REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1872-73. CHAPTER I. CHANGES IN ADMINISTRATION. LAST year's report explained the nature of the changes which the Lieutenant-Governor had designed and commenced. During the year now under report the same policy has been steadily worked out. CENTRATION OF AUTHORITY. A chief feature in the new system was explained to be a more active system of government, the recall MORE ACTIVE GOVERNMENT, AND CON- to life of the District Officer, and the centralization of power and responsibility in his hands. The Magistrate now exercises a general control over all departments. The police were always nominally subordinate to the Magistrate, but that nominal subordiProgress of these principles. nation has now become real. The same principle has been applied to the Department of Public Works, and the Executive Engineer is now made, except in purely professional matters, subordinate to the Magistrate. The same principle has been extended to the system of jail administration. In the Educational Department the Magistrate, with the assistance of a Committee, has now the guidance of educational matters in his district, with the aid and advice of the Deputy Inspector of Schools as his chief assistant. A very general testimony has been poured in by local officers and Commissioners as to the advantages of these changes, and more than one Commissioner describes the new system as an unmixed good. It is appreciated, says another officer, by all classes of natives. The natives cannot understand the existence of a hakim without authority; hakim ka hookum is the key-stone of their political belief. It is observed, for instance, that this arrangement has resulted educationally in an organization much more powerful for good than the Inspector could have hoped to exercise alone without the Magistrate's local influence on the one hand, or the Committee's assistance on the other. The beneficial tendency of these changes has been remarkably illustrated by the new style of the Administration Reports of the past year. The manner of reporting has been systematized and re-arranged; the reports are no longer as formal as they have sometimes been, but describe the history of the administration of the year as respecting the state and well-being of the country and the feelings of the people. In many respects the reports submitted have been most valuable and complete. Selections from them will be separately published as Government selections, as they are too bulky to circulate in any other shape, and it is most important that they should not be hidden away. The continued trial of the divided Board of Revenue, under which the attention of each Member has been devoted to separate departments, and the personal relations between and the head of the Government are worked with increasing and unalloyed Continued success of divided Board of Revenue. the Members of the Board established more closely, has success. The Lieutenant-Governor His Honor's views of further changes required. strengthened or diminished. has expressed the view that the great want of such an administration as that of the Bengal Government, which is at present concentrated in the Lieutenant-Governor, is the establishment of high officers with whom the Lieutenant-Governor may divide the work, and with whom he may also habitually take counsel without formal correspondence, and yet in a way not altogether informal. The Government itself should be strengthened; the present excessive The Government should either be length of the official chain should be shortened. The general plan by which, in His Honor's view, the two objects of strengthening the Government and shortening the chain may best be carried out simultaneously is by amalgamating with the Government the very highest office,-the first link in the chain, i.e. the Board of Revenue; also perhaps the executive functions of the High Court; bringing up the next link, the Commissioners, somewhat to the position of the Board, their number being reduced and their salaries increased; and strengthening the position of the Magistrate-Collectors of districts, who would then be supervised by Commissioners themselves directly under Government. We should thus have three links from Magistrate-Collectors upwards, viz. Magistrate-Collectors, Commissioners, and Government, instead of the present four links, viz. Magistrate-Collector, Commissioner, Board, and Government. It has always been the Lieutenant-Governor's decided conviction that if the Bengal provinces are not to be divided or very largely reduced, it is most necessary to strengthen the Government: so great a Government cannot be efficiently carried on by one man alone. The Government of India have preferred the alternative of diminishing the Government, and Sir Separation of Assam from Bengal. George Campbell has not objected to the proposal which has been made of separating Assam and the adjacent districts from Bengal. To the province of Assam it is proposed to add Goalparah and the Garo Hills on the west, and Sylhet and Cachar on the south, with Muneepore on the south-east. These districts would be administered by a Chief Commissioner in subordination to the Government of India. The details connected with the transfer are still under consideration. If the proposed transfers to Assam are carried out, it will be necessary to reduce the cost of the existing Commissionerships in proportion to the territory taken from them, and it is a question whether the Chittagong and Cooch Behar Commissioners, one or both, are to be absorbed or retained. nearer to Government. It has been before explained to be the Lieutenant-Governor's constant aim to bring the heads of Heads of Departments have been brought departments nearer to Government, and to work through them. The tendency of the changes he has introduced is to make the departmental chiefs the agents and inspectors on behalf of the Government, bound to aid, counsel, and guide local officers, each in his own department, without exercising absolute authority over them; and to criticise, collate, and compare local facts for the information of the Government. The Government, no doubt, has been much strengthened by this policy. The success of Mr. Heeley, the Inspector-General of Jails, which was acknowledged in last year's report, and again in this, is an evidence of the advantages of the system. present incumbents in the offices of Director of Public Instruction and Inspector-General of Police have worked long under the old system, and it has not been possible completely to introduce a new system by their agency. In respect to the Inspector-Generalship of Police, the Lieutenant-Governor has lately received much valuable assistance from the Inspector-General, but he is likely soon to leave the country, and the Lieutenant-Governor has recently recommended to the Government of India the appointment of one head of the police,-to be head over the whole of the police in Calcutta as well as in the interior-to whom the Government may refer in difficult and dangerous matters; and he has suggested a scheme by which this may be worked out. Success of Inspector-General of Jails. Changes recommended. Concentration of Government offices. The There is one thing however indispensably necessary to carry out any scheme for increasing the efficiency and working powers of the Government of Bengal, and that is the concentration of the Government offices in one building. All the offices of the Bengal Government are now scattered about far apart in different quarters of Calcutta. The following provision of funds has been made for this purpose:-1. Four lakhs to be found during two years from the provincial resources. 2. The amount of compensation (four lakhs) given by the Government of India for the old Sudder Court building taken up for a garrison hospital for European soldiers. 3. The capitalized amount of the rents paid for the public offices to be concentrated. 4. The value of the Government buildings now occupied by the Government offices. The best site possessed by Government has been taken by the Government of India for the purpose of a Military Hospital. The site which the Lieutenant-Governor then considered the best for the proposed buildings was a strip of waste land to the north of Tolly's Nullah and south of the Lower Circular Road, lying between the Alipore and Kidderpore bridges and outside the official limits of |