Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
INDIA OF TO-DAY
INDIA OF TO-DAY
BY
E. C. MEYSEY-THOMPSON, M.P.
ft
WITH A MAP
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE
'9*3
Att rights reserved
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
I CANNOT let this book go to press without
E. C. M. T.
December, 1913.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTORY AND DESCRIPTIVE OF TOUR ... PACK
1
Ajmer.
Another very interesting temple is the Dargah,
which contains the shrine of Khwajah Mohi-ud-
Din, and is venerated alike by Hindus and
Mohammedans. Before entering this sacred
ground it was have our feet
necessary to
mounts to his
prefer to leave the selection of our
own discretion. With great practical acumen he
suggested that the apparently most suitable horses
should be sent to the Eesidency the same evening,
and we should pick out from them those which we
DESCRIPTIVE OF TOUR 23
Emperor.
I was much interested in our conversation,
and after luncheon Bhim Singh directed our pro-
ceedings with a view to obtaining a black buck.
The order of march was as follows. My wife
proceeded in the tonga drawn by the white
bullocks, while I walked with the shikari close
behind, followed by the horse led by a native
sais. The black buck, being accustomed to daily
seeing similar processions, were thus rendered less
suspicious ; and when we arrived within reasonable
shooting distance of the best buck, I stood still to
take a shot while the tonga continued its course.
'
day.
But the day was full of interest what shall I
if
justified my position
in retaining ;
but I have
already put my resignation in the hands of the
Governor- General, and have asked him to accept it
officially and to relieve me ofmy duties at the first
indication that the quality of my work is falling
off."
Could anything be finer in a self-sacrificing
DESCRIPTIVE OF TOUR 51
grateful thanks.
Whether or no I one day write of the delight-
ful days in Burmah and all the incidents in our
history.
The purpose of this short sketch of ancient
94
FAMINE RELIEF 95
but also non-official Indian gentlemen are con-
sulted as to those who will stand in need of relief.
The measures required to combat famine, the
relation of wages to prices, the tasks to be exacted
from men and women, boys and girls, the duties
devolving upon various officials in a famine year,
have now been codified in the large and detailed
famine codes of each province. It remains to the
head of the district, under the advice and con-
trol of a special commissioner and the ultimate
guidance of the Government itself, to select the
measures of relief especially suitable to his district,
to fix the dates of applying those measures, to
it more so
by favouritism. Everyone is acquainted
with cases in which officers were passed, who
could, even in the laxest examination consistent
with an intention of adhering to the principles of
examination, by no possibility have been passed.
Again, although there are in the Civil Service
regulations certain provisions entitled for the
encouragement of the study of Oriental languages
it has been an incontestable fact that except in
the political service which Lord Curzon so greatly
ii2 INDIA OF TO-DAY
improved the study of such languages is not only
not encouraged but is 'positively discouraged. An
officer who studies them is set down
as a pot-
"
the " educated class in India in no province
exceeds lj per cent, of even the male population,
while on an average it is only slightly over per
cent. that this class is unrepresentative on the
;
'
and ease of the capital to life on their neglected
estates bitterly resent it. So do the Hindu
lawyers, who apprehend that the inevitable
establishment of a High Court will lessen their
business and their fees. So, too, do the Hindu
agitators, who are in close relation with both,
whose ranks are largely recruited from them, and
to whose finances they contribute. But the Civil
servants, who
see a chance at last of raising the
moral and material condition of the masses of the
people, the merchants and the traders, the millions
of peasant cultivators, and the whole body of the
Bengal.
CHAPTEE VI
LAND REVENUE
countrymen.
The conclusions which must be drawn are,
therefore, that both from peasant-proprietor and
from landlord, the Land Kevenue taken by the
British administration is in itself moderate, and
leaves ample margin for profit and for stimulus
to industry ; that relatively to the custom of former
centuries and of the Native States it is extremely
low, and that it tends to be further reduced and ;
preconceptions.
" It has
They say :
always been admitted that
the trading-classes in India are the least heavily
taxed portion of the population. They have
ordinarily contributed almost nothing to the
expense of the State, while they derive perhaps
the largest share of benefit from our adminis-
tration and from the railways and from other
works of improvement provided at the cost of the
country at large. The exemption which these
classes have enjoyed has long been felt to be one of
the most indefensible and inequitable peculiarities
of our Indian system of taxation. Direct taxa-
. . .
EDUCATION POLICY
and the latter does not. The ideal of the one was
medieval, of the latter is modern, but the former
was successful in attaining its narrower object.
