THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT IN INDIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 137, 24 April 1862, Page 5

THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT IN INDIA

:* ! (From the Saturday Review.') The assertion of one of the principal Indian newspapers, that Sir Charles Wood has positively determined-to change the seat of Government in India from Catcutta to the Hills, i 3 probably premature ;■ but the ' question is one which before longis sure to force itself to the front of Indian discussion, and'it would be a poor cornpli--ment;to the Indian Office and the Indian Minister to suppose that it has not already been considered by those who will some day have to-settle it. The assumption of supreme rule by the Crown has, by the very difficulties .which attend it,-thrown lightjon the-system which it superseded,: and it becomes constantly clearer that the Boy of the East (India Gorripany's system Jwas the early age at which its servants began their administr'atiTe course. It isriow.well ascertained that a European frpmithe temperate, region's,1 who places-- himself under a tropical cliiriate ■ in" the first strength of manhood. caiL continue to.bravei it; till a tolerably advanced age, without sacrificingjinucn.;df his health or any, part, whatever of ,his intellectual vigor. But if the experiment be tried_a few years' sooner or a few years later,. it tails in the greatmajority, of cases. A European who goes to India before fifteen, or after thirty^ does sbynbt with'the certainty; but ..with. the. strongest chance, of sacrificing either body or mind, or "both. '^li, then, the new plan of Indian Governmentdepends principally on the employment of Europeans whose experience' of India begins at 'a comparatively advanced period of life, it-meets a formidable and (and it may even ' be) a fatal impediment in the dangers .of the climate. That, it .does so depend, seems proved by the course, of every single measure of importance which has been tried since the, change of the system. The Governor-General has had his pow,er immensely augmented, . The army will soon consist almost entirely of European soldiers, the best of whom will be veterans. The great financial reforms have had to'^be- carried out iby trained. European financier?. The great legal ; .reforms are already requiring, a much larger staff of trained European judges.' Meantime, in proportion to the demand for' experienced men fresli from Europe, the, proofs of the perilous venture-.they make, in going to India have been pouring in. " Lord Dalhousie returned on]v to die. Lord Canning, though, he has not suffered himself, has ■ seen the ' fatal blow struck.clqso to his side. . Mr.-Wilson', died. . Mr. Laing'shealth failed him. And-it is notorious I that, when the two, principal- leg^l-appointments

