BOOK III
UNDER THE EMPRESS
1877-1900
CHAPTER I
LYTTON AND RIPON
WE now enter upon the last period of the Victorian Age. The close of Mr. Gladstone’s first administration in 1874 is the date, if any single date can be given, for that gradual change in men’s sentiments, opinions, and aspirations, which has been called a Conservative Reaction in Great Britain. The rapid advance of the Great Powers of the world aroused new jealousies and awakened new ambitions. A great Western Republic, united once more after a Civil War, was supreme in one half of the world, and claimed an increasing share in the politics and commerce of the other half. A united Germany had arisen with the strength of a giant from the fields of Sadowa and Sedan, and dominated over the counsels of Europe. France too was rising after her defeat, and was seeking compensation in Asia and in Africa. And Russia had torn up the Black Sea Treaty, and continued her unresisted march eastwards. A feeling of unrest filled the minds of Englishmen. Domestic reforms no longer called forth the same enthusiasm as a desire for expansion. The advance of Russia towards India must be checked. England’s supremacy in Asia must be maintained. The Continent of Africa was still open, and unexplored regions awaited the British conqueror. A closer union with the Colonies would restore British influence, and would enable England to present a united front to the world. All over the globe there was need for a vigorous foreign policy—a policy of expansion and of conquest—to maintain England’s position among rising nations. So Englishmen felt, vaguely, but strongly; and as is often the case, the first blind enterprises were neither wise nor successful.
The sound frontier policy of Lord Lawrence no longer found favour. The creed of Sir Bartle Frere found acceptance in the present state of the national mind. Lord Northbrook had rejected that creed, but Lord Northbrook had resigned. A new Viceroy, willing to carry out the new policy, was selected. The first letter of the British Prime Minister, Mr. Disraeli, to Lord Lytton, indicated to him the task he was expected to perform.
“MY DEAR LYTTON,—Lord Northbrook has resigned the Viceroyalty of India, for purely domestic reasons, and will return to England in the spring.
“If you be willing, I will submit your name to the Queen as his successor. The critical state of affairs in Central Asia demands a statesman, and I believe if you will accept this high post you will have an opportunity, not only of serving your country, but of obtaining an enduring fame.”[^1]
Lord Lytton was then forty-four years of age, and was Minister of Legation at Lisbon; and this was the first intimation he received of his proposed appointment to India. The letter discloses the one object of the appointment. Lord Lytton was chosen to give effect to a policy in relation to Afghanistan which Lord Northbrook had declined to carry out. The recent famines in India and the economic condition of the people find no mention in the Prime Minister’s letter. These matters did not interest the British Cabinet very much.
The new Viceroy lost no time. On April 12, 1876, he took charge of his office from Lord Northbrook. On April 24 he was at Umballa, and gave the Commissioner of Peshawar the draft of a letter to be sent to the Amir of Afghanistan. A pretext was found for sending a British Envoy to Kabul. The Amir was informed: “Sir Lewis Pelly will be accompanied by Dr. Bellew and Major St. John, for the purpose of delivering to your Highness in person at Khureeta a letter informing your Highness of his Excellency’s accession to office, and formally announcing to your Highness the addition which her Majesty the Queen has been pleased to make to her sovereign titles in respect to her Empire in India.”[^2]
The Amir of Afghanistan was a shrewd man, and perceived the real object of the mission. He replied accordingly: “Please God the Most High, the friendship and the union of the God-given State of Afghanistan in relation to the State of Lofty Authority,—the Majestic Government of England,—will remain strong and firm as usual. At this time, if there be any new parleys for the purpose of freshening and benefiting the God-given State of Afghanistan entertained in the thoughts, then let it be hinted, so that a confidential agent of this friend, arriving in that place, and being presented with the things concealed in the generous heart of the English Government, should reveal it to the suppliant at the Divine Throne.”[^3] In other words, Sher Ali demurred to the proposal of a British Envoy being sent to Kabul, and desired to send an Agent to know the thoughts concealed “in the generous heart of the English Government.”
