THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1825. ART. I. An Enquiry into the Expediency of applying the Principles of Colonial Policy to the Government of India. 1822. 2. Two Letters to Sir Charles Forbes on the Liberty of the Press in India. 1824. 3. Considerations on the State of British India. 1822. 4. Remarks on the Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal. 1794. 2nd Edition. 1806. 5. On the Import of Colonial Corn. 1818. IN entering upon the inquiry as to the mode in which the government of the British in India may be made subservient, as it ought to be, to the welfare of that great continent, we feel almost appalled at the magnitude of the subject, and the mighty interests which depend upon it. These very thoughts, however, ought to encourage and animate us: the slightest hope of exciting or spreading a spirit of improvement is in itself a sufficient motive, a sufficient reward for our endeavours. The mere chance of aiding, in the smallest degree, that already existing disposition to better the state of India, which, if supported by British authority, would produce a greater result of good than calculation itself can find means to estimate, instantly banishes all the hesitation we might otherwise feel in approaching so vast and intricate a question. In order to come to any safe and just conclusion as to the measures necessary to secure the good government and consequent well-being of India, it is most important to ascertain the real condition of that country, and the impediments which, under the present system, lie in the way of its improvement. First, as regards the state of the civil magistracy. This class is filled by men who are prepared in England for the discharge of their high and important functions, that is to say, by men whose early experience, affections, and strongest sympathies are alien from those of the people whom they are called upon to govern. Such as they are, they are introduced into the exercise of an almost irresponsible power; for it is unchecked by any of the motives which usually control it; they enjoy a rigorous monopoly of office; they are not accountable to any except individuals of their own body, whose interests are their interests, and their promotion and succession to superior grades depend almost entirely upon the order of seniority and take place usually without any regard to the aptitude of the party. A magistracy may however be improperly selected, and very imperfectly discharge its duties, and the evil be in some measure diminished and counteracted by the circumstances in which it finds itself placed. What is the case in India? In India, there are no institutions, no habits to control misrule, no Aristocracy but the pernicious Aristocracy of place; no independent courts, no colleges, no municipalities, no associations of any sort, to which, on any occasion, the people might venture to look for protection or counsel. There are no means of petitioning, or representing, or co-operating,, or combining, of collecting public opinion, or of giving it a voice. No meetings, no deliberations, can take place without the sanction of authority. A man cannot print, or publish, or possess materials for printing, or circulate books, or even read them, without the authority of government. There are no safe channels for the expression of complaint; no vent through which wants or sufferings can make themselves efficiently known. All proceeds on the assumption that the government is perfect; and no tone discordant with this general harmony is allowed to be heard. Such is the relation between the European governors and the Indian population. But these are not all: between these two a numerous and increasing Anglo-Indian population has sprung into being, for whose civil rights, for whose recognition as citizens, for whose protection as subjects, even, there is no provision. Though rising every day in talent, and property, and knowledge, they are excluded from all public employment of a gratifying or honourable character. They cannot enter the military nor civil service, nor pursue the clerical or medical professions. They may not sit on grand or petty juries; they, in a word, have no civil existence but 66 as natives," in a country where, from our position as conquerors, the utmost importance is attached to distinctions indicating the class to which an indi vidual appertains; a country in which the barrier which separates the ruling whites from the subject blacks is so marked and so impassable. For in India the Mahommedans whom we superseded, and the Hindoos whom we delivered from their heavy and military yoke, are equally debarred from confidential, honourable, or lucrative employment. No individual of these, however elevated above his fellows in talent, education, or wealth; however associated with ourselves in a community of interests, is eligible to a post of advantage or dignity in his own land, on his own soil. The highest military station they can occupy is that of captain, with a salary of £80 or £90 a-year in that fine native army which was the instrument of our gaining, as it is now of our keeping, our ascendancy in India; their highest office in civil life that of assessor to a judge, or collector, with a salary scarcely more liberal. In India every civil office, high and low, of real dignity, power, and emolument, is monopolised by that body of Europeans, whose preliminary education is as useless, or rather as mischievous, as can well be conceived; who are imported into the east in early inexperience, soon to be trusted with more or less of ill-controlled power in some distant proconsulate; looking not to the good opinion of their dependents, but to the approbation of their own caste. And if some rare exception should occur; if, among the governing Englishmen, some one should be found whose circumstances would induce him to remain in a country where he might spend the remainder of his life with advantage either to himself or to the place of his adoption, he may not hold land-he may not settle he may not take root -he may not colonize. He is taught to aspire after a return to England, and a total cessation of intercourse and interest. in India; for which purpose he is to add new heaps to the heaps of his accumulated capital, and bear it away as his trophy to the land of his nativity. And what is the state of the people? Sismondi is almost right when he says, that the entire nett produce of the soil is absorbed by the state. Deduct the five per cent on the gross produce paid to a nominal landholder, and which should rather be considered as the charge for collecting the revenue than as rent; deduct the cost of labour, stock, seed, and implements, and nothing-absolutely nothing-remains. The miserable metøyer usually cultivates for half, sometimes two-fifths of the gross produce, and of the remainder, ten per cent goes to the zemindar, the agent and instrument of the government for the collection of its revenues, who is responsible to the state for the equivalent in money of at least nine-twentieths of the whole gross produce, that is, for nine-tenths of the government's two fifths or half.