but especially in India, where the 
 chief industry is agriculture, the beginning or 
 end of a journey is rarely at the railway station, 
 and must be connected with the station by a 
 good road. Without good roads, the railway is 
 like a shop without customers, and will not pay. 
 
 This want of roads was brought home to the 
 Government of India by the great famines. At 
 the time of the Orissa famine, supplies could not 
 be got into the country for want of proper roads, 
 and many lives were lost. In consequence of 
 this, the Bengal Government passed an Act for 
 providing roads, and appointed local bodies in 
 imitation of the British Eoad Boards to ad- 
 minister the special tax raised for the purpose. 
 These bodies have done a certain amount of 
 good, but very much less than is needed 
 little more, in fact, than to open the eyes of 
 the people to wants not felt before, which they 
 cannot supply. What little progress they have 
 made is coming to a stand. 
 
 It is difficult for those who have seen only 
 India to realise the difference between the stage 
 of progress that has been reached in England, 
 and that which has been reached in India. 
 Even those who have seen both countries are 
 apt to look on the difference they cannot help 
 seeing as one in kind and not in progress. 
 
 H
 
 114 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 Yet, making allowance for the difference be- 
 tween an agricultural and a manufacturing 
 country, there seems no reason why India 
 should not be as well provided with communi- 
 cations as England. The only difference is, that 
 in India roads will continue to do more work in 
 proportion to railways than in England. The 
 difference at present, however, is great. 
 
 England is intersected with roads, railways, 
 canals, and navigable rivers, while its coasts 
 are dotted with ports, each of which is a 
 centre of busy traffic by sea. If we take at 
 random any part of the country on the map, 
 we find probably many harbours on the coast, 
 some navigable rivers or canals, numerous lines 
 of rail, and public roads so close together that 
 no house is more than half a mile from one. 
 Examining this area on the spot, we find that 
 the population is gathered into towns, each of 
 which has its streets in good order; the coun- 
 try population is thin, and spread over large 
 holdings, each occupied by one man within a 
 ring fence, and each of these holdings is amply 
 provided with its own roads, so that every house 
 in town and country is in contact by means of 
 roads with the outside world ; the roads are all 
 good, solid, well-bridged cart-roads, practicable 
 for traffic all the year round ; every town of 
 any importance has its railway, or harbour, or
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 115 
 
 both ; and goods that are going any distance 
 have seldom, in town or country, to travel six 
 miles before they reach a railway station or 
 harbour. We no longer hear of pack-animals or 
 men carrying burdens. All is done with wheels. 
 Turning now to the Bengal district, we find 
 a very different state of things. On the map 
 few roads are marked, and vast areas are without 
 railways, canals, or waterways. If we test any 
 area on the spot, we find that of the roads 
 marked on the map very few are anything more 
 than tracks ; many have disappeared, and their 
 sites have been appropriated ; all but one or two 
 are passable only in the dry season, and impass- 
 able during the three months of the rainy season. 
 A few very few new roads have been made 
 here and there, stretching for long distances 
 across the country, with no feeders. The vast 
 majority of villages are not connected with the 
 outside world by any proper way, whether on 
 land or water. The towns are few and small, 
 and the bulk of the population, ten times as 
 dense as the rural population of England, is 
 spread over these isolated villages. Within the 
 village, which is about the size of an English 
 farm, the occupation of the land is vested in 
 many peasants ; and the land of each, instead 
 of being in a ring fence with his house in the 
 middle, is scattered over the village among the
 
 116 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 fields of his neighbours. The Indian village has 
 already been described, and it is evident that 
 public or common roads within the village must 
 take the place of the private roads of the English 
 farm, since every man who wishes to go from his 
 house to his fields, or from one field to another, 
 must cross the land of one or more neighbours. 
 As a matter of fact, with the exception of one or 
 two narrow and ill-kept lanes where the houses 
 are, there are in the village few regular paths at 
 all. On some of the ridges between the fields 
 there are narrow tracks, along which one person 
 can balance himself; and across the fields, after 
 the harvest, rough tracks are made over which 
 rude carts can pass; but they are generally crooked 
 and round about, always rough, never more than 
 temporary, and generally cut up with ridges and 
 ditches made for drainage or irrigation. Be- 
 tween village and village, there is the same de- 
 fective communication, often no roads of any 
 kind, and where there is any road, one finds on 
 its line unbridged ditches and streams, unlevelled 
 ridges and ruts, unremoved rocks and boulders, 
 growing crops, fences, uncleared jungle, marshes, 
 new houses. The country is covered with popu- 
 lous villages, to get about or into or out of any 
 one of which the people have to scramble, wade, 
 go round about, trespass, break fences, face 
 thorny jungle, and what not. There is only one
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 117 
 
 season when a man can go about with freedom, 
 and that is after the crops are off the ground, 
 and before the ploughing begins. Carts, when 
 they can be used at all, must be rude and small, 
 and carry loads light in proportion to the size 
 and strength of the oxen that draw them. In 
 many regions carts cannot be used, and loads 
 have to be carried on men's heads, or on the 
 backs of oxen or ponies a much more costly 
 way of carriage, since a pair of oxen can draw 
 on a cart along even a bad road nearly three 
 times the weight they can carry on their backs. 
 Here and there at distant intervals the au- 
 thorities have of late years constructed a few 
 roads. They are narrow ; some of them are not 
 bridged ; very few are protected on the surface 
 by a hard coating from being churned into mud 
 by the wheels of carts or the feet of animals ; 
 in the rainy season they are covered with deep 
 mire ; and in the dry, thick with many inches of 
 dust. Yet bad as they are, they are of great use to 
 those parts of the country which are immediately 
 around them. They are the beginning of a great 
 work. But they are imperfect, being unprovided 
 with feeders, and out of reach of the great 
 majority of the people, who to get to them 
 would have to make their way or carry their 
 goods over many miles of such country as has 
 been described. If this were not so, the roads,
 
 118 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 narrow and imperfect as they are, would be 
 quickly destroyed by the rush of traffic that 
 would pass over them. Enormous volumes of 
 traffic are arrested, and prevented from even 
 beginning to move, by want of roads to carry it 
 up to the nearest existing road. 
 
 Now in the village, if the ryot had good roads 
 he would have more freedom and ease, for he 
 could drive his cattle to work or to graze ; 
 carry his crops to the stackyard ; send his 
 children to school during the rains without the 
 risk of their being bogged or drowned ; take his 
 women to visit their friends in a cart drawn by 
 bullocks, instead of, as now, in the more costly 
 litter, carried by men ; and get good medical 
 aid in time of sickness. The cost of the journey, 
 and the time it occupies, prevent the villager 
 from obtaining and the medical man from giving 
 skilled help, unless they are near neighbours, 
 which means that the most skilful medical man 
 can only have a small practice, and ignorant 
 quacks rule the roost. Good roads to the main 
 arteries of communication mean that the grain 
 can be carried to market on well -laden carts, 
 with moderate labour and at a reduced cost, and 
 commodities brought in more cheaply ; that the 
 ryot gets a larger price for his produce, and pays 
 a smaller price for what he buys, owing to the 
 reduced cost of transport ; that goods can be
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 119 
 
 taken out or brought in according to convenience 
 at any time in the year ; and the ways are not, 
 as now, closed for three months in the year ; that 
 the ryot has no longer to press the sale of his 
 crops when they are cheap ; and the money- 
 lender has no longer the power to starve him if 
 he runs short of food. Thus another formidable 
 strand in the bond by which he is held snaps. 
 The main lines of traffic are for the most part 
 beyond the ryot's ken. His goods, long before 
 they reach the main line, have passed out of his 
 hands into those of the traders ; and the goods 
 he is to buy must come nearer his door before 
 he catches sight of them. It is not to be ex- 
 pected that he should know or care about 
 matters so far beyond his knowledge. Yet his 
 interests are great and direct, since the price he 
 gets for his crops, even the supplies he gets in 
 case of failure of his own crops, may depend on 
 markets hundreds even thousands of miles 
 away ; and the price is affected separately and 
 distinctly by the presence or absence of obsta- 
 cles on every part of the long line which con- 
 nects him with those markets. Every obstacle, 
 whether an unbridged stream, a steep hill, a 
 marshy piece of road, a boulder, a narrow place 
 blocking the traffic, adds to the cost of transport, 
 thereby reducing the income and increasing the 
 outlay of the ryot. Like the veins in the human
 
 120 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 body, like the branches in the tree, like the 
 streams and rivers, the ways of the land must be 
 so made and kept that its traffic may course 
 freely and easily over the great central lines and 
 into the remotest corners of the land. There are 
 lines where no road is great enough to carry the 
 traffic, and there a railway is needed. But, 
 road or railway, canal or river, all are but means 
 for conveying the traffic. We must carefully 
 remove every obstacle from the path of the 
 traffic, and that is our work. A road that is 
 made for any other purpose than to convey 
 traffic is but a toy, and a road that is not in a 
 fit state to convey traffic is but a bad instrument 
 that should be replaced by a better as soon as 
 possible. Where there are no instruments, they 
 should be provided ; and where they are unfit for 
 the work, they should be improved. 
 
 It will be said that this is all very well if the 
 country could afford to spend the necessary 
 funds ; but the country is poor, and, if we make 
 all these roads, traffic will increase, and the wear 
 and tear, destroying the roads, will increase enor- 
 mously the cost of keeping them up. News to 
 cast gloom over a railway company, that its 
 traffic is so great as to wear out its rolling stock 
 and rails, and increase its actual working ex- 
 penses ! Why, this is prosperity, not loss. The 
 question is not to be settled by merely looking
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 121 
 
 at the expense. We have also to look at the 
 savings, and find on which side the balance lies. 
 If we take the saving, convenience, and advan- 
 tages of all kinds to be 300 rupees for each village 
 of the size described above (half a square mile), 
 the savings for the whole of Bengal from im- 
 proved roads will come to some 90,000,000 rupees 
 a-year. It would not take half of that to keep 
 all the roads of all kinds in first-rate order. If 
 the roads came to be used more, the profit would 
 become greater, as well as the cost. Thus, so far 
 from better roads meaning a loss, they mean a 
 profit. This is not a place for going into details, 
 but we may shortly consider the general question, 
 and particularly how it is that if there is all this 
 wealth in Bengal to be had for the picking up, 
 so little has been done to secure it. 
 
 When the Orissa famine first called attention 
 to the want of roads in Bengal, the only means 
 of keeping up public roads, except military roads, 
 which were kept up by the State, was the ferry 
 fund, which consisted of tolls levied at certain 
 ferries, whose proceeds were used for maintaining 
 roads leading up to them. Similarly tolls were 
 levied at one or two points on roads, and the 
 proceeds used for the same purpose. 
 
 It was not considered in those days a duty of 
 the State to look after the roads, and see them 
 improved. This was a duty of the landlords,
 
 122 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 established by Lord Cornwallis at the time of the 
 Permanent Settlement. "When we recollect how 
 the road system of England was developed almost 
 entirely by private or purely local enterprise 
 viz., by the parishes and the turnpike trusts, by 
 the railway and canal companies we may readily 
 believe that the Government anticipated, as a 
 result of fixity of land tax, and security of pro- 
 perty in land, a similar development of roads in 
 India. If this was so, the hopes were disap- 
 pointed, whoever was to blame for it. So far 
 from improvement, there had been a going back- 
 ward. The roads, like other common land, were 
 filched by landlords and ryots. In those days 
 roads were little used. Indeed, setting aside the 
 risk of total destruction by famine, there was 
 something to be said for the old system by which 
 every locality depended on its own resources, 
 and there was no traffic. Irrigation works and 
 reserve stores of grain were better attended to, 
 and there were more industries. The industry 
 of agriculture did not bear such an overwhelming 
 proportion to the other industries of the land 
 then as it does now. Famine, however, was a 
 paramount consideration which determined the 
 State to interfere, and put an end to the risks 
 then existing. Commerce cried out for facilities; 
 railways were made, and demanded feeders ; 
 Government officers were required to travel more
 
 RELIEF FEOM PHYSICAL BONDS. 123 
 
 about, for which purpose better roads were 
 needed ; access to the courts had to be made 
 easier; and finally, the people, wherever they saw 
 the advantages of roads, were no longer contented 
 with their old rude means of communication, but 
 cried out for better roads. The Road Cess Act 
 was passed ; boards were established all over the 
 country, and funds were provided for them to 
 administer by means of a tax on real property. 
 Whether the calculations of those who established 
 this system were mistaken ; or whether they all 
 along intended that it should be only a step in 
 advance, leading to other steps ; or whether it 
 has been worked in a manner contrary to the in- 
 tentions of its founders, the present system, while 
 it has done much good, has also disappointed 
 hopes, and even done positive harm. It has dis- 
 appointed hopes, in that many villages which had 
 been led to expect, in the words of the then 
 president of the Bengal Legislative Council, Sir 
 G. Campbell, to get roads up to their own door, 
 find that none of the fund to which they contrib- 
 ute is spent within many miles of them, and 
 that there is little hope of any ever coming their 
 way. It has done harm by making the neglected 
 villages believe that the road tax which they pay 
 is not spent on roads at all, but misappropriated ; 
 while the people of the villages, in whose neigh- 
 bourhood it is actually spent, get the notion that
 
 124 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the payment of a tax, however small, entitles 
 them to an unlimited outlay on roads by the 
 authorities. Again, the people, seeing that the 
 State has pointed out and undertaken to remedy 
 the evil of bad roads, and has failed in its effort, 
 are apt to consider that the ruling power is 
 weak, which is a serious shock to its prestige. 
 
 Certain principles may here be stated, by 
 neglect of which the deadlock seems to have 
 come about, and by attention to which the road 
 system may, without any great effort or sacrifice 
 on the part of the State, be greatly improved. 
 
 The first principle is, that a road is a service 
 to be rendered to those who are willing to pay 
 for it, and that those who have the use of this 
 service should pay for it. The service should 
 be as cheap and efficient as possible, and the 
 payment should be sufficient to compensate 
 those who give the service for their trouble and 
 expense. If this principle be attended to, we 
 shall have no more people willing to pay for 
 roads, or perhaps actually paying for them and 
 not getting them ; and no more people being 
 pauperised by getting for a trifle of tax far 
 more outlay than they are entitled to. 
 
 The usual methods of payment are the rate 
 and the toll. The former is usual in England 
 when the payment has to be made by a limited 
 and definite number of persons, residing in a
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 125 
 
 small area ; the latter when the payment has 
 to be made at a particular place by large num- 
 bers of people who come from places widely 
 separate. Examples of the rate are the parish, 
 school, and road rates ; examples of the toll are 
 payments for the use of railways, canals, har- 
 bours, ferries, and other works. Now the prin- 
 ciple of service has been in the Bengal districts 
 obscured by two mistakes. One mistake has 
 been that the measure of the service to be done 
 is the fund available, and not the need of the 
 service. The duty of the authorities has come to 
 be considered not so much the provision of roads 
 as the expenditure of their fund ; and a con- 
 clusive answer to demands for roads, however 
 needful, is want of funds. The second mistake 
 is that the road has been looked on as a boon 
 to be given or withheld by the authorities at 
 their discretion. If they give, it is a matter 
 of grace ; if they withhold, no wrong is done. 
 This way of looking at the matter destroys all 
 notion of mutual rights and duties between 
 authorities and ratepayers. The tax is paid 
 because the State orders, and the road is given 
 because the authorities so will. There is no 
 connection of cause and effect between tax and 
 road. This mistake has had another conse- 
 quence that the State has laid down as a prin- 
 ciple what in England is a matter only of ex-
 
 126 BBITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 pediency, and in India, owing to different 
 circumstances, is really inexpedient, that the 
 service of roads shall never be paid for by tolls, 
 but always by rates. There is some mysterious 
 virtue in the rate, and it has come to be con- 
 sidered just that ratepayers should pay for roads 
 which are chiefly used by others ; while those 
 who use the roads are condemned often to put 
 up with very bad roads, and are not allowed 
 to pay for getting them made better, though 
 they would often be glad to do so. If we had 
 the payment proportioned to the service, and 
 the service improved in proportion to the pay- 
 ment, and if those who use the roads were en- 
 abled to pay for the use in the manner most 
 convenient to themselves, we should probably 
 find an enormous increase in the resources avail- 
 able for improving and maintaining our com- 
 munications, and a very great improvement in 
 them. 
 
 The second principle is, that the connection 
 between payment and expenditure should be 
 made visible, so as to be understood by the 
 people. At present the budget area in Bengal 
 is from 1000 to 10,000 square miles in extent, 
 and within this area one rate only is levied. 
 The people who pay this one rate live in thou- 
 sands of different villages, and the arrangements 
 for spending the fund are made without any
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 127 
 
 reference to them. Indeed, in so great an 
 area, with circumstances and needs so various, 
 any attempt to consult the various people con- 
 cerned must end in confusion and bewilder- 
 ment. But in such circumstances the arbitrary 
 exercise of will by the authorities often works 
 injustice to the ratepayers ; and on the plea, 
 which may be true, that the money can be 
 more usefully spent elsewhere, their taxes are 
 not spent for their service at all. This has be- 
 come a crying scandal in many districts, and 
 should be stopped. The best way to stop it is 
 to reduce the size of the budget area to some- 
 thing more like the parish or road district of 
 England. If a separate account be kept of all 
 receipts in an area of say seven, or thirty, or 
 a hundred square miles, and all those receipts 
 are spent within that area, it will not put an 
 end to grumbling, but it will at least afford a 
 reasonable answer to grumblers, and a means 
 will be indicated for setting right what is com- 
 plained of. When we have separate budget 
 areas of small extent, and a separate rate and 
 fund for each area, it will be very much easier, 
 by raising or lowering the rate, or by other 
 means, to adjust the income of the fund to the 
 needs of that area, than when the single rate is 
 levied over a very large area at a time, and 
 must be raised or lowered or retained for the
 
 128 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 whole of that area at once. There should be a 
 separate budget for each area, and that budget 
 should be carefully explained to the people. 
 
 The third principle is, that good roads are 
 needed everywhere and in all communities of 
 men. The cost of making or keeping them up 
 may vary with local circumstances and the 
 traffic on them ; but in the villages and between 
 them, and between the villages and the great 
 centres, roads are needed, and should be pro- 
 vided. Several causes have combined to darken 
 this principle. The first is the ignorance of the 
 people. Until the State took up the question, 
 the people themselves did practically nothing 
 to show that they valued roads, or that roads 
 were useful to them. Here and there, something 
 was done ; but as a rule, neither were the roads 
 kept open, nor were they repaired, nor was there 
 any general expression of discontent with their 
 absence. When the State took up the question, 
 its main object was to have means of throwing 
 supplies into the country in times of famine. 
 The only persons in the district who travelled 
 about to any extent were the Government 
 officers. They naturally paid attention to those 
 lines of road that were most useful to them- 
 selves, and these perhaps were also the most 
 generally useful to the public. But these lim- 
 ited views obscured the important fact that
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 129 
 
 there are other uses for roads than to throw in 
 supplies in time of famine, and to enable Gov- 
 ernment officers to travel about rapidly. 
 
 A second cause of obscurity was the tendency 
 to confuse cause and effect. Naturally the roads 
 first made became important lines of traffic, be- 
 cause roads draw traffic. In the Indian district 
 officials are so frequently changed that historical 
 continuity is difficult to preserve. A new offi- 
 cial, seeing a road conveying much traffic, is apt 
 to conclude that the road is there because of 
 the traffic, while in fact the traffic is there in 
 consequence of the road. Traffic is goods and 
 persons in movement, and as a road makes move- 
 ment easy, there is traffic where there is a road, 
 and where there is no road there can be no traffic. 
 But the cause of the absence of traffic is nearly 
 always absence of roads, and to refuse roads to 
 a populous district on the ground that it has no 
 traffic is to prevent the removal of the cause 
 why there is no traffic. The road is not the 
 effect, nor is it exactly the cause of traffic, which 
 lies in the wants of men ; but so general are the 
 wants of men, so sure is traffic to spring up if 
 the difficulties in its way are not too great, that 
 we may pronounce the absence of roads to be the 
 chief cause of absence of traffic. 
 
 Another cause of obscurity is the fact that the 
 State authorities have not found it convenient to 
 
 I
 
 130 BRITISH WOKK IN INDIA. 
 
 supply the want of roads, and have therefore 
 done their best to prevent the want from being 
 felt. The proper course would have been rather 
 to encourage the feeling of discontent, and con- 
 centrate attention on the best means of supply- 
 ing the want. We too often find, however, that 
 officials measure the wants rather by the means 
 they have of supplying those wants than by the 
 actual need, and endeavour to persuade people 
 that the starvation rations provided for them are 
 an ample and sufficient feast. This attitude has 
 greatly hindered progress in the work of discov- 
 ering an efficient remedy. When a patient is 
 met by the doctor with the assurance that he is 
 all right, and has nothing the matter with him, 
 the cure cannot be gone on with. 
 
 Another cause of obscurity connected with the 
 second and third is, that no sufficient allowance 
 was made for the growth of traffic with facilities. 
 A few roads were made at the beginning, and it 
 was anticipated that year by year new roads 
 would be made as the old were completed. But 
 it came to be seen that no road can ever be fin- 
 ished and done with. Traffic passes over it ; it 
 is worn out and needs repairs ; the volume of 
 traffic increases, and it needs more repairs ; 
 feeders are made, and still the traffic, and with 
 it the cost of repairs, grows. It is a never- 
 ending, ever-growing expense, which can only
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 131 
 
 be limited by digging ditches or putting up 
 fences across the road, or in some such way 
 limiting its usefulness. From the track over 
 which the newly released traffic began to trickle 
 to the great highway over which it roars in a 
 mighty flood, the road grows, and is bound, if 
 properly managed, to grow. But this has not 
 been taken into account. The only means that 
 seem yet to have been adopted for providing for 
 this inevitable growth has been to sweep in and 
 throw on a busy line of traffic the funds that 
 ought to have been spread evenly over the whole 
 country; but even then the funds are wholly 
 inadequate. So the roads that have been made 
 are growing worse instead of better, as they be- 
 come useful ; while large neighbourhoods are 
 growing sick with hope deferred for those roads 
 which were promised but never come. We hear 
 instead hopeless arguments to prove that since 
 this road has a volume of traffic greater than 
 that road, that road may be neglected and this 
 supported, while it is certain that every road is 
 useful and necessary in its degree. This timid 
 and false manner of treating the problem should 
 be abandoned. If the whole of the traffic on all 
 roads were a fixed quantity, so that an increase 
 in one place meant relief somewhere else, some- 
 thing might be said for the present system of 
 having a practically fixed fund, which is distrib-
 
 132 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 uted where most needed, and a larger share of 
 which cannot be allotted in one place without the 
 share of another being reduced. But traffic, so 
 far from being a fixed quantity, grows rapidly 
 when good roads are made for it ; and the 
 growth of traffic on a road, so far from being a 
 sign that there is less going over other roads, is 
 n sign that there is an increase of traffic on every 
 road connected with that road. We must have 
 a fund which will enable us to keep pace with a 
 traffic likely to grow greater on every road in the 
 country a growing fund for a growing traffic. 
 Growing traffic means prosperity, and the cost of 
 providing ways which will enable it to move is to 
 the saving it makes no more than the seed to the 
 harvest. The poverty of India, far from being 
 an argument for starving her roads, proves, on 
 the contrary, that she cannot afford to do with- 
 out them. Only, as the increased cost of a road 
 cannot be met from savings made on roads else- 
 where, it should be met as far as possible from 
 the savings effected by the road itself. Those 
 savings are enjoyed by the persons who use the 
 road, and the fund for a road should be contrib- 
 uted by the persons who chiefly use it. Thus it 
 would be proper that purely local roads, which 
 are used by those who live in the immediate 
 neighbourhood only, should be maintained by a 
 rate on the inhabitants, because this would be
 
 RELIEF FROM PHYSICAL BONDS. 133 
 
 cheaper and less vexatious than a toll ; while in 
 the case of a road chiefly used by people from a 
 distance, a rate on them would be difficult to 
 assess and collect, and a toll would be the fairer. 
 These are the three main principles, then, which 
 should be acted on with regard to roads : 
 
 First, A road is a service to be rendered to 
 those who are willing to pay for it, and those 
 who have the use of this service should pay for 
 it. The service should be as cheap and efficient 
 as possible, and the payment sufficient to com- 
 pensate those "who gave the service for their 
 trouble and expense. 
 
 Second, The connection between payment and 
 expenditure should be made visible, so as to be 
 understood by the people. 
 
 Third, Good roads are needed everywhere, 
 and in all communities of men. 
 
 If these principles are acted on, we are likely 
 to see a vigorous growth of road systems and 
 traffic throughout the country, and the principal 
 lines of traffic will, by a natural process, come to 
 be served by railways, capital for which will not 
 be wanting when the feeders and the traffic are 
 seen. Better communications, when they come, 
 will burst the bond of isolation by which the 
 great mass of the ryots are held. 
 
 We have now considered the three means of 
 relief to physical bonds viz., those connected
 
 134 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 with land, water, and communications which can 
 be applied by the State and the State only. The 
 first can be applied by the State only, because 
 there must be a law before it can be applied ; the 
 second and third, because they require united 
 action among many people over vast areas. As 
 will be seen later on, there is reason to hope that 
 none of them will involve minute and contin- 
 ued interference by the State through its own 
 servants ; but the people themselves may be 
 enlisted as allies and fellow-workers of the State 
 in carrying through works which are so greatly 
 for their own benefit. 
 
 So great a change would these improvements 
 make in the country and in the people, that it 
 seems hardly profitable to suggest other and 
 minor changes for the same purpose, which may 
 occur to the thoughtful mind. These are enough 
 for a generation.
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 
 
 WE have been considering what may be called 
 physical bonds the bonds created by physical 
 conditions. We come now to bonds which have 
 grown out of the neighbourhood of men to one 
 another. These, too, are natural bonds ; for 
 men, wherever they live in contact, influence 
 one another. We cannot have a state of society 
 without bonds. If one bond is destroyed, another 
 will come into being and take its place. We are 
 then to consider, with reference to social bonds, 
 if they can be interfered with ; and if they 
 can, whether and in what way they ought to 
 be touched. 
 
 Perhaps the best way to find an answer is to 
 regard the communities as bodies. In a former 
 chapter it was said that the peoples of India, in 
 so far as they are not free, are out of health, and 
 the work of the British nation is to restore them
 
 136 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 to health. Among the various ailments from which 
 they suffer are the social bonds already described. 
 
 If we ask a Hindoo or a Mussulman whether 
 the strongest bonds, those which hold them 
 tightest viz., the caste system and the degra- 
 dation of women, can or ought to be loosened, 
 the Hindoo will tell us that caste is an institu- 
 tion from all time to all time, which cannot and 
 ought not to be done away with ; while the 
 degradation of women will be pronounced by 
 the Mussulman part of the law of God Himself, 
 which no man can change. But the British 
 policy in India is founded, not on the faith of 
 the Hindoo or the Mussulman, but on the faith 
 of the British nation. That faith is that the 
 natural and healthy state of all communities is 
 a state of freedom ; and that anything in the 
 system which interferes with freedom is unnatu- 
 ral, and can be cured. When, therefore, we find 
 social customs inconsistent with freedom, we are 
 entitled to believe them capable of removal. 
 
 There are various ways of dealing with them. 
 There is the logical way. Either a thing is 
 right or it is wrong. If it is right, enforce it ; 
 if it be wrong, put it down severely. That way, 
 however, not being the British way, we may at 
 once set aside. 
 