Lord Lytton was irritated by this first check. He warned the Amir, through the Peshawar Commissioner, that he was rendering nugatory the friendly intentions of the Viceroy, and was voluntarily isolating Afghanistan from the alliance and support of the British Government.[^4]
Lord Lytton’s wisest Councillors disapproved of the attitude he had assumed. Sir William Muir, Sir Henry Norman, and Sir Arthur Hobhouse, all maintained, that Sher Ali was within his right in refusing to receive an English Mission; that the reasons assigned by him were substantial; and that the reply of the British Government was almost equivalent to a threat of war. And they added that the Amir knew the real object of the Mission; and it was not dealing with him fairly if the aim of keeping a permanent Mission at Kabul was concealed from him.
The Amir replied to the Peshawar Commissioner’s letter.[^5] He suggested that the British Agent at Kabul, Atta Muhammad, should come to India, explain the state of affairs at Kabul, and know the wishes of the British Government. Lord Lytton accepted this suggestion.
Atta Muhammad arrived at Simla on October 6, 1876. He explained to Sir Lewis Pelly the views of the Amir at length; and he expressed the Amir’s fears that the temporary British Mission would merge into a permanent one. This was exactly what Lord Salisbury and Lord Lytton had intended. Lord Lytton was annoyed at this fresh check. In his interview with the Agent he could scarcely refrain from threats. “The British Government,” he said, “could only assist those who valued its assistance.” “If the Amir did not desire to come to a speedy understanding with us, Russia did, and she desired it at his expense.” “The British Government was able to pour an overwhelming force into Afghanistan.” “If the Amir remained our friend, this military power could be spread around him as a ring of iron; if he became our enemy, it could break him as a reed.” The Amir pretended “to hold the balance between England and Russia.” But the Amir was only an “earthen pipkin between two iron pots.”
Atta Muhammad was dismissed with a letter for the Amir, an aide-memoire for his own guidance, a watch and chain, and a present of £1000. No results followed, for Sher Ali was wide awake.
More tangible results were secured in Beluchistan. Lord Northbrook had sent Major Sandeman to settle the disputes between the Khan of Khelat and his Chiefs, and to open the trade route of the Bolan Pass which had been practically closed owing to these disputes. Major Sandeman, known and honoured all along the frontier, settled the disputes and opened the trade route. His terms of agreement were accepted by the Khan of Khelat and his Chiefs, and were ratified on oath in open Darbar. Had Lord Northbrook been still in office, Major Sandeman would have retired from Beluchistan after achieving these results; but it was Lord Lytton’s policy that the British force should stay. He sent his favourite military adviser, Colonel Colley, with a secret treaty; and the sixth article of the treaty provided for the permanent occupation of the Khan’s territory by a British military force. The Khan of Khelat signed the treaty, and Quetta was permanently occupied by British troops. “The Khan of Khelat,” wrote Lord Lytton to the Queen, “has agreed to sign with me a treaty, the terms of which will make us virtually masters of Khelat.”[^6] The treaty was executed at Jacobabad on December 8, 1876.
Having thus secured a foothold in the south of Afghanistan, Lord Lytton made his preparations on the eastern side of that kingdom. Colonel Lumsden had advocated the British occupation of the Kurm and Khost valleys; but Lord Lawrence had rejected the proposal. Lumsden’s scheme, however, had attractions for Lord Lytton. The road from Rawal Pindi to Kohat was repaired; Cavagnari was sent to the Kurm River with orders to select a site for a military camp; and the Commander-in-chief was directed to be in readiness to move to Kohat three batteries of artillery, two companies of sappers and miners, a regiment of British and two regiments of native cavalry, and two regiments of British and four regiments of native infantry.[^7]
In the north of Afghanistan, too, Lord Lytton was equally active. He supplied the Maharaja of Kashmir with arms of precision; and he encouraged him to push forward troops into passes leading to Chitral. Kashmir was almost an insolvent State. British India was groaning under overtaxation, and was on the brink of the most terrible famine which had yet occurred within the century. But no considerations of economy, and no humane desire to lighten the taxation, restrained the Viceroy from these vast and expensive preparations against a danger which did not exist, and which his own action helped to create. He did what he had threatened to do; he formed a ring of iron on the south, east and north of the Amir’s dominions.
