Rulers of India: The Earl of Mayo

by William Wilson Hunter

'I am here only for a time. The able and earnest officers who surround me will, at no distant period, return to their English homes; but the Power which we represent will endure for ages. Hourly is this great Empire brought nearer and nearer to the throne of our Queen. The steam-vessel and the railroad enable England, year by year, to enfold India in a closer embrace. But the coils she seeks to entwine around her are no iron fetters, but the golden chains of affection and of peace. The days of conquest are past; the age of improvement has begun.

'Chiefs and Princes, advance in the right way, and secure to your children's children, and to future generations of your subjects, the favouring protection of a power who only seeks your good.'

'We see,' wrote one of his Councillors after his death,—'we see Lord Mayo in every line of this speech, the frank and courteous and enlightened gentleman; but, at the same time, the strong and worthy representative of the Queen, and the unmistakeable ruler of the Empire. Every Native Prince who met him looked upon Lord Mayo as the ideal of an English Viceroy. They all felt instinctively that they could place perfect confidence in everything that he told them; and their respect, I ought rather to say their reverence, was all the deeper, because, while they knew that he was their master, they felt also that he was their friend.'

Lord Mayo discerned the evil as well as the good of our Feudatory system. He was often sorely hurt by the spectacle of Native mal-administration, which our principles of non-interference rendered him powerless to amend. He found that the existing system allowed of petty intermeddling, but often precluded salutary intervention—straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel. His mind was attracted to the possibility of developing a scheme which would secure to the Indian Feudatories their present independence, and at the same time arm the suzerain power with adequate checks on its abuse.

In his personal and social relations with the Feudatories, he made them realise that the one path towards the Viceregal friendship was the good government of their territories. The Indian Foreign Office strictly regulates the official courtesies of a Governor-General to each Prince, and these regulations Lord Mayo accurately observed. But he made the Native Chiefs feel that beyond such State receptions there was an interior region of intercourse and kindly interest, and that this region was open to every one who deserved it, and to no one else. He led them to see that his friendship had nothing to do with the greatness of their territory, or their degree of political independence, or the number of jealously counted guns which saluted them from our forts. These considerations regulated his State ceremonials; but his private friendship was only to be won by the personal merit of character and conduct.

By his attitude he practically said to each: 'If you wish to be a great man at my Court, govern well at home. Be just and merciful to your people. We do not ask you whether you come with full hands, but whether you come with clean hands. No presents that you may bring can buy the British favour; no display which you may make will raise your dignity in our eyes; no cringing or flattery will gain my friendship. We estimate you not by the splendour of your offerings to us, nor by the pomp of your retinue here, but by your conduct to your subjects at home. For ourselves, we have nothing to ask of you. But for your people we demand good government, and we shall judge of you by this standard alone. And in our private friendship and hospitality, we shall prefer the smallest Feudatory who rules righteously, to the greatest Prince who misgoverns his people.'

The Native Chiefs very soon understood the maxims which regulated his personal relations towards them; and the outburst of passionate grief that took place among them on his death proves whether the Indian Princes are, or are not, capable of appreciating such a line of conduct. As regards his public dealing with them, the four following principles, although never formally enunciated in any single paper, stand out in many letters and State documents from his pen:—

I.	Non-annexation and a fixed resolve that even the misrule of a Native Chief must not be used as a weapon for aggrandising our power.
II.	But a constant feeling of responsibility attached to the British Government as suzerain, for any serious misrule in Native States; and a firm determination to interfere when British interference became necessary to prevent misgovernment. Such interference to consist not in annexing the territory, but in displacing the Chief, and administering by British officers or a Native regency in the interest of the lawful heirs.
III.	Non-interference, and the lightest possible form of control, with Chiefs who governed well. Lord Mayo tried to make the Indian Feudatories feel that it rested with themselves to decide the degree of practical independence which they should enjoy, and that that degree would be strictly regulated by the degree of good government which they gave to their subjects.
IV.	Above all, and as an indispensable complement to his whole policy, the education of the younger Native Chiefs under British officers, and in a high sense of their responsibilities alike to their subjects and to the Suzerain Power.

I shall endeavour very briefly to show how Lord Mayo gave effect to these principles.