judicious selection of whom for the various duties they have to perform, the success of his administration will chiefly depend.'

Sir John Malcolm, with some degree of inconsistency, attaches no value, as a remedy for this want of personal knowledge, to the ❝ assumed information of the servants of the Company who are in council, or who fill the subordinate or executive offices of the state.' Now as these offices are usually filled by the individuals most distinguished among their contemporaries for ability and conduct, their incompetency or disinclination to advise are not very strong recommendations for the investiture of higher authority. Our author further says, that

"acting in countries remote from each other, and whose inhabitants differ in language and customs as much as the nations in Europe, some members of this class rise to the exercise of almost kingly rule; others fill political, civil, judicial, fiscal, and military stations. Such a variety of occupations must in India, as elsewhere, produce an infinite variety of character, and qualify men to pursue the most opposite courses, if such are open to them, in England. It is a sense of injury, alone at the operation of causes which virtually almost exclude them from public life, that unites them in hostility against a system which, under other circumstances, it must be their wish to support.'

This language is obviously quite unsuited to the facts of the case; and in truth the description of the elevated station held in India by the Company's servants, might be supposed to render official employment in England quite beneath their habits and pretensions. The conclusion to which we arrive, as to the relative pretensions of public men in England and India, to fill offices in the home-administration, or to preside over the governments abroad, is, that, as in both cases the general qualities of a statesman are more important than detailed knowledge, and as public life in England, from the greater display and collision of talent, is the scene most fitted to produce and mature those qualities, if preference is to be taken on either side, the selection will be best made at home. It is further to be considered that information respecting the religion, character, and manners of the natives of India, as well as the political circumstances of the country, is now very generally diffused; that the establishment of the paramount authority of the Company's government has very much simplified our position; and that the abundance of excellent executive officers renders personal superintendence of details on the part of the chief governor unnecessary, even if it were possible. Were the spirit of Sir John Malcolm's suggestions adopted, the administration, both at home and abroad, would be placed exclusively in the hands of persons who had served in India, and thus one great

principle

principle of practical control, namely, the different composition of the co-operative authorities, would be lost. At present the details of government are conducted in India by individuals, who, from early education and uninterrupted residence in the country, cannot fail to possess practical knowledge; but as this very education and residence have a tendency to generate local and professional prejudices, the supreme authority is generally intrusted to persons of high rank, whose public life has been passed in a scene sufficiently remote to secure impartiality, and yet sufficiently familiar to discourage speculative or precipitate innovation. In the Court of Directors, composed of wealthy English merchants, and of persons retired from the Company's civil and military service, European and Eastern prejudices are neutralised by mixture; and, finally, the Board of Control applies the corrective of direct parliamentary responsibility to the whole administration of this apparently mere Oriental Despotism.

Sir John Malcolm (vol. ii. pages 91 & 126) asserts, that Indian affairs do not receive a sufficient degree of attention from parliament; which he accounts for by the further assertion that, in point of fact, unlike the West Indies, the interests of the East are not represented in the House of Commons-propositions, to neither of which can we by any means assent. Two subjects connected with India have recently engaged the public attention: the one, the war with the Burmese; and the other, the state of the press in India. On both, the most complete information has, on the motion of different members of the House of Commons, been laid before parliament and the country: the usual parliamentary attention has, therefore, been given to the matters in question; and if no ulterior proceeding has taken place, the presumption is, that none was required. As for the second assertion, that the interests of the East Indies have no advocates in parliament, can Sir John himself deny that the House of Commons invariably numbers East India directors among its members; that other individuals, who have passed many years in the Indian service, are usually in the House; and that to these must be added, the members of the Board of Control, who are, ex officio, responsible representatives of the affairs and interests of the East Indies?-Sir John Malcolm must assent to all this; and having done so, he has, we suspect, acknowledged the existence of as complete and direct a representation, as would, in the opinion of any candid person, be considered consistent with the peculiar nature of our Indian administration at home and abroad.

The Tenth Chapter of Sir John Malcolm's work contains his views on the local government of India, a subject treated also in the pamphlets of the Civil Servant and Colonel Stewart. Sir John Malcolm and the Civil Servant concur in recommending a separation

of

of the detailed superintendence of the affairs of any one presidency from the highest duties of governor-general. They both suggest the formation of two more subordinate governments, the one in the northern provinces of the Bengal presidency (or Hindostan), the other in Central India (or Malwa.) Sir John Malcolm does not directly recommend any change in the existing presidencies of Madras or Bombay; whereas the Civil Servant suggests, that the duties of those local governments should be confined entirely to the judicial and fiscal branches of administration, and evidently thinks that the same form should be given to the governments in the North and Centre; while Sir John Malcolm, in accordance with his work on Central India, proposes lieutenant-governors for these new establishments. In the proposed change of duties attached to the office of governor-general, Sir John Malcolm does not contemplate the continuance of a council, and indeed his opinion obviously is, that the chief executive authority should, in all cases, be intrusted to the talent and responsibility of an individual. The Civil Servant, on the contrary, proposes (page 18,) that the governor-general should be assisted by a privy-council, to consist of seven members, one of whom to be the commander-in-chief of the Indian army, and three, of the remaining six, to be servants of the East India Company, civil or military, according to fitness; while the three other seats should be open to selection generally, in the same manner as the governments of the presidencies are filled under the present system.'

