Rulers of India: The Earl of Mayo

by William Wilson Hunter

The mechanism of the Supreme Government of India consists of a Cabinet with the Governor-General as absolute President. The weakness of that Government in the last century, down to the time of Lord Cornwallis, arose from the fact that the Governor-General was not absolute within his Cabinet, but merely primus inter pares, with a single vote which counted no more than the vote of any other member, except in the case of an equal division, when he had the casting-vote. This attempt at government by a majority was the secret of much of the misrule which has left so deep a stain on the East India Company's first years of administration in Bengal. Sir Philip Francis and his brother Councillors appointed by the Regulating Act of 1773, brought the system to a dead-lock. The hard task then laid upon Warren Hastings was not only government by a majority, but government in the teeth of a hostile majority. It is to the credit of Lord Cornwallis that before accepting the office of Governor-General in 1786, he insisted that the Governor-General should really have power to rule.

The new plan subsisted with little change till 1858, the last year of the East India Company. While the Governor-General retained the power of over-ruling his Council, as a matter of fact he wisely refrained, except in grave crises or emergencies, from exercising his supreme authority. Every order ran in the name of the President and the collective Cabinet, technically the Governor-General in Council. And under the Company every case actually passed through the hands of each Member of Council, circulating at a snail's pace in little mahogany boxes from one Councillor's house to another. 'The system involved,' says a former Member of Council, 'an amount of elaborate minute writing which seems now hardly conceivable. The Governor-General and the Council used to perform work which would now be disposed of by an Under-Secretary.'

Lord Canning, the first Viceroy under the Crown, found that, if he was to raise the administration to a higher standard of promptitude and efficiency, he must put a stop to this. He remodelled the Government 'into the semblance of a Cabinet, with himself as President.' Each Member of the Supreme Council practically became a Minister at the head of his own Department—or the 'Initiating Member' of the Department—responsible for its ordinary business, but bound to lay important cases before the Viceroy, whose will forms the final arbitrament in all great questions of policy in which he sees fit to exercise it.

'The ordinary current business of the Government,' writes Sir John Strachey, 'is divided among the Members of the Council, much in the same manner in which, in England, it is divided among the Cabinet Ministers, each member having a separate Department of his own.' The Governor-General himself keeps one Department specially in his own hands, generally the Foreign Office; and Lord Mayo, being insatiable of work, retained two, the Foreign Department and the great Department of Public Works. Various changes took place in the Supreme Government even during his short Viceroyalty, but the following table represents the personnel of his Government as fairly as any single view can. It shows clearly of what the 'Government of India' was made up, apart from the immediate staff of the Viceroy. But it should be mentioned that Lord Mayo was fortunate in having in Major (now General Sir) Owen Tudor Burne, a Private Secretary of the highest capacity for smoothly and effectively transacting business. Major Burne did much to lighten the personal labour of the Viceroy, and became his most intimate confidante and friend.

DEPARTMENT.	MEMBER OF COUNCIL.	CHIEF SECRETARY.
I. Foreign Department II. Public Works Department III. Home Department IV. Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce V. Financial Department VI. Military Department VII. Legislative Department	THE VICEROY. THE VICEROY. Hon. Sir Barrow Ellis, K.C.S.I. Hon. Sir J. Strachey, K.C.S.I. Hon. Sir R. Temple, K.C.S.I. Major-General the Hon. Sir H. Norman, K.C.S.I. Hon. Sir Fitzjames Stephen, Q.C., K.C.S.I.	Sir C. U. Aitchison, K.C.S.I. Divided into branches. Sir E. Clive Bayley, K.C.S.I. Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B. Mr. Barclay Chapman, C.S.I. General H. K. Burne, C.B. Mr. Whitley Stokes, C.S.I., D.C.L.

Lord Mayo, besides his duties as President of the Council and final source of authority in each of the seven Departments, was therefore in his own person Foreign Minister and Minister of Public Works. The Home Minister, the Minister of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce, and the Finance Minister, were members of the India Civil Service, together with the Secretaries and Under-Secretaries in those and in the Foreign Department. Of the other two Departments, the Military was presided over by a distinguished soldier, and the Legislative by an eminent member of the English Bar.

Routine and ordinary matters were disposed of by the Member of Council within whose Department they fell. Papers of greater importance were sent, with the initiating Member's opinion, to the Viceroy, who either concurred in or modified it. If the Viceroy concurred, the case generally ended, and the Secretary worked up the Member's note into a Letter or Resolution, to be issued as the orders of the Governor-General in Council. But in matters of weight, the Viceroy, even when concurring with the initiating Member, often directed the papers to be circulated either to the whole Council, or to certain of the Members whose views he might think it expedient to obtain on the question. In cases in which he did not concur with the initiating Member's views, the papers were generally circulated to all the other Members, or the Governor-General ordered them to be brought up in Council. Urgent business was submitted to the Governor-General direct by the Secretary of the Department under which it fell; and the Viceroy either initiated the order himself, or sent the case for initiation to the Member of Council at the head of the Department to which it belonged.

This was the paper side of Lord Mayo's work. All orders issued in his name. Every case of real importance passed through his hands, and bore his order, or his signature under the initiating Member's note. Urgent matters in all the seven Departments went to him, as I have said, in the first instance. He had also to decide as to which cases could be best disposed of by the Departmental Member and himself, and which ought to be circulated to the whole Council or to certain of the Members. In short, he had to see, as his orders ran in the name of the Governor-General in Council, that they fairly represented the collective views of his Government. The 'circulation' of the papers took place, and still does, in oblong mahogany boxes, air-tight, and fitted with a uniform Chubb's lock. Each Under-Secretary, Deputy-Secretary, Chief Secretary, and Member of Council gets his allotted share of these little boxes every morning; each has his own key; and after 'noting' in the cases that come before him, sends on the locked box with his opinion added to the file. The accumulated boxes from the seven Departments pour into the Viceroy throughout the day. In addition to this vast diurnal tide of general work, Lord Mayo had two of the heaviest Departments in his own hands, as Member in charge of the Foreign Office and of Public Works.

The more personal duties of the Viceroy divided themselves into three branches. Every week he personally met, in the first place, each of his Chief Secretaries; in the second place, his Viceregal or Executive Council; and, in the third place, his Legislative Council. Each of the seven Secretaries had his own day with the Governor-General, when he laid before His Excellency questions of special importance, answered questions arising out of them, and took his orders touching any fresh materials to be included in the files of papers before circulating them.