THE LEE REPORT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—You are perhaps right in welcoming the Report of Lord Lee's Commission and strongly recommending its adop-
tion, on the grounds .that it might have been much "worse, but there is little else to be said for it. As a unanimous Report it was bound to be a compromise, a bargain very much in favour of the views of the Indian members. But when you say that the improvements proposed financially will result in again attracting the right type of Englishman to enter the Indian Civil Service, you are very wide of the mark. Nothing short of an increase in basic pay of at least 30 per cent. would have anything like that effect, and an increase of 50 per cent. would be necessary to bring back the old conditions and standards which meant a life of tolerable comfort and joy in one's life and work. The concessions as to overseas pay and free passages, though rightly given to imported officers ,only, are very far short of even the minimum 30 per cent. increase called for, and will do nothing towards restoring the attractiveness of a Service which will be still underpaid as well as subjected to comparatively unpleasant conditions.
The rate of Indianization proposed, with its cut-and-dried percentages, is much too rapid for present circumstances, in which the supply of qualified Indians falls far short of the numbers needed for the programme suggested. Coupled with the placing of some of .the All-India Services entirely under the Provincial Administrations, it means a deterioration of the present standards of Government which the Com- mission foresees and acknowledges, but thinks the risk justifiable, thereby showing entire ignorance of the present situation in India, which leaves no margin for such deterioration without involving disaster. Too rapid Indianization and the unrest caused by the political agitators have already reduced that standard to the verge of danger, and the smallest farther relaxation cannot be " risked " without the most lamentable results.
One good thing the Commission has done, in pointing out the necessity for the appointments of the Overseas officers being made on specific contracts, for breach of which relief can be claimed in the Law Courts. This is the essential preliminary to the attracting of any kind of qualified European to the Indian Services. The Indian Government and Secretary of State cannot even now be counted on to do justice to their employees in all cases (as shown in a glaring manner in the matter of the refusal to grant the increased pension recom- mended by the last Commission for several senior officers of certain All-India Services), and with the increased Indianiza- tion of the Government, which means the increased influence of the Indian politicians who resent the presence of the European official, the prospect of sympathetic or even barely just treatment would he too doubtful to bring into the net the most simple and trustful candidate without assurance of an impartial hearing by an authority with power to redress any proposed wrongful treatment. The proposed standing " Public Service Commission for India," which will make appointments and settle the conditions of service and inquire into grievances, is also a move in the right direction. The necessity for it, has long been acknowledged, and Lord Lee does good service in pressing for its early appointment.
I could say much more on the fatal results of the proposed policy of too rapid Indianization, but the Commission was no doubt hampered by the necessity of keeping strictly within the " terms of reference," and after all might have done much worse, and in these days we have to be thankful for small mercies. Lord Lee made, however, a serious mistake in rejecting as " outside his references " any inquiry into the case of the distinguished senior officers of the All-India Services who have most unjustly, on disingenuous and mis- leading grounds, been refused the increased pensions granted in some eases in accordance with the recommendation of the Islington Commission. The terms of his reference included specifically the attracting of the right type of man to enter the Indian Services, and if words mean anything, this case did come within those terms, as this well-known example of gross injustice will do, and has done, more than anything else that has happened to make the Indian Services stink in the nostrils of just the right type of men of Anglo-Indian descent and connexions, who see their fathers and uncles and cousins rechiced to abject poverty owing, to repudiated promises and a distinct breach of faith.—I am, Sir, &c., F. R. B.
Previous page