Sir John Malcolm is of opinion, that the services of the existing council, would be supplied by a more extended, and careful selection of the secretaries in the several departments. But if the general principle of this author's own plan were adopted—namely, to relieve the governor-general from the local duties of the Bengal presidency, and to constitute that officer more directly the depositary of the supreme authority throughout India-the necessity of a council would not, in our opinion, be thereby diminished; and, if there must still be advisers, we should certainly prefer seeing them in the shape of responsible members of council, rather than in that of subordinate and irresponsible secretaries. We are the more surprised that our author should so readily have dismissed the council of the governor-general, because, in another part of his work, the practice of recording all acts of the governors in council is expressly extolled, as a most effectual check upon the misuse of the extensive powers with which they are intrusted. Were there no council, the authenticity of the record would become questionable, and the usage would probably cease. As a power to act upon his own responsibility, when he thinks it necessary so to do, must, under either arrangement, be left to the governor-general, we cannot con

ceive that any diminution of energy should arise from the existence of a council; while, on the other hand, we are convinced that no unassisted individual whatever could be equal to exercise even general superintendence over so extended an administration as that of our Indian empire. Moreover, the control of the paramount authority in Europe must necessarily be distant in point of time, and can never be detailed in point of circumstance: would it, therefore, be wise to place the executive authority of a great empire in the hands of an individual, without any check on the spot either to his passions or his prejudices? We believe that few public men in England, of the class from whom the selection is usually made, would covet such undivided responsibility, or such absolute power. In a council well constituted, we cannot but believe the ablest governor-general-unless his character were impracticable, or his personal ambition excessive-would recognise an invaluable guide at first, and an useful support afterwards.

We quote the following passage from the Letter to Sir Charles Forbes, as containing the expression of the general principles upon which the author conceives that the local government in India should be conducted, and, with one exception, his opinion, thus generally stated, coincides with the more detailed views of Sir John Malcolm:

Our empire in India has now become so continuous, that for all the great purposes of a government it should be viewed as a whole. The object should be to establish in progress of time the same judicial and fiscal system throughout all our dominions. A division into departments or provinces should be made, and these should be administered and defended by one general body of servants civil and military. This implies a consolidation of the three existing armies into one, to be distributed into divisions according to the exigencies of the empire generally.'

The progressive establishment of one common judicial and fiscal system throughout the territories of the East India Company, thus recommended, is, on the other hand, objected to by Sir John Malcolm. He considers that much evil has already resulted from the attempt, and says distinctly, 'There is no cause produces such bad effects in our government in India, as the continued effort to apply the same general rules, principles, and institutions to every part of our extended and diversified empire'-(vol. ii. p. 137); adding in a note—

This is perceptible not only in the measures of the government: it is to be found in almost all the writings published from observation of particular provinces, but rendered general in their application either by the ignorance or vanity of the authors. This spreads to England, where we have pointed accounts of the habits, manners, customs, religious usages, and character of the inhabitants in India,

specifically

specifically true, but which, if taken generally, are as remote from truth as a description of Europe would be, if drawn from an account of France or Spain.'

Now, in this statement we suspect there must be some exaggeration; and with the fact before us, that the bigoted and comparatively barbarous Mahomedan conquerors of India did succeed in giving some uniformity to their general administration, it is difficult to admit that it would be merely hopeless to look for a similar result under a government free from religious intolerance, and possessing the advantages of civilization and knowledge. That uniformity, even in the general principles of administration, can only be gradually attained, and that the attempt should not be made on the first acquisition of new territories-we readily grant; but that, attaching a religious inviolability to every local variety of municipal institution, we should cautiously refrain from innovation or substitution of any sort whatever, a doctrine so repugnant to improvement, that it seems more worthy of a professional antiquarian, than an enlightened statesman like Sir John Malcolm.

On one great subject connected with the local government of India, the employment of the natives in situations of higher trust and emolument than at present, there is complete accordance of opinion between the three authors whose works are before us. Sir John Malcolm says,

Many persons who profess a great desire to improve and enlighten the natives of India, exclaim against plans which are calculated to confer upon these natives high and confidential employment, on the ground of their being ignorant, corrupt, and immoral. Allowing for a moment this melancholy picture to be correct, can it enter into the mind of any man, who has the slightest knowledge of human nature or of human communities, that mere instruction, whether moral or religious, will ever advance men in civilization, while they are excluded from all that stimulates the mind to great and good actions? We may teach them to understand better than they now do their own depressed and degraded condition; but, if we wish that, as they acquire knowledge, they should maintain their allegiance and attachment to those by whom it is imparted, we must grant them confidence and respect; and if we succeed in giving them consequence in their own estimation, they will soon attain it in that of others.'-p. 141. The Civil Servant, after contending for the intellectual fitness of the natives, says,

The British government has succeeded in India to native states abounding in all the defects belonging to ill-administered military despotisms; the forms of government were throughout essentially defective, and the evil was aggravated in most instances by the positive decay and decrepitude of the supreme authority. The first necessity of human society, security of life and property, was unsa

tisfied;