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Leader (1850-1860), 12th March 1859, Edition 2 of 2, Page 24, WHAT HAS THE COLONISATION COMMITTEE PONE...

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      344 The Leader [No. 468, March 12; 1859.

      344 THE LEADER [ No . 468 , March 12 ; 1859 .

      Mwa Am) Indian Progress,

      MWA AM ) INDIAN PROGRESS ,

      What Has The Colonisation Committee Pone...

      WHAT HAS THE COLONISATION COMMITTEE PONE ? Now that the Colonisation Committee is again sitting , and since it cannot be kept sitting perpetnallyi it is worth while to consider what it has done and what still remains to be done ; for it will not be carried beyond this session . It will be remembered , that in consequence of the publication of a work on Railways , Colonisation , and Defence in our Indian empire , Mr . William Ewart , the member for Dumfries , last year , brought before the House of Commons , and the Earl of Albemarle before the Lords , the subject of English

      settlement m India . It was a period of crisis in Indian affairs , the army was in revolt , the old system brought to a trial and found wanting , and the double Government doomed ; the home ministry was likewise in a critical State , having only just assumed office . The question of English settlement was not in the usual course ripe for action 5 the many persons connected with India , who had at various periods advocated plans for occupying particular districts , had no organisation , and had not followed up the matter systematically , and the whole agitation depended upon the exertions of one individual . The moment

      Mahomedan law terms , but the subject received a thorough sifting , and it became quite plain that the whole of these tenures are in a very unsatisfactory state , and . that there is no valid objection to the introduction of the freehold title as established in Europe and America . Until 1859 the idea was carefully nursed that India was something different from the rest of the civilised and Uncivilised world s and that a system of tenure introduced by the Mahomedan conquerors was entitled to be exempt from the application of a title which prevails -everywhere eise throughout our immense empire , as it does throughout Europe and the whole continent of America . The notion of this

      Indian exceptionality has , hoAvever , thanks to the Committee , received a death-blow , for after the evidence published by thena , it became impossible to maintain such an argument in England ; the result has been that Lord Stanley has announced the intention of Government to grant a like title to the waste lands of India as to those of Canada , Australia ^ New Zealand , and South Africa , and to enfranchise the tenures of the settled lands as those of Ireland and Canada have been enfranchised , and as the Crown or copyhold and clergy lands of England have been

      enfranchised . At present , the waste lands of India supposed to be available , are b y Lord Stanley treated as of comparatively lirnite < 3 extent ; but there is a growing land fund , for the hill countries available for occupation 'will be extend e by lapse and annexation ; waste lands will accrue by the lapse of native principalities in Hindostan , and lands held on various tenures , which include waste , will be enfranchised . by the application of legislative measures founded on the Encumbered Estates and Copyhold Enfranchisement Acts . Alread y— dread words for the heavenborn to hear- ^ -an Encumbered Estates Act for

      the true nature of the Government displayed , and the hoge of redress held out to them , that they read the reports as eagerly as a new novel . The proposition to place under the power of such a Government , men , who hold the rights of citizenship at home , appears by the evidence toj be so monstrous that the greatest Hindoo-maniac wil / hardly . dare henceforth propose a Black Act . The feasibility also of extending the . English jurisdiction of the supreme courts was amply shown by the Committee * Hence , Lord Stanley has thought it neccessary to declare that the preparation of the code is suspended , and that measures arc in progress to place the Sudder courts tinder . the supreme courts of the presidencies .

      This is another great measure , which will have the tendency to elevate the condition of . the ' nativ e population , by training them in the duties of citizens , and enabling them to attain the rights of eitizensv Surely tlie native merchant at Bombay —Hindoo , Pafseej 01 * Mahomedan— wlio acts as a justice of the peace , serves as a grand juror or petty juror , and has a municipal vote , with the protection of the habeas corpus and the right of trial by jury , under the sanction of the supreme court , is in a better condition than the . baboo at Benares , Svho is at the mercy of one ¦ 01 ; two civil servants , and of a hierarchy of corrupt , amlah and tyrannical burkimdauzes . Tlie amlah , the official nobility of India , of course , prefer the Kussian svstom of

      government ; and the civil servants , under whom the amlah flourish , of course prefer the exaltation of their subordinates . " Under ' such a system the people can never receive political or moral education , as bribery , extortion , and torture must prevail ; and the great example to corrupt society is the inducement held out to the young men of the educated classes to join the ranks of the amlah , and to become employers , as the sons of the epiciers do in France , realising that state of dependence which Was the curse of Ireland , the constant looking-out for a place under Government , instead of cultivating and encouraging the independent action of each good citizen , as in England and the United States .

      India is talked of , as there lias been a similar Act for Ireland and the West Indies . If Air . Ewart ' s Committee had done nothing more than settle this question of land tenures in India they would have deserved the gratitude of the English and Indian public , for they have prepared for India one of the greatest means of progress , which in its depressed and tortuously administered condition it could receive , Tlie Committee , however , did much more ; it showed that India was under the domination of an administrative system of the same character as that of France ,

      Prussia , Russia , and Austria , equally benevolent and equally oppressive . Under this system neither the Englishman nor the native Zemindar is ever certain that ho shall keiep his property or his liberty , and Ue is restricted in his individual and associative action . Mr . FOrbes was not afraid to use . tne strony words before the Colonization Committe yesterday , that in the Mbfussil there is no law . The . paternal government ia to provide evevytliiug for the people , and at the present tune India ia without roads , bridges , canals or watercourses , its rivers and channels left without towing-paths , and full of snags and sawyers , except where a paternal government—busy with war , and at no tune able

      to overtake the claims upon it—has occasionally condescended to keep up spine . solitary bund or tahk , or to clear out a watorcotirso , or make a show road , or a show canal to bo able to tell admiring England that such things were in India . To talk of roads , canals , and public works in India on the stvongth of the Great Trunk Road , and tho Ganges and Jumna canals , was . like boasting of that as a plum-pudding which had only one plum in it . Tho question , has l ) aen <—not whether a trunk rood exists in Bengal , but why any part of India is without its duo complement of roads and canals .

