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they should supervise and control the acts of those bodies without taking actual part in their proceedings."

"The Governor-General in Council therefore would wish to see non-official persons acting, whenever practicable, as Chairmen of the Local Boards."

These extracts sufficiently indicate the scope and object of Lord Ripon's scheme, and after a great deal of official correspondence and discussion the scheme resulted in the creation or development of three classes of Boards.

(1) Counties are called Districts in India, and District Boards were formed answering to County Councils in England. The majority of the members were elected by the people; some were nominated and appointed by the Government; and the Executive Government Officer of the District was appointed the Chairman. Roads, education, hospitals, and some ferries, were made over to these District Boards.

(2) Local Boards were formed in Sub-divisions of Districts, and were placed under the orders of the District Boards. Most of the members of Local Boards were chosen by election: some were nominated and appointed by the Government.

(3) In Municipal towns the majority of the members were chosen by election; and in advanced places the members were allowed to choose their own non-official Chairman.

A humble beginning was thus made in extending the elective system, and in giving the people of India some share in the administration of local affairs. Nothing makes British Rule in India more popular and more secure, nothing draws the people closer to an alien administration, than making them partakers in the duties and responsibilities of that administration. It was by this policy that Munro and Elphinstone and Bentinck had succeeded in consolidating the Indian Empire in the early years of the century; and it was this policy which made the administration of Lord Ripon so popular.

India in our generation has not witnessed such manifestations of loyalty and gratitude as the Marquis of Ripon evoked from the people before he left the country. Those who witnessed them have seen nothing like them in India or in any other part of the world. "His journey from Simla to Bombay was a triumphal march such as India has never witnessed a long procession in which seventy millions of people sang hosanna to their friend."1

A sympathetic and wise administration, recognising the political advancement of the people, and gradually extending the forms of Self-Government and of Representation, strengthens British Rule in India, and makes the people themselves proud of the Empire. An autocratic and distrustful administration, repressing the legitimate ambitions of the people, and excluding them from the management of their own concerns, weakens the Empire, and creates a natural and universal discontent, which spreads and deepens into political danger.

1 Europe and Asia, by Meredith Townsend.

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CHAPTER II

DUFFERIN AND LANSDOWNE

THE success of the great Liberal leader in stemming the Conservative Reaction, which had begun in 1874, was only temporary. No statesman can battle against his times. Never had Mr. Gladstone a more arduous and difficult duty before him than during the four years of his second administration. He had an ingrained and unalterable hatred of aggression; but the nation was bent on expansion. In Afghanistan, he had the strength to withdraw from a mischievous and wasteful expedition. In Egypt, he was forced to take action against Arabi Pasha; he halted and hesitated after the victory of Tel-el-Kebir; he was compelled in the end to occupy the country. In South Africa, Mr. Gladstone had the courage to restore independence to the Transvaal Republic; and his countrymen considered this act as a shameful humiliation. In the Soudan, he had not the decision either to withdraw at once, or to advance at once; and the fall of Khartoum and of General Gordon was condemned by his countrymen a crime.

It was plain, Mr. Gladstone was not the man for the hour. He had been a Peace-Minister all his life; he would not now turn an Imperialist. He had befriended - small nations all over the world; he would not annex small States now. His soul was bent on domestic and popular reforms; the nation wanted a leader who would extend the limits of the Empire. His high character, his strong personality, and his unrivalled powers, still inspired respect and admiration; but his influence declined because the nation was bent on a different

policy. When, therefore, he had carried the Third Reform Act in December 1884, his work was done. The Liberal Ministry resigned in June 1885. Twice after, Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister with the help of the Irish vote; but he was never as popular in England after 1885 as the "People's William " had been before 1874. He was not the man that England wanted for her new foreign policy.

Lord Beaconsfield had died in 1881, and Lord Salisbury had become the Conservative Leader. When, therefore, the Conservatives came into power in 1885, Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister. And he remained in that high post until 1902, except during the brief periods when the Liberals were in power—from February to July 1886, and from 1892 to 1895. Lord Salisbury was not an Imperialist himself. He desired peace, and strove for peace. But he had the capacity to yield, and to drift with the tide, when he could not oppose it. He had ridiculed a forward policy in India, and had then yielded in 1875. He prevented a war with Russia by the limitation of the Indian frontier in 1885. He avoided a war with the United States by the Venezuela arbitration in 1895. He avoided unpleasantness with Germany by the delimitation of African possessions. And he settled amicably, and with signal success, the claims of Great Britain and France, both in Fashoda and on the Niger. All these high services will be remembered to the credit of a Prime Minister who always strove for peace. But he yielded, when he could strive no longer, in the closing years of the century.

In India, the first result of this growing demand for expansion was the conquest of Upper Burma. Lord Dufferin had succeeded Lord Ripon as Viceroy of India.. He was an able and accomplished statesman, possessing great tact and varied experience. He had been UnderSecretary for India from 1864 to 1866, when Lord Lawrence was Viceroy of India. His brilliant adminis

tration of Canada from 1872 to 1878 marked him out as an able administrator. He was then ambassador at St. Petersburg and at Constantinople; and he had some share in abolishing the Dual Control and establishing British administration in Egypt. In December 1884 he succeeded Lord Ripon in India, at the mature age of fifty-eight.

Complaints had been made against the King of Burma from time to time. The British Mission had been withdrawn from Ava in 1879. But the British Cabinet had advised the Indian Government to be "slow

to precipitate a crisis." Negotiations for a new treaty, which took place at Simla in 1882, came to nothing. The demarcation of the Manipur frontier by Colonel Johnstone did not receive the assent of Burma. British merchants at Rangoon held a public meeting in October 1884, and urged the annexation of Upper Burma. The sins of the King were, as usual, exaggerated to inflame the public mind. Handbills were distributed describing King Thibaw as a drunkard. The Rangoon Chamber of Commerce addressed a circular letter to various Chambers of Commerce in Great Britain, desiring them to bring pressure to bear on the British Cabinet. It was suggested that British Burma should be cut adrift from India, and formed into a Crown Colony.

In the meantime King Thibaw was endeavouring to strengthen his position by negotiations with the Powers of Europe. The Court of Ava despatched a Mission to Europe in 1883; and by April 1885 it had concluded commercial treaties with France, Germany, and Italy. -The French Envoy, M. Haas, who reached Mandalay in May 1885, exerted to establish a dominating French influence in Burma. Arrangements were made for the establishment of a French bank and the construction of a French railway. Lord Salisbury took note of these negotiations. He spoke to M. Waddington, the French Ambassador in London, and brought the facts to the notice of M.

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