lead him and not to drive him, for once turned against us, and we may find his obstinacy and his inveteracy, those qualities which belong to the degree of his civilization, as prominent as his loyalty has hitherto been.

We are very apt to fall into the error of measuring every thing according to the standard of European discipline, forgetting the different characters of the native and the Englishman. No officer of the French army ever thinks of requiring the same order on a line of march, or the same strict discipline in quarters, as we require of the British soldier. Great latitude may be given to the French soldier in foraging and marauding without endangering his discipline, and he will live when the English soldier will either starve or die drunk. The drum will call him back to his ranks in the condition in which he left them, and without any further evil than that which he may have inflicted on those whom he chose to visit. If the severe discipline which it is evidently necessary to uphold in the British army be not necessary in that of France, how much less in that of India. There is an Asiatic sensitiveness about, and propriety in, the conduct of the sepoy, which renders the roughness and severity with which we treat English soldiers, offensive and unnecessary towards him.

Greater latitude, except when there is a prospect of plunder, may be given to the sepoy than to the soldier of almost any other country. All that sort of discipline and parade which is necessary to keep the English soldier sober and orderly may be entirely dispensed with in the case of the native: an army of infantry in particular without its united and strong field discipline is of course a rabble, and the army of India requires this discipline as much as any other. But this is almost the only form of discipline that it needs. The Madras army is more harassed by needless parade than any other, and its Cavalry more than its Infantry, until the condition and legs of the horses have been altogether, and the temper of the men almost, destroyed.

The greatest of all injuries has perhaps been inflicted on the discipline of the Indian army by taking too much power and authority out of the hands of commanding-officers of regiments. The native soldier looks more to the individual authority of his officer than to the general authority of the Government, under which all serve ; and although it may be necessary to hold checks over men in power, it is still more necessary to leave in the hands of officers commanding native regiments the power to reward and to punish.

We should too, without any very great expence, give great satisfaction to the old soldiers of the army, and hope to the young, by allowing them an increase of pay, corresponding with their period of service. A sepoy might receive one rupee per mensem after ten years' service; two rupees after twenty, and the same system would extend to the Naick, the Havildar, the Jemadar, and the Subadar. The only boon that I am aware of that has been conferred on our native army, for the last twenty years, is a slight increase of pay,

and the designation of Subadar-Major to an individual in each regiment. When it is recollected, that no native in the whole of this vast army can rise above that rank and that pay, and that this has been their condition for the last twenty years, it is surely time to think of extending to them some pecuniary advantages.

I shall not here attempt to advocate the cause of the European officers, for they will find able advocates every where, and there may even be some danger that the advocating of their cause too prominently, whilst their native brother soldier is neglected, may lead to invidious and injurious comparisons on the part of the latter. Observing only that if something be not done to accelerate promotion, more particularly in the upper ranks, the Indian army, as compared with the British, will very soon have but few officers, for even the ordinary commands; and those more fitted for invalid and pension establishments, than for the active duties of their profession.

CIVIL INSTITUTIONS.

Certain great changes are, within the last few years, apparent in our civil administration, which cannot fail to be attended with beneficial results. We have ceased to think that the best collector, and he to be most rewarded, is the individual who could collect most revenue from a given tract of country. We have discovered that the labor in the revenue and judicial affairs of this vast country is far beyond the competency of the few European hands that we can bring to bear upon it, and we have sought, and are seeking, to raise up by education and competent remuneration, from amongst East Indians, and the higher classes of natives, persons the best qualified and the most willing to assist in these great works. We are gradually discovering, that truth, and honesty, and attachment to our cause are the only requisites in which a great portion of the people of India are inferior to ourselves, in all the attainments that are necessary for the performance of the ordinary duties that have hitherto devolved more exclusively on the members of our European Civil Service; and we are endeavouring to correct these imperfections of the native character by education, and by giving them emoluments, and fixing responsibility on them, which shall render it their interest to be honest; and a place in our service, and in our confidence, which shall attach them to our rule. We have in a great measure ceased to look on the press as an instrument of evil, and we can now witness with complacency, and without fear, discussions in both the European and Native portion of the press, touching the character and effects of our Government on the happiness of the people, the proceedings good and bad of the Government itself, and of every functionary employed under its authority. We see in these discussions a great preventive and corrective of public abuses and delinquencies; an incentive to good actions; and we may yet go further and witness in this great instrument a guide which

shall direct our Government and its European officers in the detection of corruption and extortion where they exist in the great majority of its native Civil Servants; and which in this respect may work a beneficial change in our courts of justice, in our territorial and custom revenue departments, and in the police of the country. We may discover in the progress of free discussion greater good than evil towards the stability of our power: and if the instrument which is to work so much good must also produce some individual suffering or agony, it is satisfactory to think that the characters of individuals most subject to this are, after all, generally public property; and they must, with the advantages, take the disadvantages of their official station.

Those secret and mysterious communications and combinations which Sir John Malcolm so forcibly and so justly describes, which every person who has been prominently employed in the interior of India, and has paid common attention to what was passing around him, must have been put on his guard against; and which are generally levelled at the stability of our power, may be expected to yield before free discussion. Our secret news-writers, and those spies and intelligence establishments, the employment of which is so repugnant to the feelings of an Englishman, but which most persons in power have thought it necessary to maintain, will gradually be swept away when the present enlightened Government shall accord to the provincial press, that freedom and encouragement which have been extended to the press of the capitals. Free discussion is now inevitable. If Governments can deport Europeans for offending against their press laws, they cannot hold East Indians or natives subject to other than British law, and the verdict of a British Jury, publish they what they please.