On January 1, 1877, a Darbar was held at Delhi, and Lord Lytton proclaimed to the Princes and the people of India that the Queen had assumed the title of Empress of India. Mr. Disraeli had feebly imitated the policy of Bismarck; and the sovereign of British India assumed the august title which the sovereign of Prussia had assumed six years before. Thoughtful men in England inquired if this title added in any way to the real power of the Queen, or took away anything from the treaty rights of Indian princes.
Mr. Lowe inquired in the House of Commons if it was prudent to make a marked distinction between England and India, by giving to the Sovereign of England a title which implied obedience to law, and to the Sovereign of India a title which implied the supremacy of force. And Mr. Gladstone led the Opposition at the second reading of the Bill, and made a speech reflecting the best traditions and principles of British policy.
“If it be true, and it is true, that we govern India without the restraints of law except such law as we make ourselves; if it be true, and it is true, that we have not been able to give India the benefits and blessings of free institutions, I leave it to the Right Hon. Gentleman [the Prime Minister, Mr. Disraeli] to boast that he is about to place the fact solemnly on record by the assumption of the title of Empress. I, for one, will not attempt to turn into glory that which, so far as it is true, I feel to be our weakness and our calamity.”
“I am under the belief that to this moment there are Princes and States in India over which we have never assumed dominion, whatever may have been our superiority in strength. We are now going by Act of Parliament to assume that dominion, the possible consequences of which no man can foresee.”
“I ask whether the supremacy over certain important Native States in India was ever vested in the Company, or whether it was not. We are bound to ask the Right Hon. Gentleman whether their supremacy was so vested or not, and whether he can assure us upon his responsibility that no political change in the condition of the Native Princes of India will be effected by this Bill.”
This was going to the root of the question. The new title, if it meant anything, meant that the Sovereign of India was about to assume powers over Indian Princes and States not secured by the treaties. The Sovereign of Prussia had assumed some powers over the States of Germany, openly and explicitly, when he had assumed the title of Emperor of Germany. The Bill before the Parliament made no specific mention of such powers. Did the new title imply such powers, or did it not?
We owe it to the categorical questions of Mr. Gladstone, and of Sir W. Harcourt, that the Prime Minister declared emphatically that no new powers over the Indian Princes and States were assumed. “The change of title,” said Mr. Disraeli in answer to Sir W. Harcourt, “does not in the least affect the right and dignity or honour of Native Princes in India.” The reply is important for all time to come.
It is, however, explained by the daughter and biographer of Lord Lytton that: “Treaties, made perhaps a hundred years before, and still in force, might be quoted to show that the Native Princes, although not so strong, were equal in dignity and rightful position to the Viceroy. The Nizam, the Gaekwar, and the Viceroy, had all the same salutes, than which, to native imaginations, there could be nothing more significant. The twenty-one guns ceased, after the Delhi Assembly, to be a sign of equality with the representative of the Sovereign.”[^8]
The fair chronicler of her father’s Indian administration here confuses two things which are distinct. The Nizam and the Gaekwar never believed that they were the equals of the Viceroy in power. The assumption of a new title was not needed to convince even “native imaginations” that the Viceroy represented the greatest power in Asia. But the Nizam and the Gaekwar relied on the rights secured to them by treaties, as a poor citizen of a State may rely on his rights secured by law. And we have the Prime Minister’s word for it that the assumption of the new title does not in the least affect those rights. Any interference with the autonomy of Native States, secured by treaties, is a violation of good faith to-day, as it was before the assumption of the new title.
