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The Punjab Government: a Political Study.

The advocates of reform are willing to adapt government to the growing necessities of progressing events, and to prolong its existence by increasing its usefulness. A government that does not work for the benefit of the governed, will only hold out as long as the governing power is physically the strongest.

The experience of our late troubles has successfully exposed the dangerous illusion, so flattering to our self-complacency, that our government of India was a rule of moral force based on actual sympathy, and that wherever conquest carried our arms, our sovereignty was hailed as a deliverance. After a short period of necessary humiliation, we are now willing to distinguish conquest from conservatism, the silent submission imposed by physical force from the voluntary and cheerful allegiance which strengthens the hands of government. Let us for ever dispel all false lights from the subject, let us bid adieu to faint-hearted vacillation, and recognize the importance and difficulty of our position, rather than evade or avoid it as a topic well understood, if not finally disposed of.

Let us recognize also the great political truth, that in the government of a conquered race, conservatism must be blended with assimilation, and let us for ever take leave of that mischievous policy which would advocate the engrafting of foreign institutions on an uncongenial soil, without heeding the absence of those concommitants which enter so largely into the success of all such attempts. Should we, after all have acquired the secret of rendering the government of an alien and dominant race not unpalatable, if not popular, the lesson is well worth the century of failures and embarrassments, which once endangered the credit of our Indian Empire. It is, however, a circumstance of auspicious augury, that the only practical mode of conciliating our alien subjects, was enunciated by the nobleman who now rules our Indian Empire, and it is also satisfactory to remark that the policy so happily inaugurated, has received the consistent support of a large portion of the Indian Press.

Not to cherish institutions condemned alike by laws and feelings, but to improve, foster and conserve the popular elements of native society, and to adapt the administrative machinery to the genius of the people is the policy which would popularize and strengthen our Government, and perhaps render us personally less and less the objects of antipathy and odium.

It would be foreign to the object of the present article to discuss the expediency of an extensive introduction of independent European agency into this country. The subject is one of grave importance. The advocates of the measure are

too apt to reason, though not consistently, from abstract rights; while, on the other hand, their opponents are just as eager to be led away by wrong inferences from the seemingly analogous circumstances in other colonies, where the aborigines have almost disappeared under Anglo-Saxon supremacy.

We do not for a moment dispute the fact that under a fair, watchful and considerate government, the presence of independent Europeans would instil into public opinion, now so painfully identical with official opinion, a healthier tone; nor deny that in developing the resources of the country, and, in bringing into play native talent and native capabilities, European energy and application would exercise a decidedly beneficial influence. But even after these admissions, we cannot hide from ourselves the difficulty which still stares us in the face: the interests. of the foreigner and the interests of his humble fellow-subjects, the natives, cannot be said to bear many points of similitude; we must, therefore, resort to precautionary legislative measures to obviate a collision between them, and trust to the harmonizing influence of mutual knowledge and necessity for that co-operation which can only result in mutual good.

Just as foreign to our object is it to solve the vexed problem of the equality of races. There are certain aspects of the question which defy discussion. Its obvious equity, its claims upon general principles of morality and the sanction of scripture, are raised as much above doubt as above controversy. Yet the practical recognition of equal legislation in this country. would be attended by disasters, much more formidable than the revolt of a hundred thousand armed hirelings. The force of abstract truths we do not venture to deny, but to assert them in legislation without a compromise with circumstances, would be to ignore the existence of passions and affections which so largely influence men's actions. If to yield to popular prejudices be weakness, to oppose them out of season would be imbecility.

The principle of assimilation and step by step reform, as opposed to that of the forcible eradication of existing institutions, and the substitution of unpalatable exotics, never avowedly formed part of our policy in this country. We have certainly not been outrageously radical in our policy; there has been no dearth of toleration for harmless prejudices, no want of just abhorrence for the dangerous ones, no lack of will to conciliate. But to develop the popular elements of the indigenous social and political economy was neither desired nor appreciated. On the contrary, the complicated appliances of a high state of civilization were strenuously employed for the amelioration of

the people, though with what melancholy results we shall not expatiate upon here.

It was in the month of March, 1849, that the Seikh sovereignty in the Punjab had ceased, and in succeeding to its responsibility we inaugurated a system of government, which, by strengthening the hands of the executive with confi dence and responsibility, by mitigating the severity of law by an infusion of equity, and, above all, by adapting the administra tive machinery to the genius, habits, and capacity of the people, has a fair chance, if a foreign government can ever be said to have it, of engendering lasting and substantial sympathy between the conquerors and the conquered race.

We claim for the Punjab administrator no higher credit than that which is due to success. The character of its subjects must form an element in the estimate we make of a government, and it would be folly to institute a comparison between two forms of government without entering into a consideration of the social and political condition of the two people. The ideal government of speculative thinkers,' which we are bound to believe is guided by perfect rules of ethics and policy, we do not mean to imitate or to offer for imitation; suffice it to say that, from the limited existence of perfection, even a perfect government itself can have only a very confined range of utility. It is enough for us to watch the progress of a people under a good government, without idly speculating on its probable destiny under a perfect one.