It should therefore be the object of our Government to encourage rather than discourage the ablest of their servants to enter the lists as editors of, or writers in, the public journals, against such as may appear unjustly to assail their measures, or those of their

servants.

TERRITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

Much has been said and written on the nature of our India revenue assessment, and on land tenures, by Sir Thomas Munro, and persons of his time; and of later date, Mr. Mill, Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Ellis, are the great advocates of Ryotwar or Assamewar assessments. Mr. Elphinstone seems to consider it immaterial to the great body of the people, whether the assessment be a permanent one, extending to a large tract of country; whether it be a Mozewar or village assessment; or whether it be the more minute Ryotwar or Assamewar assessment, provided that it bears light on the people, and leaves them a fair return for the labor and capital employed. But by his minute field measurement, classification, and assessment

of a great portion of the Poona territory, he shewed his opinion that all systems must commence there. Few writers that I am acquainted with have come very prominently forward on this question in Bengal; most of the persons of Lord Cornwallis' time were in favor of permanent settlements on a large scale, and many of the revenue servants of that presidency, having been brought up in the Bengal Provinces, are advocates of the same form of settlement. Except the Bengal permanent settlement of those days, less has been done in the way of fixing or defining the rights of the Government and those of the people in Bengal, than in either of the other presidencies. No progress has hitherto been made in defining those important points in the western provinces, although Government has been urging its revenue officers for the last ten or twenty years to commence and proceed in this good work.

I believe I am right in describing Sir Charles Metcalfe's opinion to be in favor of the villiage assessment for a period of years, leaving the village institutions unimpaired to assist in the collection of the revenue, and in the police of the country; and yet defining, as far as is compatible with this system, the rights of the several cultivators in the village, and the amount of rent which each is to pay.

A late writer in the Edinburgh Review gives a very broad preference to the permanent settlement of Bengal over the Ryotwar settlement, principally on the ground, that the latter is calculated to reduce the great mass of the people to great poverty, whilst the former will raise up a rich native aristocracy in the country, which will turn their accumulations into channels of commerce, or local or national works of public utility. There can be no question that the sacrifice by a Government, of a portion of its rents in favour of a portion of its people, will tend to enrich them, and that the smaller the portion of people for whom this sacrifice is made, and the greater the sacrifice, the richer will they become. But whether it is most just and most reasonable that Governments should sacrifice in favor of the few or in favor of many, is a question which does not seem to admit of a doubt? whether too the great majority of the people under the Bengal permanent Zumindaree settlement are more prosperous than those under a Ryotwaree, or produce more than £4 19s. each, per annum, would be very problematical, but that Bengal is a richer country than the ceded provinces-whether through this permanent settlement the people are so much under the protection of our laws, as under the Ryotwar assessment managed by our own officers must be doubtful likewise. What hope has a poor Ryot of meeting with support and redress in our Zillah Adawluts against the oppressions of a powerful and permanent Bengal Zumindaree family, compared with that which he would have against a transitory collector? Yet, although our Adawluts may be considered powerless, as affording protection to the people, it will most probably be found that the rights and possessions which the simple cultivator had in the soil, at the time the permanent settlement was completed, have

remained untouched to this day, whilst the benefits which we meant to confer on the great families with whom the settlement was made, have long since passed away,—such is the sacred tenure by which through all changes of dynasties the cultivating classes in India cling to their homes and their fields.

The enormous increase which the writer in the Edinburgh Review calculates on as having taken place in the value of landed property in certain parts of Bengal, under the permanent settlement, will most likely be found to arise from the Government officers having made either through ignorance or corruption, an unnecessary sacrifice of the rights of the Government. I am not aware of any great works which have been undertaken by the Zumindars of Bengal, that should have so enhanced the value of their property. Cultivation has most probably increased greatly since the introduction of our Government, and so it will under ordinary protection throughout every country in India.*

Those portions of the country which at the period of settlement were least cultivated, or least known, and which had for a series of years paid least rent, have of course benefited most. The Bengal Baboos and persons of that description, who now appear to be the principal Zumindars, are as much foreigners in their habits and pursuits to the cultivating classes as we are. They live in cities and towns far away from their Zumindarees, and know less of the people than either our judges or collectors who live amongst them -the recklessness with which they allow their Zumindarees and family possessions to go to the hammer, and the vast transfers of landed property that have taken place since the permanent settlement, are proofs that their's is not a very beneficent form of administration, and that whatever sacrifice we made, has been ill bestowed on them. This sacrifice was however made in favor of those whom we considered the first Zumindars: the property has now attained a marketable value like every other property, has in very many instances long since passed out of their hands, and the present occupants have most likely paid its full price.

Persons practically acquainted with the several tenures enjoyed in land by the several classes throughout India, whether as in the Dekhan and southern parts of India they be styled Zumindars, Patails, Bara Baloota, Meerasdars, Ooperas, or common Ryots, or whether as in Rajpootana and Hindoostan they be styled Zumindars, or Istumrardars, or Mokudums or common Ryots, are surprised, that officers like Mr. Christian and others of the Bengal service, should experience difficulty in defining the various interests of these

There is no reason why cultivation and population should not proceed in India in the same ratio as in America and other unimproved countries, except that the government of foreigners cannot be so favorable to improvement, as the home government of other countries, and that we are here more subject to famines than most other parts of the world: there is therefore no fear that population will follow so close on the heels of produce, that there will be no more waste land worth cultivating, or that those horrors will soon commence which the present school of Political Economists anticipate from such a state of things.