While the Darbar of Lord Lytton was held at Delhi, amidst pomp and festivities and needless ostentation, the shadow of a great famine was already darkening over the land. If anything could have recalled the ruler of India in 1877 from a foolish and wasteful frontier policy to retrenchment and a reduction of the burdens on the people, the terrible famine of that year should have produced that effect. It was a calamity unprecedented in its intensity within the memory of living men. Since the Queen’s accession, India had suffered from great famines in 1837 and 1860, in 1866, 1869, and 1874, but no calamity so widespread and so fatal had been known in India within the century. The peasantry of Madras, with their wretched land-system, were not as resourceful as the peasantry of Bengal. Relief operations were not organised as wisely as in the Bengal famine of 1874. Large villages were depopulated. Vast tracts of country were left uncultivated. And five millions of people—the population of a fair-sized country—perished in this Madras famine in one single year.
But neither the Delhi Darbar, nor the distress in the land, diverted the Viceroy from the object he had placed before himself. There was a Conference at Peshawar between the Amir’s Envoy, Nur Muhammad, and Sir Lewis Pelly, in February 1877. Sir Lewis Pelly insisted, as a preliminary condition, that British officers should reside on the frontier of Afghanistan. And he gave hopes that the British Government might then enter into an offensive and defensive alliance, recognise the Amir’s heir, and support the Amir against disturbances in his dominions. But the aged Nur Muhammad declared the Amir’s conviction, that to allow British officers to reside in his country would be to relinquish his own authority. The Conference came to nothing, for there was no basis of negotiation left.
Lord Lytton lost all patience. He wrote to Sir Lewis Pelly: “The British Government does not press its alliance and protection upon those who neither seek nor appreciate them. This being the case, it only remains for the Viceroy to withdraw, at once, the offers made to the Amir in the month of October last.”[^9] Three weeks after the receipt of this letter, the aged Nur Muhammad died. His surviving colleague had no authority to continue the negotiations. Atta Muhammad, the British Agent at Kabul, was recalled. A war seemed inevitable.
Great events had in the meantime followed each other in rapid succession in Europe. The Russians had vanquished the Turks in a great war, and were near the gates of Constantinople. Mr. Disraeli had ordered the Mediterranean fleet to the Dardanelles, landed Indian troops at Malta, called out the Reserves, and occupied Cyprus with the consent of Turkey. And Russia had replied by mobilising an army in Turkestan, and despatching a Mission to Kabul.
Lord Lytton took note of these events, and acted accordingly. He arranged with the Maharaja of Kashmir for the establishment of a British Agency at Gilgit, upon the slopes of the Hindu Kush; and the insolvent State of Kashmir was made to pay for a telegraph line from this new station to the British territory. And Lord Lytton congratulated himself on his cleverness. “We shall have secured a vicarious but virtual control over the Chiefdoms of Kafristan, which will cost us nothing, by their absorption under the suzerainty of Kashmir, our vassal.”[^10]
The kingdom of Kabul was indeed an earthen pipkin between two iron pots. The Russian Mission was forcing itself into Kabul. The Amir, in dire alarm, wrote to General Kaufmann, declining to receive the Russian Mission. But the Russians would not turn back, and General Stoletoff reached Kabul on July 22, 1878. The Amir had to receive the Mission; and the draft of a treaty was drawn up.
In the meantime, peace had been secured in Europe by the Congress of Berlin. General Stoletoff was recalled by the Russian Government, and left Kabul on August 24, 1878. The plea for interference with Afghanistan existed no longer. But Lord Lytton had determined on sending a British Mission, since a Russian Mission had been received. “Neither the withdrawal of the Russian Mission, nor any assurances on the part of Russia,” he wrote, “will cancel the fact that a Russian Mission has been well received at Kabul; and that Russian officers have had full opportunities of instilling into the minds of the Amir and his Councillors distrust and dislike towards England, belief in Russia’s power and destiny, and hopes of assistance against us from that country.”[^11]
Sir Neville Chamberlain was placed in charge of the British Mission. It left Peshawar on September 12, and reached Jumrud on September 21. Its further progress was stopped by the Afghan commander, Faiz Mahammad. A conference between him and Cavagnari came to nothing, and the Mission returned to Peshawar. Upon this, Lord Lytton proposed to issue a manifesto defining the causes of offence; to expel the Amir’s troops from the Khaibar Pass; to occupy the Kurm Valley; and to advance from Quetta to Kandahar. At the instance of the Home Government, however, an ultimatum was sent on October 2. As no reply was received by November 20, the date fixed, military operations were commenced on the following day.