at Calcutta recently became vacant, the India Office was forced., to appoint gentlemen (happily able men) wlio vrtSrc already on the spot ar.d acclimatised, from the sheer impossibility of obtaining in England persons at once equal': to the position ■'*' r. and willing or able to iace the climate. ' '": In Calcutta, the-perils of the Indian sky and air are fearfully intensified. It has of teen been saidthat, if the capital of India were to be fixed anew and to -be placed at Calcutta, the mistake would bo like that of turning .'Liverpool into the metropolis of England. A better comparison would be obtained if we supposed that the capital of the. United States, before their disruption, had ■been New Orleans. lake the. great city on the -, Mississippi, and for the same reasons, Calcutta - will always be a place of first-rate commercial importance. Situated on the-largest branch by which a gigantic river, or rather a gigantic system of rivers, findi its way to the sea, it will always be the place at which the'surplus produce of Bengal and Upper India is stored before it is exported, and which will receive from every corner of the .-l-y world the wares that arc to be exchanged for the ; wealth of those immense regions. But both Calcutta and New Orleans; are. naturally cities in which men barter their lives for riches. The commercial advantages of both are the proper compensation for the daily risk of death which is incurred by, their inhabitants. All over, the world the deltasof great rivers are the haunts of dangerous diseases; but in the tropics the malaria of river- mouth is a poison perpetually filling the air. Calcutta, built . on a mere thin crust of dry earth above jmid of „■ unknown: depth, though not;: quite so subject to. epidemics as New Orleans, is probably much more •■. permanently imhealthy. The diseases which prevail are not diflerentrin kind-from. the ordinary diseases of India, but they assume a tenfold deadlier type. The most indurated Anglo-Indian makes up his mind to some form of fever when he removes' to Calcutta from other parts of the peninsula, and it is a singular circumstance that while a general change of: habits, and the diffusion of temperance, have decidedly diminished European . mortality over the rest of India, Calcutta, from some cause or other, has apparently become tin- : . healthier! than of old. If the, dignity of Calcutta us thecapital. of.lndia had been anything but an accidenfof history, its selection for- that honor would have been an extraordinary instance,of administrative madness. The worst economy, in every sense,.'of which a Government could be guilty would be placing its chief officials on a spot where neither mind nor body can do its work 'with its natural efficiency, ■ and where the largest salaries must necessarily bo paid as the price of extreme peril to life and health. Under the system of:the East India Company, these disadvantages of Calcutta were of course considerably less. The soldier was moved out of it as promptly as possible. And to the civilian who had braved a tropical sun ever since he was eighteen, the danger was not greater than that incurred by an Englishman who, let us say, should take it into his head to settle in the Essex marshes. The principal inconvenience' ' felt seams to have consisted in the necessity of having the bench of the Supreme Court of the Presidency occupied by far from first-rate , English lawyers, who happened to have iron constitutions. But, now that the change of Government requires Europeans fresh from Europe to . settle Indian society on a new basis, and now that the Supreme Court has obtained a jurisdiction over all India, the continiliarice of Calcutta as the centre of affairs "will involve a needless waste of" money and the impoverishment of the intellectual forces'of the whole Empire. ■ The idea of transferring the seat of government from Calcutta is by no means new. Those, however, who have entertained it; appear to tiavebeen chiefly influenced by geographical reasons. The.gradual acquisition of UpperandCentrallndia,followed by the subjugation of the Punjaub, had completely displaced the centre of gravity of the empire; and many writers who contemplated no immediate change had insisted that Delhi or Agra was the natural metropolis of all India. On the completion of the railway and telegraph system, either of those places would be for all purposes a better capital than Calcutta, and both are infinitely healthier. But, if a step so bold, and entailing so much temporary inconvenience as the transfer of the scat of government were really being carried out, there is no doubtrthat it would be worth - while to move further than the ancient Mahometan capitals, which, though well selected for their object, were selected by Orientals. If the course of administrative change is to continue in the same channel as at present, one consideration is paramount to all others—at. what spot in "all Indja can Europeans, whatever be the period of ■ • life' at which they expatriate themselves, have the most reasonable prospect of preserving unimpaired their bodily health and mental faculties ? The condition is satisfied exclusively by the slopes and plateux af the mountain-ranges, and particularly of the Himalaya. There, alone, in all India, is to be found a climate as favourable in most respects to the constitution of Englishmen as the climate of England itself—in some respects actually more favourable. Thirty years ago, the difficulty of such a change might fairly have been pronounced insuperable. The distance and inaccessibility of even the most promising situations in the hills would have seemed to neutralise their strongest recommenda--tions. But one result of modern invention is to annul or reduce to a minimum all geographical advantages. A railway and a. telegraph would place Simla or Dargeeling pretty nearly on a level with Delhi or Calcutta, so far a.s locality is concerned; and we now know, from the terrible teaching of the mutiny, that when the sharpest crises do occur in the affairs of the Indian Empire, the point of first-rate importance turns out to be - at places where no one would have sought for it beforehand. India, for example, was saved from , the Punjaub. The true difficulty of transferring . the Government from Calcutta is a moral difficulty. Though in itself a measure of far smaller importance than the fusion of the armies, or of the Sudder and Supreme Courts, it would give an even more violent shock to Indian prejudices, and it would be furiously opposed by that very class ■ _ the Calcutta merchants and lawyers—who wish it to be understood that they deserve the credit of having first promoted all valuable reforms. But, this impediment once despised or overcome,, tho undertaking itself would be cheap and easy considering the facilities which it would procureforthe India Office. A not very large expenditure on public buildings would save the Home Govern--ment from a necessity which it is believed to regard as fatal to its project—the necessity of having to look exclusively for its most efficient servants among men who have never known a sphere of thought or exertion beyond the boundaries of India. Entertainments of the Ancients after Dinner —One of the most extravagant and unseemly entertainments introduced after dinner for . the amusement of guests was that practised at the Court of a certain King of Thrace, aiid 'recorded by an old Greek writer. ' The i Greeks,- it is true, had odd amusements after dining ; such as the performances of quacks and miracle-men, who swallowedand vomited fire, and danced on their heads upon the points of poignards xind scimitars; . but the Thracian amusement possesses more originality and extrvagance. ; It was called the Game of .Hanging. They attached, a strong cord and a noose to the top of the chamber ceiling. Into this noose one of the guests, alternately as his turn came, or by lot as his chance fell, thrust his head, supporting his feet at ,the same time on a large voluble stone set- for the purpose of his elevation ; he-held, at the same time, his draw,n sword in Ms hand ready for the terrible exigence. ' When his head was adjusted to the noose, another of the guests approached and kicked from under him the voluble stone, so that his'body was left to swing suspended on the cord. If he had suffi- • cient presence of nerve during the suspension, he cut the cord and sa,ved himself; but if he could not do so, he was allowed to swing and agitate himself to death—the company all the while enjoying with laughter his .convulsions,and' strainings to extricate himself. Barbarous'and unnatural as such an entertainment may- be deemed in our moderate conceptions,'it-is .nevertheless in accordance ■ with the manners of- the barbarians who practised it; but shall -we apologise for that polished people our much admired Romans, whose young noblemen after their Bacchanalian dinners -were ;at times wont to. introduce a pair or two of gladiators, who fought in their presence till one or two of the parties, fell gasping in blood at their feet,-while bursts of. applause broke , from the admiring revellers ?, A Roman consul was once, while at a banquet in Gaul, entreated by a female friend to permit her to enjoy the.spectacle of a human creature-being beheaded ; he ordered a criminal . to be 'led into the dining-room where they sat - atteast,and beforethe eyes of both, as .they, jfe- . clined ' at' table, the miserable unfortunate was ' beheaded.' Such were some of the fellow-country-men of, the accomplished- Cicero, -Antonius. and Seneca.—Conor's Life of .Professor Tennant.