      Tho character of tho Indian , Government was displayed before tho committee in ifjs true light—not intentionally oppressive , but odcotuaUy so , by its weakness and inability to discharge its dnties , which are loft in the hands of agents untrustworthy , profligate , tyrannical , and cruel . When tho reports of tlieCoiumitto an > iyod in India so oxoited were the sottlers nt finding for onoo

      was , however , boldly and skilfully chosen ,- and boldly aiid skilfully taken advantage o : fj for , in the usual course , all that Mr . Swart could have required would have been the production of papers on the subject , but his motion was af terwards so shaped as to demand a committee of inquiry . The proposition was most unwelcome to the East India Company and the old Government of India n because they knew the treatment of " interlopers " was one of the tenderest points in their conduct , and at any other time they could have claimed the sympathy of the Board of Control , and resisted the demand with the whole strength of the

      Government . The Board of Control had , however , enough to do in those times to . take care of itself , and the Ministry did not wish to risk a division ,, in which they might have been harassed by their opponents , who would have voted regardless of Company and colonisation , to inflict a blow on the Government . Mr . Ewart , therefore , insisted on having a Committee , and the Government having given way the Company could only show their spite . . ¦ At the time of obtaining the Committee , Mr . E y art and . his supporters were told that the Committee was needless and useless , that the proposition of English settlement in India was futile ,

      and , that the Company had done everything necessary , and was provided , with , reports to show there was not a field a hundred feet square to be got for English occupation . Immediately on the opening of the Committee to receive evidence , witnesses flocked in , and till the end of the session report alter report was published of * he evidence . Vainly did the representatives of the Company struggle with the evidence , and strive . to trip them up ; vainly did they bring witnesses of their own ; a mass of testimony was accumulated , the effect o * which was to show that , in respect of English settlement , India ha 4 been more neglected than any of the

      country , not excepting tho ^ territory Hudson ' s Bay Company ; for that corporation can sliow the Red River , ' Vancouver ' s Island , and British Columbia as settlements ; these , however , were wrenched from . the monopolists b y force , Englishmen having boon treated by the Hudson ' s Bay Company as " interlopers , " in the same way tliat they were by the East India Company . Instead of the evidence being restricted ( as the East India Directors had fondly hoped ) to setting

      up a theoxy , and obtaining a corresponding report tjmt there were no places for Englishmen m India but hill peaks and n , few fields of a hundred feet square , the evidence wont beyond questions of climate , aren ^ and soil , and threw light upon every question of administration affecting tho English citizen in India ., Upon tho Inncl tenures and titles vevy copious evidence was givon , and as it emanated from practical men- —not only indigo planters , but civil servants—there was no getting out of jit Tby the usual mystification of bandying about

      Notes On Indian Progress. The News From ...

      NOTES ON INDIAN PROGRESS . The news from the bill districts is very sparing . There is , ' however , one announcement of some significance . On the dispersion of tlie army of Oude the 93 rd Highlanders and the 1 st Bengal Husiliers were ordered to the hills at Dugshaje and Soobuthoo . These , gallant regiments well deserve the benefit of the refreshing climate of the hills , after tho share tliey have had in tlie campaign , but it is deeply to bo regretted that out of tins large army , only tyvo English battalion can obtain this privilege . Two regiments are , however , ordered to the Punjaub , it is to bo hoped to bo sent to the sanitaria there . Which regiment will bo sent to Darjccling to occupy the new cantonments is noc known . To Kuniaon tho native battalion is sent . Tho want of barrack accommodation in the ran stations is now bitterly manifest , but during tno last six months , what has been done at Dnrjeeung and Nynoo Tnl , might have been done tit evory ^ hill statjkm , for they wero free from trouble , nna accommodation provided for many thousand men . As it is , our unfortunate countrymen aro sent qown to the cities of tlie plains , for the old game 0 guarding the black troops , which are still kept up in enormous numliers . . Mr . Sidney Horiwrt has-taken up in PftrlijimpnB tho deplorable caso of the death of five lundrou English soldiers , wives , and children , in tho Duni Dum barracks , near Calcutta , last autumn , wlio , u sent to tho hills , might have been saved . Very few officers have lately received Ieavo wt the hills , —loss tliaji the usual number . . KaBhmcro airnlrs are still unsettled . What Jummoo Kajah lifts done about hia cousin , Jowninir Sing , is uncertain , as there aro contradictory report at tUwovq . It is observed thab tho whole subject of Kashmoro polltios must shortly "" d ^ ff f ^"' Mnjor H . Taylor , having boon P * ° ™» tod , loftvo ' the government oi Koto Kangra , Mr . It . '' P ' " ! '* ., ' of Kurnanl , being appointed l" ) eputy-Co » nmisBionoi ' Kangra , hitherto negloetod , is now assuming W" . anco 7 asonoof the most promising of tlio highland districts for Enffllsli settlomont .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1859, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12031859/page/24/