The narration of the incidents which led up to the Afghan War of 1878 has occupied a longer space than we wished to devote to that subject. But the narration was necessary. The war upset the long-established policy of Canning and Lawrence, Mayo and Northbrook. It disturbed the peace on the north-west frontier of India, which had been maintained for nearly forty years. It was undertaken after peace had been concluded with Russia, and the alarm of a Russian invasion had ceased. And it brought about a financial disaster on India, still suffering from the effects of the Madras famine of 1877 and the northern famine of 1878. The veteran Lord Lawrence raised his voice against the war in time—before the ultimatum was sent. And some passages from the letter which the aged statesman wrote to the Times on September 27 deserve to be quoted.
“We ought not, indeed, to be surprised that the Amir has acted as he has done. From the time of the Treaty of 1857, the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khan refused to allow us to have a Mission at Kabul, or even to send one there as a temporary arrangement, solemnly assuring us that such a step would lead to mischief, and not to peaceful relations with the Afghans. We accepted his excuses. In 1869 the present Amir affirmed the same policy.”
“What are we to gain by going to war with the Amir? Can we dethrone him without turning the mass of his countrymen against us? Can we follow the policy of 1838–39 without, in all probability, incurring similar results? If we succeed in driving Sher Ali out of Kabul, whom can we put in his place? And how are we to insure the maintenance of our own creature on the throne, except by occupying the country? And when is such an occupation to terminate?”
“Such are the political and military considerations which lead me to raise my voice against the present policy towards Amir Sher Ali. Are not moral considerations also very strong against such war? Have not the Afghans a right to resist our forcing a Mission on them, bearing in mind to what such Missions often lead, and what Burnes’s Mission in 1836 did actually bring upon them?”
The warning was given in vain. The hero of the Indian Mutiny, who had been hailed in England twenty years before as the saviour of the Indian Empire, was now treated with scorn. Abuse and contumely were showered upon him by platform orators, by anonymous correspondents, and by sapient writers in the ministerial press. The spirit of the age had changed. Counsels of peace were ridiculed. New Imperialism demanded a war.
On November 9, before the time given by the ultimatum had yet expired, Lord Beaconsfield disclosed the real cause which led England to this war. It was not undertaken, he said in a speech at the Mansion House, to punish the Amir for his reception of the Russian Mission, or his refusal to receive an English Mission, but for a rectification of boundary and for securing a scientific frontier. Sir Bartle Frere, then High Commissioner of South Africa, must have gloried at this triumph of the policy he had advocated for fifteen years. And he had good cause to regret that policy before the war was over.
It is not within the scope of the present work to narrate in detail the incidents of the war. British troops advanced by three routes—the Khaibar Pass, the Kurm Valley, and the Bolan Pass. Sher Ali fled to Turkestan and died. His son, Yakub Khan, signed the treaty of Gundamak on May 26, 1879, assigning the districts of Pishin, Sibi, and Kurm to the British Government. “The third article,” wrote Lord Lytton, “establishes our exclusive influence throughout Afghanistan, and our paramount control over the Amir’s external relations.”[^12] This was what Sher Ali had foreseen, and had fought against. “We have secured a scientific and adequate frontier,” wrote Lord Beaconsfield to the Viceroy. “It will always be a source of real satisfaction to me that I had the opportunity of placing you on the throne of the Great Moghal.”[^13]
The congratulations were somewhat premature. Sir Louis Cavagnari and the British Embassy entered Kabul on July 24, 1879. The Afghans were sullen and angry. The new Amir was unpopular and was suspected of treachery. On September 2 Cavagnari sent his last telegram, which contained the words, “All well.” On September 3 this gallant officer and his escort were massacred. Yakub Khan abdicated, and was deported to India. A fresh war became necessary.
