Lord Dalhousie's Indian Administration. By Sir Charles Jackson. (Smith and
Elder.)—Sir Charles Jackson, an able judge of the Calcutta Supreme Court, and one of the most estimable and popular men who ever landed in India, has been irritated by the perpetual attacks on Lord Dalhousie into a defence of his policy. With characteristic courage he attacks his friend's assailants on their strongest point, and defends one by one Lord Dalhousie's annexations, detailing the circumstances of each with the fairness, clearness, and brevity of a judge summing up for the defence. As a rule we think his cases unanswerable, and they are always invaluable contributions to the history of the subject, but we would make one exception. He defends Lord Dalhousie's Resumption Act as a mere continuance of a policy settled years before, and for which therefore he was not personally responsible. That is true, but Sir Charles Jackson, who pronounces that policy unjust, should have added that it had Lord Dalhousie's approval, and that under his rigime the Enam department, like every other, attained a new and terrible vigour. It became and, as we believe, was intended to become revolu- tionary, and it is as a revolutionary measure only that the policy can be defended. For the rest there is little need to defend Lord Dalhousie. The attacks on him will die and his name will live, till thirty years hence some biographer with his papers in his hands will draw the true picture of the kingly proconsul, and place him for ever in the short list of the great servants of England —of the men who have built empires knowing they were not for themselves.
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