* Thus the ordinary sources of accumulating capital, and the inducements for increasing the productiveness of the soil (so little productive now) are destroyed; and the wretched peasant is doomed to continue in the lowest state of human existence. His toil is unremitting and his poverty is hopeless; he cannot improve his own condition by his profits, for he has none; he cannot cultivate the earth with advantage, for he is destitute of the necessary capital; neither can he, by becoming a consumer of the produce or manufactures of this or any other country, contribute to extend the blessings of com * These proportions are known, according to Colebrooke :- Two-fifths for do. One half for the tenant, But these rates, and others less common, are all subject to taxes and deductions similar to those of other tenures, and, in consequence, another proportion engrafted on an equal partition has, in some places, been fixed by government in lieu of all taxes, such, for example as for the landlord, for the husbandman."-Colebrooke's Husbandry, p. 54. 2nd Edition. When this gentleman speaks of "the landlord," he means [vide note, p. 53] the person who takes from the husbandman that proportion of the gross produce, and pays away to the Exchequer ten-elevenths of this amount to the State, keeping, of course, one-eleventh to himself [see p. 93] The most celebrated Hindoo and Mahommedan lawgivers, by another note [p. 61], appear never to have allowed more than or of the gross produce to be taken. By the 5th Report, House of Commons [p. 37 octavo edition, 1812], the cultivator's share is, and the landlord's, whereof the zemindar's (nominal landlord) share is about, and the government's the remainder. It would seem, from many concurring testimonies, that this rate is pretty general, and this pittance of the zemindar more resembles a percentage, or expense of collecting, than a rent; since, as has been already observed, the whole of the rent, or as Sismondi says, [Rev. Encycloped. Dec. 1824] the entire nett produce of the soil, is swept into the Exchequer. The only available fund for accumulation of capital is thus to be sought in the cultivator's of the gross produce of the land. But Colebrooke shews demonstratively [Husbandry, 2nd Edition, chap. 5] that a cultivator is not so well off on produce, as a hired labourer; and this in the main branch of agriculture, corn; and that his and his family's subsistence is earned by ekings out of profits from the dairy, and other choicer, but more precarious, descriptions of produce, by occasional labours at the loom, &c. If, then, the cost of production absorbs or of the gross produce, and scarcely maintains the cultivators, we shall not have to wonder that this superb country stands still, not to say retrogrades, instead of amassing capital, and advancing proportionately in improvements of every kind. In this view of the subject it seems to matter but little, whether the land be considered theoretically to belong to a zemindar or to the ryot: whether, in short, a middle man or collector of the rents, at an expense of 10 per cent on his collections, or five per cent on the gross produce, be interposed between the cultivator and the taker of the lion's share-the state, merce, for his wants must be few, and those be satisfied with the readiest, the coarsest, and the basest material. In India, the only class possessing intelligence, skill, and capital, in sufficiency, or even in a considerable degree, are Europeans. A positive law enacted by the company's servants abroad, and confirmed by their masters at home, bars this class altogether from agricultural pursuits; while the insecurity of person and property, through the liability to arbitrary deportation, necessarily impedes the investment of European capital in other objects. Why should not the superfluity of British wealth overflow and fructify the Indian continent? Why should the sources of prosperity be cut off by the uncontrollable mandate of despotic will? The rulers of India are, in fact, another caste, added to the too many indigenous native castes whose distinctions are so great a bar to the moral and political improvement of the people. The foreign caste mixes not with the masses among whom they have fixed their tents and reared their standard. Neither in habits, nor in prospects, nor in interests do they seek to identify themselves with the native races. Year after year sees successive shoals arrive, rapacious and eager to follow the precursive shoals which depart loaded with their accumulated spoil, viz. with that capital which, if employed where it was produced, would spread fruitfulness over the soil, and prosperity among the people. The British rulers of India, however, do not only take from the inhabitants a vast yearly revenue-a revenue sufficient to pay for the best possible government, even if the best were not the most economical-they not only appropriate to themselves all the rents of land, and fill the government coffers with the produce of rigorous monopolies (monopolies of the very necessaries of life), of heavy stamp and law taxes, transit, excise and other internal duties-but this they do to an amount of above two millions beyond all the current expenses of government, and cost of its wars, and charges of its debts, and call this iniquitous surplus, "tribute," to be remitted to England, in return forwhat? For the protection of free institutions and equal laws-for the liberty of the press-for the wise and honest administration of justice-or for other blessings purchased at so high a price? We fear the matter will not bear inquiry, but shall at once proceed to explain our views of what should be done for India, and to compare what ought to be, with what really is, the state of things in that most important section of the world. And how shall the greatest possible sum of good be communicated to our Indian possessions? The answer is in a few words. By giving to the people every possible security against |