Mr. Lepel Griffin was sent to Kabul in March 1880 to undertake the diplomatic and military superintendence of affairs, in communication with the military commander, Sir Frederick Roberts. “I see no reason,” wrote Lord Lytton to him, “why you should not, as soon as you reach Kabul, set about the preparation of a way for us out of that rat-trap.”[^14] “The sole object,” he wrote to the Secretary of State, “of all the military operations I have sanctioned for this spring is to facilitate the early evacuation of the country.”[^15] Such were the results of the new policy, described by the very man who had adopted it.
In April 1880 the Conservative Government fell. And Lord Lytton, who had no policy of his own except the policy which had been dictated by the Conservative Ministry, resigned simultaneously with the Government. He had acted against the advice of his wisest predecessor, Lord Lawrence, and his wisest finance minister, Sir William Muir.[^16] He had achieved no results, and had involved India in a loss of over twenty millions sterling. That money would have sufficed for all the more important irrigation works which Sir Arthur Cotton had recommended to the Select Committee of the House of Commons in the very year in which the Afghan War had begun. It would have saved millions of cultivators in India from distress and famine for all time.
A Liberal Government was formed by Mr. Gladstone in 1880, after the fall of the Tory party. Nothing brings out in a clearer light his great influence and power than his success in stemming the tide of Imperialism for a time, and his forcing a short Liberal reaction. Never, even in his younger days, had the veteran statesman distinguished himself more by his burning eloquence and his righteous zeal, than when he denounced the “Bulgarian atrocities,” and fought his Midlothian Campaign. The nation responded to the call; they returned the Liberals to power. And the second administration of Mr. Gladstone was signalised by a new Irish Land Act and a new Reform Act, and by the Liberal measures introduced by the Marquis of Ripon in India.
The Marquis of Hartington succeeded Lord Cranbrook as Secretary of State for India, and Lord Ripon took charge of his office from Lord Lytton on June 8, 1880. The Afghan War was soon brought to a close. A British brigade was defeated by the Afghans at Maiwand, near Kandahar, on July 27; but Sir Frederick Roberts marched from Kabul to Kandahar and totally routed the Afghan army on September 1. Abdur Rahman was recognised as the new Amir; and the British army retired from Kabul and Kandahar.
India enjoyed peace once more, and the budget once more showed a surplus. Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Gladstone had, in opposition, denounced the policy of charging the Indian finance with the whole cost of the Afghan War; and the Liberal Government now voted a sum of five millions from the Imperial exchequer as a contribution to that war. It was a small proportion of the total cost of the war; but it is the only instance on record of a practical recognition of the principle that the cost of expeditions beyond the frontier of India, inspired by a jealousy of Russia, should not be borne by India alone. Another sane measure was adopted by the Liberal Government. The weak Government of Lord Lytton had passed an Act to muzzle the Vernacular Press of India. Whenever the Government of India is betrayed into blunders, there is a tendency to stifle the voice of criticism. Lord Ripon, with the approval of the Home Government, repealed this Vernacular Press Act.
It was also the pleasing duty of the Marquis of Ripon to hand over the State of Mysore once more to its Indian ruler in 1881, after the State had been under British administration for half a century. The high credit of this just and generous act does not belong to Lord Ripon, or to the Liberal Government of the time, but to the Conservative Government of 1867, and to Sir Stafford Northcote, then Secretary of State for India.
Mysore had been conquered from Tipu Sultan in 1799. And after the British Government and their ally the Nizam had carved out large slices of the conquered territory for themselves, the remainder had been made over to the old Hindu royal family by the Marquis of Wellesley. The gallant and sympathetic Sir John Malcolm was the first British Resident; and after his departure in 1804, the Indian Minister, Purnea, managed the State with an ability and success which won the admiration of the Duke of Wellington.
