William Lee-Warner

“ But though the state of disorder and misrule revealed by it called for prompt remedy, Dalhousie, looking at the treaty of 1801, considered that he was bound to proceed in the matter of reform with the king’s consent. He proposed, therefore, to demand a transfer to the Company of the entire administration, the king merely retaining his royal rank, certain privileges in the courts, and a liberal allowance. If he should refuse this arrangement, a general rising was almost certain to follow, and then the British government would of necessity intervene on its own terms. ”

“ Dalhousie’s reforms were not confined to the departments of public works and military affairs. He created an imperial system of post-offices, reducing the rates of carrying letters and introducing postage stamps. To him India owes the first department of public instruction; it was he who placed the gaols under proper inspection, abolishing the practice of branding convicts; put down the crime of meriahs or human sacrifices; freed converts to other religions from the loss of their civil rights ”

“ Sir Antony MacDonnell's views as to the maintenance of the record were not in harmony with those of Elliott, but Lord Lansdowne intervened to reduce the controversy to its proper dimensions. Public opinion has finally endorsed the opinion expressed by Mr. C. E. Buckland in ‘Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors’ (1901) , that ‘there was not another man in India who could have done the settlement work he did in Bihar and Bengal, so much of it and so well.’ In his zeal for the public service Elliott courageously faced unpopularity. Economy as well as efficiency were his principles of government. ”

“ The war being now over, Dalhousie, without waiting for instructions from home, annexed the Punjab, and made provision for the custody and education of the infant maharaja. For the present the province was administered by a triumvirate under the personal supervision of the governor-general, and later, a place having been found for Henry Lawrence in Rajputana, by John Lawrence as sole commissioner. Twice did Dalhousie tour through its length and breadth, settling on the spot all matters of importance, and when he left India no province could show a better record of progress. ”

“ Lord Dufferin was installed in office on 25 June 1872. It was a critical period of Canadian history. The federal union which was inaugurated in 1867 was completed after the arrival of Lord Dufferin by the admission to the dominion of Prince Edward Island on 1 July 1873. What was needed was to kindle the imagination of the population thus brought together, and inspire the several provinces with the true spirit of confederation, familiarising both them and the United Kingdom with the conception of a great nation within the empire. ”

“ The historic reports on Punjab administration were penned by him, and Lord Dalhousie so appreciated his strenuous activities that, when it was proposed in 1853 to take Temple into the government of India's secretariat from Lahore, he remarked that 'it would be setting an elephant to draw a wheelbarrow,' So Temple worked on, until the death of his first wife in 1855 and the strain of public duties compelled him to take furlough in the following year. ”

“ One further addition to the empire was made by conquest. The arrogant Burmese court at Ava was bound by the treaty of Yandabo, 1826, to protect British ships in Burmese waters, but the outrageous conduct of the governor of Rangoon towards the masters of the “Monarch” and “Champion” met with no redress from the king. Dalhousie adopted the maxim of Lord Wellesley “that an insult offered to the British flag at the mouth of the Ganges should be resented as promptly and fully as an insult offered at the mouth of the Thames” ”

“ During Norman's term of office in Queensland Lord Kimberley, secretary of state for India, offered him, through Lord Ripon, secretary of state for the colonies, on 1 Sept. 1893, the post of governor-general of India on the resignation of that office by Lord Lansdowne. On 3 Sept. Norman accepted the office, but in the course of the next few days he found that the excitement and anxieties so upset him at the age of nearly sixty-seven years, that he could not expect to endure the strain of so arduous an office for five years. ”

“ In 1896, as secretary to the government of India in the revenue department, he became Lord Elgin's right hand in dealing with agricultural problems, and prepared the ground for the Punjab Land Alienation Act. That Act, ably piloted in 1900 by Sir Charles Rivaz, did not go as far as Ibbetson wished, but it restricted the alienation of land so as to keep its occupation in the hands of the agricultural tribes to the exclusion of the commercial castes. ”

“ In his administration Dalhousie vigorously asserted the control of the civil government over military affairs, and when Sir Charles Napier ordered certain allowances, given as compensation for the dearness of provisions, to be granted to the sepoys on a system which had not been sanctioned from headquarters, and threatened to repeat the offence, the governor-general found it necessary to administer such a rebuke that the hot-headed soldier resigned his command. ”

“ In March 1881 he became chief commissioner of Assam, and in Feb. 1886 was entrusted with the unpopular task of presiding over a committee appointed to inquire into public expenditure throughout India, and report on economies. A falling exchange and a heavy bill for war operations compelled Lord Dufferin to apply the shears to provincial expenditure, and while the committee inevitably withdrew funds needed by the local governments, it was generally recognised that immense pains were taken by Elliott and his colleagues. ”

