On this page

• Text (4)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    India] THE LEADER. 741

  • 

    ¦¦ ¦ INDIA, AND INDIAN PROGRESS.

  • 

    - — z—^ LORD STANLEY AND THE INDIAN ADMI...

  • 

    LORD STANLEY AND THE INDIAN"

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    India] The Leader. 741

    India ] THE LEADER . 741

    ¦¦ ¦ India, And Indian Progress.

    ¦¦ ¦ INDIA , AND INDIAN PROGRESS .

    - — Z—^ Lord Stanley And The Indian Admi...

    - — z—^ LORD STANLEY AND THE INDIAN ADMINISTRATION . If a man of high aspirations and philanthropic disposition were left free to choose that political position which offered the niost effective career for good , then putting aside principalities and kingdoms , the American Presidency , the French Emperorship , or that of Russia , as not affording the direct and certain action of the measures he inifht devise , doubtless he would demand the jidminisistration of the Indies , where nearly two hundred millions of the human race are awaiting for advancement to a hig her condition of political and social progress . There is not certainly in this country a dignity which has attached to it so much real power , —the Viceroy of Ireland is a pageant , the Colonial Secretary is limited by the Parliamentary Governments of the several colonies , the First Lord of the Admiralty shares his departments with his brother lords , the Secretary at "War is tightly bound down by the Treasury , the Minister for Foreign Affairs has to contend with jealous and tricky rivals abroad , but the President of the Indian Council has a real power of initiation and of execution , with armies at his command , emperors and kings for his subjects or captives , peace or -war in the ink of his pen , ami broad dominions at his forfeiture or disposal for punishment or reward .

    was the task he assumed , its difficulties were great ; for though the prerogatives of his new office were high , he was placed at the head of two offices , which had been in the habit of checking each other and of indulging feelings of rivalry ; and his first council was to include men of deeprooted prejudice and jealous feelings—some the representatives of the unwillingly-deposed Company , some the oracles of Indian cliques , stiff in oriental notions , and ignorant of western policy . The powers of passive resistance in this mass was great , and the power of obstructiveness greater ; and to their influence were his measures to be

    delivered ; while in India the change of name in administration , and the abolition of ancient castes and oligarchical pretensions , threatened him with a civil rebellion . * The conciliation of such discordant elements an older statesman and one of higher political experience might have feared to undertake , and failed to carry out , but the transition from double to single government has been , so successfully effected * that already we have at hpme and in India a homogeneous government in vigorous operation . Such arrangements as these test the prudence and the temper of a statesman ; and , above all , test what is weakest in a young man ,

    the knowledge of men . Men hi g h in office , and accustomed to the despotism of their bureau , and the time-honoured indulgences of an official clique , had to be put in new posts without wounding their self-love , or inciting a spirit of resistance in the performance of duties , entrusted to them from their knowledge of detail and their long-practised experience . Thus the whole office was amalgamated without one resignation from discontent , then or since , and with the loss of no man of eminence , except Mr . John Stuart Mill , whose long term of official life then claimed its period of repose . There are probably few men but Lord

    Stanley who could have effected tin * happy feat , for blander men mig ht have wanted the firmness to determine when to insist and when not to intermeddle , and wanted the nobler courtesy of demeanour which acknowledges claims as of right instead of depreciating them by affected condescension . There has been a frankness about Lord Stanley in conceding or withholding , which has been equally successful with those deputations or individuals who have had business to transact with him , and which has tended much to maintain public confidence in the department during a time of difficulty and trial .

    Results such as these will give self-satisfaction to Lord Stanley , and will be of benefit to his successor ; but they will in a short time seem so much a matter of course that any merit which belongs to them will soon be forgotten . There are , however , acts of Lord Stanley during his brief administration which will be of louger memory ; and yet , on this simple personal conduct of his office so much has really depended . In appreciation of the services of the great benefactors of their country who have suppressed the late revolt , Lord Stanley has exerted himself to obtain honourable mention and the accustomed public rewards . His

    appointments have conferred nonour on himself by their discrimination of merit and utter disregard of family or party considerations . The nominations to his council and his government , of suoh men as Sir John Lawrence , Sir Charles Trevelyan , Sir Proby Cautley , Sir Henry Rawlinson , and others of eminence , have given qonfidence to the public , and will produce laating benefits to India and England . These , too , will be forgotten , for the men will die—and national gratitude has but a narrow memory—but India will long continue to remind the metropolitan country of what Lord Stanley has done . There is one measure nlono which it has been truly said will make Lord Stanley ' s name remembered , and that is , the enfranchisement of the soil of India , by allowing in Bengal the zcmindarial tenure to bo commuted , and a fee-simple title to bo obtained to the waste lands of the mountain and the plain . Thcso necessary concessions have been long resisted by Indian statesmen and wo at homo can scarcely conceive the prejudice raised against them . They , however , constitute one foundation for the- regeneration of India , by giving it « peop le what in ages they luvvo novcr had , a curtain onu not a precarious property in its soil , and a security fur the application of capital to itn iniprovuinonl . Already this Juts oommunioated an energy to oporations , which will spoiidily bo felt in tlio