 There is the policy of non-interference, leav- 
 ing things to right themselves, and only putting
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 13*7 
 
 forth a hand to prevent conduct which is crim- 
 inal, or a danger to the general public. That 
 is the policy which we have carried out in the 
 past. 
 
 Lastly, there is the policy of enlightened sym- 
 pathy, neither using force nor withholding aid, 
 but acting like a kind neighbour who wishes to 
 do what he can for the good of those around 
 him, or like a good physician, who is ready 
 when called to give patients the benefit of his 
 skill. This figure of a physician perhaps gives 
 the best idea of the proper manner in which the 
 State should deal with the social diseases of the 
 people. 
 
 That the physician may be able to do good, 
 three conditions must be fulfilled. There must 
 be the patient suffering from a disease which 
 he believes to be a disease, and from which he 
 desires relief; there must be a physician with 
 skill, resources, and goodwill properly to treat 
 that disease ; and the patient must have faith 
 in the physician. As a result of these three 
 conditions, the patient will go to the physician 
 and place himself in the physician's hands to 
 be cured. The physician must wait until the 
 patient comes before he can begin his treatment. 
 All idea of compulsion is excluded from this 
 way of management. There are persons, such 
 as dangerous lunatics and those suffering from
 
 138 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 infectious or contagious diseases, who must for 
 the public safety be put under restraint. Simi- 
 larly, some social bodies, like the Thugs or 
 stranglers, criminal tribes, and Wahabis, have 
 to be kept under restraint. But, with this ex- 
 ception, just as human beings who suffer from 
 disease are left to themselves so long as they 
 commit no crime, so those social bodies which 
 suffer from social ailments must be left to 
 manage as they think best. Until they come 
 to the State and ask for its direction and help, 
 the State may lament their sufferings, but can 
 do little to help them. As a patient who has 
 no belief in his disease, no wish to be cured, and 
 no faith in his physician, will not obey the direc- 
 tions he gets or take the remedies prescribed, so 
 the society on which a reform is forced against 
 its will is not likely to be much improved 
 thereby. 
 
 But though the ruler cannot with propriety, 
 as a physician, force his remedies on the social 
 bodies, his patients, he cannot hold himself free 
 from responsibility for them, seeing that he is 
 master of the house. He should see that the 
 house is kept clean and wholesome ; that all 
 its occupants have at least proper opportunities 
 for doing their work, and ready access to food 
 and other necessaries of life. He should see 
 that oppression is not allowed, and banish its
 
 SOCIAL KEFORM. 139 
 
 great friend ignorance, enlightening all as to 
 their rights, and putting them in the way of 
 asserting their rights. He should be particu- 
 larly careful himself that, as master, he does, or 
 permits to be done in his name, nothing that 
 will in any way be prejudicial to the health and 
 welfare of the inmates of his house, and must 
 make himself easy of access, ready to listen to 
 complaints and redress wrongs. We are now to 
 consider how the State, as master, is to prepare 
 the way for the State, as physician, to attack 
 the social diseases from which the people suffer. 
 We have found that there must be patients who 
 suffer and physicians who can cure diseases. 
 This implies knowledge of the people, and that 
 is gained by close study. In England we have 
 got so used to people crying out when there is 
 anything the matter there are so many kind 
 neighbours to call attention to the troubles or 
 wants which are to be soothed or supplied by 
 the State that we are very apt to think silence 
 means content. It does not always mean con- 
 tent, and still less does it mean health. The 
 patient may be in a dull lethargy, which is in 
 itself a disease, or he may have no hope of 
 being cured. The blind man by the wayside 
 only began to cry for help when the Son of 
 David passed by. It is the business of the 
 State not to wait until there is among the
 
 140 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 people a movement, a cry for relief, resting con- 
 tent in ignorance of their wants until they do 
 cry out, but to study them, to learn all about 
 them, and to tell them in the wisest way, with 
 much tact, so as not to offend their preju- 
 dices, what is wrong with them, and where they 
 should go for help. The State may not send out 
 bands of missionaries to preach politics among 
 the people ; but still it should have agents 
 whom it can trust, and who, studying the people 
 for themselves, will be able to plant, as it were, 
 the leaven of knowledge in the minds of those 
 whom they find ready to receive it. If there 
 is found even one who will take in the truth, 
 and if indeed it be the truth, there is hope that 
 it will live in his mind, and spread to others. 
 No doubt it is better that the people should 
 find out the truth for themselves, and that the 
 State should have nothing to do with imparting 
 it to them ; but in India, the British nation, as 
 master, wishes to restore to health the peoples 
 who are its subjects, and must at least learn 
 what is wrong, and discuss it with them. 
 
 Then, again, as to the physicians. The cure 
 cannot begin unless we have, as was remarked 
 before, skilful physicians. Here too it would 
 be preferable if we could find among the people 
 themselves men qualified and willing for the 
 work. The work would then go on more quickly
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 141 
 
 and better. While, however, no opportunity 
 should be lost of enlisting the services of every 
 one among the people who can be of use, the 
 State should see that qualified agents are every- 
 where within reach, ready to attend to all who 
 may come with social diseases to be cured, and 
 able to treat those diseases. They should all 
 be qualified, and all trustworthy. Better no 
 agent at all than one who is not satisfactory ; 
 for one such man would destroy the faith of a 
 whole neighbourhood in the goodwill and the 
 power of the State. The State should make 
 sure that its own agents, whether paid or vol- 
 unteer, are as well qualified for their work as 
 those who hold the diploma of one of the 
 great medical schools are qualified for theirs, 
 and should exercise over them as close a super- 
 vision as the great medical societies exercise 
 over their members. The reputation of the 
 State is made or marred by its agents. 
 
 The physician must keep up his information 
 on the last new methods of treatment, must 
 have good drugs, and good compounders who 
 understand and can prepare them. He must 
 have the utmost discretion to order or to refuse 
 any particular kind of treatment. He must, in 
 short, be put in charge of his case to do what 
 he likes with it. The medical man who should 
 require guidance from a distance would not be
 
 142 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 thought fit for his work. If he is to be more 
 than a mere druggist, dispensing the compounds 
 of Professor Holloway, Mr Cockle, Mother Siegel, 
 and such benefactors of mankind, the social 
 physician must be allowed to give his patients 
 what he thinks proper, when, how, and in 
 what quantities and shapes may seem to him 
 best. There is a tendency in the work of the 
 State at the present day to concentrate the 
 brain work in a central head, and to employ 
 the officials who are spread over the country 
 as so many hands, acting under the direction 
 of the central brain, without much intelligence 
 of their own. Original thought and action are 
 considered rather in the way than otherwise, 
 and the qualities most valued by the authorities 
 are prompt obedience and good discipline the 
 qualities of a machine rather than of an in- 
 telligent man. A machine can do much, but 
 it cannot effect a cure. For that there must 
 be intelligence, tact, and sympathy, none of 
 which a machine has. The State, therefore, 
 if it wishes to effect cures of social diseases, 
 must abandon this policy of a centralised brain, 
 and spread abroad its brain power throughout 
 the country, placing each case in the hands of an 
 intelligent and skilful agent, who is in a position 
 to watch and manage it, and leaving him full 
 discretion to deal with it as he may think best.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 143 
 
 Again, the social physician should not be 
 required to undertake a case unless he is able 
 to give it sufficient personal attention. Of late 
 years work has been accumulating on the 
 shoulders of those who in former days studied 
 the people and knew their wants, so that they are 
 now no longer able to devote themselves to this 
 important work. They learn laws and rules, 
 and go through much drudgery, but know less 
 of the people, and have less sympathy with 
 them. Setting aside the question whether the 
 work they do is more or less important than 
 the work of the social physician, we may be 
 sure that if the latter is to be done, the whole 
 time of those who are to do it should not be 
 occupied with the former. 
 
 Having now the willing patient on the one 
 side, and the competent physician on the other, 
 we are next to see how the patient is to be 
 brought to have faith in the physician, so that 
 he may come to the physician. In the first 
 place, the physician must have honour and con- 
 fidence from those who send him, not the mere 
 empty honour of titles, not the confidence that 
 a man has in a servant who will blindly obey 
 his will ; but that honour which consists in pay- 
 ing deference to his opinion, and confirming 
 his acts that confidence which is shown by 
 giving him discretion to do what he thinks
 
 144 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 best, and letting him alone. The kind of work 
 he has to do cannot be done by a man who 
 works under military discipline, and is com- 
 pelled to make perpetual references and applica- 
 tions to others. If he has to do this, it must 
 be because he has not the confidence of the 
 State ; and that being so, there will be little 
 wonder if he fails to attract the faith of the 
 people. Again, the physician must go about, 
 so as to see and learn the people, and be seen 
 by and become known to them. There is no 
 means of enlightenment so effectual as the con- 
 tact between human mind and mind. The social 
 physician, the medium through whom the State 
 conveys the truth to the people, will, if the 
 kindly, sympathetic, and enlightened man he 
 ought to be, not only teach but learn. He will 
 gain the liking, respect, and faith of the people. 
 He will begin his teaching before they know it, 
 following the example of the Great Physician, 
 who went about among the simple folk without 
 any fuss, telling stories and answering questions. 
 We will suppose that the physician has begun 
 to receive patients communities with wrongs 
 to be remedied or wants to be supplied. His 
 first step will be a careful personal and local 
 inquiry. The wise physician will never on any 
 account dispense with a personal interview with 
 his patient, for he well knows that patients will
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 145 
 
 often, sometimes from ignorance, sometimes of 
 set purpose, from shame or some other motive, 
 misrepresent or conceal facts which make all the 
 difference in the plan of treatment that should 
 be adopted. He who is to deal with a com- 
 munity cannot be too careful in making sure 
 that he knows the facts before he begins his 
 treatment. 
 
 There are causes of disease, such as dirt, bad 
 habits, want of exercise, bad food and the like, 
 which need rather mechanical than chemical 
 treatment. Mechanical differs from chemical 
 treatment in that it can be administered with- 
 out the co-operation of the patient, and is 
 therefore easier to apply in the first stages of 
 treatment. It is often necessary that this 
 should precede the other form of treatment, 
 before the latter can take proper effect. Of 
 this nature are the measures proposed for deal- 
 ing with physical bonds measures needed 
 everywhere, and to be provided as soon as pos- 
 sible for all measures whereby we should see 
 health improved generally and the physician's 
 task lightened. The physician's first business 
 when he takes up a case should be to see 
 whether all these means of health have been 
 provided ; and if they have not been, he should 
 begin his treatment by getting them provided. 
 The faith of the people would more readily go 
 
 K
 
 146 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 forth to him if they were to see that in these 
 matters he took a keen interest and was able 
 to exert a good influence. 
 
 As regards what may be called the chemical 
 treatment, that cannot be undertaken without 
 the goodwill and co-operation of the people 
 themselves who are to be treated. It needs not 
 merely knowledge, but experience, and the tact 
 that comes of experience ; and above all, that 
 crowning quality of the physician, love or sym- 
 pathy. It requires also that the physician have 
 a good supply of proper means. If he have 
 knowledge, tact, love, and means, he is ready to 
 do all that man can do. 
 
 He need not tell his patients why he does this 
 or that, or what effect he would produce, nor 
 even explain what is the matter. It is enough 
 if he himself is satisfied what is the matter, 
 and what is best to be done. He will then 
 simply tell people what to do, and they will see 
 for themselves what happens. He will give 
 them their medicine, as did the Great Physician, 
 in such forms, like stories, that they will hardly 
 know it is for their good and not only for their 
 amusement. 
 
 One chief difficulty that a physician often has 
 with his patients is, that they will not follow his 
 directions. He gives them medicine, but they 
 neglect to take it ; he forbids their taking this
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 147 
 
 or that, and they take it ; sometimes he finds 
 that they are taking quack medicines which 
 interfere with his. Sometimes there are religious 
 prejudices which prevent his applying the treat- 
 ment he considers best, or the treatment may 
 not be suited to the constitution of the patient. 
 As with the body, so with society, the physician 
 must strive in all possible ways to overcome or 
 get round the obstacle. If it cannot be re- 
 moved, and renders the case hopeless, he must, 
 giving up all thought of force, leave the patient, 
 telling him why, and go on to some more hope- 
 ful case. Often the example of others who take 
 it will, where reasoning has failed, make a stub- 
 born patient think better of the advice he scorns. 
 Most useful, and in harmony with human nature, 
 is the attitude of indifference assumed by the 
 seller in the market. It will remove from nar- 
 row and ignorant natures the suspicion so readily 
 aroused when great eagerness is shown by the 
 well-meaning man in persuading his neighbours 
 to do something for their own good. Such eager- 
 ness is generally looked upon as a sign of some 
 secret selfish motive, and suspected accordingly. 
 Without going into particulars as to the 
 various moral medicines that should be used, we 
 may summarise the work of the good social 
 physician by saying that he should cultivate all 
 the virtues, for virtue is health, and destroy all
 
 148 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 vices, for they are disease. He is not to be dis- 
 couraged if his task advances but slowly ; nor is 
 he to be constantly holding before the people his 
 own lofty standard. Like the guide who leads to 
 the top of the high mountain, it will suffice if, 
 while knowing the whole way himself, he point 
 out where next the foot is to be planted, and he 
 may be happy to see it planted there. By many 
 little steps, undreamt-of heights may be at- 
 tained. He must beware of imitating those false 
 friends of the people who tell them they are at 
 the top when they are but a short way up, dis- 
 couraging further effort. Progress, continual 
 progress, is to be urged. The reason why the 
 ignorant and lowly are more ready to take in 
 new teachings than the learned and the proud, 
 is that these have, as it were, climbed on to little 
 knolls on the hillside, and cannot go higher up 
 towards the main summit without first descend- 
 ing from the height they have reached a hard 
 thing to do. Not until, perched on their little 
 hillocks of wealth or learning, power or fame, 
 they see far above them on the main hill the 
 multitudes that were but now below them, do 
 those on the knoll resolve to make the sacrifice, 
 descend, and follow those whose leaders they 
 were. When a man is proud of his wealth, his 
 knowledge, his piety, or his goodness, it is gene- 
 rally because he has got lodged on one of these
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 149 
 
 hillocks and sees nothing above him. We need 
 everywhere among the people men whom they 
 will listen to, and who shall call down from their 
 hillocks those who, having followed the wrong 
 paths, have prematurely risen too high ; men 
 who shall warn the many that are struggling to 
 displace these people from their mounds (and 
 there is always a fierce struggle for the possession 
 of the mounds), that this is not the top ; who 
 shall guide men as far as possible in, and prevent 
 their going astray from, the path of progress. 
 The task of these guides or social physicians is to 
 raise the whole people in moral health, to give 
 them virtue, and to free them from the bonds of 
 vice. 
 
 There is one moral medicine which we ought 
 perhaps, before concluding this chapter, to dis- 
 cuss in particular, and that is education. In 
 India, education, as it is called, was always con- 
 sidered by the Hindoos as a caste privilege. It 
 meant the training of the lettered castes to earn 
 a living by their knowledge of reading and writ- 
 ing, just as a potter earns a living by his know- 
 ledge of the art of making earthen vessels. The 
 Mussulmans, again, believed the Koran to contain 
 all wisdom, and their education was to learn that 
 holy book off by heart, seldom knowing its mean- 
 ing. There have been and are among Mussul- 
 mans and Hindoos men of great learning and
 
 150 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 noble minds, but for the people there was and is 
 no education as we understand it. What, in fact, 
 is the meaning, to the Briton, of education ? It 
 means training the body, the mind, and the 
 spirit ; giving men the use of all their faculties. 
 Every man and woman is born with a body, a 
 mind, and a spirit. There is no difference in 
 nature between those of the meanest negro in 
 Africa and of the noblest among the British 
 race. There is indeed a difference in develop- 
 ment, in degree, due to differences of training, 
 tradition, climate, and other causes ; but the 
 British faith is that there is essentially the same 
 nature of body, mind, and spirit in every human 
 being. Education means drawing out. The 
 word has been appropriated by the schools, and 
 often used as if it meant filling up; but to 
 educate means to awaken, and bring to life all 
 the already existing faculties of body, mind, and 
 spirit. 
 
 Every man from the cradle to the grave is 
 going through a process of training. There is 
 training that stunts the good and brings out the 
 bad, that destroys life ; and there is training that 
 removes what is bad and develops what is good. 
 This last is education in the best sense. The 
 child, the youth, the man or woman should be 
 surrounded with good influences from birth on- 
 wards, and thus developed into a useful citizen.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 151 
 
 Education may be described shortly as the instill- 
 ing of wisdom and understanding into man. 
 Here our greatest difficulty arises, for there are 
 reasons why full effect cannot be given to the 
 British faith as to what is wisdom and under- 
 standing. " The fear of the Lord," says the wise 
 man, " is the beginning of wisdom, and the 
 knowledge of the holy is understanding." The 
 British faith is a religious faith, and the British 
 Government is pledged to stand neutral in 
 matters religious. Though deprived of our 
 greatest force for good, let us see if the same 
 work cannot be expressed in secular language. 
 We want to make a "gentleman," in the best 
 English sense of the word, of every man in the 
 country, a work very different from, and more 
 serious than, the mere teaching to read, write, and 
 cipher a work which has never fallen upon the 
 State in England. 
 
 In England the vigorous health of the nation 
 has been manifested in nothing more signally 
 than in the fact that from the people them- 
 selves the men for the work of social physi- 
 cians, guides, and teachers have arisen. Noble 
 and wealthy, poor and lowly, learned and wise, 
 simple and ignorant, have all taken their part, 
 teaching by precept and example courage, de- 
 votion, and charity. The soil of England has 
 been kept free from the foreigner and from the
 
 152 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 domestic tyrant ; the homes of England have 
 been kept pure and full of love, fountains of 
 honour ; the people of England have been in- 
 spired with a passionate love and reverence for 
 freedom ; because there has ever been among 
 them that leaven of strong, courageous, wise, 
 loving, devoted, and good men which sends the 
 life coursing through the veins of the nation, 
 and is her heart. Her wealth, manufactures, 
 and trade, her fleets and army, her railways, 
 her colonies and empire, are as nothing. "All 
 these things follow after " this free national life 
 which she owes to this brave heart of hers. 
 
 In India this leaven, this heart, though we 
 believe it to be there, is not strong enough to 
 act, and the action of the State as physician is 
 needed to awake it into activity. This is not 
 to be done by multiplying schoolmasters. These, 
 unless of a very different stamp from those now 
 employed, will for the most part, even when 
 they do all they can, instruct but not educate. 
 But however good a schoolmaster may be at 
 his work, his part in the education of a man is 
 very small. Of all the influences which are 
 concentrated on every man from birth to death, 
 one of the least potent and abiding is that of 
 the schoolmaster. His parents, brothers, sisters, 
 relatives, neighbours, companions ; his employers 
 and those with whom he does business ; his wife 
 and children ; his circumstances, health, and ex-
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 153 
 
 periences ; what lie takes in by the eye, the ear, 
 and the other senses ; the opinions and tales he 
 hears ; the success or failure of falsehood, fraud, 
 violence, and wrong on the one hand, or of 
 goodness and virtue on the other, all these 
 and other facts too numerous to mention are 
 continually working upon every man, shaping 
 his faiths, hopes, fears, loves, and hatreds. The 
 world is made up of men and women, each in- 
 dividual of whom is undergoing a training for 
 good or evil. There is nothing for it, if the 
 social health of a community is to be improved, 
 but taking its members one by one, and gaining 
 their spirits, so that each man as he is gained 
 may become a centre of influence to gain others. 
 
 The spirit of the man, which we want to gain, 
 is something quite apart from his calling, his 
 learning or ignorance, his- birth, or any of the 
 accidents by which he is surrounded. We want 
 to effect a breaking down of barriers between 
 spirit and spirit ; to bring about a unity of spirit 
 underneath the necessary varieties of outward 
 life ; for without unity there can be no freedom. 
 
 The State can, among such people as the 
 natives of India, itself set a powerful example, 
 and make a good beginning by seeing that its 
 own trusted agents, whether paid or honorary, 
 shall be no mere specialists each for the duty he 
 is engaged on, but shall also be qualified for this 
 general work of social physician; so that by their
 
 154 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 good example and advice man after man may be 
 gained to the cause. The proper performance of 
 their official duties will in itself be a strong in- 
 fluence for good ; but of hardly less importance 
 is it, in this land of caste and divisions, that 
 people should be made to see, as it were, coursing 
 through the body of the State the same blood of 
 life, and animating the many members of this 
 body the same spirit. Each, as he has oppor- 
 tunity, should make it his business to push on 
 the education of the people by teaching them to 
 think, understand, and be wise ; putting into 
 their minds noble thoughts ; inciting them to 
 good deeds ; dissipating error ; driving out fear ; 
 cultivating love and charity, faith and hope. 
 But progress will be slow until the people take 
 up the work themselves ; until there arise among 
 them teachers who shall everywhere push the 
 cause among the children, the women, and the 
 men. Not through the schoolmaster can this 
 training be carried on, but through parent, wife 
 or husband, children, relatives, neighbours, and 
 companions. Every one can do something. When 
 the work is fairly established, and there are 
 enough of qualified men and women of the people 
 earnestly carrying it on, the servants of the 
 State in India may subside in social matters 
 into the same position as in Britain. But that 
 time is not yet.
 
 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 WHETHER a people be dependent and despotically 
 governed, or independent and self-governed, the 
 government may be bad or good. It is the duty 
 of the British nation to see that, while the peoples 
 of India are dependent on Britain, they shall be 
 well governed. We have already seen that the 
 great aim of the State should be that each indi- 
 vidual among its subjects is made free, in the 
 widest sense of the word. This is not the same 
 thing as making the people collectively inde- 
 pendent. As the best chance of restoration to 
 health which a sick man has is that he should be 
 taken in hand by a skilful and loving physician, 
 so the best chance of freedom which the peoples 
 of India, tied down by many bonds, have, is that 
 the British nation should take them in hand and 
 deal with them. This should be done with the 
 honest wish not of gaining profit for the physi- 
 cian but of doing good to the patient.
 
 156 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 Our wish being to work on the people singly, 
 man by man, the question arises how far this can 
 be done by the State. The chief and most im- 
 portant agency for promoting the health of the 
 communities are the private workers the mis- 
 sionaries, merchants, manufacturers, teachers, and 
 others who plant the leaven which will in time 
 spread through the lump. Every servant of the 
 State, in his private capacity, can and should 
 take his share in this work. By example, pre- 
 cept, argument, and criticism, they can open 
 people's eyes to the possibilities both of acquiring 
 good and of escaping evil. The main object being 
 to awaken, nurse up, and develop into vigour the 
 civic life of the people, the private action of in- 
 dividuals has far more influence if it is not being 
 continually backed by official authority. We 
 desire to " make men to have liking." That they 
 should take food and strengthen themselves for 
 doing their business, they must not merely have 
 food but appetite, so that they may eat and 
 digest their food with a relish, and get the good 
 of it. 
 
 There are four conditions favourable to the 
 existence of a liking or appetite for anything new 
 that is good. The first is knowledge of it ; the 
 second, a feeling that others like it ; the third, a 
 little trouble in getting it ; and the fourth, a rea- 
 sonable hope of enjoying it when obtained. Once
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 157 
 
 the good thing has been obtained, custom will 
 generally make it indispensable. 
 
 Eeforms do not generally begin with a ma- 
 jority. Most reforms owe their origin to some 
 single person, who has the vit to see what his 
 neighbours want long before they can see it for 
 themselves. He has sometimes many years to 
 wait before any one will see the merits of his 
 plan, but all at once people take to it, and that 
 which he vainly strove to push into favour ; 
 which men would not see the good of; which 
 it seemed that only his persistent support pre- 
 vented from going down out of sight, all at once 
 becomes independent of his help, and needs no 
 support from him. Now this introduction of new 
 ideas is a work which, while as an official he 
 could not profitably undertake it, yet as a private 
 person the servant of Government can often do 
 with the greatest advantage, and a few hints as 
 to how he should set about this work may not 
 be out of place here. 
 
 In the first place, the person to be dealt with 
 must be carefully and lovingly studied, and thor- 
 oughly understood, before any attempt is made 
 to improve him. We shall then be in a better 
 position to say in what ways he needs improve- 
 ment, and in which of those ways he is ready to 
 be improved. Forcible beneficence, if it some- 
 times succeeds, is risky; it often fails ; and, even
 
 158 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 when it succeeds, destroys the strength of will 
 which is essential to freedom. We should there- 
 fore be guided in our action rather by the 
 opinions and likings of the people than by our 
 own. 
 
 The fisherman, who suits his bait to the fish, 
 the money-lender, who studies, encourages, plays 
 upon and uses the weaknesses of his victims, 
 give examples which the wise man will do well 
 to - note. They try to develop and take advan- 
 tage of the weaknesses of their victims for evil. 
 The wise man must similarly try to develop and 
 take advantage of the weaknesses, or rather 
 strengths leanings towards good which are to 
 be found in every man. 
 
 Exercise gives strength, and strength the 
 power to act. No matter in what particular 
 way the will begins to act, whether in sport, or 
 industry, or travel, as its languor and numbness 
 wear off with exercise, it will come to act in 
 all manner of ways. The great thiog is to get 
 men to do things to act of their own free will 
 with a relish which makes them independent of 
 help, instead of being continually heaved on by 
 the energy of others. Success in one work will 
 induce them to try another. 
 
 One trait of humanity which is common to all 
 men, especially when they are, as most men 
 are, dull, ignorant, and narrow-minded, is pig-
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 159 
 
 headedness. This term is used in preference to 
 tenacity or obstinacy, because it includes not 
 only those qualities but that contrariness which 
 is so well illustrated in the laughable practice 
 attributed to Paddy of pulling his pig back with 
 a string when he wants it to go forward. If we 
 want to confirm a man in an opinion, we have 
 only to argue against it ; if we want a child to 
 long for a toy, we have only to take it away and 
 forbid him to touch it. A little well-timed oppo- 
 sition will often be far more effectual than any 
 amount of dragging or pushing. Men like their 
 own way, and like to get it in spite of others. 
 The only limit to opposition as a useful means 
 of arousing interest is that it should not be so 
 strong as to destroy hope. 
 
 Coming now to authorities as distinguished 
 from individual workers, we have to consider 
 the attitude of the State towards the people. 
 The reason for the existence of authorities is 
 twofold viz., the prevention of disorder, and 
 the service of the people. In its capacity as 
 preventing disorder, the State has to see that no 
 subject so exercises his will as to interfere with 
 the freedom of his neighbours ; in its capacity 
 of public servant, it has to see that where any 
 body of subjects have a wish for a lawful service, 
 they are enabled to get it. The State exists for 
 the people. The great end of the State being
 
 160 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the freedom of the people, and the best way to 
 bring that about being to encourage the exertion 
 of will and consequent action among them, the 
 State should take every opportunity of enlisting 
 them, whether as individuals or in groups, as its 
 allies and fellow- workers. 
 
 In England, where the State and the people 
 are one, and the State seldom takes action unless 
 it be to carry out the will of the people at large, 
 there was always the utmost jealousy of State 
 interference. Everything almost was done by 
 private enterprise, or by local authorities. In 
 India, on the other hand, the custom always was 
 to leave everything to the State. Probably the 
 vast masses of the population, and the different 
 values assigned to men according to caste or 
 position, prevented that high value being set 
 on the individual, however low in grade, which 
 is the distinguishing mark of British civilisation. 
 The oriental regards the will of the despot, and 
 pays little heed to that of the individual subject. 
 In England there existed first the wish, or will ; 
 then action was taken to carry out that will, by 
 private enterprise, or combined public action. 
 Thus justice was desired, and the people (in 
 whom all estates of the realm are to be included) 
 appointed officials to see this done. Again, for 
 feeding the poor, for mending and making roads, 
 for managing schools, there was first the wish,
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 161 
 
 and then the authorities were appointed to carry 
 out that wish. 
 