“ Meanwhile in Feb. 1879 Dufferin became the British ambassador at St. Petersburg. The appointment was made by Lord Beaconsfield, the conservative prime minister, but it involved no severance from the liberal party. To maintain friendly relations with Russia while insisting upon unwelcome restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Berlin, and upon the complete observance of engagements undertaken in regard to central Asia and Afghanistan, was no easy task. The political situation was over-shadowed by the prevalence of nihilism, which was already manifesting itself in attempts on the Emperor's life. ”

“ These military operations added force to the conviction which Dalhousie had formed of the need of consolidating the Company’s ill-knit possessions, and as a step in that direction he decided to apply the doctrine of “lapse,” and annex any Hindu native states, created or revived by the grants of the British government, in which there was a failure of male lineal descendants, reserving for consideration the policy of permitting adoptions in other Hindu chiefships tributary and subordinate to the British government as paramount. ”

“ None of the effective safeguards which the hostility of public opinion to untruth and extravagance provides in England are available in India. After nearly thirty years' experience, press restrictions 'for the better conduct of the press' were re-imposed by Viscount Morley, a liberal secretary of state for India, in 1910, and Lord Ripon's action in 1882 was proved so far to be too uncompromising. Ripon's efforts to encourage the develop- ment of self-government in India were similarly marred by the tendency to judge India by British standards. ”

“ In May 1843 he became vice-president of the board of trade, Gladstone being president, and was sworn in as a member of the privy council. Succeeding Gladstone as president in 1845, he threw himself into the work during the crisis of the railway mania with such energy that his health partially broke down under the strain. ”

“ Born on 24 Oct. 1827 at 10 Downing Street, during the brief tenure of the office of prime minister by his father, George began life with every advantage that high position and political opportunity could offer. His parents anxiously devoted themselves to his care and education, and they preferred private tuition under their direct supervision to public school or university. From 1883 until he succeeded to his father's earldom in 1859 the boy was known by the courtesy title of Viscount Goderich. ”

“ The khan was guaranteed an annual subsidy of Rs. 50,000, in return for the treaty which “bound him to us wholly and exclusively.” To this the home authorities demurred, but the engagement was duly ratified, and the subsidy was largely increased by Dalhousie’s successors. On the other hand, he insisted on leaving all matters concerning Persia and Central Asia to the decision of the queen’s advisers. The frontier tribesmen it was obviously necessary to coerce into good behaviour after the annexation of the Punjab. ”

“ The British ambassador defended himself with vigour against the imputation of hostile designs which were entirely foreign to his character, and though perhaps he never attained in Paris the full amount of popularity which he commanded elsewhere, he succeeded in gaining the confidence and regard of the French government. By the part which he took in the discussion of the Siamese question he contributed to the satisfactory settlement of a possible cause of conflict with France. ”

“ Dalhousie was in wretched health and on the eve of retirement when the belated orders reached him; but he at once laid down instructions for Outram in every detail, moved up troops, and elaborated a scheme of government with particular orders as to conciliating local opinion. The king refused to sign the treaty put before him, and a proclamation annexing the province was therefore issued on the 13th of February 1856. ”

“ He laid truly the foundations of primary education, in which Bombay has always taken the lead. He also compiled an outline of history to assist school teachers in giving their lessons. In 1872 the finances of the city of Bombay became embarrassed, and Peile was sent to settle them, acting as municipal commissioner. Subsequently he undertook for a short period the political charge of Kathiawar, to which he returned again in 1874, holding it until 1878. As political agent of Kathiawar Peile greatly added to his reputation. ”

“ Settlement work, to which Elliott had thus devoted his best years, was in those days the most important and most coveted employment in the civil service, and it gave Elliott a thorough acquaintance with the needs of the people and the administrative machinery. ”

“ In Queensland quiet times succeeded to angry constitutional controversies. The colony was, however, soon involved in financial troubles, and Norman showed his public spirit in offering to share the reduction of salary to which the members of the legislative assembly had to submit. The responsible ministers freely sought his advice, and when he retired after the close of 1895 Mr. Chamberlain expressed his high appreciation of the governor's long and valuable services. ”

“ Despite the pressure of his secretariat labours Risley continued to pursue his study of ethnography and anthropometry. He became president of the Royal Anthropological Institute in Jan. 1910. On the processes by which non- Aryan tribes are admitted into Hinduism he was recognised to be the greatest living authority, and he established by anthropometric investigation the fact that the Kolarians south of Bengal are not to be distinguished from their Dravidian neighbours. He strongly advocated the addition of ethnology to the necessary training of civilians for work in India. ”