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Untitled Article
of this personage no really important question can be decided . The details of administration , indeed , have hitherto been confided to civil servants appointed by the directors , but even that exclusive privilege has recently been cancelled by throwing the service open to competition . It therefore x > nly remains to do away with the fiction of a . government that has neither subjects nor a governing class , and to establish the direct influence of the Crown over all its dependencies and possessions .
According to Sir Chables MetoaIiFE , than whom there can be no higher authority , the two grand specifics to insure the stability of British rule in India , are a powerful army and colonisation . But it is absurd to expect that Europeans will permanently settle in a country -where they are treated as a conquered race . There is no arena for an honourable ambition , no stimulant to exertion , no reward
for exalted . merit . The " interloper" under no circumstances aspire to public offices and dignities . If he would afford a fairer chance to his son , he must send him to Europe to acquire a smattering of the literature of ancient European Republics ,. in order to fit him for becoming the instrument of a despotic government over a hundred millions of Asiatics . It is
true that he enjoys the special privilege of being amenable only to British law dispensed by British judges ; but these very courts are an anomaly , and have more than once seriously impeded the action of the Government . An improvement in this respect has been certainly effected by the last charter , but the machinery will never work satisfactorily until its motive power be one and indivisible .
The civil service , as at present constituted , is divided into two classes , or castes—the covenanted * and the unqovenanted ; The former are the " twice-bom , " the favoured of I / eadenhall-street , who enjoy the loaves and fishes , are entitled to furlough , and finally retire upon a pension of a thousand a year .
The latter are hard-worked arid indifferently paid , are eligible to no high office , can claim no furlough , and when incapable of further service are summarily dismissed—with a certificate of good conduct . To this inferior caste belongs the educational department , and the learnedprincipal of a college stands lower on the official ladder than a beardless
boy who has donned for the first time the blushing honours of a uniform . Many of these uncovenanted servants are gentlemen of good family , superior education , excellent abilities , and possessed of large local information , But in society they are not recognised , and the highest change they can hope to attain , is that of assistant-magistrate . And here another absurdity is worthy of notice . The duties of a civil servant are financial and
judiciary . The former being deemed the most important , the exhibition of a superior order of talent and energy is generally rewarded by a post in that department . But in ordinary cases the same person may be suddenly removed from one to the other , or called upon to discharge "both at the same time . Then again , as the covenanted body is not sufficiently numerous to collect revenue
and administer justice throughout the vast extent of territory under the British jurisdiction , recourse is had , not to the uncovenanted , but fco the military service , and tho ablest officers are taken from their regiments , and for a dozen or fifteen years converted into civilians . It is needless to observe how detrimental this system must be to tho discipline of both men and officers , and to the general efficiency of the army . # Sir Charles Metoalfe , indeed , was of opinion that every Company ' s servant should go
European officers are required regiments , and that everything depends upon the confidence the former are able to inspire into their men . It is surely more consistent with the dictates of experience and commen sense that every man should adhere to his own profession , and that the military should ftonfine themselves to military , as the civilians
for the native out a cadet ; that there should be no separate civil service ; and that men should be selected for civil duties according to fitness , remaining soldiers nevertheless . With all due deference to so high an authority , it may be asked how this profession of faith can be reconciled with the oftentimes repeated assertion that more
to civil , matters . We w ould have , then , a Govern or-General appointed by the Crown for a term of years , under whom Lieutenant-Governors should preside at Madras , Bombay , Agra ; and Calcutta . There should be also but one army , under one Commander-in-Chief , however ungrateful such a measure might prove to the Horse Guards . The Civil Serviee might be advantageously divided into two branchesthe financial and the magisterial—but
without the faculty of interchanging . He who adopts the department of revenue must follow out his career ; and in like manner the aspirant to the tribunal must qualif y himself exclusively for his future magisterial functions . The degrading parsimony of the uncovenanted serviee can no longer be endured . Let every man who enters the Civil Service of the Indian Government be eligible to every post according to hia merit , and let this be the only motive for selection . It may
be objected that the cost of government will be thereby greatly increased . But are the existing salaries incapable of diminution ? Is it impossible to obtain efficient magistrates and collectors for a smaller stipend than 1500 ? . to 2000 ? . a year , with an annual pension of 1000 / . in prospect ? Perchance men in whose veins the sangre azul flows may become yet more rare , but perchance also men of surpassing energy and ability may become much more numerous . India is
no longer separated from Europe by a tedious and dangerous voyage of many months' duration , nor is the climate so fatal to life as travellers would have us believe . By the use of ordinary precautions health maybe preserved during the average number of years supposed to be allotted to man , and a more reasonable mode of living repudiates the ostentatious extravagance that involved the last generation in debt in proportion to the magnitude of their salaries .
