15th Dec.—Started for Calcutta, and found Gorst[5] in the same train, and had a long talk with him. Randolph Churchill is as keen as ever about Egypt, and is going to make a speech about it at Edinburgh. Gorst has come to India professionally ‘to advise the Nizam as to the retrocession of the Berar Provinces,’ but I was in doubt which side he and Churchill took in Indian matters. He told me, however, that up to the present moment the Fourth Party had not committed themselves on the Ilbert Bill, and I advised him strongly to take up the cause of the people. It was going a-begging among statesmen, for the natives trusted neither the Conservatives nor Mr. Gladstone, and though they were grateful to Lord Ripon personally for his sympathy they quite understood he had been able to do next to nothing for them. There was no reason why Churchill should not raise the cry of ‘The Queen and the natives of India,’ as against the official class. It seems that Gorst formerly brought the matter of Berar before Lord Salisbury, and interested him the right way, but Lytton was adverse, and afterwards it was Gorst who prosecuted the ‘Statesman’ newspaper on the part of the Government for its publication of the facts relating to Salar Jung’s attempted arrest, and the bribe taken by Sir Richard Meade. He told me the prosecution was dropped in consequence of representations from the Calcutta Foreign Office that a scandal would be created, and he himself was of opinion that Sir Richard Meade would have come badly out of the affair. I warned him how difficult he would find it to get speech of the Nizam, or to do anything at Hyderabad if staying at the Residency. But I did not tell him all I knew of the politics of the place, or about the Draft Treaty, for I mean to set the facts first before Lord Ripon.
“16th Dec.—Still in the train. Read up the Hyderabad Blue Books (those given me by Laik Ali). They are very instructive.”
CHAPTER V
CALCUTTA
“17th Dec.
“Arrived at Calcutta, and were met by Walter Pollen [an aide-de-camp of Lord Ripon, and a private friend of ours], who has taken capital rooms for us at 2, Russell Street. Wrote our names down at Government House, and arranged with Primrose, the private secretary, that I am to have an interview with Lord Ripon on Wednesday afternoon. Sent several letters of introduction which had been given us to Hindus of the place. There is notice of a meeting of a thousand persons held under Rangiar Naidu at Madras to protest against the Address presented to T.; I have telegraphed to congratulate him.
“18th Dec.—A very busy day, as I had to write a vast number of letters for the English mail. In the morning Norendro Nath Sen, the editor of the ‘Indian Mirror,’ called, a well-informed man. I asked him about Lord Ripon, and he said he was supporting him all he could in public, but privately he feared Lord Ripon was weak. In point of fact he had done nothing for the Indians though he had shown his sympathy and taken their part in their quarrels with the English. ‘We are thankful,’ he said, ‘for small mercies. If the Ilbert Bill had been given in its original integrity it would have been worth something. Now it is worth nothing except as the recognition of a principle. Still we are thankful.’ ‘As to the local self-government bill,’ he said, ‘people are very suspicious. There are many who looked upon it as likely to be made use of by the officials to impose heavier local rates in the people’s name than they would venture to do in their own.’ I think this very likely, as it is exactly what Ismaïl did with his Chamber of Notables in Egypt. Increased taxation is the aim of all these despotic governments, of the Indian more than any. Nor were they satisfied with regard to the Bengal Rent Bill. I asked him about the Mohammedan community here, and he said they were very timid and time-serving. He had proposed to them to get up a demonstration on my arrival, but they had been afraid of the Government. Amir Ali, the head of the advanced party, was like an Englishman, and he and his followers played into the hands of the Government. He himself had more sympathy with Abd-el-Latif, and the old-fashioned Mohammedans who kept themselves independent, but these were afraid to express their opinions. They looked on Amir Ali as a renegade. I have, fortunately, letters to both these leaders, and one from Jemal-ed-Din to Abd-el-Latif, so I hope I shall be able to gain their confidence.
“Later Sir Jotendro Mohun Tagore called, a Hindu of rank as he has the title of Maharajah. He confirmed much of what Norendro said about Lord Ripon, and was clean against the Rent Bill, but, as he explained, he was prejudiced on this point, being himself a Zemindar. The point of the bill is to break the agreement made by Lord Cornwallis in 1793, by which the absolute ownership of the land was recognized in the Zemindars. The present tenure is briefly this: the Zemindars are the proprietors, and cannot be assessed at more than one-fifth of the gross produce of their estate. They generally let their land to middlemen or farmers, who employ the ryots or labourers, just as we do in England. The effect of the bill will be to transfer the ownership to these occupants, who will then hold them directly from the Government. At present no increasing of the assessment is announced, but the agreement made by Lord Cornwallis being once broken, it seems probable that this will follow. The Zemindars will be reduced to the ownership only of such lands as they occupy. The contention of the Government would seem to be that the land will then be better cultivated and produce more, and their fifth be proportionately increased. But Sir Jotendro is of opinion that the old system of husbandry was safer than any new system is likely to be. The land might be made to produce more by steam ploughing and high farming, but in the end the fertility would be exhausted. Here, again, precisely the same thing has happened in Egypt. He has promised, however, to put us in the way of seeing some villages here and there that we may study the question on the spot, and we are to make him a return call in a day or two.