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something to luck as well as merit; but Fortune, the fickle goddess, often frowned on the trading civilians. Take the record of John Spencer, for instance, the thwarter and rival of Clive. "He enjoyed the most lucrative posts at Bombay, held the Government of Bengal for some time, and died insolvent in 1766, a great trader."

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In Sir T. E. Colebrooke's "Life of Elphinstone," we find that statesman, then a lad just over seventeen, landed at Calcutta in 1796 as a writer, and sent up at once to his 'brother at Benares. He passed no tests, but had just come from a boarding-school at Kensington, furnishing his cabin, however, as he writes to his mother, with "25 large volumes containing 2 or 3 novels each, and the British Classics, same size, 5 vols., containing such things as the Spectator, Guardian, Rambler; and Mundell's Poets, containing every good British poet, and the Encyclopædia Britannica.' When in 1801 Lord Wellesley's college was started, the studious youth got himself transferred to Calcutta to attend it: his increasing habit of hard work and wide reading prepared him for his great commands. The transition period was now drawing near its close. The scholarly Wellesley picked out the ablest youngsters, and used them as secretaries all the long Indian day, dictating to them his orders and despatches to the seats of wars; and the tradition lingers that as the cool evenings fell, he kept them to dinner as close companions and trusty helpers. In the stirring times that followed, this knot of men rose rapidly to distinction. Among Wellesley's Boys, as they were called, were Mr. W. Butterworth Bayley, who acted as Governor-General in 1828; Lord Metcalfe, who in his tenure of that office gave liberty to the Press, and who became in after-years GovernorGeneral of Canada; and Sir Richard Jenkins, who in the last Maratha War saved the situation at Nagpur. From the Wellesley period also we date the origin of the Civil Funds, which out of payments by the service, aided by State subsidies, provide those retiring pensions and certain

annuities for widows and orphans, which have ever since been considered more than compensation for the uncertain profits of trade. I am not aware of the orders issued in Bengal; but when I was manager of the Bombay Fund, I gathered from its records that in 1805 many Bombay civilians on being put to election chose to remain as partners in private firms, one of them being a Judge drawing 24,000 rupees a year. For some time after, such persons might, when it suited them, jump back from private trade to good official posts; and in 1815 the Governor in Council styles these partners in "houses of agency as only nominally in the service, and rivals of the East India Company in commercial pursuits." All this must have been known to Elphinstone, who had in the newlyconquered Deccan to solve the same problem as Verelst did in Bengal, and chose for working it out the ablest men in the Bombay Army rather than the ordinary Revenue officers, hide-bound in routine. In this time of history Thackeray, who had Indian connections, places Mr. Joseph Sedley, the hero of Vanity Fair, as Collector of BoggleyWollah, whose foibles give a wrong impression, to be effaced by what is said in the "Four Georges" of a Judge Cleveland, a real person who died young in 1784, after civilizing the wild regions of Boglipoor. Bishop Heber gives us a drawing of the temple which the Hindus built over Cleveland's grave for holding religious feasts to his memory. The good Bishop, as he went about the country, found the local officers devoted and amiable men, but some of them, he says, treated the better classes of natives. with English hauteur. This national trait also came out in episcopalian attempts to prevent marriages by the rites. of the Presbyterian Churches, although Dundas (Viscount Melville) had, when Minister for India, done all that in him lay to stock the services with Scotsmen. Again, in 1832, when the Directors were forced to pay for Bishops at Bombay and Madras out of Indian taxes, to guard the morals of the public servants, all that Parliament conceded

was two Presbyterian chaplains at each Presidency. The Company protested in vain that these measures were belated, as Anglo-Indian ethics had recovered since the time of Burke and the detested Nabobs. It was useless to prove that the Bishopric at Calcutta had increased expenses from £48,000 to above £100,000 a year, and raised clerical pensions from £800 to £5,000 a year. Concurrent endowment was made the remedy for Anglo-Indian vice, and is still maintained by Act of Parliament. This culmination seems a fitting point for closing this my sketchy answer to the wide question of my friend across the Atlantic.

It may be predicted that the alert common-sense of American statesmen will lead to such measures in their new possessions as were taken by Elphinstone in the Deccan and by Sir Arthur Phayre after Lower Burma had fallen to our arms. The bulk of existing law will probably be left unabrogated, while enlightened policy will ensure the speedy reduction of the heavy taxation and the removal of those galling restraints on civil and religious liberty which made the Spanish Church and State so bitterly hated in Cuba. No excuse can tolerate the sale of public employments; and whatever may happen to the rentas ecclesiasticas, the revenue got by clippings from salaries will be willingly given up. The administrative divisions into Talukas and Districts under Capitans and Alcaldes Mayores will most likely remain; and the old system of ruling the Chinese in Luzon through their head-men may be found as useful in the future as the past. A nation that has welded Florida and Alaska into the Union will find abundant expedients of statecraft to make the people of the Antilles and the Philippines content under the starry flag. But the result of the war nevertheless adds much to the burning question, Civil Service Reform. depend on the way the President uses his patronage of still higher offices. He has no order of Peers to provide for and he can as easily thrust aside the Tapers and Tadpoles of parties, as George Canning did when he invited the East

gravity of that Much too will

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Indian Directors to choose whom they pleased among three Scots commoners of "extraordinary zeal and ability" to be Governor of Bombay, namely, Sir John Malcolm, Mr. Elphinstone and Sir Thomas Munro. The passing traveller finds the benign rule of these distinguished men fondly cherished in the countries they governed, devout natives still using language closely resembling our blind poet's praise of the heroes of the Commonwealth :

"Such as Thou hast solemnly elected,

With gifts and graces eminently adorned,

To some great work, Thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they effect."

THIRD SERIES. VOL. VII.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA AND ITS

ment.

SUBJECTS.

By R. C.

I.

In these days we are puzzling our brains over the frequency and ease with which, in various parts of India, scares are propagated, and the readiness with which wild stories are believed. We have been in the habit of saying that, though sedition and discontent exist, the mass of the population have faith in, and liking for, the British GovernYet we see these loyal and trusting people infected with shrinking and suspicion. What is wrong? Who is to blame? is a question which many experienced officers -many loyal subjects-both European and native, are asking themselves. On this question I shall endeavour to throw light from the point of view of a Bengal civilian of the present day.

We have to begin by thoroughly realizing the fact that the Indian Government and its Indian subjects are two-not one. The Government in England springs from, is inspired by, changes with, and is an integral part of, the people whom it governs. The Government when it loses the confidence of the people must retire, making way for another possessing that confidence. The Government of India, on the other hand, is derived from, and supported and inspired by, the British nation. If it loses the confidence of the people, it remains, and must win that confidence back.

The medium through whom touch is kept between the Government of India and its subjects is the District Officer. It is said, and I think truly, that the District Officer of the present day does not hold the confidence of the people so strongly as those who went before him. Passing by many debatable reasons for this, I desire to show that one substantial cause is a change which has been taking place in his position, the general effect of which has been to destroy

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