 In India there is a standard viz., that of the 
 ruling power, or despot, the British nation, on 
 the one side ; and, on the other, there are the 
 many communities of people without any clear 
 standard at all. There is the master of the 
 house, having very clear and decided wishes, 
 and energy enough to carry out those wishes ; 
 and there are the numerous inhabitants who 
 know or care very little what they want, have 
 few wishes, and no energy to carry out what 
 wishes they have. They are accustomed to be 
 ruled, and their instinct is to yield rather than 
 to resist when any one claims mastery over 
 them. The easiest way, in such circumstances, 
 to govern the country, is for the State itself to 
 do all the work that needs doing, and rather 
 to suppress than to encourage desires for service. 
 Some allege, with much truth, that every service 
 rendered or allowed to be rendered by the State 
 is turned into a means of oppression and extor- 
 tion ; and so vast are the numbers of the op- 
 pressed, so defenceless are they, so small are the 
 resources of the State in time and men to cope 
 with these evils, that its only way of destroying 
 the oppression and extortion is to destroy the 
 pretexts for their infliction. But this is com- 
 mitting moral suicide to avoid moral death.
 
 162 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 Death is not so avoided, for where there is no 
 strong, active, ruling will, a perpetual, restless 
 struggle for the mastery is going on among the 
 various local leaders, and that, too, involves op- 
 pression and extortion for which the State can- 
 not disclaim responsibility. The only way, in 
 fact, to destroy oppression is to develop the will 
 power of the people one by one ; and that can 
 be done, not by suppressing wishes, but by en- 
 couraging them and getting the people them- 
 selves to carry out their own wishes. Oppres- 
 sion and extortion are chiefly to be feared when 
 the State, under the impression, because it thinks 
 a thing ought to be done, that the people are sure 
 to wish that thing to be done, makes over the 
 work to persons whom it does not itself control, 
 and who are not under the control of any other 
 authority. The people, on the one side, their 
 natural instinct being to obey the ruler, yield 
 these authorities ready obedience, in the belief 
 that they are acting under the control and with 
 the support of the State. The State, on the 
 other side, refrains from interfering with them, 
 in the belief that they are being controlled by 
 the people. Thus are set up despots who, posing 
 to the people as agents of the State, and to the 
 State as representatives of the people, impose 
 their own will on both. 
 
 Before a work can be done, it must be under
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 163 
 
 the control of a single will ; and the test of the 
 question what works should be left to private en- 
 terprise, and what left to local and what retained 
 for central authority, is the extent to which a 
 single will is needed to bind. Thus, in foreign 
 affairs, foreign countries cannot be expected to 
 deal with sections of the country, but will de- 
 mand that whatever agreement is made or nego- 
 tiation carried on should be binding on the whole. 
 On the other hand, trade generally can be left 
 in private hands. Again, many services can be 
 left in private hands, but there are doubts as to 
 whether such services as railways should be in 
 private hands or in those of the State. Private 
 management will make them more efficient, 
 but yet they involve a monopoly and the right 
 of interference with the property of others, 
 neither of which it is safe to leave in the hands 
 of private persons. There are numerous public 
 services, such as roads, water -works, schools, 
 and others like them, which require a single 
 local will, and which, as involving monopoly 
 and the right of interference with private per- 
 sons, ought to be retained in public hands. 
 These can be properly left in the hands of the 
 local authorities. Other duties and services 
 again, while the single controlling will for the 
 whole country is needed, have to be administered 
 through many agents. Of this nature is the law.
 
 164 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 For the business of the State, agents, for that 
 of the locality authorities, are needed, and we 
 shall now proceed to consider in what way these 
 agents and authorities are to be found. In this 
 chapter special reference will be made to local 
 authorities who, as will be seen later on, may be 
 got in some ways to replace the agents of the 
 State, and in some ways to help in their work. 
 
 We may begin by assuming that in every com- 
 munity there are those who, whether acknow- 
 ledged by the State or not, can give orders, and 
 get their orders obeyed. There is in all Eastern 
 communities the place of master or despot, which, 
 if not efficiently held by a public authority, will 
 be certainly held by one of those local despots 
 who have been described in the chapter on bond- 
 age. The law itself may be made a fearful in- 
 strument of tyranny, unless it is carefully, hon- 
 estly, and efficiently administered. We have, 
 therefore, to see whether efficient and trust- 
 worthy local authorities can be found able, as 
 representing the local will, and as agents of the 
 State, to take the place of influence among the 
 people held by the various irresponsible private 
 persons now wielding power over their neigh- 
 bours. There is somewhere a book which de- 
 scribes in an allegory the struggle of the virtues 
 and the vices for the human soul. One weapon, 
 for the possession of which they are constantly
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 165 
 
 striving, is called the Will, and the side in whose 
 hands it is prevails. The result of our struggle 
 with bondage, like that of the virtues with the 
 vices, depends almost entirely on whether we 
 can gain the will of the village. We assume that 
 all communities, when in a state of health, that 
 is when free, prefer freedom, and will struggle to 
 avoid bondage. We must assume, if we enter on 
 the attempt to make the people free, that they 
 will stretch out their hand, and take the blessings 
 placed within their reach. There will indeed be 
 hesitation and delay, it may be for generations. 
 When the Israelites were freed from bondage, 
 not until all those who had been in bondage were 
 dead, and their place taken by their freeborn 
 children, did the nation gain courage and a free 
 spirit. We should begin from the beginning by 
 so arranging our plan of work that, while irre- 
 sponsible local tyrants have no room to oppress 
 and extort, every facility may be provided for 
 the appointment and development of persons, 
 who, whether as local agents or local authorities, 
 may fill up the place the irresponsible tyrants 
 now occupy. This means that for the present, 
 at least, the British nation will retain in its own 
 hand and under its own control very full author- 
 ity. Even the hottest Radical will allow that an 
 architect who is building a house may put up a 
 scaffolding around it.
 
 166 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 The first question that arises is what should be 
 the unit of local government that is, the area 
 under one authority. In England it is the 
 parish ; in France and Continental countries, the 
 commune. The area of this unit is generally 
 such that it can be traversed by a man walking 
 in a short time, and this ensures free intercourse 
 and a common will to the inhabitants, while 
 those who execute the will are close to their 
 work, and easy of access. They can attend to 
 the business of the parish or commune without 
 neglecting their own. We find in all parts of 
 India an area which has always in the past been, 
 and still in the present day is looked upon as a 
 unit viz., the village. We have already seen 
 how necessary it is that the village should be 
 under a single head, and one of the proposals 
 made has been to recognise, or where it does not 
 exist, create the office of village headman. This 
 is the foundation of the local authority. The 
 headman is to represent the village very much 
 as the master of the house represents the house- 
 hold in the English system. Only, as the head- 
 man's title is not derived from nature, and his 
 office gives him the right of interference with 
 others, he should be responsible to, and liable to 
 be removed by, the State. He cannot, in the pre- 
 sent elementary stage of society, be held answer- 
 able to the villagers by being made subject to
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 167 
 
 periodical elections ; for there is no one with time 
 and position to hold the many elections that 
 would be needed, and the office would get under 
 the control of jobbers and wire-pullers ; and if he 
 were made answerable in the law courts, he or 
 his opponents, or both, would be ruined with 
 costs. Therefore, as discipline requires that he 
 should be answerable to somebody, that some- 
 body should be the State. In the East, people 
 do not understand divided authority, so naturally 
 he who is head of the village for one purpose 
 should be head for all. He should manage all 
 the common duties and services of the village, 
 and should also act as agent of the State so far 
 as the State needs an agent, not its own servant. 
 With regard to the latter class of work, we shall 
 see, when considering the duties and services of 
 the State, what great use may be made of the 
 village head. 
 
 We have now obtained a unit of local gov- 
 ernment on a principle which, while thoroughly 
 satisfactory, enables us to ignore all those bar- 
 riers of religion, caste, and other causes of divi- 
 sion which we wish to break down the princi- 
 ple, namely, of neighbourhood. Dealing with 
 the villages, for all purposes of private right, as 
 separate, we may join them for public purposes, 
 as farms and villages in England are joined in 
 parishes, constituting their several headmen into
 
 168 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 boards, or, as in India such combinations are 
 generally called punchayets, five or six villages 
 or large wards going to a group. This amalgama- 
 tion would prevent the one-man power, which is 
 a great enemy of local freedom ; would ensure 
 some one being available for duty, even if ab- 
 sence or sickness should lay others aside for a 
 time ; would enable those in authority to give 
 one another support ; and would give to the State 
 and. the public units for the performance of public 
 duties and services both larger and fewer in num- 
 ber than the villages, and thus easier to deal with, 
 without removing them from close contact with 
 the individual subject, for whose benefit the whole 
 arrangement is designed. 
 
 For executive purposes, and for communica- 
 tion with the public and the State, the punchayet 
 should appoint one of their number as their head. 
 Thus an additional and higher class of local offi- 
 cials, picked men, selected by the headmen from 
 their own number, would be provided. These 
 headmen of villages and of punchayets would 
 in themselves be a strong body of men available 
 for being formed into authorities. Besides these 
 there are the landlords, men of leisure, merchants, 
 and tradesmen, who do so much public service in 
 England. Such of these as are fit should be 
 personally vested with the office of magistrate, 
 as is done in England. The danger to be guarded
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 169 
 
 against in their case is that curse of Indian so- 
 ciety delegation. Every man of position has 
 crowds of servants, and if he is asked to do a 
 work, will most probably hand it on to a retainer, 
 who again passes it on to some one else, so that 
 what is supposed to be in fit hands gets into 
 hands that are most unfit for the charge. This 
 custom, together with the self-indulgent and idle 
 habits of the landlords, and their ignorance, and 
 perhaps the Indian custom of joint ownership, 
 with its consequent harassing disputes and losses, 
 has aroused in the people a deep distrust of the 
 landlords, as a dangerous self-seeking class, too 
 likely to turn their magisterial powers into an 
 additional means of planting their foot on the 
 ryot's neck. This deep popular distrust, shared 
 by the Government, has hitherto prevented more 
 use being made of the landlord class as magis- 
 trates. It is to be hoped that, with the greater 
 freedom which the proposed removal of bonds 
 will bring about, there will not be the same fear, 
 and the landlords, as well as the ryots, improv- 
 ing in character, training, and habits, will be 
 better able to take their part in the business of 
 the country. As regards the towns, these are 
 already provided with a form of local govern- 
 ment. Possibly a way may be found to simplify 
 this, as there is too much machinery and too 
 little working power in the existing municipal
 
 170 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 boards. The local authorities, then, so far as we 
 have got, are village headmen, headmen of pun- 
 ehayets, municipal boards, and individuals of 
 character and standing personally vested with 
 powers. 
 
 As regards the appointment and dismissal of 
 these local officials, that should rest, for the 
 present at least, in the hands of the " physician" 
 in charge of the case. There is need of the 
 greatest watchfulness and tact to prevent the 
 office of headman from degenerating into a pro- 
 perty, with its incidents, that it is alienable, and 
 that it carries no responsibility. As the system 
 becomes fully established, this watchfulness and 
 care may gradually become part of the duty of 
 that public which we are to nurse into being ; 
 and we may hope that as a healthy community 
 is formed, with a free mind and healthy will, it 
 will take on itself the care of its own institu- 
 tions, and save them from abuse. Meantime, 
 its best chance of passing in safety through the 
 dangers of childhood, is to be carefully nursed 
 by that great nation mother of nations, and 
 home of freedom which has already reached 
 maturity, and whose public opinion is a strong 
 and irresistible power. Whatever form the man- 
 ner of appointment to, and the tenure of, office 
 may take in the future, two conditions are, in the 
 meantime, necessary. The first is, that the office
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 1*71 
 
 of village headman should be hereditary during 
 fitness and good behaviour, and that of puncha- 
 yet head held on the same terms for life ; the 
 second is, that the appointment on a vacancy 
 should be left to the discretion of the State offi- 
 cer in charge, after consultation with those inter- 
 ested, and that the same officer should have 
 discretion to dismiss men for negligence, incom- 
 petence, or misconduct. 
 
 The reasons for the first condition are, that 
 this is in accordance with the customs and lik- 
 ing of the people ; that there are no fit persons 
 with time to conduct vast numbers of periodical 
 elections, whose expense, moreover, the country 
 is not able to bear ; and that the constituencies 
 are not properly qualified or sufficiently advanced 
 to vote with intelligence. Where these objec- 
 tions do not apply, possibly an elective system 
 may be, as in some municipalities it has been, 
 introduced ; but those places are few as yet. 
 
 As to the second condition, the new system, 
 until fairly established, is an experiment which, 
 if it is not to do a vast amount of mischief, must 
 be carefully watched. Of all tyrants, none is so 
 hateful to the ryot, or so difficult to escape from, 
 as the village tyrant. If the headman were ap- 
 pointed by mere votes, the village might ulti- 
 mately reach a state of freedom, but through 
 many struggles. Evil influences would be brought
 
 172 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 to bear, votes gained by threats or fraud, and 
 the worthier men scared from becoming candi- 
 dates. Intrigue would be let loose, and the 
 village made a hell. For the time at least the 
 end would be as likely as not that the biggest 
 scoundrel would become head. Most of this 
 trouble can be prevented by placing .discretion 
 in the hands of an intelligent and experienced 
 officer of the State, who should see, before any 
 one" is appointed, that he is likely to do honour 
 to the post. If a fit man cannot be found, it is 
 wise to leave the post vacant rather than fill it 
 by appointing a man who is unfit for the work. 
 Again, the village head must be supervised. It is 
 right that his position should be strong, for only 
 so can he exercise the authority necessary for the 
 due performance of his duties ; he should be able 
 to disregard the intrigues and the constant attacks 
 on his authority which are to be expected from 
 the enemies of order he is there to restrain ; and 
 he, a man of no great means, should be protected 
 from harassing and expensive lawsuits. At the 
 same time, an open ear and a ready hand are 
 needed to hear of wrongs and apply a remedy. 
 The only effective remedy a remedy, however, 
 which, if judiciously applied, is thoroughly effec- 
 tive is dismissal. Anything short of this does 
 harm instead of good, for the official who is pun- 
 ished, and left in a position to oppress again,
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 173 
 
 will have his revenge, and make the man he 
 wronged repent of complaining, as the muleteer 
 who, after chastisement and reproof by Don 
 Quixote for flogging his boy, gave the boy a 
 worse flogging than before as soon as the Don's 
 back was turned. In England, the means we 
 have for dismissing quietly and without reason 
 given, is the election. In India, where we cannot 
 have periodical elections, the same power should 
 rest in the trusted agent of the ruling power the 
 British nation. Again, the head of a village may 
 be popular enough in the village, and yet unfit 
 for office. The village may be a den of thieves, 
 and he their chief; or he may be a criminal, or 
 disloyal, or fraudulent, or a drunkard. Dismissal 
 is a punishment that never should be inflicted, 
 except after careful inquiry, and for adequate 
 cause, for the village head should be sure of 
 retaining his office and handing it down to his 
 children, if he is only honest, fearless, and dili- 
 gent ; but he must feel that it is an office, not a 
 property, that he will have to answer for the 
 manner in which its duties are discharged, and 
 that his misconduct destroys not only his own 
 position, but the future prospects of his family. 
 In rural villages, there should be set apart for 
 the use of the headman- for the time being, a 
 piece of land. This would magnify the impor- 
 tance of the office in the eyes of the agricultural
 
 174 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 ryots, making it more desirable to hold, and caus- 
 ing the holder to think twice when he is tempted 
 to do a deed which may cause its forfeiture. 
 
 It may seem at first sight that an unnecessary 
 amount of trouble is being taken in discussing 
 the position of so small a man as the village 
 headman. In the province of Bengal alone 
 there would be over 150,000 of these ; and surely, 
 it may be said, in such a vast mass details about 
 one are unimportant. The very opposite is the 
 truth. A detail of principle which has to be re- 
 peated in so many cases is a very mighty matter 
 indeed, and needs most careful handling. 
 
 As regards the personally appointed magis- 
 trates, they, of course, can be appointed and dis- 
 missed in the usual way, by the State, and 
 should be qualified, as is done in England, for 
 small areas, so that they may be able personally 
 to attend to their duties. Here then we have 
 a scheme of local authorities the village heads, 
 their punchayet heads, and the men personally 
 fitted for becoming agents of the will of the 
 State. 
 
 We come now to consider a general working 
 plan by which the central and the local authorities 
 may be brought into touch, and the services of 
 each utilised for the efficient discharge of the 
 public business. 
 
 What is needed is a scheme under which the
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 175 
 
 local authorities, as they come into actual being, 
 may be employed as largely as possible, and yet 
 the work itself, such of it as is deemed by the 
 State essentially necessary, may be carried on 
 even in the absence of those local authorities, and 
 while they are being organised. In the first place, 
 we need a governor on the side of the State that 
 is a representative of the State, who is intrusted 
 with the execution of the whole will of the State, 
 and with full discretion to act on behalf of the 
 Government as he may think proper. He is to 
 be the social physician who will take in hand the 
 task of restoring the people to health ; he is to 
 be the officer in whose hands rests the appoint- 
 ment and dismissal of village heads. There are 
 to be no departments each guided by a separate 
 will, perplexing and bewildering plain people 
 with the multitude and diversity of their orders. 
 He and he alone, as representing a single, in- 
 telligent will, is the person the people must be 
 taught to look to and take orders from. The 
 departments, indeed, having technical and special 
 knowledge and experience, are necessary to him, 
 but as advisers, not masters. He himself must 
 be, like the physician, master of his case. This 
 governor must be within reach of the people he 
 rules, so as to be able to give his personal atten- 
 tion to their affairs, and to have with them free 
 and familiar intercourse ; therefore the area he
 
 176 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 governs should not be too large it should be 
 about the same area as that ruled by the district 
 officer of the present day. The district officer, 
 in fact, who rules a country of from 2000 to 5000 
 square miles, may be utilised as what on paper 
 he now is, the governor of his district. But in- 
 stead of being a mere servant, as he now too 
 often is, burdened with the service of many 
 masters, he should himself be master, responsible 
 only to the single high authority under whose 
 control he is placed by the State, and provided 
 with a proper staff of qualified assistants. 
 
 The next step is to divide up the land into 
 circuit areas, each of which has a circuit centre, 
 with buildings which can be used as dwellings, 
 meeting-halls, court-rooms, and offices. These 
 areas should extend over about 100 square miles 
 each that is, they should be circles with a ra- 
 dius of about six miles, so that the centres are 
 within easy reach of all the villages in the circle. 
 This circuit centre is the place that we propose 
 to make the point of contact for the pres- 
 ent between the district officer and the local 
 authorities, and here are to be the circuit build- 
 ings. The villages combined under a single 
 punchayet of headmen we will call village unions. 
 
 The first step in organising local government 
 is the preparation of a valuation roll for the 
 district, village union by union. In this roll
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 should be recorded the annual income within the 
 village union of each person interested, whether 
 that income be derived from land or from other 
 sources. Taxes are already collected, for purely 
 local purposes, in villages and small towns, and 
 it is the ordinary custom to assess the people on 
 their circumstances. There is in India no such 
 broad distinction as there is in England between 
 town and country. The rural population live 
 in villages, and the mass of traders and others 
 are scattered about among the rural villages. It 
 would be hard that a ryot should be taxed for the 
 common good on his land and house, while a 
 money-lender, grocer, potter, or weaver should 
 pay on his house only. In accordance with 
 ordinary custom, then, the valuation roll should 
 be made out on the basis of income, and not of 
 real property only. Being made union by union, 
 it would give full information of the annual value 
 of each separate union, and could thus be used as 
 will be explained presently. The preparation of 
 this valuation roll should be placed in the hands 
 of experienced officers of the State, who should 
 be thoroughly impartial. This roll is of the 
 utmost importance, as it must form the basis of 
 all future local business. Though heavy, the 
 work of preparation would not be impossible, as 
 there are many materials already in existence. 
 The officers intrusted with the task of assess- 
 
 M
 
 178 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 ment should be, for the present at least, under 
 the exclusive control of the district officer, and 
 no local authority should have anything to do 
 with the valuation roll, until some progress has 
 been made with the organisation of the local 
 authorities. The work of assessment has always 
 been the weak point of existing municipalities, 
 being, as a rule, unfairly done. 
 
 The valuation roll being now ready, we are in 
 a position to go on to the work which is the 
 chief means of educating the people in prac- 
 tical politics the preparation of a budget. The 
 demands on the people would be divided into 
 two classes, viz., those of the State, such as for 
 income-tax, public works, cess, and others ; and 
 those of the local authorities, as for village police, 
 road rates, and the like. Every kind of demand, 
 involving direct taxation, whether imperial or 
 local, should be taken into consideration in fram- 
 ing the budget, so that all taxes may be levied by 
 one agency and in one sum. This would at once 
 be a mighty relief to the officers of State and to 
 the people ; for, being accustomed to the exist- 
 ing state of things, and being accustomed also to 
 think little of any trouble or cost that does not 
 fall on the Government, the Government officers 
 do not perhaps always realise the worry and 
 vexation caused to the people by the present 
 mode of collecting the local taxes. To the
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 1*79 
 
 officers of State, indeed, it means mountains of 
 papers, masses of accounts, many processes, and 
 much drudgery : but to the people more. Every 
 copper of road rate collected has involved a 
 troublesome and complicated account between 
 perhaps several different parties, every one of 
 which accounts has, oriental fashion, caused a 
 leakage of money. The village police rate has 
 likewise cost immense worry and vexation to 
 collect, the collector having sometimes to make 
 it good out of his own pocket, and sometimes 
 having extorted double or more from the payer. 
 We are therefore entitled to dwell with emphasis 
 on the benefits of the single demand, incorporat- 
 ing all direct demands whatever, and the single 
 budget, which enables us to sweep away this 
 costly and troublesome mass of papers, accounts, 
 processes, drudgery, extortion, and obstruction. 
 It would not involve the alteration or abolition 
 of any existing tax, being simply a change in 
 the method of collection, and it could be in- 
 troduced to-day or to-morrow. The valuation 
 roll would enable us to put an end to the 
 present cumbrous and vexatious methods of 
 assessing and collecting by central agencies all 
 direct taxes, these works being transferred to 
 those intrusted with the preparation of the 
 budget. Better still, all direct taxes for general 
 purposes might be entirely abolished, and direct
 
 180 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 taxation might be reserved for local purposes 
 only. But a proposal of this kind involves dis- 
 cussion and change, and our object now is to 
 make proposals involving as little of these as 
 possible. It may be well, before advancing fur- 
 ther into the subject of budgets, to say that the 
 collection of this consolidated rate should be 
 placed in the hands of a well-paid local man of 
 position, who is able to give security for his 
 honesty. This man should be under the direct 
 supervision of the district officer, or one of his 
 qualified assistants. It is to be hoped that ulti- 
 mately the duty of supervising the work of col- 
 lection also may be made over to the control of 
 the local authorities ; but in the beginning, at 
 all events, it should be placed beyond the risk 
 of being wrecked by local incompetence and 
 ignorance. 
 
 For the purpose of framing the budget, the 
 district officer, or his confidential assistant, 
 should visit the circuit centre, and give the 
 people there an opportunity of stating and dis- 
 cussing their wishes and wants. He is provided 
 with a list of Government demands for direct 
 taxes, if any are still levied, such as income-tax 
 and public works cess ; and of compulsory de- 
 mands for local purposes, such as village police 
 rate. It would be possible to assess a tax, such 
 as income-tax, separately as now, and incorporate
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 181 
 
 the demand with the budget ; but the tax might 
 be more easily levied in the shape of a lump 
 sum, and incorporated in the one general rate. 
 
 We will first suppose the district officer to be 
 framing a budget for a circuit area in which 
 there has as yet been no development of local 
 authorities. There is only the presiding officer, 
 with the circuit collector at hand. The valua- 
 tion roll is before him. The presiding officer, 
 with the valuation roll before him and the list 
 of demands that are due, will, after hearing and 
 considering any requests by the people, strike a 
 rate sufficient to provide all the funds necessary 
 for the conduct of such public business as must 
 be done. This will be a single rate over the 
 whole circuit area. The collector will then pre- 
 pare his demand rolls, union by union, and col- 
 lect the amounts, which will again be distributed 
 under the order of the district officer to the sev- 
 eral funds entitled to them. In the undeveloped 
 circuit area, only strictly necessary works, such as 
 police and necessary roads, should be carried on. 
 When provision is thus made for the perform- 
 ance of every necessary work, whether a local 
 authority exists or not, there is no hurry about 
 local authorities no need, for the sake of getting 
 a system which will work, to establish authorities 
 who are in reality nothing but uncontrolled 
 State agents. They are not necessary to the
 
 182 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 State, and need only be appointed when and 
 where their assistance will supply a local want, 
 and they will be able to carry out local wishes. 
 The first business of the district officer in or- 
 ganising the local authorities is to combine the 
 village heads into union punchayets, each with 
 its head. How these punchayets and their heads 
 can be used as agents of the State, we shall 
 see later on. "We shall see now how they can 
 be ~made available as local authorities to carry 
 out the wishes of the inhabitants. When a 
 local wish has been formed and expressed, the 
 time is come for dividing off from the circuit 
 area smaller budget areas, for which the demands 
 and rates may be separately fixed. Within max- 
 imum and minimum limits, this local budget 
 area should be fixed according to the wishes 
 of those concerned. It should not be less than 
 a union, since the valuation roll is made union 
 by union ; and it should not be larger than 
 thirty square miles or so, because then local men 
 could not manage public affairs properly without 
 neglecting their own business, and the single will 
 which must precede action would less likely be 
 that of the majority of those concerned. No 
 union should be in more than one budget area. 
 A separate budget area should continue to pay 
 all the compulsory demands paid by its neigh- 
 bours. The species of bribery by which munici-
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 183 
 
 palities have been exempted from burdens laid 
 on their less wealthy neighbours, the rural vil- 
 lages, should not be allowed to continue. This 
 plan of separating budget areas would allow for 
 the free progress of improvements in places re- 
 quiring them without advanced areas either 
 dragging on prematurely or being kept back by 
 their less forward neighbours, and would admit 
 of that variety in unity which is characteristic 
 of all healthy life. The most advanced munici- 
 pality and the most backward rural area would 
 alike get what suits them best ; the budget area 
 would be taken charge of by its local authorities ; 
 and we may hope that in time the budget area 
 unappropriated by local authorities, and under 
 the direct charge of the district officer, will grow 
 smaller, and finally vanish altogether. 
 
 For the settlement of the budget, the district 
 officer or his assistant should go to the circuit 
 centre at a fixed time, calling to meet him there 
 all the village and other local authorities. Full 
 opportunity should be given for expressing and 
 discussing the wishes of the people. Already, 
 in some parts of the country, the importance of 
 roads, sanitation, schools, and other such local 
 institutions begins to be recognised ; and if the 
 people of each neighbourhood come to think 
 over their own circumstances, and learn what 
 they can gain, how, and at what cost, there is
 
 184 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 every reason to hope for a grea.t increase of 
 public interest in all kinds of local work. We 
 may look forward to the time when every vil- 
 lage will be included in a local budget area, and 
 when the local authorities will discuss for them- 
 selves their own budgets, and produce them 
 ready framed for sanction by the district officer 
 at the annual assembly. In that day, we may 
 look to see a hospital with a good medical 
 man at every circuit centre ; good roads, giving 
 free access all the year round to every village ; 
 a school in every punchayet union ; plentiful 
 drinking-water ; good public recreation-grounds, 
 fuel-reserves, and grazing-grounds ; and a strong 
 machinery for checking diseases in cattle and 
 men. 
 
