Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913

by Earl of Evelyn Baring Cromer

On the assumption that India is to be governed from London, there can be no doubt of the validity of this argument. But, as has been frequently pointed out,[16] this system tends inevitably towards over-centralisation, and if the British Government is to continue to exercise a sort of πανκρατορία to use an expressive Greek phrase, over a number of outlying dependencies of very various types, over-centralisation is a danger which should be carefully shunned. It is wiser to obtain local knowledge from those on the spot, rather than from those whose local experience must necessarily diminish in value in direct proportion to the length of the period during which they have been absent from the special locality, and who, moreover, are under a strong temptation, after they leave the dependency, to exercise a detailed control over their successors. It is greatly to be doubted, therefore, whether, should the occasion arise, this portion of the Indian system is deserving of reproduction.

There is, however, another portion of that system which is in every respect admirable, and the creation of which bears the impress of that keen political insight which, according to many Continental authorities, is the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon race. India is governed locally by a council composed mainly of officials who have passed their adult lives in the country; but the Viceroy, and occasionally the legal and financial members of Council, are sent from England and are usually chosen by reason of their general qualifications, rather than on account of any special knowledge of Indian affairs. This system avoids the dangers consequent on over-centralisation, whilst at the same time it associates with the administration of the country some individuals who are personally imbued with the general principles of government which are favoured by the central authority. Its tendency is to correct the defect from which the officials employed in the outlying portions of the Empire are most likely to suffer, namely, that of magnifying the importance of some local event or consideration, and of unduly neglecting arguments based on considerations of wider Imperial import. It enhances the idea of proportion, which is one of the main qualities necessary to any politician or governing body. Long attention to one subject, or group of subjects, is apt to narrow the vision of specialists. The adjunct of an element, which is not Anglo-Indian, to the Indian Government acts as a corrective to this evil. The members of the Government who are sent from England, if they have no local experience, are at all events exempt from local prejudices. They bring to bear on the questions which come before them a wide general knowledge and, in many cases, the liberal spirit and vigorous common sense which are acquired in the course of an English parliamentary career.

It may be added, as a matter of important detail, that it would be desirable, in order to give continuity to Indian policy, to select young men to fill the place of Viceroy, and to extend the period of office from five to seven, or even to ten years.

Although over-centralisation is to be avoided, a certain amount of control from a central authority is not only unavoidable; if properly exercised, it is most beneficial. One danger to which the local agent is exposed is that, being ill-informed of circumstances lying outside his range of political vision, he may lose sight of the general principles which guide the policy of the Empire; he may treat subjects of local interest in a manner calculated to damage, or even to jeopardise, Imperial interests. The central authority is in a position to obviate any danger arising from this cause. To ensure the harmonious working of the different parts of the machine, the central authority should endeavour, so far as is possible, to realise the circumstances attendant on the government of the dependency; whilst the local agent should be constantly on the watch lest he should overrate the importance of some local issue, or fail to appreciate fully the difficulties which beset the action of the central authority.

To sum up all that there is to be said on this branch of the subject, it may be hoped that the fate which befell Rome, in so far as it was due to the special causes of decay now under consideration, may be averted by close adherence to two important principles. The first of these principles is that local revenues should be expended locally. The second is that over-centralisation should above all things be avoided. This may be done either by the creation of self-governing institutions in those dependencies whose civilisation is sufficiently advanced to justify the adoption of this course; or by decentralising the executive Government in cases where self-government, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, is impossible or undesirable.

6. Barbarous Finance.—Mr. Hodgkin says that the system of Imperial taxation under the Roman Empire was "wasteful, oppressive, and in a word, barbarous." He gives, as an instance in point, the Roman Indiction. This was the name given to the system under which the taxable value of the land throughout the Empire was reassessed every fifteen years. At each reassessment, Mr. Hodgkin says, "the few who had prospered found themselves assessed on the higher value which their lands had acquired, while the many who were sinking down into poverty obtained, it is to be feared, but little relief from taxation on account of the higher rate which was charged to all."

It is somewhat unpleasant to reflect that the system which Mr. Hodgkin so strongly condemns, and which he even regards as one of the causes of the downfall of the Roman Empire, is—save in respect to the intervals of periodical reassessment—very similar to that which exists everywhere in India, except in the province of Bengal, where the rights conferred on the zemindars under Lord Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement are still respected in spite of occasional unwise suggestions that time and the fall in the value of the rupee have obliterated any moral obligations to maintain them. Nor are the results obtained in India altogether dissimilar from those observable under Roman rule. The knowledge that reassessment was imminent has, it is believed, often discouraged the outlay of private capital on improving the land. More than this, it is notorious that, at one time, some provinces suffered greatly from the mistakes made by the settlement officers. These latter were animated with the best intentions, but, in spite of their marked ability—for they were all specially selected men—they often found the task entrusted to them impossible of execution. Unfortunately political or administrative errors cannot be condoned by reason of good intentions. Like the Greeks of old, the natives of India suffer from the mistakes of their rulers.

The intentions of the British, as compared with the Roman Government are, however, noteworthy from one point of view, inasmuch as from a correct appreciation of those intentions it is possible to evolve a principle perhaps in some degree calculated to avert the consequences which befell Rome, partly by reason of fiscal errors.

In spite of some high-sounding commonplaces which were at times enunciated by Roman lawgivers and statesmen, and in which a ring of utilitarian philosophy is to be recognised,[17] and of the further fact that, as in the case of Verres, a check was sometimes applied to the excesses of local Governors, it is almost certainly true that the rulers of Rome did not habitually act on the recognition of any very strong moral obligation binding on the Imperial Government in its treatment of subject races. The merits of any fiscal system were probably judged mainly from the point of view of the amount of funds which it poured into the Treasury. The fiscal principles on which the Emperors of Rome acted survived long after the fall of the Roman Empire. They deserve the epithet of "barbarous" which Mr. Hodgkin has bestowed upon them.

The point of departure of the British Government is altogether different. Its intentions are admirable. Every farthing which has been spent—and, it may be feared, often wasted—on the numerous military expeditions in which the Government of India has been engaged during the last century would, in the eyes of many, certainly be considered as expenditure incurred on objects which were of paramount interest to the Indian taxpayers. Moreover, a whole category of British legislation connected with fiscal matters has been undertaken, not so much with a view to increase the revenue as with the object of distributing the burthen of taxation equally amongst the different classes of society. Much of this legislation has been perfectly justifiable and even beneficial. Nevertheless, it should never be forgotten that it is generally based on the purely Western principle that abstract justice is in itself a desirable thing to attain, and that a fiscal or administrative system stands condemned if it is wanting in symmetry. It was against any extreme application of this principle that Burke directed some of his most forcible diatribes.[18] It has been already pointed out that the commendable want of intellectual symmetry which is the inherited possession of the Englishman gives him a very great advantage as an Imperialist agent over those trained in the rigid and bureaucratic school of Continental Europe. But the Englishman is a Western, albeit an Anglo-Saxon Western, and, from the point of view of all processes of reasoning, the gulf which separates any one member of the European family from another is infinitely less wide than that which divides all Westerns from all Orientals. Even the Englishman, therefore, is constrained—sometimes much against his will—to bow down in that temple of Logic, the existence of which the Oriental is disposed altogether to ignore. Indeed, sometimes the choice lies between the enforcement on the reluctant Oriental of principles based on logic—occasionally on the very simple science of arithmetic—or abandoning the work of civilisation altogether. From this point of view, the dangers to which the British Empire is exposed by reason of fiscal measures are due not, as was the case with Rome, to barbarous, but rather to ultra-scientific finance. The following is a case in point.