    lulvnni'oSuch is the imperial prerogative which , under the new law , the Minister for India now has , and a man of the noblest ambition mig ht well contend for its exercise . ' Lord Stanley was esteemed most fortunate in the first possession of this vast power , but such are the vicissitudes of political life , that already in the first bloom of his wellearned honours , the office passes from him , and is given as a prize to another , whether ever to resume it , who knows ? for in this lottery , of which the earliest prize has been so great , the chances

    arc many . A long opposition may alter every combination ; some other leader may demand the w . idhed-for office on the attainment of the premiership , overcome all other aspirings of ambition , or , quick nnd sudden as are changes , again in a short while power may flow back to its former channels , the offices resume their former occupants , and the period o f interregnum be forgotten as not even one of transition . Still this is a time for farewell to those who have earned our good wishes , whatever their hopes and whatever their fortunes may be , and Lord Stanley has earned

    the good wishes even of opponents , Jealously watched in a career besot with difficulties , how ill has party warfare been able to find weapons in Lord Stanley ' s conduct : a hope that personal differences with the Governor-General of another party might be handled so as to create partizan mistrust has been blighted by the discretion and honest co-operation of both ; an attempt to twist the dispatch of artillery to India as a fault , when it was an act of foresight ; and an insinuation that Lord Stanley has not overcome at once the life-long and inherited difficulties of India financo : juch is tlio chronicle .

    The attempt to fasten these charges on Lord fcJ . tanloy , in the bitterness of party warfare , has bean little successful , booauso hTs conduct of a most difficult administration has gained fur him the public esteem and regard . Uonourablo as

    Lord Stanley And The Indian"

    ment of the people and in the improvement of the treasury . ' If there has not yet been time for the full effect , to be felt of Lord Stanley ' s measures for . the development of the resources of India and for the restoration of its finances , embarrassed by unsound administration and the fearful crisis of the revolt , at least he -will leave the treasury with no resource diminished , with new resources added , and with large economies in operation ; . and in the course of a few years the progress of these measures alone

    will ensure the stability of the Indian exchequer . He has had the boldness to raise loans at home to give India the benefit of the English market , and to impose more taxes in India , but the prejudices of Indian statesmanship afford no willing or ready aid to the prosecution of these measures . Lord Stanley has been more restrained by these circumstances than by the state of the finances , and has been impeded in his endeavours to promote those measures of enterprise which are indispensable to create and supply resources for India .

    In giving way to the demands of his council , he has still managed to provide for the extension of the public works of India . As they have affirmed that the completion of the presidential system of railways is an indispensable experiment to ascertain whether railways will pay in India as they have done in every part of the world , he has urged the immediate completion of the works ; but he has further countenanced the extension of the Calcutta system , the opening of the Mutlah , the communications with Darjeeling , the formation of railways in Oude , and the increase of river navigation throughout the north . A bold indication of his policy is the grant of a guarantee to the Madras Irrigation Company as an encouragement to this class of enterprise and to cotton cultivation . The arrangement made with the Madras Government for freer action in matters of local improvement and of public works , is the example of a decentralising policy in , India , and of the establishment of local and efficient government , in which he has confirmed the Punjab sub-presidency , and on a like model has reorganised the North-west Provinces . In the reconstitution of the army on a European basis , and the encouragement of colonisation , he lias again had to yield to the expression of official opinion ; but though he has been unable to carry out these two great measures , he has not abandoned them , as their opponents have required . By sanctioning the resumption of Mr . Ewart ' s Colonisation Committee , a degree of attention has been obtained for the hill regions and settlements

    of India which secures their advancement . Month after month new ranges are explored , towns and villages founded , and plantations extended ; so that the foundations of English colonies extend throughout India . By the appointment of the Indian Army Commission , the supporters of an organisation of native rebels for the purposes of patronage , and at the cost of revolt , have had to x'ecord their opinions , and the evidence is against a native army ; so that , although the question may bo paltered with for a time , yet the progress of the police system ) , and the determination of the English people , will ultimately bring the matter to a satisfactory uujustment . The nomination of the Army Sanitury Commission in another groat measure working to the same result in another way ; fbr the evidence will show that the health of thu

    Europeans cant only be effectively maintained m the lulls , and hence the extension of Ilio hill enntonmenta will bo stimulated and colonisation encouraged . Tims , whether Lord Stanley himself take charge of the required measure * , or do not , he has cftoctually provided tor their prosecution . Much that has here boon referred to Ih not hilly realised , beoause its realisation i . s now in progi-eas and must bo tlio result of yean ?; but Lord Stanley has already enrolled hin name among tlio benefactors of ' Jutliji , with Wellosloy , linking * , IJontinckDalhoiwie , the Lawrence * , ami that

    illus-, trious bund of whom wedaro only to refer to some , fbr it enrols so nmnv ; and Lord Stanley has this nin"iilnr glory , that ) io is ( lie , first of the lulininistrators in Kiiglnml who has given himself a name in India beside iswch men . Uy him such glory imiHt bo oHtoomed a noble rowtinl , and although hiH tomtre of ollicio liu . s boon fleeting , for yoriiv ) and yenrn lie will liavo the Ijenrtt ' elt , hnt . in-I'aolion of swing the fruition of inenHiireH by whieh ho Inv .-t Iinntonoil tin . progivHH anil Huemiod tlio wolflire of the nmny million , * of India .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 18, 1859, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18061859/page/9/