certain that they would have chosen still to bear the ills they knew rather than to be brought under the rigid, irresistible action of a bureaucracy of foreigners, whose ways were not as their ways, whose principles and motives were generally beyond their comprehension, and whose laws and regulations, though not intentionally unjust, appeared to be hemmed in by every species of pitfall and mantrap, from which a plain man, however innocent and well-meaning, could hardly hope to escape.

However, if our policy in India is not to be determined by the soundest judgments we can ourselves form, rather than by the unenlightened notions of the masses of our native fellow citizens, we have no raison d'être in the country. The set of native opinion must always be one of the main elements to be considered in all problems of Indian politics, yet it should not be so far the paramount consideration as to be allowed to over-ride the distinct behests of a higher law where such can be discerned. And the question of the annexation of Oudh seems to be a case in point. It is difficult to rise from a study of the Blue Book of 1856, without feeling that the motives which led to the adoption of that measure were not mere vulgar lust of conquest, or mere greed of pecuniary gain. There can be no doubt that Lord Dalhousie, and the Members of his Council, and General Outram, were, one and all, firmly convinced that by assuming the administration of Oudh, they were acting in the interests of humanity, and conferring a great blessing on several millions of people. And they were certainly right in their belief that the misrule and oppression prevailing in the province were intense. Their confidence, or at least the confidence of Lord Dalhousie, in the positive excellence of English methods, and in the beneficent effects of English rule on the populations subject to it, was, no less certainly, exaggerated. But, having that confidence, they would surely have been neglecting their duty had they omitted to act on it when they had the power, or allowed regard for the feelings of a King like Wajid Ali Sháh to outweigh what they believed to be the welfare of millions. The true test by which the policy of the annexation of Oudh must be judged is, whether the

people were, to a considerable degree, more likely to prosper, and to rise in the scale of civilisation, under British than under any practically attainable form of native rule. Whether they actually have thus risen and prospered, is a question of fact, on which there may be, and are, differences of opinion. But if the then Government of India firmly and honestly believed, as it unquestionably did, that the only effective means of securing a tolerable government to the people of Oudh was to assume the administration of the province, then were they more than justified in assuming it.

Human motives are seldom wholly unmixed, and it may perhaps, without uncharitableness, be doubted whether the reluctance to interfere would not have been greater than it was, had Oudh been a country from which no surplus revenue could be derived. It may be regretted that Colonel Sleeman's advice was not followed, and taxation reduced to the level of expenditure within the province. In a letter to Sir James Hogge, dated from Lucknow, on the 28th of October 1852, he wrote as follows:

"Were we to take advantage of the occasion to annex or confiscate Oudh, or any part of it, our good name in India would inevitably suffer; and that good name is more valuable to us than a dozen of Oudhs. We are now looked up to throughout India as the only impartial arbitrators that the people generally have ever had. . . . and from the time we cease to be so looked up to, we must begin to sink. We suffered from our conduct in Sindh; but that was a country distant and little known, and linked to the rest of India by few ties of sympathy. Our conduct towards it was preceded by wars and convulsions around, and in its annexation there was nothing manifestly deliberate. It will be otherwise with Oudh. Here the giant's strength is manifest, and we cannot 'use it like a giant' without suffering in the estimation of all India. Annexation or confiscation are not compatible with our relations with this little dependent state. We must show ourselves to be high-minded, and above taking advantage of its prostrate weakness, by appropriating its revenues exclusively to the benefit of the people and royal family of Oudh. We should soon make it the finest garden in India,

with the people happy, prosperous, and attached to our rule."

The course of our relations with Oudh was not destined to follow the path here sketched out for it, and the garden of India has, for good or evil, become a part, and perhaps the most heavily taxed part, of the British Indian Empire. All wishes that it had been otherwise, and speculations as to what might have been, are now fruitless; and any scheme for reversing the current of events must be regarded much as would be a proposal to restore the Heptarchy, and relegated to the region of "lunar politics." But this much, at least, may be fairly asserted, that the province from which we have taken so much, and to which we have hitherto given so little, has a historic claim to exceptionally liberal treatment; and that, should it ever come to be generally acknowledged that only by a considerable pecuniary sacrifice can she be raised from her present poverty-stricken condition, that sacrifice ought not to be refused.

NOTE. It was not until this chapter was in type that I had the advantage of seeing Major Evans Bell's "Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy." The article on "Oudh" in that work appears to demonstrate that the treaty of 1837 had never been abrogated as a whole; that its provisions for administration by British officers on behalf of the King still held good and should have been acted on; and that reform, without annexation, was practicable and should have been aimed at.

CHAPTER VI.

FIFTEEN MONTHS OF ZAMI'NDARI' POLICY [1856-1857].

"SÉPARÉ du passé," says Lamennais, "le présent est muet sur l'avenir," and it is practically impossible to understand the present, or to devise schemes for modifying the future condition of Oudh, without a general acquaintance with the more salient features and more important issues of the controversies regarding the land questions of the province, which have filled so many Blue Books and excited so much acrimony during the last twenty years or more. In this chapter and the next it will be attempted to give something like a connected view of the course of the discussions which, since annexation, have been carried on concerning the rights in the soil of Taluqdárs, zamíndárs, under-proprietors, and cultivators.

The modern history of Oudh may be said to begin with the deposition of Wajid Ali Sháh, and its formation into a Chief Commissionership under Sir James Outram. The first phase of this modern history lasted little more than fifteen months, during which the administration was carried on upon the lines laid down in the Government of India's letter of the 4th of February 1856. This very able Statepaper is an excellent embodiment of all that was best in the system of political philosophy preached and practised by

Lord Dalhousie, and was the logical outcome of his famous annexation minute of the 18th of June 1855, which has been referred to in the preceding chapter. Probably no bureaucracy, certainly no bureaucracy of foreigners, ever had the good of the people so sincerely at heart as that over which Lord Dalhousie presided. All that was noblest and most vigorous in the spirit of the English Liberalism of the day breathes through the minutes of the Governor-General, and of the ablest Member of his Council, Mr. John Peter Grant. The instructions of the 4th of February might have been written by Bentham himself in his least unimaginative mood, so clearly do they insist on the popular welfare as the one aim to be steadily kept in view, so determined are they that "everybody shall count as one, and nobody as more than one," so confident of the justice and reasonableness of the policy which dictated them.

They directed the Chief Commissioner to proceed to the formation of a summary settlement of the land revenue, to be made "village by village with the parties actually in possession, but without any recognition, either formal or indirect, of their proprietary right." It was declared "as a leading principle, that the desire and intention of the Government is to deal with the actual occupants of the soil, that is, with the village zamíndárs or with the proprietary coparcenaries which are believed to exist in Oudh, and not suffer the interposition of middlemen, such as Taluqdárs, farmers of the revenue, and such like," whose claims, "if they have any tenable claims," might be more conveniently considered at a future period. "The tenures being identical, the existence of coparcenary communities of village proprietors being certain, and the nature of the country, as well as the agricultural usages of the people, being similar, the system of village settlements in the N.W. Provinces," as laid down in the Directions to Settlement Officers, "should unquestionably be adopted."

Lord Dalhousie's trumpet, as Sir John Kaye might have said, gave no uncertain sound.

With regard to rent-free grants, it was laid down that, though such grants were to be generally maintained, "the