THE MACHINERY OF A NATIVE STATE.
r NGLISHMEN all seem to believe, when they think on the .1.14 subject at all, which is not often, that a "Native State" is a kind of political mollusc, an imperfect organization, alive, it is true, but with only a stomach and a head. There is the population, corviable et pinible a misericorde, and there is the "Rajah," or " Nuwab," sole ruler, legislator, judge, and land- lord throughout his dominions. No description could be more inexact, and it may be worth while, as the Calcutta Review gives us an opportunity, to correct a blunder which has often produced important consequences. In the last number of that periodical, so unique and so wretchedly unequal, there is a paper on "Native States," obviously written by one of the very few Hindoos who have risen to eminence in our diplo- matic service. One, and only one, is an envoy, in a minor Court of Rajpootana, without a European immediately above him, and we shall not, we think, be mistaken in attributing this paper to his pen. He writes of course with the stiffness natural to a man who has mastered English thoroughly, but has seldom heard it colloquially employed; the immensity of his subject makes him wander ; and he knows too much to per- ceive exactly where his readers' knowledge begins and ends. Still, his unconscious information is valuable, particularly to those in whose ears the phrase "a Native State" is a mere political expression. We will endeavour, by filling up some of the gaps in his account, to give our readers some faint idea, not indeed of a Native State,—that would require a volume, —but of the machinery through which a native government does its daily work.
In the first place, then, there is at the head of the State a Prince, Hindoo or Mohammedan, who reigns by hereditary right, and occupies a position absolutely without analogy in Europe, either as it exists or as it has ever existed. He has a "divine right," the office of ruler being among both Hindoos and Mohammedans sacrosanct to a degree which induces men of those creeds often to judge rulers by an exceptional code of morals. To disobey a clear order given by his Prince on any subject whatsoever within his competence is held by every Hindoo and Mussulman a wrong, as well as an ungentle- manly and illegal act. But the Prince is not a Otesar, not a Czar, not a legitimate dynast, not a mere chief magistrate,
not an incarnate State. The single European title which describes his position accurately, is one which has never been borne by a genuine officer, one invented, if we remember right, by Napoleon, the "Grand Referendary." On every point, political, social, or individual, which can be referred to him, the Hindoo or. Mussulman head of the State is absolute, can order anything, and get his order obeyed. But then the things which can be referred are comparatively very few. He has scarcely any power of legislation in the strict sense of the' term. God completed legislation ages upon ages ago, when Munoo or Mohammed died, acranged the bases of society and of action, fixed the relation of citizens to citizens and of citizens to the world, and the duty of man is to fulfil God's law, not to waste life in futile efforts to supersede it. Is a Prince wiser than his Maker, that he should declare men equal before the law, when the Creator millions of ages since decreed their inequality ? A Hindoo. Sovereign can no more decree that all men shall be liable to- conscriptions or a Mussulman Prince establish caveat emptor as a rule of trade, than Parliament could order rain not to. fall in the daytime. The Creator has revealed his will on those subjects, and the Prince's business is to carry it out, not to be a new Incarnation, with power to make new laws,- Things are to go on as they did, not in some better way, and_ the Sovereign in his highest capacity is supreme Judge or law expounder, not supreme Legislator or law-maker. If he any such authority the nearest moollah or pundit. will tell him in the plainest terms that he is an impious fool, and if he persists in such conduct, why, the "sword hath an edge and the scarf hath a fold," and Eastern chemists are not great in toxicological analysis. As a matter of fact, a genuine, defiant, novel modification of "Law" can no more be- established in a native State, than a modification in climate- can be established in a European one. It is only as adminis- trative chief that the Prince is absolute in our sense, and even- in this his absolutism is limited by the power of custom, by- the rights of his nobles, and by the fact that his soldiery are- intensely national. He is master, no doubt, of individual lives- and estates, and specially of the lives and estates of his ser- vants, but he could not make a great change, say in tenures, without such a consent, first, of his Cabinet, secondly, of his Privy Council, as would indicate that public opinion was. not, at all events, excessively hostile. An individual Prince,. either from his popularity with his people, or a sanctity attaching to his blood, or the devotion of a class, may no. doubt do a great deal, but the regular average prince is only Premier, Foreign Secretary, Commander-in-Chief, and Chief Justice in Appeal. He may ruin his State, and very often does, by declining to fulfil any of those functions, or fulfilling them badly, but he cannot, unless specially supported, step, beyond them.
