India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    509/552 page 479
    institutions still survive. AVhere the ruler is a petty despot, with few or no checks on his arbitrary power, the principles on which we ought to act are easier to define. No real progress in such States is possible while their governments remain purely personal, based upon nothing more permanent than the will of the Chief, whose character and capacity are accidents, and while the authority of the paramount power is exercised on no fixed system, but spasmodically, by special acts of intervention as necessity arises. The first serious attempt to give a clear definition of the principles on which the relations of the Imperial Government towards the Native States of India ought to be conducted was made by Lord Lytton when he was Viceroy. In 1830 the administration of Mysore had fallen into a miserable condition. Offices were sold to the highest bidder; the people were oppressed and impoverished, and at last broke into revolt. Lord William Bentinck, who was then Governor - General, ordered, as the only sufficient remedy, the transfer of the entire administration into the hands of British officers. Mysore was fortunate in finding in Sir Mark Cubbon an admirable Governor. “ The history of the province under his rule (I quote from an official report) is the history of a people made happy by release from serfdom, and of a ruined state restored to financial prosperity.” In 1868 the deposed Baja died, and the British Government resolved that when his adopted son, who was then only six years old, attained his majority, the Go vernment of the State should be entrusted to him. In 1879 it became necessary to settle the manner in which this resolution should be carried out; it was clear that more than 5,000,000 people, who had been under
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