Now to say, as some have in their rashness
exclaimed, that education provokes discontent
and is in itself dangerous, is to despair of the
human mind and of knowledge. This is not a
doctrine that can be endorsed by any who realize
the vast benefit of enlightenment and knowledge,
and who have sufficient historical reading to under-
stand the evils of prejudice and ignorance. It
remains as true now as when Lord Lawrence said
it, that there are "few dangers to the stability of
EDUCATION POLICY 183
their education ;
that the landed proprietors are
not largely represented in our schools and
colleges ;
that trade and commerce contribute no
more than a tithe to the number of pupils the
;
breeding.
At the same date there were 98,538 primary
schools established, recognized or registered by
the State with 3,268,726 pupils. In Bombay and
Bengal about 23 boys out of a hundred of school-
going age were undergoing instruction. In Burmah
the figures per hundred had declined from over
20 to under 17. In the case of that province the
apparent decline is, however, accounted for by the
wholesale exclusion from the register of private
indigenous schools which failed to reach the
required standard. In the United Provinces and
the Punjab only 8 out of a hundred boys were
receiving instruction. Everywhere between 1891
and 1901 the rate of progress of primary education
had been steadily growing worse. But between
1881 and 1901 secondary education had more than
doubled its numbers. In Bengal, Madras, Bombay
and Berar about li per cent, of the boys were
undergoing secondary instruction and in the
Punjab rather more than 1 per cent. In the
same period the schools where primary education
was given had increased only by 20 per cent, and
the pupils by 50 per cent.
At the same date the money spent in India
from all sources on education, including fees and
endowments, was only ,2,200,000. Of this sum
only 700,000 was spent by Government, and
under 500,000 by Local Boards and Municipalities.
EDUCATION POLICY 189
employment.
It must further be remembered that these
results were inherent in the system, had been
remarked fifteen years earlier byEnglish and Native
observers, but had been allowed to go on and
accumulate without reform or amendment.
Now this is the system which a certain school
extol and wished to extend. They did indeed find
fault with the insufficiency of expenditure, but
they wished to increase the expenditure not by
improving the quality and reforming the system,
but by increasing the quantity of the second-rate
output. And in education the second-rate is
always deleterious.
There was, however, at the same time if the
Missionary Schools (amongst which St. Xavier's
College in Bombay deserves especially honorable
" "
WHAT is to be done ? are the words which must
be inscribed at the head of this chapter, as they
must be the words with which every Indian
administrator should begin his study of the present
situation. Having in view the wonderful advance
in material prosperity and in security to life and
impartiality.
Of recent innovations in the extension of
Indian representation, the inclusion by Lord
Morley of two Indians in the Indian Council of the
Secretary of State is a measure which can be
welcomed by all opinions. Eecommended by the
high character and the intellectual distinction of
the nominees, the step is distinctly one of
advance and improvement. The duties of members
of the Indian Council are primarily consultative.
reality, now
that the Legislative Council has been
further strengthened and extended.
The Legislative Councils exist only for British
India, and are not even nominally representative
of the Native States. Their elections are con-
ducted on narrow franchises which virtually limit
their elective membership to a few castes, mostly
POLITICAL REFORMS 223
of the English-speaking merchant or lawyer
class. It is, therefore, a mistake to conceive of
their extension as any great step towards wider
representation. On
the contrary, it may easily
tend to be a step towards oligarchy, a narrow
middle-class and urban oligarchy, of all kinds the
most oppressive in such a country as India. It is
desirable even now to modify this constitution in
such a way as to ensure the preponderance of the
aristocracy and landed interest as a whole in the
Councils, and to secure also the adequate represen-
tation of true Mussulman opinions throughout
India.
The and suitable national
principle of rational
representation would be capable of even further
and more significant extension for the advantage
both of India and of Great Britain. The present
constitution of the permanent Judicial Committee
of the House of Lords marks the way, and the
creation of Indian life-peers by the selection of
the Sovereign from the most able members of the
Advisory Councils is the last step required to
ensure the adequate representation in Imperial
councils of Indian opinion, and to satisfy the
Ferrar, Capt., 75
Fort Jamrud, 55, 56 JAIN Tower of Fame, 15
Fuller, Sir Bamfylde, 135 Jaipur, 20
Jaipur, Maharajah of, 20, 21
Jaipur Observatory, 22
GHATS of the Ganges, bathing and Jai Singh, 22
burning, 73 Jama Musjid, Delhi, The, 41
Glyn, Major Geoffrey, 78 Jehangir, 34, 36
Gokhale, Mr., 166 Jenkins, Col. and Mrs., 11
Graham, Mr. and Mrs., 4, 78 Jopling, Mr., 71
INDEX 229
2lA-50m-ll,'62
(D3279slO)476B
M31