 The question arises how this system will fit 
 in with the systems of local self-government 
 recently introduced in the various provinces of 
 India under the auspices of Lord Bipon, and 
 extended under Lord Dufferin. These latter 
 systems cannot be utilised in connection with 
 the present proposals, inasmuch as they are, 
 for the most part, neither local nor popular. 
 Their defects being radical and in principle, 
 cannot be removed without destroying them. 
 The following are a few : 
 
 They have not grown into being, representing 
 and carrying out popular wishes. They have
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 185 
 
 been manufactured by the agents of the British 
 nation in order to gratify the wish of the British 
 nation. They are not living organisms, but arti- 
 ficial machines. There is, it is true, an elective 
 system by which they seem to come into being ; 
 but that, too, is not a living power, but simply 
 a machine. John Bull is fond of elections, and 
 so elections are provided for the pleasure of the 
 master. There is not at the back of the so- 
 called local authorities that popular will or 
 public opinion, without which they have no 
 right to an independent existence, and cannot 
 be safely controlled. 
 
 Then the area governed by the " district 
 board" is far too great, being generally as large 
 as many English counties, and swarming with 
 a dense rural population. There is in this great 
 district no single will which the boards can 
 represent, and therefore the board cannot pos- 
 sibly be representative of local will. Even if 
 boards be established, as is being done, for sub- 
 divisions of districts, the matter is not greatly 
 mended ; for each of these is as big as an Eng- 
 lish county, and there are none of the smaller 
 divisions, such as parishes, which have always 
 been the local areas in England. 
 
 The members of the district board are for the 
 most part men who seldom go about, and know 
 no part of the area they are supposed to govern
 
 186 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 save the immediate neighbourhood of their homes. 
 They are either lawyers or men of little educa- 
 tion and narrow experience. Compare with these 
 the nobles and gentlemen who have hitherto con- 
 ducted the county business of Great Britain. 
 They have to depend, in a far greater degree 
 than the district officers did, on the knowledge 
 and action of others, either their paid servants 
 or the district officer himself, for discovering 
 and supplying wants. The district board is, 
 indeed, a very good example of that dangerous 
 class of persons already described, who, posing 
 to the Government as representatives of the 
 people, and to the people as agents of the 
 State, will, if suffered to have power, become 
 despots on their own account, carrying out 
 neither the will of the people nor that of the 
 State. If they ever, as some seem to hope, 
 attain to real power, their creator and sup- 
 porter, the British nation, may too likely have 
 reason to look on itself, with King Arthur 
 
 " As one who let foul wrong stagnate and be, 
 By having looked too much through alien eyes, 
 And wrought too long with delegated hands, 
 Not used mine own." 
 
 They are a wedge driven between the British 
 nation and the peoples of India, and this wedge 
 should be withdrawn, so as to give free course 
 to the living will on both sides. If the British
 
 CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 187 
 
 nation remains face to face and in touch with 
 the peoples of India, there is every hope that 
 in time institutions as imposing, or even more 
 so, may arise ; but they must be living, and 
 they must grow from small beginnings. If 
 there is any man inclined to believe in these 
 district boards as living forces representative of 
 the people, let him explain why, on the one 
 hand, these bodies shrink with fear from the 
 duty of assessing and collecting their own taxes 
 for their revenue, while eagerly accepting what- 
 ever the State can give ; and why, on the other 
 hand, the State will not intrust to them any 
 duty, like the control of the police, which would 
 give them real power. They seek to gain popu- 
 larity by being made the conduit for spending 
 money collected and doled out by the State ; 
 and the State, on its part, while it has no ob- 
 jection to their being popular, takes care that 
 they shall be, as far as possible, harmless. 
 
 Of course the opinions here expressed may be 
 mistaken, but, at all events, they are honestly 
 held by very many persons capable of judging, 
 both among the Europeans in India and among 
 the natives, many of whom are denouncing, in 
 no measured terms, the "Vakil Jca Raj," or reign 
 of the lawyers, as they call the new regime. On 
 behalf of the proposal here made for their re- 
 moval, accompanied as it is by a proposal to
 
 188 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 replace them by a sounder and more real system 
 of local self-government a system more likely 
 to grow we may claim at least careful con- 
 sideration. If so decided a change of policy be 
 thought inadvisable, then these boards should 
 be brought openly into the position of subor- 
 dinate and closely controlled agencies of the 
 State, until such time as local institutions may 
 grow up to and absorb them ; and the real 
 power should be formally vested in that officer 
 who has all along substantially exercised it 
 viz., the district officer. 
 
 Here, then, is a programme which, without 
 mapping out the line of progress to the end, 
 points to some great and useful steps that can 
 be taken without delay. The district officer is 
 to cut and cleanse away as far as possible the 
 bonds and the dirt which benumb and encrust 
 the limbs of the people, to get them to move, 
 work, take food and eat, grow strong and wise, 
 and become free and healthy, until they learn 
 self-reliance and self-help. We shall now con- 
 sider how the local authorities can be utilised as 
 agents of the State.
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LAW. 
 
 IN all civilised countries there is a prevailing 
 will which all subjects are bound to obey, and 
 this is embodied in the law. The law consists 
 of two great divisions, the customary and the 
 statute laws. Custom, in order that it may 
 claim to be recognised as law, must be ancient, 
 general, and obeyed by all. A custom cannot 
 be established in a hurry. It must grow slowly, 
 like an oak, and is the work of many minds and 
 hands. No custom can be created by the ruler, 
 and only in such extreme cases as those of slavery 
 and suttee would the British Government think 
 of interfering to put a custom down. The diffi- 
 culty of working a law which is customary only 
 is that customs vary from place to place, and 
 are interpreted in divers ways according to the 
 minds of the courts. The Roman and British 
 laws were both developed from customs by the 
 interpretation of judges and praetors before
 
 190 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 statutes began to be made. It was in a land 
 where the common or customary law prevailed 
 that the presumption arose that every subject 
 knows the law. 
 
 Statutes are made (1) to give rights, as the 
 Magna Charta ; (2) to declare the existing cus- 
 tomary law, as the Indian penal code ; (3) to 
 consolidate and shorten existing statutes ; (4) 
 to impose duties and burdens, as our revenue 
 and sanitary laws. 
 
 Every law, except a charter or statute of the 
 first class, contains as an essential part penal 
 clauses providing for the punishment of those 
 who disobey. 
 
 In all great living States, and especially in 
 free States, where there is political life, which 
 means progress and change, statutes become 
 necessary so that the people may be able to 
 tell exactly what is the law. The will changes, 
 and the law which expresses it must also be 
 changed. Change, however, in the law, which 
 is an expression of will binding on all subjects, 
 is an evil in itself; and in communities like 
 those of India, where the people are in vast 
 numbers, widespread, and ignorant, there are 
 few greater evils. In all ancient communities, 
 change was carefully guarded against. Among 
 the Hebrews, the law of Moses and the cus- 
 toms of the fathers among the Chinese, the
 
 THE LAW. 191 
 
 laws of Confucius among the Hindoos, the 
 laws of Manu, were held sacred. The " laws 
 of the Medes and Persians altered not." Ly- 
 curgus went to exile and death to give his 
 laws stability. In Eome and in Britain the 
 common or customary law was so deeply re- 
 spected that growing wants and new problems 
 were dealt with by means of legal fictions. It 
 is a well-known fact that the people of India 
 have a deep reverence for and attachment to 
 custom, whose chief attribute is that it cannot 
 be changed unless very gradually. 
 
 In a country governed as Britain is, where 
 every measure of any importance, before it comes 
 to be placed on the statute-book, is sure to be 
 discussed and turned over freely in public meet- 
 ings, in newspapers, in clubs, on the streets, and 
 in many homes, changes as a rule come very 
 gradually; nor do they come at all until they 
 and their effects are well understood and widely 
 known. In a country like India, however } 
 governed despotically, frequent tampering with 
 the law, whether the intention be good or bad, 
 is a sign to the people of the fickle temper of 
 the despot. We all know that the chief thing 
 the subjects of a tyrant have to fear is the 
 suddenness with which he changes his mind. 
 Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream, and because 
 his wise men could not tell him what it was
 
 192 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. , 
 
 about, he commanded to destroy all the wise 
 men in Babylon. When Daniel told him his 
 dream, he made Daniel chief of the State. He 
 set up a great golden image, and commanded all 
 men to fall down and worship it, on pain of 
 being cast into a burning fiery furnace ; and 
 when three Jews refused, he had them cast into 
 the furnace. When they were delivered, he 
 became equally violent in favour of the God 
 of Israel, and commanded to cut in pieces any 
 one who should say anything amiss against Him. 
 Similarly King Darius altered the law suddenly, 
 forbidding men to worship any god for thirty 
 days ; and when Daniel refused to obey his new 
 law, he cast Daniel into the lions' den. When 
 Daniel was delivered, those who had accused 
 him of what was actually an offence against the 
 king's own law were destroyed with all their 
 families, and another decree was passed that 
 men should worship the God of Daniel. This 
 short account gives us an insight into the 
 method of legislation in the East, and the 
 practical check. In Babylon, as afterwards in 
 Britain, the king might pass the law, but if 
 it turned out badly, those who advised it suf- 
 fered. The courtiers of Nebuchadnezzar and 
 Darius, like those of Harry the Eighth, could 
 exert great influence over the law through the 
 king, but they ran great risks.
 
 THE LAW. 193 
 
 The- Government of India has to legislate 
 without the oriental check of fear, or the 
 Western check of popular control. It has there- 
 fore to be on the watch against over-elaboration 
 and needless change in the law. We cannot 
 always anticipate the effects of a change in the 
 law. A change, if important, affects the whole 
 people how, we can seldom tell beforehand ; 
 while, even if it be trifling, it gives an opening 
 to the harpies who are always ready to seize 
 every chance of cozening their neighbours. Ela- 
 boration of laws, again, when it takes the form, 
 as it usually does, of increasing the number of 
 sections and of words, is likely to defeat its own 
 end ; for every additional word is an additional 
 chance of ambiguity and doubt. A simple, short, 
 and complete law is no doubt the most difficult 
 thing in the world to make. It needs not merely 
 knowledge, experience, and skill, but genius and 
 wisdom. But no other is likely to give satisfac- 
 tion, for this alone has any chance of being per- 
 manent and -needing no change. 
 
 Besides the statutes and common law of India, 
 the law in that country has been influenced by 
 the common and statutory law of Britain, which 
 are imported by lawyers into their arguments, 
 and by judges into their decisions. This is per- 
 haps the most arbitrary and despotic part of our 
 law in India, whether or not it be benevolent and 
 
 N
 
 194 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 useful, seeing that neither the customary nor the 
 statute law of England was framed with the least 
 regard to the circumstances or wants of India. 
 
 These few remarks seem to be needed, since 
 the spirit of submission to the ruler is in India 
 so generally diffused that even laws which are 
 oppressive are likely to be quietly submitted 
 to. It is easy to see, also, that where the body 
 of subjects is large, widespread, and ignorant, 
 and where they have a dislike for change and 
 a deep reverence for custom, the people will 
 become bewildered if changes are numerous and 
 frequent, and will place themselves in the hands 
 of such guides seldom wise and well informed, 
 often fraudulent and evil, always, after the man- 
 ner of quacks, confident and positive as they 
 can find. When they are deprived of that great 
 safeguard of the common people, the wisdom of 
 their fathers ; when they are aware that, unless 
 they take in and study the statutes and the law 
 reports they cannot know the law, what should 
 be clear, certain, and steadfast becomes hazy, 
 mysterious, and shifting. They are at the mercy 
 of every unscrupulous and plausible scoundrel 
 who has the face to offer himself as a guide. 
 
 We have now to consider shortly who is to 
 be intrusted with the duty of making the law ; 
 and this brings us to look at the legislature. 
 There seems to be in some quarters a disposition
 
 THE LAW. 195 
 
 to think that somehow it is unfair for represen- 
 tatives of the British nation to pass laws which 
 are binding on the natives of India, and that the 
 natives of India ought to be associated in the 
 work. Strong pleas are accordingly made for 
 the introduction in India of the " elective prin- 
 ciple," as it is called, so that representatives of 
 what is not very clearly stated, but at all events 
 not of the British nation may be sent to help 
 in making the laws which all have to obey. Able 
 arguments are brought forward to prove that in 
 justice the British nation ought to yield to this 
 reasonable demand on behalf of the " people of 
 India" those two hundred millions without a 
 franchise and very persuasive are the argu- 
 ments, if we can once believe that their founda- 
 tion is firm. There is, however, a fatal flaw. 
 On only one ground can a man claim the right 
 of imposing his will on his fellow-men the 
 right of strength. His one argument is that 
 he has power. When he asks for power, he 
 spoils his case. 
 
 For power, arguments are not necessary; 
 against it, they are of no avail. It needs no 
 permission ; it takes without leave ; it needs not 
 to be sought for, but asserts itself. When the 
 time comes, as it may come, the people of India, 
 strong, united, and determined, will demand the 
 franchise, and there will be no more weighing of
 
 196 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 arguments. They will have it. But to-day, 
 unquestionably the chief power in India is the 
 British nation ; and those who ask for the fran- 
 chise ask for it as a boon which may be given 
 or withheld at the pleasure of the ruling power. 
 So great is that ruling power, they say, that it 
 can afford to give away even this, its chief attri- 
 bute. Not thus did the English and Scottish 
 people gain the power of making their laws. 
 They followed 
 
 " The good old rule, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 No fine or specious logic was used. The one 
 argument admitted into the controversy was the 
 argument of force. The government of a great 
 country is a stern and serious business, a task 
 of might, and should not, as the poet says, be 
 delivered to weakness. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that those who advo- 
 cate the elective system and a franchise to enable 
 the " people of India " to make their own laws, 
 have fully considered what the change involves. 
 At the risk of repetition, we shall consider this 
 important subject at length. The franchise in 
 England, when reduced to its elements, is simply 
 a way of counting heads as the most economical 
 method of ascertaining who is the strongest. 
 There can in one nation be only one effective
 
 THE LAW. 197 
 
 will, and that is the will of the strongest : or 
 
 O ' 
 
 as it may be put in a community of many mem- 
 bers, the strongest working combination of wills. 
 Formerly, if there was a difference of opinion in 
 the nation, the different sides turned out and 
 fought till one was beaten. All the men of the 
 nation being admitted as of one fighting value, 
 it was found that numbers usually won the fight ; 
 so heads were counted instead of being broken. 
 Of course there are logical faults in this system, 
 but it is near enough right to work well. The 
 result of the election is that the leader of 
 the stronger side is intrusted with the task of 
 pronouncing the will of the people, and with the 
 control of all the machinery provided for execut- 
 ing that will. 
 
 In India there are three difficulties in the 
 way of an elective legislature. The first is that 
 this method of ascertaining who is the strongest 
 is a European, not an oriental method. The 
 sovereign in Eastern countries India among 
 them has always held the power in his own 
 hands. He is never elected, but, on the rare 
 occasions when he does not succeed by hereditary 
 title, he simply lays hold and keeps if he can. 
 No doubt he tries, if he is a wise ruler, to gain 
 the goodwill of his subjects, but they never 
 attempt by this figurative fighting to assert 
 their own will against one another or against
 
 198 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the ruler. If the natives of India were forced 
 by the British nation to elect their law-makers, 
 they would doubtless go on doing this so long 
 as the master compelled them ; but the chances 
 are that, if left to themselves, they would re- 
 lapse into their old system. 
 
 The second difficulty is to tell what place 
 the British nation would take in such a system. 
 The British nation is master of India, and the 
 viceroy its representative. The viceroy is head 
 of the executive and sole law-maker, although 
 he has a council, appointed by the British nation, 
 by whose advice he generally goes. If the 
 elected legislators are to be more than advisers, 
 advocates, witnesses, or puppets, they must have 
 votes ; and it is conceivable that they may de- 
 termine the fate of a measure contrary to the 
 will of the viceroy. In England the will of the 
 nation is pronounced by the prime minister, 
 who, when he ascertains that the will of the 
 nation is against him, retires from office in 
 favour of a leader who represents more accu- 
 rately the national will. Not only does he give 
 up the office of leader, but he also hands over 
 to his successor the control of the means for 
 executing the national will, which means the 
 British nation rightly consider should be in the 
 hands of those who, for the time being, repre- 
 sent that will. The nation is one body, and,
 
 THE LAW. 199 
 
 if it is to do any good, it must be moved by 
 one will at a time, however often that will may 
 be changed. If an elected Parliament after the 
 English model be set up in India, what place 
 is to be occupied by the British nation ? Is it 
 to be a constitutional monarch, accepting and 
 giving effect to the will of the people declared 
 by its representatives, and making over to the 
 parliamentary chief who represents that will 
 the control of the army, foreign affairs, and the 
 public services? Is the viceroy to be deposed 
 from his offices of law-maker and head of the 
 executive ? and are those offices to be given to 
 another? If not, then there is no representa- 
 tive government in the British sense, and if 
 there is such representative government, its 
 instalment must be preceded by the British 
 nation abdicating its place of master, and ceas- 
 ing to have an effective will in Indian affairs. It 
 may stay or go, but cannot govern. This, in 
 fairness be it said, is not quite the alternative 
 put forward by many who call themselves ad- 
 vocates of parliamentary institutions in India. 
 A class of politicians appear to think that 
 the viceroy may be left in his office as law- 
 maker and head of the executive, and that 
 there may be added to his council a certain 
 number of elected legislators. But if we look 
 forward and consider what is to be the conse-
 
 200 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 quence of this addition, we see either the all- 
 powerful prime minister displacing the viceroy 
 as the seat of power, or else a group of advisers, 
 witnesses, advocates, or puppets whom the mon- 
 arch pleases to call a parliament, but who have 
 no real claim to that title in the English sense 
 at all. The British nation is too strong and 
 sensible to become a Lear, and we may there- 
 fore conclude that this playing with elections, 
 of which there are signs, means merely that the 
 sovereign thinks of choosing a new way of get- 
 ting information as to the wants and wishes of 
 his subjects. Having come to this conclusion, 
 we may go on with our consideration of British 
 policy in India, which would be useless if the 
 British nation were about to abandon its position 
 as ruler. 
 
 The third difficulty is that the peoples of 
 India are not all of the same fighting value. 
 We cannot by counting heads ascertain which 
 side would win if there were a resort to force. 
 The peoples of India are as varied in their 
 natures as sheep and wolves, tigers and deer. 
 It is easy, of course, for the British nation, as 
 sovereign, to determine that it will give to a 
 certain number of Bengalis or Ooryas equal 
 weight with the same number of Sikhs or 
 Rajpoots, and its doing so might not at first 
 weaken its influence, for possibly their advice
 
 THE LAW. 201 
 
 might not be very much less wise than that 
 of good British statesmen. But an elected 
 legislature is to be given, we presume, with 
 the object of making the peoples of India in- 
 dependent of the British nation, and free from 
 its interference. If the British nation were to 
 stand aside for a year, and indeed give a free 
 hand, surprising results, which may be guessed, 
 would follow. One result, it is safe to prophesy, 
 would be that Bengal, with its seventy millions 
 of sheep, now so full of bluster and eloquence, 
 would be mute in presence of the wolves of the 
 Punjaub and of the North-west ; that the Mus- 
 sulmans, although in number only one-fifth of 
 the Hindoos, would be making a bid for power ; 
 and that the martial races of India would be 
 putting, in spite of the settlement by vote, to 
 the practical test of war their respective claims 
 to guide the "national will." The "national 
 will " would probably be torn to pieces and 
 destroyed in the struggle. 
 
 For these reasons, and there are doubtless 
 others, the British nation should retain in its 
 own hands the prerogative of the strongest 
 the right of making laws for India until there 
 arise a stronger to wrest that power away. 
 India has now got a very peaceful way of as- 
 certaining whose is the prevailing will ; and, in 
 the British nation, has a sovereign who, thanks
 
 202 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 to his power and his governing capacities, is by 
 far the best ruler she could hope to have. Why, 
 then, introduce an unknown and foreign insti- 
 tution which, if it comes to anything, can only 
 end in the destruction of the British rule, and 
 perish with that rule, whose creature it is ? It 
 would not even be a good means of ascertaining 
 the wants and wishes of the peoples. If these 
 are to be ascertained from an assembly of per- 
 sons representing the various peoples and the 
 different parts of the land, what a vast and 
 motley assembly they must be ! how such a 
 body of people around his court must clog the 
 movements and confuse the councils of the 
 viceroy ! On all accounts this institution of 
 an elected parliament is not wanted. There 
 are few countries in the world where the wants 
 and wishes of the people are more carefully 
 ascertained and more respectfully looked at than 
 in India ; and if it is desired to improve the 
 method of ascertaining these wants and wishes, 
 there are other, better, and less costly methods 
 of doing it. 
 
 Assuming, then, that the control of the law will 
 remain with the British nation, we may now go 
 on to consider what should be the general policy 
 that guides legislation. The great and mighty 
 cry of the ryot in India is and always has been 
 " Let me alone," and the temptation that assails
 
 THE LAW. 203 
 
 the law-maker generally is to meddle. The lead- 
 ing policy of our laws should be to meddle as 
 little as possible with the ryot, and to restrain 
 others from meddling with him. To free him 
 from the troublesome meddling of the landlord 
 and the money-lender, plans have already been 
 suggested. The two things which generally make 
 meddling possible are uncertainty for one thing, 
 and many points of contact for another. We 
 shall shortly consider these two irritants. 
 
 Uncertainty is generally due to two causes, 
 bad information about facts, which prevents us 
 from knowing where we are, and the hourly ex- 
 pectation of change, which prevents us from 
 calculating where we shall shortly be. Uncer- 
 tainty gives rise to disputes, and disputes have 
 now to be settled by the law courts. The 
 Government of India has already adopted for 
 certain purposes the principle of settlement. 
 This has, for instance, been long in force as 
 between the State and its own tenants, and has 
 come of late to be recognised as the only satis- 
 factory way of dealing with the numerous and 
 complicated interests in land everywhere. By 
 settlement is meant that a record of the rights 
 and interests in land of all parties within a 
 certain area is made by good and experienced 
 officers, and is kept up to date by periodical 
 revision. At the time of making and revising
 
 204 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 this record, every means is taken to obtain in- 
 formation on every relevant point, so that there 
 may be in it good information about facts ; and 
 once the record is closed, it is treated, until the 
 end of a fixed period, as conclusive proof of all 
 facts which are recorded, so that the hourly 
 expectation of change is removed. From this 
 method, by which opportunities of meddling are 
 much reduced, the people have had much benefit. 
 The same principle might possibly be extended 
 in other directions, such as money-lending. 
 
 But what we would suggest here is whether 
 the same principle might not be extended to one 
 of the great branches of the law viz., the com- 
 mon or customary law of the people. At present 
 that branch of the law suffers from neglect, and 
 the neglect of the customary law is the only 
 argument, perhaps, that can be admitted to give 
 weight to the demand for an elected legislature. 
 Such a legislature would be no cure for the evil, 
 but at least here is an evil which, if not by one 
 means, then by another, we ought to find a cure 
 for. It is not that the Government and the 
 law show disrespect for local customs, but laws 
 are passed in ignorance of them, and of the 
 circumstances they imply, and when a question 
 involving custom between litigants arises in the 
 law courts, the law courts have to ascertain the 
 custom from the evidence of witnesses produced
 
 THE LAW. 205 
 
 by, and the pleadings of, the parties. The vast 
 mass of litigation is between poor people ; the 
 great body of the lawyers they employ are 
 ignorant and incapable, and the great body of 
 the judges are overworked, and ill qualified to 
 conduct investigations as to facts of this kind. 
 The consequence is that, whereas of all things 
 under the sun custom ought to be the most 
 certain, there is often extreme difficulty in get- 
 ting to know what is the custom on any par- 
 ticular point, and many valuable and reason- 
 able customs have been, in ignorance or through 
 misunderstanding, overruled and destroyed. This 
 means destruction to the prestige of, and rever- 
 ence for custom among the people, and of the 
 security which is felt by a people among whom 
 that prestige and that reverence exist. The 
 customary or common law is law made by the 
 people far more truly than any statute passed 
 by a legislature composed of their elected repre- 
 sentatives, and an effort ought to be made to 
 strengthen and ascertain so much of that law 
 as is good, so as to restore to the people the 
 confidence they have lost and are losing. In 
 every district there should be a constant and 
 searching inquiry going on, conducted by quali- 
 fied officials, of whom the district officer should 
 be chief, into the various customs which, as 
 being general, old, and obeyed by all, have the
 
 206 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 force of law. Of these customs there should be 
 made an accurate and exhaustive record, which, 
 after all interested have had full opportunity of 
 saying anything they may have to say, should 
 be taken in the law courts as conclusive proof of 
 the customary law which is stated in it. The 
 record should be subject to revision, say once in 
 thirty years, when new customs may be added, 
 obsolete ones omitted, and the language adjusted 
 so as to convey to the new generation accurately 
 the meaning intended. The district records of 
 
 customs would give the scientific law-maker valu- 
 
 . * . 
 
 able information. They might be compared to- 
 gether, and no doubt much might be done to 
 make the customary law more uniform by modi- 
 fying the customs of neighbouring districts for 
 that purpose, where they were essentially the 
 same. Considering what a vast influence on the 
 common law of England the judges have exer- 
 cised, it seems permissible for the ruler of the 
 land to take such small liberties with the com- 
 mon law of India. There would be no occasion 
 to enforce uniformity, which means bondage. 
 Every district should have its own manual of 
 common law as the people have made it, and 
 this manual should be easy of access to all who 
 would refer to it. What with barrister judges 
 in the High Court, and shifting judges in the 
 interior, statutes made with imperfect know-
 
 THE LAW. 20*7 
 
 ledge, and English precedents applied too freely, 
 the common law of India has had a bad time of 
 late years. In this authoritative manual, how- 
 ever, the voice of the people the " dumb 
 millions" whose mouthpiece many demagogues 
 are striving to become will speak with a clear, 
 steady, and certain sound for itself, and one of 
 the two things which make meddling possible 
 uncertainty will be to some extent abolished. 
 
