first and greatest of Indian Viceroys. "In that land of the West," said a parting address given to Lord Canning, "if justice and humanity be ever honoured, you cannot but hold a distinguished place." But Lord Canning was not destined for higher honours. He died in June 1862, in the fiftieth year of his age. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to the remains of his illustrious father. England's long roll of bright names has not many that are brighter than George Canning the Prime Minister, and Charles Canning the first Viceroy of India.

Lord Elgin arrived in India in March 1862, and proved himself a worthy successor to Lord Canning. He pursued the same policy of peace, and he felt the same sympathy with the people of India. His father is better known to Englishmen for those priceless sculptures he brought from Athens, known as the "Elgin Marbles." The son was of about the same age as Lord Canning, and had been his fellow-student at Oxford; and he had distinguished himself as Governor-General of Canada from 1847 to 1854. While on his way to China with British troops in 1857, he had heard of the Indian Mutiny; and had promptly diverted the Chinese expedition to the aid of India. Five years after, he came to India as Viceroy and GovernorGeneral. Much was expected from a ruler who knew his work, and who sympathised with the people. But he died in the year after his arrival, and therefore left no mark on Indian administration.

The question then arose, who was to succeed Lord Elgin? Dalhousie and Canning had sacrificed themselves to the toil of Indian administration, and had returned to their country only to die. Elgin had fallen before he was two years in India. The idea suggested itself that a constitution, seasoned by long residence in India, was best suited for Indian work. And the claims of Sir John Lawrence were paramount. True, he was not a peer. True, that no Indian civilian except Sir John Shore had ever been confirmed as Governor-General

before. But exceptional circumstances compelled a departure from the usual rule.

The Act for the Better Government of India had been passed by Lord Derby's Government in 1858; and his son, Lord Stanley, was the first Secretary of State for India. The Conservative Government fell in 1859, and Sir Charles Wood became Secretary of State for India under the Liberal Government which succeeded. He had been President of the Board of Control when India was ruled by the East India Company; he had reorganised education in India by his famous Despatch of 1854; and he brought to his new office an intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, combined with a sound judgment and a determined wish to do justice to the people. His Under-Secretary, Lord de Grey, afterwards became Marquis of Ripon and Viceroy of India.

Sir John Lawrence had been appointed a Member of the India Council in 1859, and had worked under Lord Stanley and Sir Charles Wood for four years, when the death of Lord Elgin created a vacancy in India. Public opinion in England pointed to the veteran of the Punjab as the most worthy successor; and Sir Charles Wood had seen enough of him to come to the same opinion. On the morning of November 30, 1863, Sir Charles looked into the room of Sir John Lawrence at the India Office and said, "You are to go to India as Governor-General. Wait here till I return from Windsor with the Queen's approval." The same evening Sir Charles returned with the royal approval.

Sir John Lawrence arrived at Calcutta in January 1864. He knew the people of India as few Englishmen ever knew them; and he was fortunate in his Councillors. Henry Sumner Maine, perhaps the greatest English jurist of the time, was his Legal Member. The veteran Sir Charles Trevelyan, who had been the colleague of Bentinck and Macaulay thirty years before, was his Finance Minister. And Robert Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala, was his Military Adviser.

One restless subordinate gave him some trouble. Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of Bombay, was an Imperialist. He had drawn up a paper attacking Sir John Lawrence's frontier policy. The paper was meant for Lord Elgin or his yet unknown successor. It fell into the hands of Sir John Lawrence when he succeeded Elgin. Lawrence defended himself in his own manly style. And when the papers went up to the Secretary of State, Sir Charles Wood justly remarked: "Nothing could be more precipitate and rash than Frere's tirade against the Punjab policy."1 In lavish expenditure, and in vast schemes of improvement also, Sir Bartle Frere was as rash as Lawrence was cautious and economical. And the new Viceroy had much to do to restrain his precipitate subordinate.

