in the court of the authority by whom the accused was committed. There should be an appeal in all cases from the decision of native judges to an European judge; but, in any case, the decision of the Court of Appeal, confirming the award of the lower court, that decision should be final. In case of a reversal of decree, an appeal should be made to the next tribunal, until two uniform decisions were obtained, or until the appellant reached the Supreme Court, whose decision in all cases should be final. Plaints or prosecutions might be directed into the several courts, according to the amount of property or of crime involved. But the Supreme Court being reserved as a Court of Appeal, no prosecution should originate there; although the individual judges of that court, when the business there was not pressing, or when their services were required in the provinces, might be employed as judges of circuit. The great object being to open as wide as possible the door of justice to the people, and to render its stream pure, it would be necessary to increase or limit our checks and our instruments according to their demands. Advantage might be taken of Europeans or natives of respectability throughout the country as referees or arbitrators, at the option of the parties seeking redress, or they may be admitted to assist the judge as assessors. Europeans and natives not in the service might too be employed as justices of the peace, and on reference by the parties to them have powers conferred on them to decide in matters of trifling criminal offences or inferior civil suits. The Punchait, that instrument under native Governments which is as sacred in the eyes of their subjects as our juries are in ours, might be had recourse to with great advantage as an aid to our judicial institutions. The members of a Punchait having been elected by the plaintiff and defendant, each of course naming his own members, and a Sirpunch or head appointed either by their united voice, or by the judge who has the power of confirming their decree, its decision must be final, unless there be proof of corruption. It is the want of this support which has hitherto rendered the Punchait of so little avail, and so little calculated to live with our judicial system. The Punchait system after all may be found to flourish only when there is a denial of justice through courts instituted for its administration, or when these courts are corrupt, or so expensive as to amount to a denial of justice; yet arbitration amongst ourselves is not uncommon; and the native Punchait, though more subject to rules and better defined, does not differ materially from the system as known in our own civilized land. The remarkable instance of the most intelligent of all our native subjects, the Parsees of Bombay, withdrawing in a great degree from the Supreme Court there, and instituting Punchaits amongst themselves for the regulation of their own affairs in civil cases, may have its origin in the ruinous expence attending appeals to our laws.

The instruments which will thus be at work throughout India may be expected to bring us nearer to the people, to give them an

interest in our cause, and to be of more assistance in the formation and regulation of an efficient police than in even the other branches of administration. It is the distance to which we have been removed from native society, the want of connecting links between that society and ourselves, and the absolute revolutions that some of our sweeping measures have introduced, which have enabled bodies of men like the Dakoits of Bengal, or Dakoits wherever they are found, to combine and become the enemies of all property. It must not be supposed that there were not influential persons in the society acquainted or perhaps connected with these miscreants, or that the great majority of the society did not know them. But they saw that we had not the power to protect them, and that their chief hope of safety consisted in their silence. The second description of land revenue settlement which I have noticed, which preserves the village institutions unimpaired, and which throws responsibility upon them, would be the most efficient instrument of police. Under such a system, it would be impossible that offenders against. property should attain combination, or that they should remain long undetected.

The great question of combining judicial and revenue powers in the hands of the same persons, remains to be considered. This union is admirably suited for a certain condition of society, in an inferior state of civilization, and consequently inferior complication of affairs, in which rights and interests are more easily defined; and if we could calculate on good instruments, and none but good instruments, I should be disposed to the system which placed a small district under the exclusive management of an individual European officer, with sufficient native instruments in subordination to him, and with a superior European functionary who should have the general superintendance of a given number of these districts, in all their judicial and revenue concerns. But as we cannot calculate on the necessary degree of industry and integrity in any service which it would be possible to organise, I see no alternative but to separate for ever these two great branches of administration, the officers employed in them being held available for either, according to their qualifications and the exigencies of the service. There is no reason why both Europeans and natives employed in the revenue department should not be the most useful of our magistrates. But they should have no judicial bench, nor should our judicial authorities have any concern with revenue affairs;-the rights and interests of those paying land revenue, as of the other classes of society, whether with reference to the claims of Government or of individuals being left exclusively to the protection of the laws.

The danger of the officers administering revenue and judicial affairs, when colonization becomes more extended, getting involved in property which should give to them a bias, either in reality or in the opinion of the people, in the performance of their duty; and thus injure that high reputation which the Civil Service has

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hitherto held, and that confidence in its integrity and impartiality which has hitherto so justly existed in our native subjects; must have struck every body as the principal, if not the only danger, which would result from granting to Europeans free permission to hold property in land. Those administering our laws and our revenue have hitherto been far removed from the people. Opposing interests which should bring the parties into collision would be full of danger. Laws will of course be enacted for the purpose of saving the people and ourselves from this worst of evils. But whether these laws can be effectual for such a purpose, time alone can show. The probability is that they will not.