But the officials of Madras continued to cast longing eyes on this State, and the belief was general among the people of the State that their opposition to their Raja would be viewed with complacency by the East India Company’s Government.[^17] There was an insurrection in Mysore, and the management of the State was temporarily assumed by the Company’s Government in 1832. Lord William Bentinck was influenced by exaggerated reports against the Raja in taking this action, and he afterwards felt that he had been misled. For after his return to England he repeatedly declared that the supersession of the Raja of Mysore was the only incident in his Indian administration which he looked back upon with sorrow.[^18]
The Raja repeatedly asked for restoration; and Lord Hardinge, after a careful examination of the question, expressed a doubt if British occupation could continue after British pecuniary claims were satisfied.[^19] The Court of Directors replied that the real hindrance to restoration was the hazard which would be incurred to the good government of the State.[^20]
Lord Dalhousie, who succeeded Lord Hardinge, was of a different disposition. He recorded a Minute stating that the deposed Raja was sixty-two years of age, and had no son; and he trusted that, on his death, “the territory of Mysore, which will then have lapsed to the British Government, will be resumed, and that the good work which has been so well begun will be completed.”[^21]
Fortunately the doctrine of lapse, and the spirit which inspired that doctrine, disappeared when the Queen assumed the direct government of India in 1858. Lord Canning acknowledged the fidelity and the attachment of the old Raja, and his endeavours to preserve peace in Mysore during the Indian Mutiny; and promised to convey his wishes to the Secretary of State.[^22] The question was ripe for decision in 1867 when Sir Stafford Northcote was Secretary of State; and the Conservative Government decided “to maintain the family of the Maharaja of Mysore on the throne of that province in the person of His Highness’s adopted son.”[^23]
Eight years after, a Conservative Government was again in power, and Lord Salisbury was Secretary of State for India. And he made some remarks on the education of the heir to the Mysore throne, as proposed by Colonel Malleson, which deserves to be on record.
“Literary proficiency is not in this instance the principal object to be attained. At an age when the education of other men is not complete, His Highness will be invested with powers upon the due exercise of which the happiness of large numbers will depend, and will be charged with duties which will leave to him little leisure for the pursuits of a student’s life. It is of great importance that he should be well instructed in the knowledge which will help him to success in his high vocation. The principles of the government which will be administered by his authority and in his name, the special dangers and errors to which it is exposed, the blessings which if rightly directed it may confer, the warnings or the encouragement furnished by the history of other princes of his own race, are matters to which his mind should be specially turned during the remaining years of his minority.”[^24]
When the Liberal Party came into power in 1880, the time had arrived to restore the State. British management had reorganised the administration of Mysore, but had not been financially successful. The famine of 1877 was as severe in Mysore as in Madras; and, as in British India, a vast debt had been accumulated.
The revenues of the State were burdened with a debt of £800,000 to the Government of India, in addition to liabilities incurred for the construction of the Bangalore-Mysore Railway. And it was therefore decided that in restoring the State to the Raja, the old annual subsidy of £245,000 should be continued for five years, and the proposal to increase it to £350,000 should be kept in abeyance.[^25]
The Instrument of Transfer contains twenty-four clauses; and the transfer, which took place on March 25, 1881, was notified by a Proclamation to the chiefs and the people of Mysore.
In British India, the measures adopted for the further protection of cultivators were among the most beneficent acts of Lord Ripon. The Bengal Rental Acts of 1859 and 1868 required to be strengthened, and the prolonged deliberations on this subject ended in a Bill which, with some modifications, was passed by Lord Ripon’s successor in 1885. For the Ryotwari tracts in Madras and Bombay, Lord Ripon proposed the judicious rule that the State-demand in settled districts should not be enhanced except on the ground of an increase in prices. These land reforms will be fully narrated in a subsequent chapter.
