British Influence in India, an Essay (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. The measures that have been taken for the administration .1 ... . n . vur adminish a- oi justice in our Indian empire are next to be examined, m o/. 1. From rfrrup- This, as it is the highest duty of any government, has ?0%ii/Qffi- been, in the case of our Indian Government, by far the aals- most difficult. To carry into execution the principles of law that have obtained amongst a people totally different to ourselves in national character, and contained in no regular code, but deduced from precepts scattered through sacred books, is of itself no easy task. But to do this in an infinity of cases of all different kinds, in addition to the work of collecting the revenue and carrying on the civil government, was the task really set before the few civilians who were scattered over the territories we possessed in the early period of our rule. To aid them in it they indeed had qualified expounders of native law, and a more or less organized system of native judicial and police officials. From their excessive amount of business, which, as Sir H. Strachey tells us, almost entirely prevented the civilians from gaining an intimate acquaintance with native habits, character and language, they were obliged to put themselves far too much in the hands of these officers. The generality of the subordinate native officials were such as we should expect to find them in the disorganized fragments of what had been a gigantic despotism. You cannot easily find in India a trustworthy agent, on whom you can safely confer authority over his neighbours. Every one of these subordinates ought to be narrowly watched, or he will sell justice to any who bribes him, or use his authority in the most cruel and arbitrary way. It was to agents of t...