 As regards the other many points of contact 
 the State cannot segregate men from one an- 
 other, and cannot, therefore, abolish contact be- 
 tween them. Its business is rather to reduce as 
 far as possible the number of points of contact 
 between those holding and those bound by 
 legal obligations, especially obligations which in- 
 volve the exercise of authority by the State. 
 This reduction can be made in two ways both 
 by reducing the number of persons in contact, 
 and by preventing, where there is contact, any 
 change in the persons who are in contact, or the 
 substitution of a new party for an old. As an 
 illustration of this danger of contact, may be 
 quoted a story told by a native member of the 
 Bengal Legislative Council during a debate. A 
 certain district officer, to get rid of an importu- 
 nate beggar for employment, gave him the ap- 
 parently innocent employment of counting the 
 waves in the River Ganges. It was found, how-
 
 208 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 ever, that he stopped all the boats because they 
 " interfered with his waves," and would not let 
 them pass without payment. Even this shadowy 
 right brought him in contact with the boatmen, 
 and was turned to account as an instrument of 
 extortion. The principal merit of the proposed 
 reform in village management, whereby each vil- 
 lage is to have an official head, is that it reduces 
 the number of persons in contact in the relation 
 of landlord and tenant, and substitutes for the 
 landlord's servant, who may be, and sometimes 
 on principle is frequently changed, and is a 
 stranger in the village, a permanent official who 
 is known to all the ryots, and is their neighbour. 
 Another reform proposed viz., the single agency 
 for the assessment and collection of all direct taxes 
 has the same chief merit. A sample of law which 
 is harassing and a source of much trouble to all 
 concerned, chiefly from the vast number of trans- 
 actions it involves, is the Eoad Cess Act of Ben- 
 gal. This law is also a useful illustration of a 
 temptation which frequently besets despotic gov- 
 ernments the temptation, namely, to ignore the 
 trouble, cost, and worry thrown on the subject, 
 so long as these do not affect the ruler. The very 
 precautions taken to ensure justice to all defeat 
 themselves, because they throw such quantities 
 of labour and expense on all concerned. A short 
 account of it may therefore be instructive. The
 
 THE LAW. 209 
 
 origin of the Act was the Orissa famine, when it 
 appeared that the landlords had not been doing 
 their duty in the way of keeping up roads. Ac- 
 cordingly this Act was passed, requiring land- 
 lords and tenants to contribute the tenants on 
 their rental, the landlords on the part of their 
 rent remaining to them after payment of head 
 rent or revenue a rate or tax for making roads. 
 With the application of the money we are not 
 now concerned, but only with the collection. 
 The duty of collecting this rate or tax, or cess as 
 it is called, was given to the landlords, each of 
 whom was to collect it with his rent, and pass it 
 on to the Government with his revenue. The 
 assessment was made by a single Government 
 official for the whole of a revenue district, and 
 the rate made uniform for the whole district, so 
 that this mode of collection might be possible. 
 The first business which this arrangement in- 
 volved for the landlord was the preparation and 
 submission of a rent return for the whole of his 
 estate. Considering that the estates of some 
 landlords extended over hundreds of villages, and 
 contained thousands of tenants; that the interests 
 of many landed estates were split up ; .that in 
 many estates there were leases and sub-leases 
 under one another in succession ; that the rela- 
 tions of landlords with their tenants were some- 
 times very indefinite, there being nominal rents 
 
 o
 
 210 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 which were never collected, and nominal arrears 
 that were never recovered ; and that the demand 
 against each ryot was on an average only a few 
 rupees, we have no difficulty in understanding 
 that the labour and expense of first making and 
 then testing returns of this kind were very great 
 in proportion to the sums involved. The return 
 being received and tested, the assessing officer 
 has a comparatively simple duty to perform. 
 The rate having been fixed, a certain proportion 
 on the rental, say the maximum of half an anna 
 in the rupee, he calculates the ryot's share of this 
 as half a rate on the whole, and the landlord's 
 share as half a rate on the balance after deduct- 
 ing the Government revenue, and fixes accord- 
 ingly the demand on the landlord. If the land- 
 lord fails to pay in this amount, it is recovered 
 from him like any other tax. This is a very 
 pleasant and simple, and, to the State, a cheap 
 way of collecting a fund for making and mending 
 roads. The sum to be paid by each is worked 
 out to the smallest fraction, for in the extreme 
 precision of our justice we calculate to the cowrie 
 what is the exact sum each must pay. But the 
 unfortunate landlord, and all his unfortunate 
 lessees and ryots, are only at the beginning of 
 their difficulties. Before that money has been 
 collected, there has probably been an account to 
 adjust for every separate copper that comes in.
 
 THE LAW. 211 
 
 If a landlord himself has to pay a fraction of 
 the coinage, how can he possibly break up his 
 demand on the ryots so as to settle the amount 
 to be justly paid by each ? Then, the person 
 who is to pay may refuse to pay, or the person 
 who is to receive may refuse to settle without 
 getting more than is due, and the only way of 
 settling is by a lawsuit, with its costs and worry. 
 The Koad Cess Act has, in fact, given an op- 
 portunity of meddling to hundreds of thousands 
 by creating a huge mass of rights and duties ; 
 and the collection of the cess probably costs the 
 people of the country a great deal more than 
 the total sum collected. There is, again, the 
 village police rate, which, though for many rea- 
 sons a more just and easy rate than the road 
 cess, has created another great mass of rights 
 and duties. Opportunities for meddling, either 
 in the assessment or in the collection of these, 
 and other petty demands, will be reduced to a 
 minimum, if the method of collecting all such 
 direct demands in one sum and by means of a 
 single and trustworthy agency be adopted. 
 
 Another method by which meddling can be 
 greatly reduced is to make the necessary contact 
 between men take the form of mutual services 
 rather than of right and duty. For this pur- 
 pose, even where, in order to get work done, 
 compulsory payments have to be exacted, the
 
 212 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 services for which those payments are to be given 
 should be well defined, and the payments con- 
 nected with the services. One of the chief merits 
 of the local budget is that it sinks out of sight 
 the prerogative of the State to levy a tax, and 
 converts the tax into a remuneration for service, 
 determined more and more, as the local authori- 
 ties are developed and organised, by those who 
 pay it. 
 
 It is almost needless, and yet not wholly 
 superfluous, to say that a law, in that it inter- 
 feres with the freedom of the subject, prohibit- 
 ing him from doing what he wishes, or forcing 
 him to do what he is unwilling to do, is at best 
 a necessary evil. It can only be justified when 
 it prevents a greater evil. Especially is a law 
 an evil in such a country as India is now, where 
 the means of carrying out the law and of pre- 
 venting abuses of it are so defective. A be- 
 nevolent and active-minded legislature, in pre- 
 paring and launching measure after measure for 
 the improvement of the people, may unwittingly 
 be sending forth scourges for their torture. The 
 State cannot express its will without intrusting 
 some one with the execution of that will, and, 
 as will be seen in a later chapter, seldom indeed 
 is the execution according to the spirit. There- 
 fore there should be as few laws as can possibly 
 be done with, and these should as seldom as
 
 THE LAW. 213 
 
 possible be laws enjoining action. As was 
 before pointed out, nearly all God's commands 
 to men were prohibitions. Prohibition may be 
 necessary to prevent the liberty of all being 
 interfered with by one, to prevent disorder ; 
 but compulsory action can seldom be necessary. 
 Action should be spontaneous, and when spon- 
 taneous it will develop and grow. If the im- 
 pulse to action come from without, the life is 
 wanting and it will not grow. Improvement 
 and reform should be brought about rather by 
 the development of an active will in the people 
 than by the initiative of the State. The less 
 the State has to do with them, the more likely 
 they are to thrive ; and the State will find 
 enough to do in watching movements and keep- 
 ing disorder out of them, without attempting 
 to direct them. When its officers interfere 
 with the popular will in order to promote re- 
 form, they should do so as private persons with- 
 out the help of the law. 
 
 To conclude, then, the British nation should 
 retain in its own hands the power of passing 
 statutes, allowing the voice of the people to 
 be heard and given effect to through the com- 
 mon law, which should be ascertained and 
 strengthened. Its power of passing statutes 
 should be very sparingly used, and the utmost 
 pains should be taken to make the statute laws
 
 214 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 short, simple, and clear, and to keep them un- 
 changed. The laws of the State, so far as they 
 regulate the conduct of the ordinary subject, 
 should be made to prevent disorder only, and 
 their main object should be to discourage 
 meddling.
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 
 
 THOSE who have to do with the carrying out 
 of the law may be broadly divided into two 
 general classes, those who interpret and those 
 who execute. Interpreters of the law are men 
 appointed for the purpose, who, applying the 
 law or will of the State to particular facts, 
 declare in what manner the State should act 
 towards the persons concerned in those facts. 
 Thus a magistrate who determines to grant or 
 refuse a warrant ; a court which gives a decree 
 or passes sentence ; a police officer who makes 
 or refuses to make an arrest which he is em- 
 powered to make ; a grand juxy which gives 
 or refuses a true bill, are all acting as inter- 
 preters of the law. 
 
 Those who execute, again, have nothing to 
 do with the law, but only with the interpreters, 
 whose orders when given they accept as law.
 
 216 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 If they honestly execute the will of the inter- 
 preters, they are free from responsibility, the 
 interpreters themselves being responsible that 
 what they have ordered is in accordance with 
 the will of the State. We must, to begin with, 
 consider shortly what means are provided in 
 Britain for the interpretation and execution of 
 the law, so that we may be better able to see 
 how far the British system will apply in India. 
 It will be convenient for comparison to take 
 Scotland rather than England, because in Scot- 
 land the State occupies a position a little more 
 nearly like that which it occupies in India. 
 And first we may consider the criminal law, 
 which touches directly the relations of the 
 Crown and the subject. 
 
 Where the law is master in everything, it 
 needs a very large number of interpreters, 
 spread over every part of the land ; and these 
 men should deserve and have the confidence of 
 the State and of the people. They should have 
 power to act promptly and without reference 
 to others ; for a will that is not followed by 
 prompt action is ineffective. In Scotland there 
 are magistrates in every town we may almost 
 say in every village any one of whom may set 
 the law in motion by the issue of a summons or 
 a warrant. Each one of these is supposed to 
 be easy of access to the people, ready to advise
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 217 
 
 any subject of her Majesty, or act in his aid 
 when there is need. These magistrates meet 
 in courts at convenient places for the purpose 
 of trying issues between the Crown and any 
 subject charged with an offence. Persons who 
 have been arrested by the police without the 
 order of a magistrate must be taken to one, 
 and his order obtained before they can be put 
 in prison or kept in custody. The magistrate 
 is, within his powers which enable him to sum- 
 mon or arrest any person accused, and sitting 
 on the bench with his fellow - magistrates, to 
 pass petty sentences or commit for trial to the 
 superior court trusted entirely by the State, 
 and has to make no reference to any one for 
 confirmation of his acts or orders. In this he 
 differs from the police officer, who has at once 
 to seek the confirmation of his acts by a magis- 
 trate. He is only, as it were, interpreter for 
 the time, until reference can be made to a 
 magistrate ; and that time can never, in a land 
 where there is always a magistrate within a mile 
 or so, be long. We may therefore say that prac- 
 tically nothing can be done in any case until a 
 magistrate has made himself responsible for it. 
 As soon as this has happened, the case passes 
 into the hands of the procurator-fiscal, or public 
 prosecutor, who makes an investigation on the 
 spot, examining privately the parties and the
 
 218 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 witnesses. An official of this kind is attached 
 to every criminal court in the land, from the 
 lowest to the highest. He makes himself re- 
 sponsible that, before the case is carried into 
 court, there has been laid before the Crown, 
 which he represents, ample evidence to prove 
 it. Although a private person can carry a case 
 to trial on his own responsibility, this in prac- 
 tice is seldom done ; since, after the public 
 prosecutor has declined to take it up, there is 
 little or no chance of a successful result to the 
 prosecution. The procurator-fiscal is generally 
 a trained and competent lawyer, well qualified 
 both from skill and from character to conduct 
 such an inquiry without suspicion of unfairness. 
 Not even a charge of drunkenness is tried with- 
 out the prosecution being conducted by the 
 procurator-fiscal, who, himself a judicial officer 
 not committed on either side, does not hesitate 
 to drop the case if he is satisfied that it is not 
 supported by the facts. There is a bench held 
 at every centre, never more than a mile or two 
 from the place where the parties live, and at 
 this bench all the neighbouring magistrates 
 attend. These are themselves well acquainted 
 with the neighbourhood, and probably with the 
 people concerned ; and thus, even when not very 
 learned in the law, are able, as shrewd men of 
 business, to come to a fairly correct conclusion
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 219 
 
 on the evidence produced before them. Hav- 
 ing jurisdiction in only a small area, they get 
 very little judicial work to do, and accordingly 
 give to each case an interest and an amount of 
 time and attention such as could not be given 
 by officials nauseated with masses of the same 
 kind of work day after day. They work in 
 presence of the public, to which they are 
 known, and in whose hands is their reputation. 
 Their proceedings are also reported in the local 
 press, and read and commented on by all the 
 neighbourhood. The magistrate in Scotland is 
 the most stationary of men, for he has a 
 stake in the part of the country where he has 
 jurisdiction, and cannot, in the ordinary course 
 of things, leave it. He knows and is known to 
 all who live in it. Thus he who is wronged and 
 seeks redress finds the law ready at his door, 
 in the person of the magistrate, to listen to 
 what he has to say ; in the person of the pro- 
 curator-fiscal, to investigate the matter of his 
 complaint ; and in the person of the bench, to 
 try the issue between himself and the person he 
 accuses. The person accused finds that, before 
 he can be touched, or at least within a few 
 minutes or hours at most, he must be brought 
 before a magistrate ; that his case is then in- 
 vestigated by a judicial officer in private, and 
 that only if he is satisfied does the case come
 
 220 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 before a bench. If it is tried before the bench, 
 they can be relied upon not to be hoodwinked 
 as to the facts, and to deal honestly by him. 
 He is also sure to be able to get a good lawyer 
 to defend him if he likes, for there are lawyers 
 in every town. The lawyers are under the strict 
 discipline of their own honour, public opinion, 
 and the corporation of lawyers to which they 
 belong. Moreover, if any man seems not to 
 be getting fair -play, there are sure to spring 
 forward many of the general public, ready and 
 anxious to secure it for him, even at their own 
 expense. 
 
 Looking to the higher grade of courts, we 
 find the sheriff's court for the county, in which 
 more important cases are tried, and, at the top 
 of all, the court of assize. Each of these has 
 its public prosecutor, the heads of all the public 
 prosecutors being the Lord Advocate and his 
 deputies. Each public prosecutor regards judi- 
 cially any case that comes up ; and, if he thinks 
 the evidence does not justify his proceeding, he 
 can in his discretion drop the case. The judges 
 of the sheriff's court and of the court of assize 
 are the officials appointed for the county and 
 the country respectively for judicial work, and 
 they try both civil and criminal cases. In 
 criminal cases, the sheriffs often, the judges of 
 assize invariably, have the assistance of a jury,
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 221 
 
 whose special province it is to determine what 
 facts are proved. This is a part of the judicial 
 office which the people have never surrendered 
 to any agent, but retain jealously in their own 
 hands. The feeling that they ought to do so 
 is a healthy and just feeling ; for the mind of 
 a judge, learned in the law, and constantly en- 
 gaged, as it were, in the study of the moral 
 diseases of men, is apt to become morbid, and 
 to see motives and suspect crimes in the sim- 
 plest and most natural actions. Those whose 
 business lies more in the ordinary walks of life 
 are better qualified to see things as they are. 
 Moreover, the juryman, who seldom has this 
 work to do, will be likely to take a greater 
 interest in it, and to bring to bear on it more 
 anxious thought and careful consideration than 
 the judge or stipendiary magistrate who does 
 nothing else. Then as to the persons of the 
 judges. The sheriff and his deputies are ap- 
 pointed to office in a particular county, and 
 are not, in the ordinary course, liable to be 
 moved. They can claim no promotion, they 
 need fear no transfer; they have neither hope 
 nor fear ; they move on circuit through the 
 county or district of a county to which they 
 belong, and usually become intimately acquainted 
 with its history, places, and people. They, too, 
 are not easy to hoodwink on any question of
 
 222 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 fact. The judges of assize are promoted from 
 the bar to the bench, when they have already 
 got a reputation, earned by hard work, for 
 knowledge and ability. They have, as mem- 
 bers of the bar, traversed the country on circuit, 
 and made an extended acquaintance among the 
 people. Frequently they have, as members of 
 Parliament, themselves taken a part in making 
 the laws they have to administer. The judges 
 sit all together at the metropolis, and have thus 
 the advantage of their mutual wisdom and ex- 
 perience. They go forth periodically on circuit 
 through the country, and return, having added 
 to this common stock of wisdom and experience, 
 and kept themselves in touch with the people 
 everywhere. 
 
 Then, as to the civil law, the mass of the 
 population hardly know that there is such a 
 thing as a civil court at all, except that there 
 is a place where a man may get damages if he 
 suffers injury. The working man or the peasant 
 seldom has occasion to go near a civil court. If 
 he has connection with a landlord, the defaulting 
 tenant is not sued for rent but evicted. His 
 banker is the pawnbroker ; and instead of debts 
 incurred, he has more often savings. The land- 
 lord and the money-lender have not the same 
 hold in Scotland as in India ; nor do they think 
 of attacking the poor in the law court. Property
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 223 
 
 and wealth, which more frequently involve law- 
 suits, can always and everywhere find means to 
 fight their own battle. There is always and 
 everywhere, watching the courts and keeping 
 them in order, a vigilant and intelligent public, 
 whose opinion, expressed in clear voice with 
 trumpet tongue, no man can, if he would, dis- 
 regard. Thus we see that the law in Scotland, 
 whose power is mighty and its arm everywhere, 
 is kept under the strictest discipline, the arm of 
 the nation moving as directed by the will of the 
 nation only, and not otherwise. The people are 
 satisfied of this ; and neither do criminals dare 
 presume on the weakness, the blindness, or the 
 corruption of the law courts or their officers, nor 
 need honest men fear that the courts will not be 
 able to protect them. The law is the will of the 
 whole nation, and all combine to maintain it. 
 The whole resources of the country are placed at 
 the disposal of its court. No man is suffered 
 to appear in a court and give evidence before 
 being bound by the oath for which he feels most 
 respect to tell the truth. There is on all hands 
 the most earnest desire to maintain the honour, 
 dignity, purity, and clear vision of the courts, 
 and to keep falsehood outside them entirely. 
 Though this desire is less completely fulfilled 
 than could be wished, still the attempt meets 
 with a very considerable measure of success. As
 
 224 BKITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 regards the execution of the court's orders out- 
 side, the police and bailiffs alike go about with 
 the knowledge that wherever they go there are 
 magistrates on the watch for any illegality, and 
 that the public will not suffer it to escape un- 
 noticed. A visit from the police or other execu- 
 tive official is indeed looked on with dread, be- 
 cause of the disgrace ; but the dread is not of 
 what the official may do, but of what the law 
 itself may have to say. 
 
 Turning now to India, we find an entirely 
 different state of things. Of all the safeguards 
 and facilities that surround the law courts of 
 Scotland, there are in India hardly any. We 
 could not expect the same in India, because of 
 the difference in the composition of the people. 
 In Scotland, a nation, one in religion, race, 
 manners, and wishes, whose will is the law, and 
 its chosen servants the law courts ; in India, 
 a vast mass of people composed of various 
 races, with various religions, nothing in com- 
 mon, with no will of their own, blindly serving 
 the master whom fate has given them a master 
 obliged to enforce his own will by means of his 
 his own servants. 
 
 The first defect to be noticed is the scarcity 
 of " interpreters " of the law of those who, as 
 magistrates, are competent of their own will to 
 set the law in motion. Nearly all the magis-
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 225 
 
 trates in Bengal are paid servants of the State, 
 European or native. In some parts of India, 
 owing to a difference in the revenue system, the 
 magistrates are scattered more profusely ; but in 
 Bengal, with its seventy million inhabitants, 
 there are only about 150 places where a man 
 can go to a magistrate and apply for a summons 
 or a warrant. A few persons scattered about 
 the country have been, it is true, created hon- 
 orary magistrates ; but of these, few, if any, are 
 intrusted with the power of issuing a summons 
 or a warrant, and little use is made of them. 
 Now the practical meaning of this state of things 
 is, that any one who is wronged must make a 
 journey of probably twenty miles before he can 
 lay his grievance before a magistrate and get into 
 communication with the State. The magistrate 
 also, having to do with so vast an area, cannot be 
 expected to be acquainted with the people or 
 places he has to deal with, and his opportunity 
 of acquiring knowledge of them is lessened by 
 the fact that he is liable to transfer and is fre- 
 quently moved out of one district into another. 
 This state of things compels the magistrate to 
 take precautions which would not be so neces- 
 sary if magistrates were numerous, and if they 
 knew their people. He must, in the first place, 
 consider the time the limited number of courts 
 have at their disposal, and discourage as far as 
 
 p
 
 226 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 possible the less important complaints, in order 
 that those of greater importance may have a 
 chance of being attended to. Again, he must, 
 before granting process, investigate the com- 
 plaint to some extent, in order to ensure that 
 the parties shall not be dragged so long a dis- 
 tance for trial without good cause. He has thus 
 to do the work done in Scotland by the pro- 
 curator-fiscal, without any of the facilities for it 
 that that official has he has neither the time, 
 nor the local knowledge, nor the advantage of 
 being on the spot. 
 
 He has to prevent, if he can, the court from 
 being made a means of striking at an enemy, 
 by means of false charges. This is a favourite 
 weapon in the local warfare that so frequently 
 goes on between landlord and tenants, or be- 
 tween faction and faction, and for reasons which 
 we shall see later on, false accusers are not easy 
 to detect, or to punish. 
 
 The necessary precautions which the magis- 
 strates in India have to take, owing to the 
 scarcity of their own members, and of the 
 members of the courts, are so many obstacles in 
 the way of him who seeks for justice. The strong 
 man, with plenty of local influence, seldom needs 
 to appeal to the law, and is able to defend him- 
 self, if any venture to attack him. It is the 
 weak and oppressed who need the aid of the law,
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 227 
 
 and only a small proportion of those among them 
 that are wronged will venture to go a long journey 
 on an errand which their opponents resent, leav- 
 ing wife, family, and property exposed to injury 
 from their opponents. Of those who might be 
 willing so to venture, a great proportion are dis- 
 couraged by the hedge of precaution which ob- 
 structs them, especially as the other side have 
 probably despatched a hired accuser to go with 
 the real accuser, and lay against him a false 
 counter-charge. To the magistrate, ignorant of 
 both, and of the country, one story is as good as 
 the other, and one man, too, is as good as the 
 other. The difficulty of getting into communica- 
 tion with the law is not merely the physical one 
 of distance, or the difficulty raised by the magis- 
 trate himself, but also the jealousy felt by local 
 despots, the landlords, faction leaders, and others, 
 of an appeal to the law courts, which repre- 
 sent the State, for justice. The local despot 
 claims among other prerogatives that of dis- 
 pensing justice among the people over whom 
 he claims rule, and resents any attempt to 
 obtain it from another. This, then, is the 
 first want, the want of magistrates. It is 
 caused not by the reluctance or jealousy of 
 the State, but by the feeling of the people, 
 who have no wish to see the local despots 
 vested with any powers beyond what they al-
 
 228 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 ready Lave, fearing the use they would make of 
 those powers. 
 
 The next want is the want of a public prose- 
 cutor. This is chiefly because the Indian system 
 has been founded on that of England, in which 
 the public prosecutor has no place. The result 
 of this want is that, from the time when the 
 magistrate sets the law in motion by consenting 
 to issue process till the time when the parties and 
 witnesses appear before the court for trial of the 
 case, there is no trustworthy judicial authority 
 who, on behalf of the State, has any means of 
 knowing what evidence the prosecutor proposes 
 to offer. When it is remembered that the inter- 
 val that thus elapses is, owing to distances, scanty 
 establishments, and pressure of work, seldom less 
 than a week, and often nearer a month, we are 
 able more fully to realise what opportunities are 
 thus afforded for the preparation of false cases, 
 tutoring of witnesses and fabrication of evidence 
 on the one side, and on the other for the silenc- 
 ing of witnesses and suppression of evidence by 
 means of bribes or threats, or other evil influences. 
 There are exceptions to the statement that no 
 judicial authority ever gets to know the evidence 
 to be offered before the trial. The magistrate 
 may, if he pleases, make a local inquiry, but 
 that, on account of the distances and his other 
 work, he can seldom do ; or he may require the
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 229 
 
 prosecutor to bring his witnesses, but that in 
 itself involves delay; or there is sometimes a 
 preliminary inquiry by the police, who in this 
 respect are quasi judicial officials. As will be 
 shown more fully later on, however, the police 
 are not trusted to be impartial, and have not 
 that reputation for high character and strict 
 probity which would win the confidence of the 
 State and the people for their proceedings. The 
 cases in which the magistrate makes a preliminary 
 inquiry are few compared with the whole, and 
 those taken up by the police are hardly excep- 
 tions. In the great mass of cases, the prosecutor, 
 if rich and powerful, has full time to mature a 
 conspiracy and arrange his false evidence, while, 
 if a poor man, he finds his witnesses exposed to 
 storms of threats or the warm influences of 
 bribes, which few of them are able to withstand. 
 As the rich seldom have occasion to appeal to 
 the courts for protection, being as a rule able to 
 protect themselves, and as the poor get their 
 disputes with their poor neighbours settled in an 
 easier and less costly manner, we find that an 
 unduly large proportion of cases that come be- 
 fore the court are either totally false, or, when 
 founded on fact, are bolstered up with exagger- 
 ation and falsehood, being brought from some 
 other motive than the mere desire for justice. 
 The man who desires revenge on an enemy ; the
 
 230 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 faction leader or landlord who wishes to break 
 down a follower or ryot who is not submissive 
 enough ; the man who wishes to ruin his rival in 
 business, or perhaps to get him out of the way 
 for a time, all these find the law courts with 
 their powerful machinery, which any one may 
 seize and handle, a convenient and efficient in- 
 strument for their purpose. The man of influence 
 need not move himself. He can give the order, 
 or pay a sum of money, and in the vast multitude 
 of the population his followers can find scores of 
 men who will take the character of prosecutor or 
 witness, and prepare their case in the way their 
 experience suggests to be most likely to catch 
 the verdict of the court. While this is being 
 done, out of sight and hearing of the court that 
 is to try the case, while the powerful and in- 
 fluential litigant is concocting his evidence or 
 breaking down that of his weaker opponent, the 
 State sits by without ear to hear, or hand to in- 
 terpose, awaiting complacently the time when 
 the contending parties with their respective 
 forces, weaker or stronger, as this struggle of a 
 week or a month leaves them, shall be marshalled 
 before the court. In free England, where the 
 public and the State are one, and the public, 
 watchful and ubiquitous, is ready to spring forth 
 and prevent any injustice or oppression, the 
 absence of a public prosecutor may lead to no
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 231 
 
 great harm ; but in India, where there is no 
 public, and the State is the British nation, his 
 absence strengthens the power of the oppressor 
 to oppress by means of the law courts, and 
 destroys the hope of the weak that he will get 
 justice from them. We may follow up the sub- 
 ject of this want a little further, and point out 
 the mischief it often causes during the trial of 
 important cases, particularly cases of contempt, 
 such as forgery, perjury, institution of false 
 cases, and the like, where there is no one inter- 
 ested in the case except perhaps the State. Cases 
 of this class, left to take care of themselves, are, 
 for want of a public prosecutor, not unfrequently 
 wrecked, and there is a failure of justice in the 
 very cases where, if the law courts are to work 
 at all, it ought never to fail. 
 