A small amendment which Lord Ripon proposed to the criminal law of India, by giving Indian magistrates jurisdiction to try European offenders, evoked a violent opposition. And the proposal was ultimately carried in a modified form, with a provision permitting European offenders to claim a jury. But the measure for which Lord Ripon’s administration is best known is his introduction of Local Self-Government in districts and in municipal towns. In a resolution of the Financial Department,[^26] the Governor-General formulated the principle in the following words: “The Provincial Governments, while being now largely endowed from Imperial sources, may well in their turn hand over to Local Self-Government considerable revenues at present kept in their own hands.”
Letters were accordingly addressed to the Provincial Governments indicating branches of expenditure which appeared most suited for local control. Provincial Governments accepted the new principle, and offered their suggestions; and the Governor-General in Council then dealt with the question in greater detail. A few extracts from this subsequent resolution[^27] will elucidate the objects of the new scheme.
“It is not primarily with a view to improvement in administration that this measure is put forward and supported. It is chiefly desirable as an instrument of political and popular education. His Excellency in Council has himself no doubt that, in the course of time, as local knowledge and local interest are brought to bear more freely upon local administration, improved efficiency will, in fact, follow.”
“There is reason to fear that previous attempts at Local Self-Government have been too often over-ridden and practically crushed by direct, though well-meant, official interference. In the few cases where real responsibility has been thrown upon local bodies, and real power entrusted to them, the results have been very gratifying.”
“The Governor-General in Council desires that the smallest administrative unit—the Sub-division, the Taluka, or the Tahsil—shall ordinarily form the maximum area to be placed under a Local Board.”
“The Municipal Committees will, of course, remain the Local Boards for areas included within town limits.”
“The Local Boards, both urban and rural, must everywhere have a large preponderance of non-official members.”
“Members of Boards should be chosen by election whenever it may, in the opinion of the Local Governments, be practical to adopt that system of choice.”
“The Government should revise and check the acts of the Local bodies, but not dictate them.”
“It does not appear necessary for the exercise of these powers that the chief Executive Officers of towns, Sub-divisions, or Districts, should be chairmen or even members of the Local Boards. There is, indeed, much reason to believe that it would be more convenient that they should supervise and control the acts of those bodies without taking actual part in their proceedings.”
“The Governor-General in Council therefore would wish to see non-official persons acting, whenever practicable, as Chairmen of the Local Boards.”
These extracts sufficiently indicate the scope and object of Lord Ripon’s scheme, and after a great deal of official correspondence and discussion the scheme resulted in the creation or development of three classes of Boards.
(1) Counties are called Districts in India, and District Boards were formed answering to County Councils in England. The majority of the members were elected by the people; some were nominated and appointed by the Government; and the Executive Government Officer of the District was appointed the Chairman. Roads, education, hospitals, and some ferries, were made over to these District Boards.
(2) Local Boards were formed in Sub-divisions of Districts, and were placed under the orders of the District Boards. Most of the members of Local Boards were chosen by election; some were nominated and appointed by the Government.
(3) In Municipal towns the majority of the members were chosen by election; and in advanced places the members were allowed to choose their own non-official Chairman.
A humble beginning was thus made in extending the elective system, and in giving the people of India some share in the administration of local affairs. Nothing makes British Rule in India more popular and more secure, nothing draws the people closer to an alien administration, than making them partakers in the duties and responsibilities of that administration. It was by this policy that Munro and Elphinstone and Bentinck had succeeded in consolidating the Indian Empire in the early years of the century; and it was this policy which made the administration of Lord Ripon so popular.
India in our generation has not witnessed such manifestations of loyalty and gratitude as the Marquis of Ripon evoked from the people before he left the country. Those who witnessed them have seen nothing like them in India or in any other part of the world. “His journey from Simla to Bombay was a triumphal march such as India has never witnessed—a long procession in which seventy millions of people sang hosanna to their friend.”[^28]
A sympathetic and wise administration, recognising the political advancement of the people, and gradually extending the forms of Self-Government and of Representation, strengthens British Rule in India, and makes the people themselves proud of the Empire. An autocratic and distrustful administration, repressing the legitimate ambitions of the people, and excluding them from the management of their own concerns, weakens the Empire, and creates a natural and universal discontent, which spreads and deepens into political danger.