It is a question of old standing whether an exclusive Civil Service consisting of about 950 members and costing upwards of a crore and a half of rupees per annum, or nearly one-ninth of the territorial revenue of India, is the best suited to administer our affairs. Whatever objections may be taken to a service in such a form, it has at least hitherto maintained a reputation for high-toned honor, and for talent, which has certainly never been surpassed by any service in the world, and which will perhaps never be equalled by any thing that may take its place. It is true that this service has had incentives to exertion in the importance of the duties entrusted to its management, in the confidence which has been reposed in it, and in its splendid emoluments and prospects which have never before been enjoyed by any service of equal magnitude, and which cannot be expected to last. Whether the Civil Service is to continue in its present shape, whether India is to be thrown open to adventurers from England, or whether there is to be one united service for India, are questions of great importance as concerns our future administration. It is probable that the present exclusive and highly-paid service will not last under the doctrines which will now govern people at home. Yet it will probably be found expedient that there should be an united service in India, and that persons to administer the affairs of that country should have an Indian education: on the other hand it may be supposed that new vigour and energy would be imparted by the introduction from home of persons of matured judgment, who had experience in the administration of affairs in our own or other countries.

If rendered, as has so often been proposed, one united service, that service would of course require to be military, and those entering it to be trained in the first instance to habits of military life. What would free England say to a country, whose civil institutions were administered entirely by military men? Yet there is no reason why military men, educated as they would be, should not lay aside their swords and their regimentals, and take their seat on the judgment bench in this conquered land, carrying with them all the attributes for the administration of justice. The united service, although still an exclusive one, would give great advantage to Government by extending the sphere of its selection for employments the most important. An evil to be guarded against would

be that of selecting for Civil employ, where it may be supposed the pay would be better, those of most talent and promise; and so leaving the army degraded, and the officers who remained with it a discontented portion of the service. This would in some measure be corrected by interest and patronage, but still it must be supposed that this evil would exist to a greater and more injurious degree than it now does.

But whatever the form in which the Civil Service may be maintained, it is quite clear that the country cannot afford, nor will it any longer be necessary, to extend to it the present high rate of pay. The first step that was taken for increasing the pay of our native establishment, by placing it on a respectable and substantial footing, was likewise a signal for the reduction of the pay of our European establishments. Formerly, the European Civil Service had a monopoly of high pay, and it is very evident that we cannot afford to pay both highly. The pay of the principal Sudder Ameens and other native judges is perhaps higher than was ever given by native Governments for the performance of similar duties. The natural tendency is too towards increase of expenditure. The only reductions that have hitherto been made are in the Military and Political Departments. The increase of expence in the European portion of the Bengal Civil Service alone is said in the last year to be eight lakhs, as compared with the former year; whilst the expense of the principal Sudder Ameens, the Sudder Ameens, and Moonsiffs will amount to upwards of three lakhs and a half.* By what corresponding reduction is this charge to be met? Similar increase in the Civil Service of the other presidencies would in one year give in the whole, as compared with the civil expenditure only a year or two ago, twenty lakhs, a prospect sufficiently disheartening.

With our forty millions of debt, and with the uncertainty of continuing to hold these monopolies, which at present give us a surplus revenue for the payment of that debt, it is surely unwise to increase our expenditure in any department, unless the necessity for this is very apparent, or unless the increase can be met by corresponding reductions either in that or in some other department of our administration.

POLITICAL RELATIONS.

These are of three kinds :

1st.-Foreign.

Persia, Cabul, Senna, Arab Tribes, Siam, and Acheen. 2nd.-External, on her Frontier.

Ava, Nepaul, Lahore, and Sind.

3d.-Internal. All of which have relinquished political relations with one another and with all other states.

They may according to the nature of our treaties with them be divided into four great classes.

1st Class.-Treaties, offensive and defensive-right on their part to claim protection, external and internal, from the British Government-right on its part to interfere in their internal affairs. 1st.-Oude.

2nd.-Mysore.

3rd.-Berar.

4th. Travancore.

5th.-Cochin.

2nd Class.-Treaties, offensive and defensive-right on their part to claim protection, external and internal, from the British Government, and to the aid of its troops to realize their just claims from their own subjects. No right on its part to interfere in their internal affairs.

1st.-Hyderabad. 2nd.-Baroda.

3rd Class.-Treaties, offensive and defensive-states mostly tributary, acknowledging the supremacy of, and promising subordinate co-operation to, the British Government; but supreme rulers in their own territory.

Rajpootana,

1. Indore.
2. Oudeepore.

3. Jeypore.

4. Joudpore.

5. Kotah.

6. Boondee.

7. Ulwur and Machery.

8. Beekaneer.

9. Jessulmere. 10. Kisengurh. 11. Banswarra. 12. Purtabgurh. 13. Doongerpore. 14. Kerowlee.

15. Serowee.

16. Bhurtpore.
17. Bhopal.

18. Cutch.