 The next want is the want of a sufficient 
 number of duly qualified courts, near the people 
 for whose use they are appointed. This may be 
 almost inferred from the scarcity of magistrates, 
 who compose the lower class of courts, the courts 
 which dispose of the great bulk of ordinary crim- 
 inal litigation. Owing to the want of confidence 
 placed by the State, and by the people also, in 
 the class of men who ordinarily in England com- 
 pose the petty courts, practically the sole power 
 of trying cases is vested in paid officers of the 
 State. Most of these have other duties, which
 
 232 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 occupy part of their time, and sometimes take 
 them away from home ; in these days of economy 
 they are few in number for their work, each 
 having about twice as much to do as he is able 
 to do properly ; and they are grouped round 
 their headquarters, not spread over the country. 
 The people have to come to them, for they do 
 not, by going on circuit, bring the court nearer 
 the people ; and sometimes litigants have to fol- 
 low them about as other duty takes them hither 
 and thither, to the great increase of worry and 
 expense. The magistrate is generally urged very 
 hard by his master, the Government, to dispose of 
 cases quickly, and allow no arrears to accumulate. 
 It is the quick worker rather than the conscien- 
 tious worker who gains praise ; and the wonder 
 is not great if, in such circumstances, the officer, 
 tempted to seek for a reputation as a quick 
 worker, comes really to believe that he has got 
 at the marrow of the case long before he has. 
 It is not that he comes to a decision before he is 
 satisfied, but his frame of mind is such that he 
 is satisfied after an imprudently short investiga- 
 tion; and so are the State and the appellate 
 courts, and in fact all but the persons who know 
 the real facts. It is the danger of law courts 
 that they make so difficult the reconsideration 
 of a faulty decision which is wrong on the facts. 
 Once the facts are found, then the courts and 
 the general public agree in concluding that they
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 233 
 
 must be as found because they have been found. 
 In Scotland this conclusion is reasonable, because 
 they are not found until after a careful and 
 leisurely examination first, on the spot, by the 
 procurator-fiscal ; and then, close to the spot, by 
 a court consisting of respectable men with very 
 great local knowledge, and plenty of time on 
 their hands. In India the same conclusion is 
 not reasonable, because there is the dark interval 
 before the case comes for trial, when the evidence 
 undergoes nobody knows what transformations, 
 and then the case is tried by officials absolutely 
 wanting in local knowledge, for the most part at 
 a great distance from the spot, under severe pres- 
 sure for time, and nauseated with the hundreds 
 and thousands of similar cases they have already 
 had to try in similar circumstances. If we are 
 not persuaded of the correctness of the facts 
 found, our confidence in the whole system of 
 justice, however elaborate and good may be the 
 law, must fail. And it is not too much to say 
 that, in the matter of correct findings of facts, 
 the reputation of our courts in India is not 
 high. It is also obvious that when the courts 
 are situated at a distance from the homes of the 
 parties, great expense and trouble are caused by 
 the journeys to and fro with witnesses, and by 
 the adjournments and delays which over-pressure 
 involves. 
 
 The next want is the want of lawyers.
 
 234 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 This will cause a start to some readers, for it is 
 commonly believed that the land swarms with 
 lawyers. But although they swarm round the 
 courts, the court centres are few, and there are 
 no lawyers, as in Scotland, spread over the 
 country. The lawyer in Scotland is a servant 
 of the public ; in India, he is a courtier of the 
 judge or magistrate before whom he practises. 
 With a few honourable exceptions, the lower 
 ranks of the lawyers, like courtiers of despots 
 everywhere, study, not the law of the land, but 
 the personal disposition and weaknesses of the 
 court, and the best means of taking advantage 
 of them. In India the law is not the sacred 
 thing that it is in Scotland not the will of the 
 people, but merely an expression of the will of 
 the despot, with which the people have nothing 
 to do ; and if it can be successfully twisted in 
 the direction he wishes, whether by trickery or 
 by downright forgery or perjury, the petty 
 lawyer is proud of his " smartness," and his 
 reputation rises among his fellows and those 
 of the people who take an interest in such mat- 
 ters. Every court is beset by men of this class, 
 who make a study of the presiding officer, and 
 ascertain as far as possible the working of his 
 mind, with a view to adapting their cases to it. 
 They are as ignorant as the court itself of the 
 places and the people concerned, and yet have
 
 THE LAW COUETS THEIR DEFECTS. 235 
 
 the preparation of the case outside the court, as 
 well as its conduct within. Each of these petty 
 lawyers has his jackals outside, men as a rule 
 absolutely without scruple, and innocent of law, 
 but skilful in concocting false evidence and tutor- 
 ing witnesses. The lawyer is under no disci- 
 pline, for he belongs to no legal corporation ; and 
 British respect for the " independence of the 
 bar" makes the discipline of the court, practi- 
 cally the only discipline under which he is held, 
 of the loosest. Indeed, it would be a risk to give 
 each judge or magistrate the full control which 
 alone would enable him to keep up proper dis- 
 cipline. The discipline of public opinion is en- 
 tirely absent. Into the hands of these lawyers 
 or their jackals litigants are pretty sure to fall 
 on their way to court, and with their wit- 
 nesses appear before the court corrupted and 
 tainted with the handling and preparation they 
 have got on the way. In every case the court 
 takes for granted that the evidence of both sides 
 contains a reeking mass of perjury, and perhaps 
 forgery, from which the truth has to be extracted 
 if possible. Without a public, without a public 
 prosecutor, without an honourable and trust- 
 worthy bar, without time or local knowledge, 
 and jaded with overwork, the magistrate has, 
 day after day, in the words of the poet-judge, to 
 " Dive in wells of perjury for truth."
 
 236 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 Even in the only exception of any consequence 
 to the rule that there is no preliminary inquiry 
 the exception, namely, when the police make 
 an inquiry the reputation of the police as 
 manufacturers of perjury and falsehood is not 
 much higher than that of the "jackals" above 
 described. 
 
 The next want is of local knowledge on the part 
 of the courts. There are two grades of officials 
 in the courts viz., the magistrates and the 
 judges. The former have been already described 
 as Government servants, appointed for many 
 duties of which this is one. They are, unlike 
 magistrates in Scotland, appointed to work in 
 places, by preference, where they have no in- 
 terests, and are even moved about from time to 
 time in order to prevent their becoming en- 
 tangled in local parties. The judges, with the 
 exception of those of the High Court, are formed 
 into services, the members of each branch of 
 which are interchangeable. They are selected 
 when young, and the judicial service is to them 
 a career, in which they may look for promotion if 
 they please their superiors. The moonsif or the 
 judge, if he gives satisfaction, may hope for a post 
 where he will get a good house, good society, a 
 good climate, and not too hard work. If he fails 
 to please, he may look for frequent transfers, 
 which are costly and troublesome ; unhealthy, in-
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 237 
 
 convenient, and out-of-the-way stations, and hard 
 work. The judicial officer who wishes to make a 
 reputation, seeks to improve his learning in the 
 law, which tells with his superiors, rather than 
 his knowledge of the people, which will be of no 
 use to him when he is moved into a new sphere, 
 as he may be any day. The judge enters the 
 service with little experience, and is never in a 
 position to gain much. He, like the magistrate, 
 is generally remote from the spot ; never goes on 
 circuit ; is a stranger to the country-side ; and 
 spends what little spare time and energy are left 
 him after a long day's drudgery in studying 
 the law reports and precedents, and preparing 
 learned decisions. The subordinate officers look 
 forward to promotion to higher posts ; and the 
 higher officers are occupied in correcting the law 
 of the juniors, leaving facts to take care of them- 
 selves. There is no jury in India. There are, 
 indeed, some districts in which what is called a 
 jury is found for the trial of a few of the more 
 heinous criminal charges. The jury, however, 
 is made up of lawyers, landlords, and the like, 
 gathered in from a great area, and having no 
 more local knowledge of the people or the place 
 concerned than the judge himself has. Instead of 
 the judge going to the jury, the jury are brought 
 to the judge. The consequence of this want of 
 local knowledge is that the court, not knowing
 
 238 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 what or whom to believe, becomes at once 
 unduly credulous and unduly suspicious. 
 
 The next want is the want of prestige in the 
 courts. It is notorious that, owing to the small 
 pay of the judges, and the fact that they are 
 selected young, the pick of the bar are not 
 secured, and that the bar dominates the bench 
 in most courts. The law courts are supposed 
 to be intrusted with the task of enforcing the 
 will of the State. When the court has passed 
 an order, that order is enforced with the full 
 strength of the State. But it is in very many 
 cases believed, too often with justice, that there 
 are pleaders at the bar who can get out of 
 the court what decree they please. Now this, 
 translated into plain English, just means that 
 the British nation has favourite courtiers who 
 can sway its will according to their pleasure. 
 The allegiance due to the Crown is transferred 
 to these favourites ; and as they are avowedly 
 open to be hired by the first comers, justice is 
 thus put up for sale. Setting aside all questions 
 of honesty, this is the natural consequence of 
 having at the bar intellect stronger and experi- 
 ence greater than those on the bench. The 
 master becomes a servant under another master, 
 who is himself at the disposal of any one willing 
 to pay his price. 
 
 It is sometimes said that there are well-paid
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 239 
 
 and strong judges, whose authority over their 
 subordinates prevents the latter from being 
 trifled with, and that the right of appeal 
 enables any one who has suffered wrong to get 
 his wrong righted. This notion is only a proof 
 how low is the prestige of the courts. There 
 are wrongs which a court of appeal cannot set 
 right, without trying the whole case over again ; 
 and not even by so trying the case, for precious 
 time has been lost, and the freshness of the 
 evidence is past. An error in determining the 
 facts of the case is one that can seldom be 
 remedied ; and in a country without a public 
 and with shifting judges, where the court gets 
 little or no help from juries, the difficulty of 
 getting at the facts is very great. The task of 
 determining the facts is generally placed on 
 the shoulders of the weak and inferior class of 
 judges; against their findings of fact an appeal 
 is no safeguard ; and on these foundations, too 
 often rotten, the courts of appeal may build 
 what stately judgments they will, but the judg- 
 ment is condemned for its rotten foundation. 
 The lawyers may not care. They value the 
 able arguments, and in their eyes the facts 
 are mere pegs for hanging the arguments on. 
 Not so is it with the people ; and if, as 
 is too often the case, the result of all the 
 battling, expense, and delay, bringing ruin, as
 
 240 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 it often does, on one or both parties to the 
 struggle, is to give credit to a lie, to destroy 
 right, and enable wrong to flourish, the prestige 
 of the courts with the people cannot but go 
 down. 
 
 The prestige of the courts also suffers from 
 their limited powers. In Christian Scotland it 
 is deemed right, before a man is allowed to give 
 evidence in court which may affect the rights 
 of his fellows, that he should bind himself by 
 the oath he considers most sacred to tell the 
 truth, and the truth only. In Indian courts it 
 is only the Christians that are so bound. We 
 see Hindoos who would feel an obligation to 
 tell the truth if sworn on Ganges water or a 
 Bramin's feet, and Mussulmans who would sim- 
 ilarly feel bound if sworn on the Koran ; and 
 yet they are suffered, after making a declaration 
 for which they have no respect, to swear away 
 the very lives of their fellow-creatures. Is it 
 not a scandal that a witness should be challenged 
 to take such an oath as every Christian is bound 
 to take, and should be at liberty to give evi- 
 dence after declining the challenge ? 
 
 The next want is a trustworthy ministerial 
 staff. In Scotland the clerk of the court is a 
 man of position, whose pay is very little smaller 
 than that of the presiding ofticer himself. This 
 official has most responsible duties to do. He
 
 THE LAW COUKTS THEIR DEFECTS. 241 
 
 has to take charge of all the documents, look 
 after the court fees, receive and issue papers, 
 and issue and take return of processes. For all 
 these duties a man of high character and honesty 
 is wanted. In India the clerk of the court gets 
 hardly enough pay to secure the barely mechan- 
 ical accomplishments of reading, writing, and 
 ciphering. The consequence is that the court 
 officials are commonly believed to be corrupt, 
 capable of betraying their trust for a bribe, and 
 only kept within bounds by the close super- 
 vision of the court. Thus to the judicial busi- 
 ness of the judge is added a great deal of that 
 business which in Scotland would fall on the 
 clerical staff of the court, whereby the time and 
 energy of the judge are wasted ; and litigants 
 are in the habit of paying as bribes large sums 
 which may or may not find their way into the 
 pockets of the ministerial staff of the court, 
 but are certainly believed to go there. For 
 doing their duty, for not doing it, for doing a 
 wrong or for not doing it, bribes are given to 
 or for men of this class very often. How they 
 can make money it would take too long to 
 describe here, but there are scores of ways in 
 which they can, and, if not grossly slandered, 
 frequently do. 
 
 The next want is of a trustworthy executive 
 staff. The chief part of the executive staff of 
 
 Q
 
 242 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the law is the police, and of a similar character 
 are the process peons of the courts who, under 
 the direct control of the courts, go out into the 
 districts to execute warrants, attach goods, and 
 serve summonses and notices. This will be a 
 good place to consider shortly the police as 
 they now are. We shall consider them as they 
 are in Lower Bengal. One object which Lord 
 Cornwallis had in view when he made the Per- 
 manent Settlement was that India might have 
 a strong magistracy of prosperous and contented 
 landlords who should manage the police. The 
 mismanagement, incompetence, dishonesty, and 
 oppression of the landlord police made it neces- 
 sary to withdraw from them part of their powers, 
 and all over the country there was established 
 a system of darogahs, or, as we would call them, 
 inspectors, under the direct control of Govern- 
 ment district officers. The break-down of this 
 system, darogahs being notoriously oppressive 
 and corrupt, besides being, as a rule, incapable 
 of keeping the peace, led to its abandonment 
 after the Mutiny, when it was replaced by a 
 new system of half-military police. The con- 
 stitution of the new system has undergone from 
 time to time considerable changes, and there 
 are signs that it does not give satisfaction. 
 Schemes for its reform are, even as we write, 
 under consideration, and it would be useless to
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 243 
 
 discuss at present any but the most general 
 questions. 
 
 On the side of the State the police have 
 hitherto been supervised entirely by paid officers 
 of the Government. They are of various grades, 
 from the inspector-general, with his deputies, 
 through district superintendents, inspectors, sub- 
 inspectors, head and writer constables, down to 
 plain constables. They have as duties the inves- 
 tigation of cases, the collection of intelligence, 
 the prevention of crime, especially of breach 
 of the peace and theft, inquiry in case of sudden 
 death or accident, custody of lost property, 
 watching bad characters, and other such duties, 
 which involve their pervading the whole life of the 
 country. Again, they have duties more purely 
 of service to the State, such as furnishing guards 
 and escorts, and prosecuting heavy criminal cases 
 in court. They have a quasi military training, 
 every officer and man being put through his 
 drill and taught to shoot. 
 
 The district superintendent, as head police 
 assistant to the district officer, has to look after 
 an area of some 4000 square miles, with a popu- 
 lation of about a million and a half. Communi- 
 cations being imperfect, his subordinate inspec- 
 tors are spread out over the district, and each of 
 them has charge of a group of stations, under 
 sub-inspectors, many of which stations again have
 
 244 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 outposts. As the stations have to serve areas of 
 from 100 to 500 square miles, their work can 
 only be done by spreading out the few constables 
 allotted to each in beats. Except the centres in 
 the district, sometimes only one, sometimes as 
 many as four or five, where a case can be insti- 
 tuted by complaint before a magistrate, the only 
 places where complaints of crime can be made 
 are the stations or outposts. All the police, from 
 district superintendents to ordinary constables, 
 are members of a single centralised force, liable 
 to be transferred, and frequently transferred from 
 one part of the province to another. 
 
 On the side of the villages, again, there are a 
 class of village watchmen, corresponding some- 
 what to the old village constables that existed in 
 English villages before the days of the modern 
 police. The watchmen were in old days the only 
 persons whom the landlords had to do police 
 duty, and they were, like their -duties, of various 
 classes. Some guarded the passes and roads, 
 others the towns, and others the fields and vil- 
 lages. When the police work was taken from 
 the landlords, the landlords managed to with- 
 draw from the public service many of these, and 
 get hold of their services or remuneration. The 
 landlords, though still supposed to pay the vil- 
 lage watchmen, gradually got rid of this burden, 
 until it became necessary to pass a law for secur-
 
 THE LAW COU11TS THEIR DEFECTS. 245 
 
 ing that the watchman should be paid by some- 
 body. The duty of collecting and giving over to 
 the watchman his pay was placed in the hands 
 of a village board or punchayet, in the hope of 
 creating a village supervising agency, and mak- 
 ing the watchmen independent of the landlords. 
 The village police are not yet in a satisfactory 
 condition, their pay being neither sufficient nor 
 punctually paid, and they themselves being con- 
 sidered not sufficiently independent of local in- 
 fluences or amenable to that of the State 
 through its officers. 
 
 Now it may be taken for granted that, in 
 order that we may have a thoroughly efficient 
 system of police, the State police and the village 
 police ought to work together and be knit to- 
 gether as parts of one body. A police officer, if 
 asked how this is to be done, would say that the 
 village watchman must be detached from the 
 village and attached to the regular police, his 
 wages collected and paid by them, and he should 
 take his orders from them alone. In fact, he 
 should form an additional tentacle, as it were, of 
 the great octopus, by whose means it should be 
 able to worm itself into every village of the land 
 at once. To such a plan the chief and conclusive 
 answer is that it might be the ideal for a police 
 under a government of tyranny; but it is wholly 
 opposed to freedom, and must therefore be put
 
 246 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 aside. There is a further answer, that it would 
 be too costly. The evil of the present system is 
 that there are many underpaid, untrustworthy 
 subordinates, many of them corrupt, oppressive, 
 and intriguing, vested with large powers of an- 
 noyance, scattered in isolated positions over the 
 land ; and a very few overworked and ill -paid 
 superiors over them who are, owing to distances, 
 heavy duties, and the nature of the work, utterly 
 unable to keep a proper check on them. They 
 are an army of mercenaries without officers, and 
 as such are a danger to the State ; a dread to the 
 people, in a land where there are no magistrates 
 and no public to keep watch on them wherever 
 they go. 
 
 Let us look at the difficulties of managing 
 the police, even as they are. The rank and 
 file are, owing to the scanty pay allowed, made 
 up of dull and inefficient men without brains, 
 who could not earn a living in ordinary lines 
 of life, and of smart men without scruples 
 who make a profit out of their position and 
 powers. The typical village is, say, ten miles 
 from the nearest station, five from the nearest 
 outpost, and twenty from the residence of the 
 nearest magistrate. If a theft occurs in a vil- 
 lager's house, he has to call the village watch- 
 man and the landlord's agent. The watchman, 
 with one of the household, goes off to inform the
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 247 
 
 nearest police officer, at the outpost or station. 
 If the officer is, as he oftens is, absent on an in- 
 quiry, they have to hang about and await his 
 return, or follow him till they find him. When 
 at length he reaches the village all hope of de- 
 tecting the thief is gone, and he and his con- 
 stables have to be lodged and fed, and perhaps 
 paid a fee besides. Finally, the case is reported 
 to the authorities as true or false, as the officer 
 may see fit, which often depends on the fee he 
 gets. There is seldom any means of checking 
 him. 
 
 If the officer makes an effort at detecting the 
 thief, a hopeless effort in most cases, he begins 
 by collecting together all those who have been 
 convicted of theft before, and calling on them to 
 trace out the thief, on pain of being suspected 
 themselves. They are often subjected, unless 
 rumour lies, to torture of various kinds, most 
 certainly to the torture of moral anguish. In 
 the opinion of many experienced magistrates, the 
 consequences to a man of conviction as a thief, 
 however trifling the offence, and however small 
 the punishment, are serious out of all proportion 
 to his guilt. His name is put in the black books 
 of the police, and he is a bad character. Every 
 time a theft occurs his house is searched, and he 
 is called out to attend the police when they come 
 into the neighbourhood, and to trace offenders on
 
 248 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 pain of being accused himself. The ability of a 
 police officer being measured by results, he must 
 suppress reports of crime or get convictions, or 
 his name will suffer. To follow the subject of 
 bad characters a little further, we may note that 
 a favourite form of revenge on an enemy is to 
 get him convicted of a petty theft. He becomes 
 a bad character for life, and he and his family are 
 branded with the mark that makes them slaves 
 to-the police. 
 
 Again, when the case to be inquired into is 
 one of rioting or murder, or some such crime, 
 the police have a great chance. The officer 
 deputed to inquire is a man on very low pay, 
 sometimes as low as 20 rupees a -month, out 
 of which he has to feed and dress himself, keep 
 a pony, and probably a house and family and 
 a number of poor relations. Where there has 
 been a riot, each side generally accuses all the 
 relatives, friends, and witnesses of the other 
 side, and ample evidence is forthcoming in sup- 
 port of any view of the case which the officer 
 may choose to take, for it is commonly a fac- 
 tion dispute in which the friends of each faction 
 feel bound in honour to swear as may suit their 
 own side. According as the favour of the officer 
 falls on one side or on the other, the chance of 
 proving the case is shifted, and his favour is 
 thus a valuable commodity which, if not too
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 249 
 
 scrupulous, he may put up for sale. His power 
 of arrest is also a means of annoyance to many, 
 the threat of exercising which may extract from 
 them liberal fees. At every step he is in a 
 position to take money for exercising or for not 
 exercising his legal powers. No man can tell 
 when a police officer may not have opportuni- 
 ties of exercising his power over any man in 
 the area over which he has control, and accord- 
 ingly it is worth the while of all local men of 
 position and means to pay the local police officer 
 a regular monthly salary for the sake of securing 
 his favour. If rumour does not belie them, the 
 income of the subordinate police is much more 
 largely made up of regular and occasional pay- 
 ments by subjects of the State than of the modest 
 stipends doled out by the State itself. 
 
 The police have opportunities of plunder at 
 other times than when engaged on the more 
 serious business of inquiries into alleged crimes. 
 It is their duty to inquire into cases of suicide 
 or accidental death, and not at all difficult, if 
 they set about it, to turn such a case into a 
 murder, or a murder into suicide or accidental 
 death. They have frequently to deal with 
 property, and in the management of the vil- 
 lage watchmen and of the bad characters they 
 have no small gleanings. In the service of 
 processes and the attachment of property they
 
 250 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 have another source of income, which is shared 
 by the bailiffs of the civil courts. 
 
 The work of the police is beset with difficul- 
 ties which in Scotland or England can hardly 
 be realised. The people either display a stolid 
 indifference, caring nothing if the law is frus- 
 trated, the guilty escape, and the innocent are 
 unjustly condemned, or they display the active 
 interest of the faction, each man seeking to help 
 his own side, and not sticking at perjury, for- 
 gery, false charges, bribes, threats, and all the 
 usual faction weapons. A public taking an in- 
 terest in the work of the police a judicial 
 interest which desires nothing but the triumph 
 of justice, the punishment of the guilty, and 
 the safety of the innocent is not to be 
 found. 
 
 The problem already before the authorities is 
 how to keep in order these untrustworthy, low- 
 paid, and isolated subordinates placed in posi- 
 tions of power and trust, without the aid of a 
 public and an abundant supply of magistrates, 
 by means of anything like the present scanty 
 and overworked staff of officers. It is a problem 
 which has never been faced in Britain, where the 
 police are beset with eyes, ears, and hands able 
 and ready to keep them in order, and most of the 
 work which brings to them the greatest oppor- 
 tunities of oppression is done by other hands.
 
 THE LAW COURTS THEIR DEFECTS. 251 
 
 They cannot be disciplined by the fear of the 
 law. A man suspected of malpractices is en- 
 titled to a trial before he is convicted or pun- 
 ished, and there must be evidence. If accusers 
 are to come forward with charges, charges must 
 be listened to and inquired into when brought, 
 and to maintain a correct attitude towards 
 the charges is as difficult as to row a straight 
 course in the teeth of a strong wind. The 
 least sign of discouragement prevents injured 
 persons from coming forward ; the least sign 
 of credulity, and the conscientious police officer 
 is overwhelmed with false accusations, the very 
 fact of inquiring into which, whatever the re- 
 sult, paralyses his work. Tie police officers up 
 as tightly as we may with rules and diaries and 
 incessant reports, even till we make them use- 
 less for real work, we can never overcome their 
 fatal advantage of isolation. 
 
 Seeing, then, all these difficulties, what can 
 be the chief effect of adding to the body of 
 subordinates which the district police officers 
 already have the great body of village watch- 
 men, numbering thousands in a district, with- 
 out enormously strengthening the staff of super- 
 vising officers? It can but be to set free the 
 subordinates more completely than they now 
 are from all control by putting yet heavier 
 work on their superiors. The police are under
 
 252 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 a bad system, and unless the system can be 
 changed, they will never be improved. 
 
 Thus an attempt has been made to point 
 out the defects of law courts in India at the 
 present day, defects which are serious and pre- 
 vent the law courts from taking in India the 
 same place that is taken by those in Scotland 
 and England. The defects may be summed 
 up by saying that there is no people in India 
 as there is in England and Scotland, no body 
 animated with the spirit and the life of the 
 British nation in which the law court may take 
 its place as a living member. The defects may 
 be again enumerated shortly. They are want 
 of (1) magistrates; (2) public prosecutor; (3) 
 courts ; (4) lawyers ; (5) local knowledge in the 
 courts ; (6) prestige of courts ; (7) trustworthy 
 ministerial, and (8) executive staff. Because 
 of these defects, justice is not made easy for 
 the weak and the oppressed ; and the courts, 
 instead of being a terror to evil-doers, are in- 
 struments of oppression in their hands. Those 
 who sincerely desire a settlement of disputes go 
 elsewhere for it, and the court is to a large 
 extent the arena where faction feuds are fought 
 out, and the means by which men strike at their 
 enemies. We shall come in the next chapter to 
 a consideration how the defects can be remedied.
 
 253 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LAW COURTS HOW THEIR DEFECTS CAN 
 BE REMEDIED. 
 
 WE have seen that the usefulness of the law 
 courts is marred by various defects, the chief 
 cause of which is that the British nation is 
 attempting to carry out, without the co-opera- 
 tion of the people and in a poor country, a 
 system which, to be successful, needs the co- 
 operation of the people and a rich country. 
 To get at the root of the evil we must begin 
 by giving the physical and social relief sug- 
 gested in former chapters ; by endeavouring to 
 organise in one united body, as already sug- 
 gested, the State and the local authorities ; and 
 by reforming the law. If this work is done 
 properly, we may hope to remedy many of the 
 defects now seen in the law courts. There will 
 no longer be that enormous mass of rent suits, 
 with their accumulated costs, rendered necessary 
 by the fact of the landlord dealing separately
 
 254 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 with each ryot. When there are good com- 
 munications all the year round, irrigation, and 
 education, the usurer will not be so indispen- 
 sable and so powerful as he now is, and it is 
 to be hoped that the man of capital, ceasing 
 from the perpetual effort he now makes to turn 
 the ryot into a slave, will develop into the use- 
 ful banker and the peaceful trader, serving 
 instead of oppressing the ryots with whom he 
 deals. The character of litigation will probably 
 change, legitimate litigation, as it may be called, 
 whose object is to settle the ostensible issues 
 raised, taking the place of that whose object is 
 to test or break the strength of resisting persons 
 or factions. 
 
 Assuming that the changes above enumerated 
 viz., physical relief, social reform, the organi- 
 sation of local authority, and reform of the law 
 have been adopted as part of the programme, 
 and are in active operation (for all of these are 
 as much essential to the improvement of the 
 law courts as reform of the law courts itself), 
 we may now go on to consider what changes 
 can be made in the law courts for their benefit. 
 
