Other measures with the same object were carried out in the Company’s own territories. Bengal, too long ruled by the governor-general or his delegate, was placed under a separate lieutenant-governor in May 1854; a department of public works was established in each presidency, and engineering colleges were provided. An imperial system of telegraphs followed; the first link of railway communication was completed in 1855; well-considered plans mapped out the course of other lines and their method of administration; the Ganges canal, which then exceeded “all the irrigation lines of Lombardy and Egypt together,” was completed; and despite the cost of wars in the Punjab and Burma, liberal provision was made for metalled roads and bridges. The useless military boards were swept away; selection took the place of seniority in the higher commands; an army clothing and a stud department were created, and the medical service underwent complete reorganization.
“Unity of authority coupled with direct responsibility” was the keynote of his policy. In nine masterly minutes he suggested means for strengthening the Company’s European forces, calling attention to the dangers that threatened the English community, “a handful of scattered strangers”; but beyond the additional powers of recruitment which at his entreaty were granted in the last charter act of 1853, his proposals were shelved by the home authorities, who scented no danger and wished to avoid expense. In his administration Dalhousie vigorously asserted the control of the civil government over military affairs, and when Sir Charles Napier ordered certain allowances, given as compensation for the dearness of provisions, to be granted to the sepoys on a system which had not been sanctioned from headquarters, and threatened to repeat the offence, the governor-general found it necessary to administer such a rebuke that the hot-headed soldier resigned his command.
Dalhousie’s reforms were not confined to the departments of public works and military affairs. He created an imperial system of post-offices, reducing the rates of carrying letters and introducing postage stamps. To him India owes the first department of public instruction; it was he who placed the gaols under proper inspection, abolishing the practice of branding convicts; put down the crime of meriahs or human sacrifices; freed converts to other religions from the loss of their civil rights; inaugurated the system of administrative reports; and enlarged and dignified the legislative council of India. His wide interest in everything that concerned the welfare of the country was shown in the encouragement he gave to the culture of tea, in his protection of forests, in the preservation of ancient and historic monuments. With the object of improving civil administration, he closed the useless college in Calcutta for the education of young civilians, establishing in its place a proper system of training them in mufasal stations, and subjecting them to departmental examinations. He was equally careful of the well-being of the European soldier, providing him with healthy recreations and public gardens. To the civil service he gave improved leave and pension rules, while he purified its moral by forbidding all share in trading concerns, by vigorously punishing insolvents, and by his personal example of careful selection in the matter of patronage. As a comprehensive view of the constitution of the Indian government, dealing with the functions of its various members and the different parts of the official machinery, nothing could be more masterly than his minute of the 13th of October 1852. Indeed no governor-general ever penned a larger number of weighty papers dealing with public affairs in India. Even after laying down office and while on his way home, he forced himself, ill as he was, to review his own administration in a document of such importance that the House of Commons gave orders for its being printed (Blue Book 245 of 1856).
His foreign policy was guided by a desire to recognize the “independence” of the larger native states, and to avoid extending the political relations of his government with foreign powers outside India. Pressed to intervene in Hyderabad, he refused to do so, laying down the doctrine that interference was only justified “if the administration of native princes tends unquestionably to the injury of the subjects or of the allies of the British government.” Protection in his view carried no right of interference in the affairs of what he called “independent” states. In this spirit he negotiated in 1853 a treaty with the nizam, which provided funds for the maintenance of the contingent kept up by the British in support of that prince’s authority, by the assignment of the Berars in lieu of annual payments of the cost and large outstanding arrears. “The Berar treaty,” he told Sir Charles Wood, “is more likely to keep the nizam on his throne than anything that has happened for fifty years to him,” while at the same time the control thus acquired over a strip of territory intervening between Bombay and Nagpur promoted his policy of consolidation and his schemes of railway extension. The same spirit induced him to tolerate a war of succession in Bahawalpur, so long as the contending candidates did not violate British territory. This reluctance to increase his responsibilities further caused him to refrain from punishing Dost Mahommed for the part he had taken in the Sikh War, and resolutely to refuse to enter upon any negotiations until the amir himself came forward. Then he steered a middle course between the proposals of his own agent, Herbert Edwardes, who advocated an offensive alliance, and those of John Lawrence, who would have avoided any sort of engagement. He himself drafted the short treaty of peace and friendship which Lawrence signed in 1855, that officer receiving in 1856 the order of K.C.B, in acknowledgment of his services in the matter. While, however, Dalhousie was content with a mutual engagement with the Afghan chief, binding each party to respect the territories of the other, he saw that a larger measure of interference was needed in Baluchistan, and with the khan of Kalat he authorized Major Jacob to negotiate a treaty of subordinate co-operation on the 14th of May 1854. The khan was guaranteed an annual subsidy of Rs. 50,000, in return for the treaty which “bound him to us wholly and exclusively.” To this the home authorities demurred, but the engagement was duly ratified, and the subsidy was largely increased by Dalhousie’s successors. On the other hand, he insisted on leaving all matters concerning Persia and Central Asia to the decision of the queen’s advisers. The frontier tribesmen it was obviously necessary to coerce into good behaviour after the annexation of the Punjab. “The hillmen,” he wrote, “regard the plains as their food and prey,” and the Afridis, Mohmands, Black Mountain tribes, Waziris and others had to be taught that their new neighbours would not tolerate outrages. But he proclaimed to one and all his desire for peace, and urged upon them the duty of tribal responsibility.