He seldom does, and the actual work of government, as we understand it, is entrusted to the Cabinet, a body composed usually of five principal Secretaries of State ;—the Vizier, Moosahib, or whatever he is called, who is the Prince's alter ego, sovereign for details, who is as often forced on the Prince by public opinion as chosen by him; the Commander-in-Chief, who.- reports direct to the Prince ; the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Dewan) ; the Minister of Grace and Justice (Chief Moulvie or Pundit); and an officer who has seldom a title, who is not exactly selected either by Prince or Premier, and whose- precise influence we shall perhaps fail to explain, but who is' really incarnate Public Opinion, the representative of the population, trusted to tell the Prince what the "folk," —the word slightly changed is good Sanscrit,—approve or disapprove. He is usually the Court banker, but he may be anything except an official in the direct service of the State.. The members of this Cabinet meet at night, sit cross- legged at the Prince's feet, each with note-book and pencil, discuss freely, advise freely, and then register each for himself the final decree. The talk is not a bit more slavish than in the West, and any punishment for -advice beyond frown is considered insupportable tyranny. Of course a prince may explode, and as, to his Ministers, he is genuinely absolute,—may execute there and then ; but it would be nearly as dangerous to do it as for Napoleon to send M. de Walewski to Cayenne. On any important occasion one or two important officers, the man who finds money for the Court, if he is not already seated as Public Opinion, a great noble or two, the cadets of the Royal House, sometimes even an old lady with a head, are called in,—and the resolution adopted is greatly influenced by their advice. On supreme occasions the Privy Council, that is, every official of import- awe, aided by every great noble on the spot, by anybody, great or small, whose opinion the Premier thinks worth having, by two or three of -the leading clergy, by four or five traders, and by a small landholder or two, is consulted, and only a very bold, or able, or pig-headed prince will overrule them all. Indeed, except in the foreign department, the war department, or the discussion of some personal question, such as the execution of a traitor, he cannot safely do it without risking his throne. Details of course are very seldom touched on, either in the Cabi- net or the Council. They are left to the departments, each of which, except one, is regularly organized, as in Europe. Each Minister has his houseful of clerks, his palaceful of records, his graduated hierarchy of underlings, exactly as in the West. There is a hierarchy of military officers, of revenue collectors, deputy collectors, and clerks, of vakeels or envoys, of officers in every department save alone one to be described below. Business is done exactly in the Western way, with overmuch writing and incessant references to precedent, the grand formal differ- ence being that the ultimate referee is not Parliament, but the Prince, whose fiat when thus invoked as Grand Ref erendary ends dispute, and owing to his sacrosanct character as next to the Almighty, usually ends discussion. If it does not, if the thing in question involves any great point, say tenures, or any very well known person, saythe greatest landowner, there remains yet one other appeal. In every native capital, say Hydrabad, or Ratmandoo, or Gwalior, there sit, or loll, or stroll, or work, as clerks, or bankers, or lawyers, or flaneurs and viveurs, scores of people whose business it is to know, and know accurately, what Government is at. Their means of knowing is bribery, chieflybri- bery of women and amanuenses and confidential servants, and they almost invariably collect the real facts. Every country gentleman, every banker, every big official in the interior, every farmer-general, every temple-manager, keeps one or more of these men in his pay, usuallymore, lest the one should be bought up. No matter how secret the deed, or order, or resolve, within forty-eight hours couriers, ostensibly grooms, camel-drivers, policemen, basket-makers, anything, are flying with small rolls of tissue-paper in their ears, in their waistbands, in their cheeks, in their hair, in their horses' tails, to every district of the king- dom. Each employer reads his missive and talks to his cabinet, the cabinet has its news-writers, spies, couriers, and in a week the news is known in every village, and the Prince has to reckon with a population in which every male is an armed soldier. Gross injustice to individuals is therefore possible, but gross injustice to individuals of the kind which frightens classes is not. A man may be' plundered, for example, on a false charge of treason without consequences, but to plunder him—unless he is an official—without any charge, would be to risk an insurrection. As a matter of fact, crimes of mere violence ordered by the Court or the Departments are very rare, and as the Calcutta Review says :— "In cities and towns, in the midst of squares and bazaars, the banker sits with the same ease and contentment of mind with his iron chest loaded with gold and silver coins, and his writing-box containing cheques, notes, drafts, and hundis, as he would do in the British cities of Delhi and Agra. The confectioner has the same flourishing and attractive shop as his brethren in Benares and Allahabad, and the artizan produces the same fancy articles as the members of his craft in other parts of the country. The carpenter works with his chisel with the same independence of spirit as his race throughout India ; and the blacksmith beats his anvil and sings his ballad in a mood of mind equally expressive of happiness and contentment. In a word, security of life and pro- perty in a native State is not less than it is in the British dis- tricts, and forced labour is to the full as restricted in the one as in the other."