 Having seen the various defects, we will 
 consider as far as possible in the same order 
 the various remedies which can be applied. 
 The defects, for clearness, may be enumerated 
 once more. They are want of (1) magistrates ;
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 255 
 
 (2) public prosecutor ; (3) courts ; (4) lawyers ; 
 (5) local koowledge ; (6) prestige ; (7) trust- 
 worthy ministerial, and (8) executive staff. As 
 regards want of magistrates, time being of the 
 utmost importance in criminal cases especi- 
 ally, the number of magistrates should be 
 multiplied to the utmost, so long as trust- 
 worthy persons can be found for the office. 
 At present there are fewer magistrates em- 
 powered to receive complaints than courts to 
 try them, whereas the proportion should be 
 many magistrates for each court. If we can 
 get over the difficulty of want of magistrates, 
 we shall have the way opened past many other 
 difficulties, such as the want of minor courts 
 and the police difficulty. Now there are many 
 persons at present in the employment of the 
 State, who are, or ought to be, qualified to 
 perform the duties of a magistrate, so far at 
 least as issuing a summons or a warrant goes, 
 and of whom no use is at present made for this 
 purpose. These are the public servants in many 
 departments, who are not vested with even the 
 simplest powers of magistrates. Take, for in- 
 stance, to give the broadest example, the whole 
 of the civil courts. If a person goes to a minor 
 civil court to demand redress for a criminal in- 
 jury, the court must decline to listen to or re- 
 cord his complaint, and must refer him to some
 
 256 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 qualified magistrate, living perhaps twenty miles 
 off. This is a result of what is called the de- 
 partmental system. There is a separate depart- 
 ment of criminal justice, and the administration 
 of criminal justice is the business of those who 
 belong to this department, and of no one else. 
 It is the caste system extending its sway over 
 the State. Now in England and Scotland the 
 law is the law or will of the people, who made 
 it, who alter it when they choose, and who watch 
 and control its administration. To enforce this 
 law is the business of every member of the 
 nation, and as many persons among the people 
 as are fit for that part of the work of administer- 
 ing the law which is done by magistrates, are 
 chosen from among the people and appointed 
 to do it. As the law is the will of the whole 
 nation, and not of this or that place, the persons 
 are chosen by the State, and not elected by the 
 people, except where the people of the place 
 have special privileges ; but they are chosen 
 from among the people of the place, being the 
 best known, most influential, and most fully 
 trusted people of the place. Their interests are 
 bound up with those of the place ; their char- 
 acter depends on local public opinion ; and the 
 consequences of what they do come home to 
 them, because they cannot escape by moving 
 to other places.
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 257 
 
 Now just as the law in Scotland and England 
 is the will of the British nation, so is the law in 
 India the will of the British nation ; but, instead 
 of being present everywhere to watch the admin- 
 istration of its laws, the British nation is per- 
 sonally absent, and can only be present through 
 its representative agents and servants. All the 
 more need that every one of those agents and 
 servants should be qualified to watch and con- 
 trol and help in the administration of the law. 
 It is perhaps right that the various services, such 
 as the army, the post-office, and so on, should be 
 separate from one another, and under separate 
 departments, but the administration of the law is 
 a work in which all should aid to the best of their 
 ability. For the work of a magistrate no special 
 training is needed. He must have faith and 
 honour ; he must be staunch and a good business 
 man. These qualities are necessary for all servants 
 of Government, in whatever capacity employed, 
 who are in positions of trust. Therefore every 
 Government servant who is employed in an 
 office of trust should be a magistrate. If he is 
 not fit to be a magistrate, he is not fit for his 
 other duties, whatever they may be. Here, then, 
 is one source from which a great addition to the 
 supply of magistrates can be obtained. 
 
 Another source has been indicated in a previous 
 chapter, that on central and local government, 
 
 R
 
 258 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 at the end of which a hint was given that local 
 authorities could be used as agents of the State. 
 The object of the British nation in raising up lo- 
 cal authorities is assumed to be the spreading of 
 its own spirit among the peoples of India the 
 development and strengthening among them of 
 orderly local wills in harmony with its own. The 
 persons who are to carry out the local will are the 
 village heads, as representing the people, and 
 those personally vested with office as respectable 
 local men. They are to be, for the present, under 
 the strict control of the district officer, who will 
 be able to prevent their abuse of power. These 
 will provide a very abundant, and, as the organisa- 
 tion of the people proceeds, an increasing supply 
 of men corresponding, so far as the different con- 
 ditions of the countries admit, with the classes 
 from which magistrates in England and Scotland 
 are chosen. By enlisting for the work of ad- 
 ministering' justice the two classes of men above 
 described, we may count on obtaining every man 
 in the country who is fit for it, and abundance 
 of magistrates for all purposes. As regards the 
 area within which powers of a magistrate should 
 be given, the village headman's powers should 
 be within his own union ; the powers of 
 punchayet heads and of personally selected men 
 for the circuit area, and those of Government 
 servants for the area in which their other duties
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 259 
 
 lie. It may be possible in the future to withdraw 
 the powers of Government servants who wander 
 about over large areas ; but for the present, our 
 object being to establish the ubiquity of the law 
 and the unity of the State, having a single will, 
 and many members acting together in one body, 
 moved by that single will, it will be well to leave 
 no one out. All these magistrates should centre 
 on the district officer, who should be their head 
 and master. Every one, therefore, who has an 
 injury to be redressed, should be able to go to 
 the nearest magistrate, never far from his home, 
 and lay his complaint without any difficulty, or 
 expense of time, trouble, and money, and the 
 magistrate should hear his complaint and take 
 such action as may be necessary. 
 
 The second defect is the want of a public 
 prosecutor. Without touching on the question 
 of superior courts, or of further proceedings in 
 important cases, we may suggest that a magis- 
 trate who receives a complaint and issues process 
 on it should take charge of the case himself, 
 make inquiries, and attend with the parties and 
 witnesses before the court that tries the case. 
 It is possible that at some future time the local 
 authorities may see their way to appoint public 
 prosecutors who will be able to take this duty ; 
 but in the meantime the expense and the worry 
 of so many of them as there must be to attend
 
 260 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 locally to cases, make it out of the question for 
 the district officer to appoint and control them. 
 If the magistrate who issues the summons is 
 made responsible for the case till the close of the 
 trial, he will be all the more careful not to act 
 without due caution. The labour thus thrown 
 on the magistrate would not be great, since it 
 should very rarely happen that in one union there 
 is more than one case a-year. Each magistrate 
 would thus have only perhaps half-a-dozen cases 
 to deal with during his lifetime, and would, being 
 in presence of his fellow-magistrates and the peo- 
 ple of the neighbourhood, and having to answer 
 for his conduct to the higher authorities, bring 
 to his work the utmost care and interest. Where 
 the nature of the case is such as to require more 
 skilful handling, help can be sent by the district 
 officer, who should have a staff strong enough 
 to afford help where needed. The magistrate 
 should, in the first instance, take up every case that 
 has to come before the criminal courts, from the 
 least to the greatest. Should all the local magis- 
 trates refuse to take up a case, it would be open 
 to the aggrieved person to go to the district officer 
 or one of his assistants, and seek redress. There 
 should in no case, after a magistrate has decided 
 to set the law in motion, be an interval when the 
 conduct of the case is left in the hands of private 
 persons, or of police officers who are not trusted.
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 261 
 
 The third defect noticed was the want of courts 
 for the trial of cases, and the object is to find a 
 sufficient number of courts, working at so many 
 centres as to bring the courts near enough to the 
 people, with sufficient time and skill and energy 
 to try all cases thoroughly well. To attain this 
 object, several changes are necessary. The first 
 is the amalgamation of civil and criminal justice. 
 At present, in most parts of the country, there 
 are a certain number the majority of judicial 
 officers, who are appointed solely for the trial 
 of civil disputes, and who, although no other 
 qualified officials may be within reach, are not 
 even allowed to record a complaint in a criminal 
 case ; while, on the other hand, those who are 
 empowered to try criminal cases are not allowed 
 to try civil suits. There is no reason why paid 
 judges should not, as in Scotland, be qualified to 
 dispose of both civil and criminal suits. This 
 one change, if effected, would vastly increase the 
 number of centres at which trained judges sit, 
 and bring the courts nearer the people. It would 
 also enable the people to realise more clearly that 
 justice is one, and not of several different qualities 
 and kinds. 
 
 Another means of multiplying the number of 
 paid judges is to require that each servant of the 
 State who is of sufficiently high standing should 
 be qualified by his knowledge of the law to act
 
 262 BRITISH WOHK IN INDIA. 
 
 as a judge, and should perform the duties of a 
 judge when necessary. We shall discuss further 
 on the effect such a measure will have on the 
 quality of the work of the courts. Here it suf- 
 fices to say that such a measure would make 
 available a very great additional number of 
 judges. A measure of this kind would, it need 
 hardly be said, be exactly contrary to the exist- 
 ing practice, a practice which many desire to see 
 pushed further as an advance in civilisation 
 that the judicial line of Government service 
 should be separated more completely from all 
 other lines, and that a man who is a judge should 
 be only a judge and nothing besides. But let it 
 be remembered that the law in India is not the 
 law of the people, but the law of the British 
 nation, and that it would be a pity if the law of 
 the sovereign power its will, according to which 
 all work is done were a mystery to any of its 
 higher servants, and if any of them could say 
 that it is no business of theirs. Every higher 
 civil officer of the State, therefore, should be 
 required to devote part of his time to the duties 
 of the bench, and to qualify himself by reading 
 and experience for those duties. Again, the law 
 courts might be brought nearer to the people by a 
 system of circuits, which, with the good roads that 
 are to be, would be much easier to arrange. A 
 court should be held at every circuit centre, and
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 263 
 
 the cases of each circle disposed of at its own 
 centre. It might be possible still further to 
 multiply the number of court centres, but this is 
 all we would propose to do in the meantime in the 
 way of bringing the courts to the people. It is 
 a great step in advance, and we may well pause 
 till it shall have been taken before suggesting 
 what should be done next. The power of the 
 courts at the circuit centres can be greatly 
 strengthened by enlisting the help of the local 
 magistrates in a way that will presently be 
 pointed out. 
 
 The next defect pointed out was the want of 
 lawyers. This, of course, is not a want that is 
 so much in the power of the Government to 
 make up as are some others. It is to be hoped 
 that, with multiplication of courts, freedom of 
 communication, increase of wealth, and the gen- 
 eral improvement of the country, the lawyers 
 will become less of courtiers and more of public 
 servants. In the meantime, the courts should 
 remember that the people of the land are poor 
 and ignorant, and have very imperfect means of 
 getting advice ; and, remembering this, should 
 act accordingly. 
 
 At present a person who desires to institute a 
 case must appear with a written plaint if it be 
 civil, or petition if it be criminal. Let us take 
 the civil suit first. The plaint has been written,
 
 264 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 and must be presented by a lawyer, who has his 
 fee for the purpose. No doubt a court would 
 hear a suitor who appeared in person, and per- 
 sisted in refusing to employ a pleader ; but, as a 
 matter of fact, so little encouragement is given 
 to this course that it is seldom followed. The 
 lawyer who writes the plaint will see that there 
 is a substantial cause of action, and their interest 
 in the case going on offers great temptation for 
 lawyers to so manipulate the plaint that it will 
 make the case look more plausible than the facts 
 warrant. When the plaintiff is illiterate, and 
 the lawyer not rigidly scrupulous, this can be 
 done so as to make it difficult afterwards to ap- 
 portion the blame. The suitor also who has 
 gone to the expense of paying a lawyer and 
 paying the court fees of a case, will feel almost 
 driven to go on in the hope of getting back his 
 costs. 
 
 For the sake of saving suitors unnecessary 
 expense, of getting at the truth of their claims, 
 and of teaching them the great moral lesson that 
 their claim, stated by their own unlettered lips, 
 does not need to be put into shape by skilled 
 hands before it can be understood, suitors should 
 be required, before instituting their case, to ap- 
 pear before a court, or officer appointed for the 
 purpose, and make a verbal statement on oath 
 of all facts which, to the court or officer, may
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 265 
 
 seem relevant. Before the plaint is admitted, 
 the court or officer must be satisfied that there 
 is a proper cause of action, and certify to that 
 effect. The suitor will then, before being com- 
 mitted to any expense, get clear and disinter- 
 ested advice as to whether he should go on with 
 the case or not. He ought not to be required at 
 this stage of the case to pay any court fee. This 
 is a service which, for its own credit, the State 
 should render to its subjects free of all charge, 
 or for a nominal charge only. The State would 
 profit by the stoppage of many unreasonable 
 suits which now go to trial, by the early record 
 of a full statement of claim in cases which go 
 on, and by the feeling of greater confidence 
 and peace which would be given to the people 
 at large by such an arrangement. 
 
 The additional work need not thus be very 
 great, and it can still further be reduced by 
 allowing the plaints to be filed before the 
 smaller local courts, and, in suits triable by 
 superior courts, forwarded to these afterwards. 
 When it appears to a court that the plaintiff is 
 able to understand his own interests, or that the 
 claim is of so complicated a character as to need 
 the treatment of a skilled lawyer, the court or 
 officer can certify to that effect, and allow the 
 case to go on in the usual way at the risk of the 
 plaintiff. The statement of the plaintiff in case
 
 266 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 a certificate is refused, with the reasons for 
 refusal, should be forwarded to the superior 
 courts for perusal, in order that no wrong inter- 
 pretation of the law may go unchecked. As re- 
 gards criminal cases, these have been already 
 considered in discussing the question of magis- 
 trates. Even at the risk of crushing out a great 
 proportion of the existing lawyers, a strong effort 
 should be made to raise the standard of the bar. 
 That is now, from various causes, not nearly high 
 enough, and there is little doubt that it could 
 be greatly improved. The discipline of the bar 
 not being, as in England, exercised by great cor- 
 porations like the Inns of Court, must be much 
 more in the hands of the courts themselves. 
 When the independence of the bar is talked of 
 in England, the meaning is, that the control of 
 the lawyers is vested in other authorities than 
 the courts. When it is talked of in India, the 
 meaning is that lawyers claim to be free from 
 all control. This is bad, and should never be 
 allowed. 
 
 The next defect pointed out was the want of 
 local knowledge on the part of the court. The 
 remedy for this is twofold, being in part localisa- 
 tion of officers, and in part the enlistment for 
 judicial work of local men. 
 
 As regards the first, the reasons for transfer 
 of officers are chiefly (1) ill health ; (2) miscon-
 
 LAW COURTS EEFOEMS. 267 
 
 duct ; (3) claims for promotion to a better post ; 
 
 (4) the necessity of relieving officers on leave ; 
 
 (5) the fear of an officer becoming narrow, owing 
 to his staying too long in one place ; (6) the fear 
 of his forming local connections and becoming 
 subject to local influences. It is to be remem- 
 bered that in India, where the ruling power is 
 not public opinion, but the opinion of the British 
 nation, the State must exercise over its judges a 
 more direct and constant control than is needed 
 in England ; and one means of exercising con- 
 trol, which has in the past been especially relied 
 on, has always been the power of transfer. By 
 the exercise of this power, the chances of a judge 
 being affected by local influences are greatly re- 
 duced. In attempting to localise judges, whereby 
 the power of transfer is to a certain extent given 
 up, we must remember and guard against this 
 danger. 
 
 The means proposed for localising judges with- 
 out giving up effective control over them, or 
 subjecting them too much to danger from local 
 influences, is as follows : The judges should be 
 grouped in centres, there being at each centre a 
 strong bench of judges, with a competent and 
 experienced chief at its head, appointed by Gov- 
 ernment for its management and control. All 
 the judges at the centre, except the chief him- 
 self, should be appointed for that centre only,
 
 268 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 and not liable to transfer elsewhere. There 
 should be at the centre good court-houses, a 
 library, and a bar. The records, accounts, and 
 all the business of all the judges should be con- 
 ducted by a strong joint-establishment. At this 
 centre, all suits from the immediate neighbour- 
 hood, and all suits of great importance, should 
 be tried ; and from it the judges should go on 
 circuit where their services are needed, and hold 
 court at the various circuit centres. The advan- 
 tages of such an arrangement over that now 
 existing, whereby the country is divided into 
 numerous districts and subdistricts, in each of 
 which the judge or judges sit in one spot often 
 alone, would be as follows : 
 
 The judges would have a wider range of ex- 
 perience, seeing and hearing more, and being 
 more under the influence of opinion and control 
 than they are at present. This would dispose of 
 the fifth and sixth reasons for transfer without 
 causing any inconvenience to the people. Cases 
 could be tried before a judge independent of 
 local influences and yet acquainted with local 
 circumstances. Local influences could be en- 
 tirely prevented from affecting the courts by 
 varying the officers deputed to the different 
 circuits. 
 
 Being in a group, the judges could carry on 
 the work when one is sick or absent on leave
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 269 
 
 without additioDal aid. This would dispose of 
 the fourth cause of transfer. 
 
 In case of a judge suffering from ill health or 
 being guilty of misconduct, when it is usual now 
 to transfer elsewhere, it might still be permis- 
 sible as a special case to order a transfer. No 
 judge should be allowed to claim as a matter of 
 right transfer to another group. 
 
 Thus all the ordinary reasons for transfer 
 would be done away with by this arrangement, 
 and no judge need ever, in the ordinary course, 
 look for a transfer at all. A judge could then 
 both settle down in a comfortable house, mak- 
 ing arrangements for his family and affairs ; and 
 enter with zeal on a careful study of the history, 
 places, and people of the circle in which he lived. 
 The judges would, belonging to the circle, be- 
 come acquainted with the people, and the people 
 would come to know the judges, going round 
 as they regularly would do on circuit. In ad- 
 dition to these, who may be called the special 
 judges, there are the lay judges that is, all the 
 higher officers of the State who are to give 
 part of their time and attention to judicial work, 
 and who, from their other duties, have consider- 
 able local knowledge. 
 
 Among the advantages of the grouping of 
 judges, some of which will be noticed further 
 on, not the least will be the improvement of the
 
 270 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 bar which the substitution of a single large 
 centre for many small centres will surely bring 
 about, and the removal of that scandal to all 
 right-thinking men, the sight of lonely, sickly, 
 over- worked minor judges, living in hovels and 
 dispensing justice in sheds. In their place would 
 be groups of judges, comfortably settled, with 
 the society which a large centre affords, and 
 having at hand the resources of a good library 
 and the advice and support of their brother 
 judges, each of them from time to time issuing 
 forth on circuit and bringing back to the com- 
 mon store a stock of information and experience. 
 As regards the enlistment for judicial work 
 of local men, that would under this plan be 
 possible too. The point of contact between the 
 local and the State officials is the circuit centre. 
 At the circuit centres there would be held courts 
 for the trial of all cases except those which 
 are tried at the headquarters of the judges. 
 Cases should be divided into two classes viz., 
 ordinary and special. Ordinary cases are those 
 that can be tried without the need of much learn- 
 ing or the exercise of great ability ; special cases, 
 which would form a comparatively small propor- 
 tion of the whole, are those that need these. For 
 the trial of special cases assizes should be held, 
 attended by the regular judges. These assizes 
 can be held, not at each circuit centre, but at
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 271 
 
 one for perhaps four or five such centres. Being 
 held but seldom, perhaps twice or thrice in the 
 year, these assizes can be attended by the local 
 authorities village heads and other magistrates, 
 and all the State officials of the various circuit 
 centres ; and out of these juries can be chosen for 
 the trial of the cases, just as is done in England 
 and Scotland. This periodical gathering of all 
 the various authorities, local and State, executive 
 and judicial, in honour of the law, the prevailing 
 will in the country, would have in itself a power- 
 ful effect on the people, impressing them with a 
 sense of the power and unity of the law a rever- 
 ence for it and a desire to uphold it which are 
 not now felt. This great meeting of assize could 
 also be taken advantage of to discuss any point 
 in the customary law which, according to local 
 opinion, needs to be dealt with. 
 
 For the ordinary cases a much simpler and 
 less costly procedure should be followed. There 
 should be at each circuit centre a petty session 
 court, say once in two months, or as often as the 
 business justifies, attended by one of the lay 
 judges on behalf of the State. By lay judges 
 are meant, as explained before, those officers of 
 the State who, while employed on other duties, 
 devote part of their time to those of the bench. 
 At each petty session as many as possible of the 
 local authorities should be present ; and the
 
 272 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 president, as he may be called, will then, after 
 examining the file of cases, select by lot, or in 
 any other just way, from among the magistrates 
 present a sufficient number of benches, and to 
 these benches will distribute the ordinary cases 
 for trial. He will himself inquire, where inquiry 
 is necessary, into such special cases as may have 
 to go on to the assizes. His chief duty, however, 
 is to sit while the various benches are at work on 
 their cases, ready to give advice to such of them 
 as may desire it, or to listen to any complaints 
 against their work which any one may think 
 proper to make, and investigate them on the 
 spot. If difficulties arise in any case, he is there 
 to adjust them. The great majority of disputes 
 are such as any honest and impartial man, with 
 business capacity, can settle. It is to be hoped 
 that, with a number of benches simultaneously 
 at work, in a central and public place, and under 
 the eye of the State representative, a great mass 
 of work can be got through with little delay or 
 expense, and yet after a more thorough and in- 
 telligent examination of the facts than we can 
 now get. 
 
 The clerical establishment needed under such 
 a system would be very small. By popularising 
 justice in this way, while giving effect, as for- 
 merly proposed, to common or customary law, 
 we shall probably do a great deal towards stir-
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 2*73 
 
 ring up that public opinion which does so much 
 in England, and is so much missed in India. If 
 we once had that, some further modifications in 
 the way of relaxing the control of the State 
 might be possible. 
 
 The next defect of the law courts pointed 
 out was want of prestige. The prestige of the 
 courts depends very greatly on the manner of 
 men who are appointed judges. At present the 
 bar overtops the bench, with very few excep- 
 tions, and a way must be found for putting an 
 end to this domination. 
 
 In the first place, the judicial office should 
 cease to be a career to be entered on in youth, 
 in which promotion and progress are to be 
 looked for. It should rather be a goal, a prize 
 for success in other careers. There must, of 
 course, be varieties of posts according to the 
 various kinds of work to be done ; but on reach- 
 ing the post of judge, a man should understand 
 that he is not likely and has no claim to be 
 moved either to another place or to another 
 post. He has nothing more to look for; he 
 need not worry himself about pleasing this man 
 or offending that. It is beyond any man's power 
 to forward or injure his career. His career is 
 over. 
 
 Every judge should receive high pay, sufficient 
 to attract from other careers those who have
 
 274 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 had success in them. Not the men who have 
 failed but those who have succeeded are wanted ; 
 men with fame, high character, and good pros- 
 pects. They must be paid for, and are worth 
 paying for. 
 
 The natural answer of an Englishman to the 
 question where men suitable for the office of 
 judge are to be got is "at the bar," where un- 
 doubtedly many good and suitable men are to 
 be found. If the selection of men to sit on the 
 bench were made from among the seniors in- 
 stead of from among the juniors, and the terms 
 offered were such as to attract the best of them, 
 there is no doubt that good men would be got, 
 and the tone of the whole bar greatly improved 
 by the prospects of such high rewards for probity 
 and ability. The bar already supplies a very 
 large number of judges for the Indian bench, 
 and might be relied on as a source of supply in 
 the future. But those who would make the bar 
 the sole source of supply cannot be aware of the 
 wide difference between the bar of England and 
 the bar in India. 
 
 The people of England are all one people ; their 
 religion is practically one ; they are knit to- 
 gether in one body which moves and feels like 
 one man. The bar of England is a member, an 
 important member, of this body ; and, like that 
 of which it is a member, it is m'ade up of mem-
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 275 
 
 bers who are practically one in race, language, 
 religion, manners, and customs. No one is ad- 
 mitted into this body unless he has eaten his 
 food with and lived among the other members 
 for a certain time. The bar has its own govern- 
 ment by its own chiefs, who watch over its 
 honour, and punish those members who, by 
 misconduct, compromise that honour. When 
 a member of the bar becomes a judge, he does 
 not cease to be a member of this great body. 
 He is rather one of its most distinguished mem- 
 bers, whose services are transferred from the 
 judicial business of private individuals to that 
 of the nation at large. The members of the- 
 bar are not, properly speaking, lawyers in the 
 sense that they conduct lawsuits. That is done 
 by solicitors or attorneys, who are not eligible 
 for the office of the higher judges. They are 
 rather colleagues of the judge, who, in order 
 that he may remain during the inquiry entirely 
 unbiassed and committed to no view of the 
 evidence being laid before him, take in court, 
 the one the evidence for the one side, and the 
 other that for the other, each testing as far as 
 possible that opposed to his own side, presenting 
 all the arguments for his client and against his 
 client's adversary. The members of the bar in 
 England have one headquarters, where all prac- 
 tising barristers live, and whence they only
 
 276 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 issue on business to accompany the judges who 
 go on circuit, and to return with them. It is 
 the same in Scotland and Ireland. 
 
 The barrister in England occasionally gives 
 himself up to the study of dry law ; but for the 
 most part barristers mix freely with the people, 
 and make it their business above all to know 
 human nature. Knowledge of the law is but 
 a small part of the armament which an English 
 barrister has to be provided with. The duty of 
 dealing with ^juries is so frequently laid upon 
 him that there is nothing human which he can 
 afford to disregard. In old times barristers were 
 in the very front line, defending the liberties 
 of the people, and to this day they take a lead- 
 ing part in politics. In fact they are an in- 
 tegral part of the living body of the nation, and 
 are animated by its life. 
 
 Now the bar in India is not like this. There 
 is, first, a want of unity in race, religion, feel- 
 ings, manners, and customs. There would be 
 still greater want of unity if the members of the 
 bar more fully represented the peoples of India, 
 so varied and so divided. Even as it is, drawn 
 as they are from only a few of the less numerous 
 castes, and chiefly from one or two only, they 
 are split up hopelessly, and cannot form one 
 body. They could not eat together, worship 
 together, or intermarry.
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 277 
 
 Then they are not gathered at one head- 
 quarters, but are scattered over the whole 
 country in knots. Every court centre has its 
 isolated bar, and the various knots of lawyers 
 have little or no communication with one 
 another. They do not form one corporation, 
 and have no government or chiefs of their own, 
 but are only a number of individuals enjoying 
 the same privileges, not a living and self-dis- 
 ciplined body. As has been noticed before, 
 they are satellites and courtiers of the courts, 
 not mixing among the people or studying 
 the people, but rather haunting the court and 
 studying the personal peculiarities of the court. 
 The main stimulus to the study of the people 
 for an English barrister, the jury, is with them 
 wanting. 
 
 They do not enjoy the advantage which Eng- 
 lish barristers have of going on circuit. 
 
 Even the bar of the High Court, the most ex- 
 alted of all Indian courts, which, seated in one 
 place, supervises the working of many courts 
 over vast areas, suffers from the same defects. 
 It is made up of still more diverse elements. 
 The High Court has less original work than any 
 ordinary district judge, its original jurisdiction 
 being practically confined to the Presidency 
 town where it sits. It never goes on circuit, 
 and has not the opportunities which every judge
 
 278 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 of the Supreme Courts in Britain has, of getting 
 into touch with the people. The only means it 
 has of gaining knowledge of the people greater 
 than that which can be gained by any member 
 of the general public, is through the appeals and 
 applications which pour in on it from all parts of 
 the country with reference to the proceedings of 
 subordinate courts. Such knowledge is the know- 
 ledge of the pedant rather than of the practical 
 man. The main occupation of the bar of the 
 High Court, an occupation in which, through 
 practice, they have acquired skill, is in arguing 
 points of law, and in picking to pieces the work 
 of other people. Of all the real and serious ori- 
 ginal work in the country, the trial of men for 
 their lives, or of issues involving the most im- 
 portant interests, but a very small fraction is 
 done by the judges of the High Court, and it 
 seldom falls to the lot of either themselves or 
 their bar to perform the duty of eliciting the 
 facts and testing the evidence. Even in the 
 courts of the district judges, next to the High 
 Courts in dignity, the original work done bears 
 but a small proportion to the whole of such work 
 that is done. They too are mainly occupied with 
 appellate work, and the unfortunate facts on 
 which, after all, the whole case ought to turn, 
 with the bar as with the bench, drop into a second 
 place in interest, while all are striving to become
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 279 
 
 each more clever and learned in the law than his 
 neighbours. Then the members of the bar in 
 India are not so purely judicial and forensic in 
 their functions as the English barrister, joining 
 with their work at the bar the duties performed 
 by solicitors in England. 
 