A great Darbar was held in Lahore in October 1864. Lawrence spoke to the assemblage of six hundred Princes and Chiefs of India in their spoken tongue-a feat which no other Governor-General before or after him could have performed. A short war with Bhutan ended in the British annexation of the Doars, on condition of payment of half the revenue to the Bhutan State. A severe famine visited Orissa in 1866; the relief operations were inadequate; and the loss of life was severe. The land question was eternally before the Government. Lord Canning had conferred security of tenure to the cultivators of Bengal; Lawrence pursued the same useful policy in Oudh and in the Punjab. And agreeing with Lord Canning, Sir John Lawrence recommended a Permanent Settlement of the State-demand from the soil in all Provinces of India. His aim was to form a strong middle class, and to promote the agricultural wealth of the people. For those were days when the welfare of the people was the first consideration with the rulers.

The expenditure on the Army was reduced by Sir John Lawrence from £13,182,000 at the commencement of his administration to £12,990,000 at its close. Nevertheless

1 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence (1885), vol. ii. p. 300.

there was a recurring deficit; and the total deficit during his five years' rule came to nearly 3 millions sterling. Taxes imposed on the people had reached their limit. Taxes imposed on commerce evoked an opposition from British merchants which the Government could not face. "If the Licence Tax is vetoed," wrote Sir John Lawrence to the Secretary of State in 1867, "I cannot conceal from myself the conviction that all taxation which can affect, in any material degree, the non-official European community, will be impracticable. So far as their voices go, they will approve of no tax of the kind. They desire that all taxation should fall on the natives." 1

And, writing privately to Sir Erskine Perry, then a Member of the Indian Council, Sir John Lawrence said: "The difficulty in the way of the Government of India acting fairly in these matters is immense. If anything

is done, or attempted to be done, to help the natives, a general howl is raised, which reverberates in England, and finds sympathy and support there. I feel quite bewildered sometimes what to do. Every one is, in the abstract, for justice, moderation, and such like excellent qualities; but when one comes to apply such principles so as to affect anybody's interests, then a change comes over them.” 2

One unjust addition to the Indian Debt was strongly but unsuccessfully opposed by Lawrence. Great Britain had a little war of her own with King Theodore of Abyssinia in 1867. Robert Napier, then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army, was sent to the expedition; and the banner of St. George, in the florid language of Mr. Disraeli, was planted on the mountains of Rasselas. But the cost was enormous, and a large portion of it was meanly and unjustly thrown on India, with its disorganised finances ⚫and its annual deficits. "I believe I am right," wrote Sir John Lawrence, "that all the expenses of the British troops employed in the Mutiny who came from England, were 1 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence. 2 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 411, 412.

paid out of the revenues of India. I recollect very well that, in 1859 and 1860, India was even charged for the cost of unreasonably large numbers of men who were accumulated in the depôts in England, nominally for the Indian service. . . . In the present case, India has no interest whatever in the Abyssinian expedition, and it appears therefore to me that she should pay none of its cost."1 Lawrence asked for simple justice, but he asked in vain.

It remains only to say a few words about that frontier policy with which the name of Lawrence is so intimately connected. Sir Charles Wood had ceased to be Secretary of State for India in 1866. He had retired in ill-health from the India Office, and was called to the Upper House with the title of Lord Halifax. Lord de Grey-afterwards Marquis of Ripon-succeeded him in February 1866. But the Liberal Government fell shortly after; and Lord Cranborne-afterwards Marquis of Salisbury-became Secretary of State for India in July 1866. He, too, held that office only for a short time, and was succeeded in March 1867 by Sir Stafford Northcote. And Northcote was succeeded by the Duke of Argyll in 1868, when the Liberals again came into power.

It was in keeping with the spirit of the times that all the Secretaries of State under whom Sir John Lawrence worked-Sir Charles Wood, Lord de Grey, Lord Cranborne, Sir Stafford Northcote, and the Duke of Argyllagreed with him in his frontier policy. All of them approved of his unalterable resolution to hold to the strong natural frontiers of India, and not to seek a new frontier in the limitless mountains of Afghanistan.

For Lawrence maintained that to extend the western limits of India was to go half-way to meet the dangers we professed to fear; that it was to leave our natural frontier of an unpassable river and mountain walls for a frontier which was everywhere and nowhere; that it would compel us to fight the enemy away from our base with a hostile

1 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 390.