The settlement of the Oudh question was reserved to the last. The home authorities had begged Dalhousie to prolong his tenure of office during the Crimean War, but the difficulties of the problem no less than complications elsewhere had induced him to delay operations. In 1854 he appointed Outram as resident at the court of Lucknow, directing him to submit a report on the condition of the province. This was furnished in March 1855. But though the state of disorder and misrule revealed by it called for prompt remedy, Dalhousie, looking at the treaty of 1801, considered that he was bound to proceed in the matter of reform with the king’s consent. He proposed, therefore, to demand a transfer to the Company of the entire administration, the king merely retaining his royal rank, certain privileges in the courts, and a liberal allowance. If he should refuse this arrangement, a general rising was almost certain to follow, and then the British government would of necessity intervene on its own terms. On the 21st of November 1855 the court of directors instructed Dalhousie to assume the powers essential to the permanence of good government in Oudh, and to give the king no option unless he was sure that his majesty would surrender the administration rather than risk a revolution. Dalhousie was in wretched health and on the eve of retirement when the belated orders reached him; but he at once laid down instructions for Outram in every detail, moved up troops, and elaborated a scheme of government with particular orders as to conciliating local opinion. The king refused to sign the treaty put before him, and a proclamation annexing the province was therefore issued on the 13th of February 1856.
Only one important matter now remained to him before quitting office. The insurrection of the half-civilized Kolarian Santals of Bengal against the extortions of landlords and money-lenders had been severely repressed, but the causes of the insurrection had still to be reviewed and a remedy provided. By removing the tract of country from the ordinary regulations, enforcing the residence of British officers there, and employing the Santal headmen in a local police, he ensured a system of administration which afterwards proved eminently successful.
At length, after seven years of strenuous labour, Dalhousie, on the 6th of March 1856, set sail for England on board the Company’s “Firoze,” an object of general sympathy and not less general respect. At Alexandria he was carried by H.M.S. “Caradoc” to Malta, and thence by the “Tribune” to Spithead, which he reached on the 13th of May. His return had been eagerly looked for by statesmen who hoped that he would resume his public career, by the Company which voted him an annual pension of £5000, by public bodies which showered upon him every mark of respect, and by the queen who earnestly prayed for the “blessing of restored health and strength.” That blessing was not to be his. He lingered on, seeking sunshine in Malta and medical treatment at Malvern, Edinburgh and other places in vain obedience to his doctors. The outbreak of the mutiny led to bitter attacks at home upon his policy, and to strange misrepresentation of his public acts, while on the other hand John Lawrence invoked his counsel and influence, and those who really knew his work in India cried out, “Oh, for a dictator,” and his return “for one hour!” To all these cries he turned a deaf ear, refusing to embarrass those who were responsible by any expressions of opinion, declining to undertake his own defence or to assist in his vindication through the public press, and by his last directions sealing up his private journal and papers of personal interest against publication until fifty years after his death. On the 9th of August 1859 his youngest daughter, Edith, was married at Dalhousie Castle to Sir James Fergusson, Bart. In the same castle Dalhousie died on the 19th of December 1860; he was buried in the old churchyard of Cockpen.
Dalhousie’s family consisted of two daughters, and the marquessate became extinct at his death.
The detailed events of the period will be found in Sir William Lee-Warner’s Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.; Sir E. Arnold’s Dalhousie’s Administration of British India; Sir C. Jackson’s Vindication of Dalhousie’s Indian Administration; Sir W. W. Hunter’s Dalhousie; Capt. L. J. Trotter’s Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie; the duke of Argyll’s India under Dalhousie and Canning; Broughton MSS. (British Museum); and parliamentary papers.