The machinery, we must add, works as a rule very quickly, the order of the Minister or the Prince being final, and instantly carried out if necessary by physical force, and from the democratic tone of Indian society native officials are very accessible to complaint. So swiftly and easily does it work, that could the Prince be depended on to do his business as Grand Referendary, the native system would be almost indefinitely superior as a system of organization to the British, which being worked without our Grand Referendary—a Parliament, is stiff, and inelastic, and moves too much like a locomotive, which cannot see gates or broken bridges. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the Prince has not the faintest interest in any- thing except efficiency, and we have no doubt that under a Prince like Akbar, a Native State really secures happier lives to its population, more careers, more opportunities of develop- ment and progress, than a British province. Unfortunately, when he is quiescent,—and his tendency, conquest being for- bidden, is to sybaritism either of the elegant or the brutal
kind,—there is no Beferendary at all, everybody does what is right in his own eyes, and the Ministers holding their tenures by favour, every department becomes corrupt and inefficient. Sometimes, even in that ease, the Premier takes the Sove- reign's duty ; but this device only partly alleviates the
mischief. He may be just and good, but he has no sacro- sanct position, no divine right, and the order which, from the
Prince's mouth would be reverenced, is in the Premier's dis- liked. People feel as if it had no terminal force, just as they do in England when a Minister's order remains unconfirmed by Parliament. It is this nullity of the Sovereign which is the curse of Native States, and this which makes the selec- tion of native Proconsuls armed with full powers, but remov- able by the Viceroy, so very tempting an experiment.
There is, however, one department which we have excluded from the general sketch, the Ministry of Grace and Justice, which covers, in practice, the Church, Hindoo or Moham- medan, the administration of civil justice, the administration of criminal justice, and the regulation of the police. In this department there is no hierarchy, and practically no control, save an appeal to the Prince in Council, which cannot always be obtained. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a judge in a Native State. There are officers to decide on civil suits, who, the civil law being in essentials divine, ought to be priests, but who in practice are the nominees and favourites of the local authorities, without learning, or honour, or influence. Except in matters of marriage, inheritance, or divorce, where the law is too clear for them and people apt to use their swords, they sell their decisions, and the consequent insecurity of all pro- perty, except land, is incomparably the greatest evil in a Native State. The only remedy is an appeal to the Prince, who is often a nullity, or to the plaintiff, who can be " influenced " in different ways, through his relations, or his women, or his children, or his friends, or something or some- body wholly apart from -justice. Civil justice, as we under- stand it, scarcely exists, and criminal justice is entirely feudal :— "The criminal justice of a native State is dispensed by a Foujdar and his deputies. The office of the Foujdar is a reserve for Thakurs [landowners-I of influential and respectable families; and when in special cases this post of dignity and emolument is given to an outsider, his family and social position are looked to more than his merit as a judicial officer. Although the position of a Foujdar of a native State corresponds with that of our district magistrates, the former enjoys more authority as a judicial officer, inasmuch as he is invested both with the powers of a magistrate and a sessions judge. There being no demarcation observed between a commit- ting officer and the officer invested with the powers of the session, the same Foujdar who tries minor cases would also try cases of capital offence, and pass sentence upon them ; and his sentence can be confirmed or reversed only by the court of ministers under the presidency of the Prince, for whose approval sentences on capital offences are forwarded. Appeal also lies from the decision of the Foujdar to the ministerial court and to the ruler of a State himself ; the chief civil court having no control or jurisdiction over the Foujdaree Court."
The landowner does not always do justice badly. He has not much more motive to be unjust than an English squire, and the law being divine, he generally knows it pretty well. He is fettered, too, by public opinion, which, terribly lax as to the Civil Judge, holds the criminal judge who does not do what natives consider justice as almost infamous, as degrading a prerogative very nearly divine, as forfeiting in fact the moral right to rule. Then an appeal to the Prince is always pos- sible, and if successful at all may involve the landowner's head or estate, and so, what with one motive and another, the Foujdar is generally decently just, while as head of the police he knows the facts a great deal better than the English judge does. The police like him as their hereditary employer, and whenever he chooses, that is, in nine cases out of ten, they do their work in a way the British magistrates can never ensure, do it heartily, with a will, and a sense of responsibility to a master who has lived among them for ages and will live among them for ages more, who is sure to hear the truth, and who if offended can punish sharply and at once. The British magistrate may be away next week, and never remains more than a year or two, knows little or nothing of his police, and can if he distrusts them punish only by a dismissal which does not forbid enlistment in the next county.
This is a poor sketch on a great subject, but perhaps our readers will perceive now why the population of a Native State does not always wish for annexation. That measure closes all careers ; makes taxation, if not much heavier, much more rigorous and exact ; substitutes a Christian for a Milano or Mussulman code ; destroys the police ; changes the hereditary judge, who knows everybody personally, for a judge who knows nothing but the law ; abolishes the privilege of appeal to a Grand Referendary, who can set anything right ; destroys all chance of political action, and gives in return—what ? Exemption from the chance of violent oppression, which the native regards very much as we regard cholera, and a possibility of civil justice, which he has learned to live without. To us, members of a complicated society, life without civil justice seems impossible, but the majority of natives have only land, land can be alienated only by descent, and on questions of descent the civil officer dare not palter with the law.
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