of his soundest advisers who tried to explain the law to him. In his Council, the Secretary of State had men like Sir Erskine Perry, who had been Chief Justice of Bombay; Henry Thoby Prinsep and Ross Mangles, who had unrivalled experience of Indian administration; Sir Henry Montgomery and Sir Frederick Halliday, who had ruled Provinces in India. And these men spoke in no uncertain voice. Sir Erskine Perry wrote: "I have come reluctantly to the conclusion, after many struggles and attempts to draw fine distinctions in support of a different view, that the language and acts of Lord Cornwallis, and of the members of Government of his day, were so distinct, solemn, and unambiguous, that it should be a direct violation of British faith to impose special taxes in the manner proposed." "In 1854, Lord Dalhousie, a man of no weak will, was most desirous to impose a local tax in Bengal for the maintenance of an improved police; but after reading Sir Barnes Peacock's masterly exposition of the pledges which Government had entered into in 1791-93, the great pro-consul was compelled to accede to the soundness of the Chief Justice's argument, and most reluctantly abandoned his projects." "Here, then, we have the plain language of Government, the contemporanea exposita of its framers, the unanimous conviction of the people, and the declared acquiescence of the State in the justice of the popular interpretation during a period of eighty years. What is the answer attempted to this state of facts?" "The Government of India allege that the language of the Permanent Settlement itself, in section vii. of Lord Cornwallis's Proclamation, is large enough to enable them to impose the taxes in question; but this argument, on close examination, proves so utterly unsound that the Secretary of State abandons it." "Two other arguments are brought forward; first, that the imposition of the income-tax proves that taxes, additional to what Zemindars pay as land assessment, may be imposed on them; second, that educational cesses have been imposed over most parts of India in addition to the land assessment." As to the income-tax, it cannot be considered sound logic, when the meaning of particular pledges is in question, to argue that because a Despotic Government has on one occasion, without consulting the people, construed these pledges in its own sense, that act of the Government is a fair proof that their construction is right and just. But argument on this head may be withheld; because I understand that both the Bengal Government and the Zemindars acquiesce in the proposition that in any great emergency they are justly subject to all general taxation which is imposed on the rest of the community." "With respect to cesses additional to Land Revenue having been imposed in other parts of India, I am compelled to observe that, in my opinion, the Secretary of State has not interpreted the facts correctly, and that the exposition of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is the true one." "I will content myself with saying that I believe the true explanation of Local Cesses for education [in the other Provinces of India] to be this: whenever they have been levied, they have been so either when settlements for terms of years were under discussion, and when the 'higgling of the market' between the Revenue Officer and the Landowner was going on, or if the settlement was already made, the cess was imposed with the acquiescence of the Landholder." "1 And Sir Erskine Perry paid a fine compliment to the Zemindars of Bengal who had protested against the proposed Education Cess in a public meeting held in Calcutta. The speeches, he said, "though delivered in a foreign language, would have done credit, both for 1 Sir Erskine Perry's Dissent, dated May 14, 1870. good sense and good feeling, to any meeting of country gentlemen in England." Other dissents were not less emphatic. Mr. Macnaughten considered that "the tax, if levied at all, ought to be general in its application, and, irrespective of the amount of Land Revenue under the Permanent Settlement, should be imposed upon the holders of all property, real and personal, of whatever description."' Sir Frederic Currie admitted the unsatisfactory state of the Indian Finance; it was a cogent reason, he said, for retrenchment and economy; "but it cannot justify our laying a special tax exclusively on the Zemindars of Bengal, to do which, Sir Erskine Perry's paper shows conclusively, would be a breach of faith and the violation of the positive statutory engagement made with these Zemindars at the Permanent Settlement." 2 Sir Henry Montgomery said: "A government should not, in my opinion, voluntarily place itself in a position laying it open to be charged with a breach of faith."s Henry Thoby Prinsep, with his vast knowledge and experience of Indian administration, wrote: "I have never felt so deeply grieved and disappointed at a decision given in opposition to my expressed opinions as when it was determined, by a casting vote, to approve and forward the Despatch referred to at the head of this paper, for I regard the principles laid down in that Despatch to be erroneous, and the avowal of them to be unwise; while the policy inaugurated and the measures sanctioned will, if attempted to be carried out, alienate the entire population of India from the Government, and shake the confidence hitherto felt universally in its honesty and good faith." "The Court of Directors, the Imperial Government, and Parliament, were all parties to the resolution to fix 1 Mr. Macnaughten's Dissent, dated May 14, 1870. the Government demand upon the land of the Provinces then held by the East India Company in Bengal, in perpetuity." "The traditions of this period are now forgotten, and new ideas are about to be introduced into the financial administration of India, which, I should be sorry to think, are likely to be attributed to the change of Government which took place twelve years ago. The right of unlimited and uncontrolled taxation is always a dangerous one to assert, and who could have expected that this policy should be advocated, and such arbitrary powers claimed, by a Queen's Government?" 1 Ross Mangles, who had been one of the strongest Directors of the East India Company, and was now one of the strongest members of the India Council, equally shrank from an act which looked like a breach of faith and a violation of truth. "It appears to me to be very doubtful," he wrote, "as to what length the Government of India may feel themselves justified in going, under the sanction of the Despatch just sent. They may, I fear, be encouraged to take steps which may lay them justly open to charges of a breach of solemn promises. Unguarded action may destroy in a moment the credit which the British Government has won by its honourable persistence, for a period little short of a century, in the unbroken observance of its pledges; such a price would be too dear to pay for even an object so laudable as the education of the masses. We have no standing ground in India, except brute force, if we ever forfeit our character for truth." "2 But the most authoritative Dissent on the proposed taxation in Bengal came from Sir Frederic Halliday, who had been Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal during and after the Mutiny, and knew that province better than 1 H. T. Prinsep's Dissent, dated May 19, 1870. any other Member of the India Council. He rightly insisted that education was spreading in Bengal through the voluntary exertions of her educated men, and it would be an unwise policy to stop this natural and gratifying result of the policy of Lord William Bentinck. "Every educated man," he wrote, "has proved a missionary of education in his neighbourhood and among his dependants; and every considerable landholder vies with his neighbour in establishing and fostering village schools; until, in 1869, one-half of the whole State expenditure for vernacular education was met by private subscriptions and contributions from a people who, only a few years back, could by no means have been made to comprehend the value of education to themselves, still less the obligation of extending it to others. Assuredly the fruits of the great measure of 1835 are already amply visible; the wisdom and foresight of its authors are strikingly vindicated; and the condition of national education in Bengal, though far indeed from perfection, is yet abundantly gratifying in the present, and full of safe and happy augury for the future." Things being in this position, the Government of India suddenly declared that they were entirely dissatisfied with the system they could no longer wait for the end, but must have education suddenly thrust upon the masses. . . . And since the expense of this scheme must be enormous, and the public exchequer could give no kind of aid, they directed that the whole charge, amounting certainly to many millions sterling, should be thrown upon the Zemindars of Bengal by a rate of not less than 2 per cent. upon their gross rentals." The Zemindars remonstrated strongly they pleaded the distinct and solemn promises of the Permanent Settlement of 1792, when Lord Cornwallis had exhausted the resources of language to assure them that the rate then assessed on their lands was 'irrevocably fixed for ever,' and that they should in all future time |