That the administration of the Punjab has been one of hitherto unparallelled success is too clear for discussion, and that some of its simple machinery may with advantage be introduced into the older provinces of our Indian Empire, has been doubted by those alone who profess to be able to judge of the necessities of a people by the exceptional cases of individual wants. With the progress of civilization public interests increase both in number and importance; indeed commerce alone has arrived at a state of dignity to require a code of its own. An involved and intricate judicial machinery is indispensable to a high state of civilization, but to such as have so long advocated its introduction into our Indian provinces, we commend the study of the present state of Bengal, where we find a demoralised people and a disorganized country' which a century of improved government can alone save from hopeless degeneracy. The introduction of legal subtlety into our Indian courts has not been without its effect on native ingenuity; in some points of native character we remark, if we are permitted the phrase, a stunted development,

devoid alike of the strength and symmetry of healthy growth. With laws perfectly unsuited to the habits of the people, with an executive contemptibly weak, we have realized in some parts of Bengal the worst evils of the darkest days of European feudalism.

Happily the disparagers of the Punjaub government cannot even pretend to speak from experience; the voice of discontent is raised from without, and is justified by that species of logic which only deals in strong language and bold assertions. Always severe, what they lack in truth they invariably make up by virulence. There is no denying the abstract weight of some of their arguments, but, as the Emperor Napoleon observed to the ruler of the Vatican, facts have an irresistible logic of their own.' The theory which they advocate is an admirable product of pure reason: it is undeniable that large discretionary powers have often been abused; it is also true that to concentrate triple powers in one individual has its own peculiar dangers; that to centralize powers does not tend to improve official efficiency, and that technicalities are indispensable to any but the most simple code of laws. The reasoning is admirable, the conclusions true, the theory is deficient only in applicability.

It is our object here to investigate the causes which have conduced to the prosperity of the Punjab and to the popularity of the Punjab Government. The dangers apprehended from the turbulent character of the natives of the Punjab have happily proved groundless. Nay more, of the millions who acknowledge our supremacy in India they stand foremost in co-operating with the Government, and in active sympathy with its difficulties and success. Brave and honest, they have offered Government useful allegiance, without that profession of abject submission which is seldom sincere and even when not tainted with hypocrisy always contemptible. Good citizens and hardy soldiers, fond of peace but not afraid of war, they have proved less obnoxious to the public peace, are less inured in criminality than the effeminate population of our older provinces.

When their struggles for dominion closed with the demoralization of a powerful army, large bodies of men, who had so lately coerced their own Government, betook themselves to useful pursuits with manly forbearance, turning their swords into plough-shares and prosecuting commerce, trade and agriculture with surprising energy.

Trained from their infancy to the use of arms, and capable of the most heroic fortitude, and most chivalrous devotion, the Punjabees have yet that feeling of respect for law, and entertain that

wholesome dread of crime, which have been productive of the the best social results. If it be believed that organized offences were rarely known in the Punjab, even in days of Seikh laxity, our well elaborated statistics have since established such to be the case more than the most sanguine could hope, and experience has verified the general correctness of our statistics.

The Punjabee is active and industrious by nature, the physical accidents of his country allow him but small room for choice as to the means of livelihood.. The Punjab is by no means as productive as the well watered plains of Bengal, and to secure a remunerative return from its ungrateful soil necessitates constant and well sustained application. When there is a dearth of employment in his own country, the Punjabee does not, as a rule, encumber his poor community by taxing its charity; his restless spirit of enterprise drives him out of his home in search of employment, and if he lives to return from the land of his sojourn, his friends not seldom profit by his

venture.

With fewer prejudices, fewer elements of passive hindrance, little or no respect for obstructive traditionary practices, the Punjabee is not averse to those salutary measures of reform of which his unfettered good sense seems to have an intuitive perception. Hence, he of all our subject races is best able to appreciate Western opinions, and hence, he of all our subject races has not only confidence in our honesty of purpose, and in the wisdom and justice of Government measures, but has been ever ready to offer it such help as to ensure success. The important results which have sprung out of this spirit of friendly confidence in the great bulk of the people, cannot be exaggerated. Whether as regards success enjoyed, or success in prospect, this friendly spirit is its best guarantee. It is hardly possible for men whose experience extends only to our older provinces, to believe either in the existence of this powerful moral auxiliary, or in the extent to which it has been rendered instrumental in accelerating the progress and securing the success of Government measures. Let it be recorded to the credit of the poor but honest Punjabee, that he has placed Government under some obligation in return for the many that have been conferred on him. Even in our troubles this willingness on the part of the people to co-operate with us was neither weak nor dormant; long before the Punjabee had experienced the beneficial effects of our policy, his fidelity, so far as passive resistance to extraneous treachery may be so called, drew forth our acknowledgements. When a band of mountaineers attempted to stir up an outbreak