 Some of the differences mentioned above may 
 in time be smoothed away, while others seem in 
 the meantime not likely to be removed. There- 
 fore, although there are at the bar many worthy 
 men, and in the future it may be well to appoint 
 largely from the bar to the bench, the bar in 
 India must become a very different institution 
 from what it now is before it can claim the ex- 
 clusive privilege now enjoyed by the bar of 
 England, of supplying from among its members 
 the judges of the land. 
 
 The only other source of supply for the bench 
 open to the State can be its own services. In 
 the British nation, the sovereign power, the 
 people, is present and active in all courts, and in 
 the legislature, controlling the courts and even 
 often doing their work. Through the juries, 
 through the magistrates, through the judges and 
 the bar, all its own members, animated by its 
 spirit, and moved by its will, it expresses and 
 executes its will. As the hand, foot, and head 
 of a living man act naturally and without 
 question according to his will, so does the whole
 
 280 BRITISH WOKK IN INDIA. 
 
 nation act in support of the law. There is no 
 thought of conflict between the people at large 
 and the law, for a law that was so in conflict 
 would cease to be law. Now, the law in force Jn 
 India being the will of the British nation, it crocs 
 not follow as a matter of course that the law will 
 receive support from the people. The people 
 also, being politically dead, are incapable of giv- 
 ing support of any value to the law. They are 
 not likely to oppose, but they are as little likely 
 to support. They obey the law, not because it 
 is their will, but because it is the will of their 
 master the State, and the supporter and control- 
 ler of the law courts in India is not the people 
 but the State. The work of the law courts is only 
 one of the many duties which have to be done 
 for the State in India, and for doing those duties 
 the State has many agents, who enter its service 
 for the most part in their youth, and follow out 
 their career in that service. Many of these 
 agents rise to very high positions, and have 
 duties requiring the utmost exertions of all the 
 best qualities. 
 
 As we have already remarked, the policy that 
 seems to be most popular at the present day is 
 to make the judicial line, like every other, a 
 department under Government ; and to set apart 
 for its work only a certain portion of the servants 
 of the State. This policy we have already pro-
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 281 
 
 posed to reverse by requiring all the higher 
 agents of the State to qualify for and perform 
 as "lay judges " the duties of the bench. From 
 among these "lay judges," some will develop a 
 special taste and capacity for judicial work, and 
 may, on reaching a mature age, when the mind 
 is ripe and the body less active, be promoted to 
 a position of ease and dignity on the bench as 
 regular judges. By thus grappling together the 
 executive services and the courts, the courts 
 themselves will receive an immense addition to 
 their prestige, which is being damaged by their 
 separation from, and occasional open hostility 
 with, the executive Government. It is a matter 
 of the deepest moment that all departments of 
 the State should show to the peoples of India that 
 they are members of one living body, animated 
 by one spirit, and directed by one strong will. 
 The law courts are, from their very nature, bound 
 to execute the will of others, not their own, and 
 if the will be not that of the State, it is likely 
 to become, as indeed it is already fast becoming, 
 that of the lawyers. Mention has already been 
 made of the "Vakeel ka Raj," or reign of the 
 lawyers, which has already begun in some parts 
 of the country. When the State moves or 
 stands idle obediently as it is ordered by the 
 courts, and the courts are swayed by the lawyers 
 those favoured courtiers of the British nation,
 
 282 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 the prestige departs from the State and the 
 courts, and passes to the lawyers. This would 
 be followed by the destruction, not of the 
 Government, for it is strong, but of the law 
 courts, which fail to guard the honour of the 
 ruler. To avoid such a result, the law courts 
 must be strengthened to the utmost by bringing 
 into them the flower not only of the bar, but 
 also of the Government service, and uniting both 
 by honourable ties as closely as may be with 
 the British nation and its agent the Government 
 in India. It may be objected that " lay " judges 
 are only half lawyers. But so is the English 
 barrister. A man who has devoted his whole 
 time to the study and practice of the law may 
 be a good lawyer, but is pretty sure to make a 
 bad judge. 
 
 For some time to come at least, there must be 
 in the law courts on the bench a strong British 
 element. Natives need not be excluded, but the 
 British control should not be given up. A native 
 appointed to the bench is nearly sure to be a 
 Hindoo or perhaps a Mussulman, and, if neither 
 of these, is most likely an atheist. None of these 
 hold the faith of the British nation, and none of 
 them, separately or together, can be trusted with- 
 out aid and control to carry out the will of the 
 British nation. As things are, this aid and con- 
 trol must come through British officers from the
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 283 
 
 British nation. Some day, perhaps, there may 
 arise a strong and enlightened public opinion, to 
 which the control may be handed by the British 
 nation ; but till that arises, the control should be 
 firmly held, and given up to no one. 
 
 The means suggested above for bringing the 
 courts into closer contact with the people, and 
 for enlisting the best of the people themselves, 
 the work of the courts will, by providing a better 
 method of ascertaining facts, protect the prestige 
 of the courts from the ruin which must befall it 
 if it fails in establishing the truth and overthrow- 
 ing falsehood. 
 
 For the purpose of enabling the courts to 
 cleanse themselves of the mass of perjury and 
 fraud that surrounds them, it would seem neces- 
 sary to give them a stronger grip of their own 
 business. We may hope that when the courts 
 are brought into closer touch with the people, 
 and when the spirit of freedom is diffused more 
 widely among the people, the admiration of 
 intrigue, and the instinct of deceit, now so much 
 met with, may die down. Two means of 
 strengthening the hands of the court seem, how- 
 ever, to be available at once viz., the oath, and 
 punishment of perjurers. 
 
 As regards the oath, there seems no good 
 reason why a Hindoo or a Mussulman should not, 
 before giving evidence, be bound by the oath
 
 284 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 which he considers most sacred, to tell the truth, 
 just as much as a Christian, Chinaman, or Jew 
 is. It is not as if the oath had no binding force, 
 for frequently a party challenges his opponent to 
 take the oath, and agrees to abide by what he 
 says on oath, and it has happened that the person 
 challenged has refused the test, though he would 
 have gained by accepting it. Plainly, then, the 
 oath is a restraint on falsehood in any one who 
 is by religious faith a true Hindoo or Mussulman, 
 and such men should be compelled to take it 
 before they are allowed to give evidence. 
 
 As regards perjury, the difficulty of punish- 
 ing the perjurer is notorious, and is a crying 
 scandal in India, The absence of a religious 
 oath is a cause why almost the only sanction 
 by which witnesses are bound to tell the truth 
 is the fear of punishment, and things are in 
 such a state that there is very little of that left. 
 The impunity enjoyed by perjurers is an im- 
 mense encouragement to perjury. It seems a 
 grave danger to the State that courts should 
 habitually come to conclusions which cannot be 
 correct unless half the witnesses have been 
 guilty of downright lying, and be so sure of 
 their conclusions as to inflict severe punish- 
 ment on, award heavy damages against, or re- 
 fuse redress to one of the parties, while the 
 witnesses who deserved punishment as certainly
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 285 
 
 as the conclusions were right escape scot-free. 
 Such a state of things, if it were not so serious, 
 might well be described as ludicrous. There 
 can be no injustice in the heavy measure of 
 justice if it is justice meted out to one of 
 the parties in a case being accompanied by a 
 small summary punishment to those of the 
 witnesses who, as sure as the finding of the 
 court is right, are guilty of falsehood. It is 
 true that every man ought to be tried for his 
 own offence, and have a chance of disproving 
 any offence charged against him. No man 
 ought to be punished without a trial. But yet 
 surely, when a court has investigated a set of 
 facts, and come to a conclusion on the strength 
 of which the State does not hesitate to put a 
 man to death, or imprison him for life, or ruin 
 him, there is no unfairness in fixing reproach 
 on those witnesses whose evidence, if this con- 
 clusion is right, cannot have been honestly true, 
 and must have been intentionally false, by in- 
 flicting on each of them a small but certain 
 punishment. Such a course would immensely 
 strengthen the public respect for and faith in the 
 courts of justice. Perjurers could still be put 
 on their trial, and punished severely in addition 
 if convicted ; but by the time the false witness 
 has been formally made an accused, the burden 
 of proof shifted, the old witnesses examined and
 
 286 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 cross-examined, arguments heard and speeches 
 made, what with delays, irregularities, and the 
 difficulty of trusting fully any witness, the per- 
 jurer is nearly sure to escape in the end. Not 
 one perjurer in a hundred is brought to trial, 
 and of these not one in three is punished. Yet 
 we convict and acquit merrily on this evidence, 
 nearly all of it tainted. For the honour of the 
 British nation a stop should be put to such 
 a scandal. 
 
 Another cause by which the prestige of the 
 courts is weakened is the number and frequency 
 of appeals. The existence of the right of appeal 
 is an apology for the existence of inferior and 
 untrustworthy courts, which are cheap, and, it 
 is fondly believed, owing to the possibility of 
 this remedy, harmless. The right of appeal 
 cannot exist without being accompanied by 
 three great evils. The first is the power which 
 it gives to a rich man to wear down a poor 
 adversary ; the second is where, as was recently 
 pointed out during a debate in the Viceroy's 
 legislative council, it is considered among the 
 people a point of honour to exhaust every 
 opportunity of appealing before giving up the 
 contest, whereby the parties, one or both, ruin 
 themselves to keep up their character among 
 the neighbours ; and the third is that less atten- 
 tion is paid and less importance given to facts
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 287 
 
 than, for the sake of justice, is safe. In the 
 Indian courts, all the best judges and all the 
 leaders of the bar are occupied the most of 
 their time, as was pointed out before, in over- 
 hauling the work of others instead of in doing 
 work of their own. Now there is no necessity 
 that appeals should be allowed to so great an 
 extent as they are. Things have drifted into 
 such a state owing to the action and reaction 
 of two evils appeals and weak courts. Appeals 
 were allowed, and then it was safe to have weak 
 courts. We had weak courts, and then to pre- 
 vent injustice the utmost latitude of appeal had 
 to be given. We have proposed to do away 
 with weak courts, to have every case tried in 
 the first instance by courts competent to come 
 to a correct decision upon them, and there 
 seems in such circumstances no need of the 
 present freedom to appeal. It would be enough 
 to admit of appeals on points of law, especially 
 from benches and lay judges, and these should 
 take the form of a statement of case for orders 
 drawn out by the court in consultation with 
 the parties. There is no doubt that in a few 
 cases the law courts would fail to do justice, 
 just as a doctor sometimes treats his patients 
 wrongly ; but it is better that a few should 
 suffer, rather than that the whole public should 
 be exposed to the wrong arising out of undue
 
 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 delay, difficulty, expense, and uncertainty which 
 multiplication of appeals causes. Let the court 
 be fitted by those qualities which all public 
 servants need, honour, faith, staunchness, and 
 good business capacity, and knowledge, for the 
 trial of cases, and let its burden of work be so 
 adjusted that it is able to bring to each case 
 an un jaded 'mind, and plenty of time and care, 
 and we shall see the need of appeals dwindle 
 down to almost nothing. 
 
 One word more may be said about the effect 
 on the prestige of a court which is exercised 
 by the bar. There are in India two classes of 
 lawyers, members of one of which are entitled, 
 those of the other may be allowed, to practise in 
 certain courts. Of the second class, the great 
 majority are not fit to conduct cases, not having 
 the requisite knowledge, skill, application, or 
 character. Of the first class, those who are of 
 any use are expensive, and beyond the reach of 
 all but the rich. If a party to a case be able to 
 engage a competent lawyer of the first class in a 
 lower court, it will very seldom happen that his 
 opponent can also afford to do this. The effort 
 to bring in skilful lawyers on both sides will 
 probably ruin nineteen out of twenty litigants ; 
 while, if there is a skilful lawyer on one side 
 only, the result of the trial may be owing to the 
 strength of the lawyer, and not, as it ought to
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 289 
 
 be, to the strength of the case. Therefore, all 
 things considered, if the courts are duly qualified, 
 there is more chance of justice being done if 
 lawyers are entirely excluded from the lower 
 that is, the purely local courts, than if they are 
 admitted. Certainly this would be greatly con- 
 ducive to economy in litigation, which in itself 
 is a powerful aid to justice when the masses of 
 those who seek justice are poor. If an excep- 
 tion be made in criminal cases on the ground of 
 a public prosecutor being employed by the State, 
 it would be incumbent on the State to bring to 
 meet the lawyer for the defence an equally com- 
 petent man to prosecute, so that impunity should 
 not be made a mere matter of money. If the 
 presence of lawyers be deemed necessary for the 
 sake of justice in criminal cases, they are wanted 
 on both sides, or on neither. It would be just, 
 if they are needed, that the Crown should pro- 
 vide a lawyer at its own expense for the poor 
 prisoner. We sometimes see a magistrate en- 
 gaged a whole day, or perhaps more, with 
 skilful lawyers in threshing out some com- 
 paratively trifling matter in which a rich man 
 is concerned, and then turning to dispose with- 
 out the help of lawyers of some matter of life 
 and death concerning a poor man who cannot 
 afford the lawyer's fee. If the lawyers do no 
 good, they have wasted time ; if they do good, 
 
 T
 
 290 BRITISH WORK IX INDIA. 
 
 justice to the poor man is not so certain as it is 
 to the rich. To the poor man imprisonment is 
 more serious than to the rich, for his wife and 
 children starve while he is shut up, and he 
 comes out to find his home broken up and his 
 life ruined. 
 
 The next defect noticed was the absence of a 
 trustworthy ministerial staff. The system of 
 courts proposed is all in favour of an improve- 
 ment in the ministerial staff. With a court 
 centre, where many judges sit together, there 
 could be a common establishment in charge of 
 the registers, records, stamps, accounts, library, 
 processes, and correspondence, furnishing to each 
 judge a bench clerk when wanted. At the head 
 of this staff might be one or more confidential 
 clerks, trustworthy and capable. As regards 
 inferior courts, the 'lay judges have already a 
 staff of clerks for their other duties, and a mod- 
 erate addition to this would be ample ; while, 
 for the benches at the circle centres, the staff 
 already employed to look after local business of 
 every kind could be employed, with a moderate 
 addition to its strength, for the occasional duties 
 of the bench also. The permanent staff for all 
 the circuit courts and benches, their record-room, 
 registers, &c., could be left in one consolidated 
 office at the district headquarters. It is not 
 intended here to go into any details, but the
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 291 
 
 principle to be observed is that the clerical busi- 
 ness of the regular courts should be looked after 
 by trustworthy confidential men appointed for 
 that duty only, and that of the occasional courts 
 supervised by men of the same stamp ; while the 
 judges themselves are relieved of all those duties 
 of this kind which now weigh heavily on them, 
 taking up much of their time and energy. 
 
 The last defect noticed was the want of a 
 trustworthy executive staff, and the special 
 difficulties pointed out were (1) the court mes- 
 sengers and lower-grade police who are isolated 
 and yet cannot be trusted ; and (2) the unsolved 
 problem of bringing into harmonious working 
 the local village police and the central police of 
 the State. There is only one way in which, 
 without extravagant expenditure on their own 
 pay and a supervising staff, these isolated un- 
 derlings can be kept out of mischief, and that is 
 by removing them bodily. In this removal there 
 would at least be one solid advantage, that men 
 cannot do mischief unless they first exist, and 
 by destroying this disreputable class of men we 
 take an effectual means of nipping in the bud a 
 vast amount of fraud, extortion, and corruption ; 
 of relieving all good subjects from a perpetual 
 fear; and of saving to the State not only the 
 actual cost of the men, which is considerable, 
 and the loss of prestige caused by them, which
 
 292 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 is great, but also the labour and brains of the 
 few able and trustworthy officers whom it has, 
 now wasted in vain efforts to keep out of mis- 
 chief those " guardians of the peace " who have 
 been placed under them. 
 
 But, it will be said, the police are indispensable 
 to the State. On the police we have to depend 
 for the performance of so many necessary 
 duties that their removal would leave behind 
 a state of chaos. We are now considering the 
 highly centralised machine called the regular 
 police, a modern invention, created since the 
 Mutiny. It is framed on a sound and excellent 
 theory, granted one condition, that the men can 
 be trusted. It is worked on the principle, wholly 
 inconsistent with this condition, that no man can 
 be trusted. Confidence is being slowly with- 
 drawn even from the local chiefs of police, the 
 district superintendents ; and from top to bottom 
 there is an atmosphere of universal suspicion. We 
 have a vast army engaged in watching one another. 
 
 The regular police get the credit of doing an 
 immense number of duties ; but of these, some 
 are not done, some are done by others, and only 
 a portion, not always a very large portion, is 
 done by them. They do indeed cover much 
 paper, and submit many reports and returns, 
 but that does not always mean much work done 
 by the State for the public.
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 293 
 
 The present proposal is not to remove the 
 whole of the regular police, but to remove all 
 those servants of the State, whether in the 
 service of the police or of the civil courts, who 
 are isolated and yet cannot be trusted. This 
 class would include all the State police except 
 those wanted for guards, escorts, and the like, 
 from subinspectors downward, and all process- 
 peons. The duties performed by these should 
 be laid on the local people, and this can be 
 managed by a slight expansion of the local vil- 
 lage watch on the one side, and by a strength- 
 ening of the staff of good inspectors on the side 
 of the State, so that the local police may work 
 in harmony with the State. The work of in- 
 vestigation into cases, of keeping the peace, 
 and other such important duties, can be done, 
 as proposed above, by the magistrates, and 
 these officials also can see to the service and 
 return of all processes, the attachment and cus- 
 tody of property, and the arrest of prisoners. 
 
 But, it will be said, what if the local magis- 
 trates, as yet a non-existent body, should fail 
 to do what is expected of them ? We are 
 going to try this experiment in the hope that 
 it will succeed, not with the fear of failure 
 upon us, and therefore the answer might well 
 be given that as Caesar burnt his boats, so will 
 we stake all on success. But there is no need
 
 294 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 of so heroic an attitude. A small addition to 
 the local rate would provide means to have 
 the neglected work done by paid officials, and 
 the periodical explanation of this arrangement 
 to the ratepayers would soon ripen their inter- 
 est and form a public opinion on the matter, 
 so that the neglect would not be permanent. 
 Where the local magistrates were more public- 
 spirited, they and the ratepayers would reap 
 the benefit of their public spirit. Any one who 
 knows how the people groan under the yoke of 
 the leeches who now, under the auspices of the 
 State, suck the blood of the country, will under- 
 stand that the people everywhere would readily 
 make large sacrifices to get rid of them. It is 
 needless to say what a mass of prejudice against 
 the law and ill-will to justice would be cleared 
 away by the removal of these unworthy repre- 
 sentatives of the State, and that in all prob- 
 ability the people would come forward with 
 goodwill and zeal to aid the State in enforcing 
 them. The great mass of the people are law- 
 abiding. It is not their interest to see robbers 
 and murderers, fraud and violence, flourish. But 
 they have come to look with greater dread on 
 the police than on the robbers themselves, and 
 cannot love or respect the law, when they see 
 how much injustice is done through the courts 
 and through those intrusted with the execution
 
 LAW COURTS REFORMS. 295 
 
 of the law. If we cleanse away the abuses of 
 the law, we shall find as in England the people 
 in India coming forward to help, and that is 
 worth tenfold the strength of all the police we 
 now have. 
 
 It is hardly so necessary for the object of this 
 work to suggest plans for the reform of the 
 higher ranks of the police ; but it may not be 
 out of place to repeat what has been already 
 said, that the central department should give 
 up the rdle of master over all the district police, 
 which it has been gradually assuming, and in 
 which it cannot be efficient. It should rather 
 be content with being what it is better qualified 
 to be, an adviser, critic, and aid to supervision. 
 It should have a central staff of thoroughly effi- 
 cient officers, who can move about here and there 
 as required. The police staff of the district officer 
 again, with the exception of his superintendent, 
 who should be movable, ought to be local to 
 the district, and ought to consist of a sufficient 
 number of well-paid inspectors. Transfers are 
 now ordinarily made either because a man has 
 failed, which is hard on the district he is going 
 to, or because he has been a success, which is 
 hard on the district he is leaving. A failure 
 should be got rid of, not retained ; and he would 
 be cheaply got rid of even if paid a handsome 
 gratuity on leaving. A successful officer should
 
 296 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 be able to have his reward without leaving his 
 own district. To give these district officers a 
 motive for zeal, the select staff of the central 
 department might be recruited from them. 
 The officers of the district police should be 
 local, because that which is most needed in 
 them is local knowledge of people and places, 
 history and circumstances and such local know- 
 ledge can only be gained by staying in one 
 district. 
 
 We have now considered the various defects 
 in the law courts, and in what way they can best 
 be remedied. 
 
 We need not be careful to discuss whether 
 on the balance the ostensible cost of the new 
 system would be greater or less than that of 
 the system we now have, for the question is 
 hardly at all one of mere cost. The claim made 
 for the new system is, that it will greatly reduce 
 to the people the cost of the law courts in mere 
 money; and, better still, by removing many 
 troubles and causes of fear, give them peace and 
 comfort such as they have not now, and in the 
 past never have had.
 
 297 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE great difficulty iu writing about things In- 
 dian is to know where to stop and when to be 
 silent. We have traversed in these few pages 
 a great deal of ground, and at every step tempt- 
 ing by-paths have presented themselves, down 
 any of which we might easily have wandered 
 and been lost. Only by steadily keeping in 
 view the object proposed at the beginning 
 could even so much progress as has been made 
 be attained. It may not be out of place here 
 at the end to summarise the object and mean- 
 ing of the book. The reader may easily fasten 
 on errors, on shortcomings, on proofs of igno- 
 rance and inexperience ; but we would ask him 
 rather if there is nothing worth knowing, re- 
 membering, and acting on. This book is offered, 
 not as the last word to a controversy in which 
 all is said that can be said, but rather as a con-
 
 298 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 tribution which may lead men to think, and 
 may induce fertile minds to produce thoughts 
 that will be of use. 
 
 The origin of this book in the author's mind 
 was the undoubted fact, proved to him by 
 many years' experience, that his countrymen 
 are divided into two sections, one of which 
 seem to think that India is another Britain, 
 but for British rule, and that all it needs in 
 order to become free and prosperous is to be 
 given up to its own inhabitants ; while the 
 other section seem to think that the relation of 
 master and slave is the only one that can be 
 looked for between the British nation and the 
 peoples of India. Most of his countr)anen, of 
 course, do not think much on the subject at 
 all, but swallow quietly what is given to them 
 by the statesmen and politicians they trust. 
 Great danger arises to the work of the British 
 nation in India from this state of things, because 
 statesmen and politicians in England belong to 
 opposing parties. When one party takes one 
 view of an Indian question, the other will, al- 
 most as a matter of course, take the other. 
 Information in England about India is not 
 abundant, or at least is not sought for and 
 acquired ; and any one who adopts any view 
 whatever will find it easy to fortify his opinion 
 with evidence that will satisfy him. There is
 
 CONCLUSION. 299 
 
 an increasing tendency to discuss Indian affairs 
 in the spirit of party politics ; and it is to be 
 feared that if this tendency be not checked, the 
 true interests of India will be lost sight of. 
 
 In the minds of the two classes of politicians, 
 the advocates, as they may be called, of freedom 
 and those of order, there is a common convic- 
 tion that the British nation has a work to do in 
 India. When we come to consider what is the 
 object of that work, we find that the wish of 
 the former is not so much to give up the coun- 
 try to its own inhabitants as to make its people 
 free and prosperous ; and the giving-up is ad- 
 vocated only as being the best means to that 
 end. On the other hand, the strongest argu- 
 ment urged by the second class is not that the 
 relation of master and slave is the best possible 
 relation, but that the condition of slave is the 
 only one the peoples of India are fit for, and 
 they are never likely to get so good a master as 
 the British nation. 
 
 We have endeavoured to draw off attention 
 from the various flags and shibboleths around 
 which the battle between the two parties has 
 been for some time raging, and concentrate it 
 rather on the cause common to both. Is there 
 any need of fighting at all, when we have a 
 common cause at heart ? All the great parties 
 in the British nation unite in declaring the aim
 
 300 BRITISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 of their policy to be the freedom and prosperity, 
 in the highest sense of the word, of the peoples 
 of India. We began by assuming this declared 
 policy to be genuine, and their wish to give it 
 effect a genuine wish. For the consideration of 
 those who think that the only hindrance to the 
 freedom and prosperity of the peoples of India 
 is the presence of the British nation, a short 
 sketch of the main points of difference between 
 the peoples of India and the British nation 
 has been given. This has been followed by an 
 attempt to define the functions of the Govern- 
 ment, because there appear to be among the 
 most ardent advocates of freedom some who 
 have extravagant ideas of the power of the 
 State to carry out its will. It can restrain 
 and it can remove restraint, but it cannot do 
 much itself. Its power is rather negative and 
 indirect than positive and direct. We come 
 next to a consideration of those bonds which, 
 independently of the British rule, hold the 
 peoples of India and are an obstacle in the 
 way of their peace and prosperity. This is fol- 
 lowed by a short account of the position of the 
 British nation in India, and the attitude it 
 should, as ruler, assume towards the peoples of 
 India with a view to advancing the cause it has 
 at heart. Practical proposals are next made for 
 the relief of the people from the various bonds
 
 CONCLUSION". 301 
 
 by which they are held captive. We next come 
 to a consideration of the best way to take into 
 partnership the people of the country in the 
 actual work of governing. This is to be done, 
 not by taking on individual members of the 
 communities as servants of the Crown, but 
 rather by drawing in and upwards the hands 
 of the Government that is, the interference of 
 its servants and by drawing out and develop- 
 ing the will-power of the people, and enabling 
 them through their own chiefs more and more 
 to carry out their own will. This brings us to 
 the law, or binding will, of the country, and 
 suggestions are made with a view to making 
 this simpler, more certain, juster, and easier to 
 obey. A plea is put in for the common or cus- 
 tomary law, which has suffered somewhat from 
 neglect, and from having been tampered with. 
 
 The concluding part of the book is given to 
 a consideration of the means by which the law 
 is given effect to. The chief defects from which 
 they suffer are first pointed out ; and it is to be 
 hoped that those who attributed to the opposi- 
 tion of Europeans in India to the Ilbert Bill the 
 unworthy motive of wishing to screen criminals 
 and secure impunity for crime, may find food 
 for reflection in the contemplation of some of 
 the defects. An attempt has finally been made 
 to point out the best way of making good the
 
 302 BftlTISH WORK IN INDIA. 
 
 defects, and rendering the law courts more 
 worthy of respect than they now are. 
 
 This book, if it has answered its purpose, has 
 given to the advocates of freedom reason to think 
 that, whatever may be the case in the future, 
 the peoples of India are not yet ready for ad- 
 vanced reforms ; while the advocates of order 
 will see that the chance of those peoples one 
 day becoming fit for a less despotic form of 
 government is by no means hopeless. 
 
 The practical proposals which are made are 
 not the fruit of imagination, coming of mere 
 theory. To the author's knowledge, all of them 
 have been advocated by responsible officials in 
 India, and a great proportion have reached the 
 stage of experiment. With these parting words, 
 we leave the book to speak for itself. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BT WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SON'S.
 
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