In addition to the Civil Service , properly so-called , there must be tho judicial , and this likewise should be local . At present the judges , and even many of the barristers , are totally ignorant of the native languages , laws , and usages , and yet' they are constantly required to adjudicate , or plead , between natives and Europeans . If one of the latter commit a crime at Peshawur , he enhnot be brought to trial excepting in Calcutta , a distance of at least twelve hundred miles .
The consequence is that evon criminal offences are allowed to pass unpunished , because no one will willingly incur the expense , fatigue , and loss of time , incidental to the prosecution . This subject , however , cannot be better illustrated than by tho following extracts from a minuto drawn up . by Six ' OuABIiHS MBXOAilfE ill 1829 : ' * Wo have aeon ajmtive of India , lately n servant of
tho King of Oude , but residing within the British frontier for refuge , arrested on a false allegation of debt , many hundred miles away from Calcutta , hy tin officer of tho Supremo Court , and placed in the power of his pretended creditor and undoubted enemy , on some legal fiction of his l > eing a constructive inhabitant of Calcutta , in consequence of dealngs with parties residing there We
have seen property seized in the most remote pr vinces under the Bengal Presidency as the properl of a bankrupt firm at Calcutta , and made ov wholly to another firm of that place on a bon although creditors of the bankrupt firm , ai claimants against it were present in those province although the transactions on which they clam * took place in those provinces ; although the very pr perty seized was properly their own , never havir been paid for . The awe of the Supreme Court d terred the local authorities from attempting to man tain the right of the local creditors .
It is evident that such could never ha ^ been the object contemplated in the estj blishment of this court , although the abut of its extraordinary powers might have bee predicted by any one acquainted with tt workings of the human heart . For the futur all evils of this nature might bo avoided h constituting an Indian bar and an India bench . The judges might be chosen eatch sively from the local bar , and on the occu rence of a vacancy the latter might be calk upon to nominate three candidates , one . < whom would be selected by the Goverao General , subject to the approval of tl Crown . As the immense extent of our India
Empire -would render it impossible for one s * of judges to undertake the different circuit it might be : found advisable to institute foi courts , those of Calcutta , Madras , Bombay and Agra , with perhaps a recorder at I / aho * One system of law might then be adminii tered to Christian , Mussulman , and Hindo < and the judiciary department of the civil se ; vice would : be confined to the duties of stipendiary magistracy . By -. this nieai " the square men would be put into the squax holes , and the round men into the roujp holes , " and merit would form the only tacu distinction , the only road to honour and at vancement . ~
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CHANDEBNAGOKKSiXTEEff miles above Calcutta , and on th west bank of the Hooghly , stands the plej sant town of Chandernagore , the Chandrt nagoraof the natives . With regard to beaut and salubrity of situation , it is in overy wa superior to the metropolis of British Indu and the spacious parade by the river-aid yields in nothing to the great ora&mentc
works of the ancient rulers of the country In- the early times of the British Settlements this place formed the head-quarters of th French , whence they actively intrigued wit ] the Soubahdar to effect the expulsion of thei : rivals from Beugal .. But ; diplomacy failed ii presence of superior energy and power , and after a stout resistance , Chaudernagore sue cumbed to tho broadsides of the Kent ant
the Tiger , commanded in person by Admiral Watson and Pococke . However , on tin return of peace , the fruits of conquest were with characteristic bonhomie , restored to th < enemy from whom they had been so arduously wrested , and Chandernagore was again per raitted to become a thorn in our side . It ii true that the fortifications and garrison o the T > lar » e am ho ufctrarlv insinmifir ; nnt thnt i the place are so utterlinsignificant thnt a
y single battalion would at « ny time auffice t < reduce it to submission . But this wry cir cumstnuco tends to impress tho natives witl a mysterious awe for a power that , from 8 ( great n distance , can plant its ilag close tc the very capital of the redoubtable " Johr Koompauie ' s" dominions . They observe , too , that even the Supreme Court fails tc inspiro any dread within this enchanted spot , hot a man swindle his friend in Calcutta ,
defraud his creditors , or commit n misdemeanour , ho need only fleo to tho ahiulow oi the tricolor , and neither poliee-oflieer noi bailiff ' will disturb his slumbers . Nor is it by any moans conducive to the morality oi young men in Calcutta that bo near at hnntj they can Had every . means and opportunity foi indulgonco in quasi-Parisian vice Aspiring
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. eo _ THE LEADER . fNo- 2 T 8 , 8 atob >« , byo .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 21, 1855, page 696, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2100/page/12/
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