Allan Octavian Hume, C.B./Indian Civil Service
The Indian Civil Service.
We have now to follow him to India; and to record how he fared in the several stages of his official career. His period of service divides itself naturally into sections so diverse in their duties, that they may be treated almost as watertight compartments: (A) from 1849 to 1867, as a district officer; (B) from 1867 to 1870, as the head of a centralized department; (C) from 1870 to 1879, as a Secretary to the Government of India; and (D) June 1879, when he came into collision with the ruling authority, and practically ended his official career. In 1882 he resigned the service. Each of these sections carries a lesson of its own, for the personality of Mr. Hume acted as a touchstone, revealing the merits or demerits of each part of the administrative system: (A) as an executive officer, at the head of a great district in the North-West Provinces, he was a brilliant success. Both in peaceful times, and in the crisis of the Mutinies, his services at Etawah as an administrator deserved, and received, the cordial approval of the Government; and the official records show how, as regards (1) popular education, (2) police reform, (3) the liquor traffic, (4) the vernacular Press, (5) juvenile reformatories, and other domestic requirements, he laboured successfully as a pioneer of social progress. These years must have been among the happiest of his life; and the lasting results of his labours show how much may be accomplished for good by a district officer of the right sort, who understands the people, and is in full sympathy with them. It must however be noted that in those earlier years the serviceable activities of the district administration were not paralyzed, as they now are, by the iron grasp of the centralized departments. (B) As Commissioner of Customs he showed, notably in the matter of the great salt barrier, what useful work may be done by the head of a specialized department, which keeps to its own proper duties; and, as Director-General of Agriculture under Lord Mayo, he would have given fresh life to the distressed peasantry, had not sinister influences frustrated the scheme elaborated by that kindly Viceroy. (C) As Secretary to the Government of India, he had, for a while, his hand on the lever of the official mechanism. But (D), his career as a public servant was cut short, because he could not bend his principles to please the official faction at headquarters, known to the Indian public as the "Simla Clique." The sons of Zeruiah were too strong for him, and he was cast out from power. The great Indian bureaucracy is now about to give an account of its stewardship before a Royal Commission on the public service. In this national inquisition, the treatment accorded to Mr. Hume should be studied as an object lesson ; and it will be for the official apologists to justify a system of administration which, in his case, forgot past services, disregarded proved competency, and penalized independence.
We may now proceed to note some of the leading matters illustrating the several sections of Mr. Hume's official life.
(A) 1849 TO 1867, AS A District Officer.
Mr. Hume's early official training is thus graphically described by the Times of India : "In those far-off days of the middle century the life and instruction of the young civilian differed in many respects from those of his successor to-day. He had less office work and less of European society ; he was not so well equipped in theoretical knowledge, but he balanced the deficiency by a greater intimacy with the people he had to rule. Mr. Hume has himself described his early training. In the first month he had to take up the work of the Mohurrer or Clerk of the Police Station. Two or three months later he became Naib Darogha in another large thana, and then for a short period he had charge of a small thana as Thanadar. It was not until he had done all this that he was allowed to hear his first petty assault case. After the customary practical introduction into the routine of his varied duties, he became Assistant Magistrate and Collector, with special duties relating to dacoity investigations, and afterwards became Joint Magistrate and Deputy Collector at Etawah. This was the position he was holding when the Mutiny broke out." The method here described was a good healthy training for the young civilian, not at all calculated to produce a "sun-dried bureaucrat." Lord George Hamilton, when Secretary of State for India, complained that by the more modern system the district officials were deprived of the power of initiative, and taken out of touch with the people, being "so overburdened with correspondence, reports, and returns that they are really imprisoned in their offices for the greater part of the day." This result of over-centralization was not the system under which Mr. Hume was trained ; he began at the foot of the official ladder, and worked his way up, learning by experience the duties of each of his subordinates, and in an open-air life, coming into direct contact with all classes of the people. Not that he was in any way deficient in "book learning," for it was partly to his superiority in the departmental examinations that he owed his rapid advancement to the position of responsibility which he occupied when the troubles began.
The Indian Mutiny.
We now come to the sad and terrible events of the Mutiny of 1857 ; and I cannot do better than give in extenso the admirable summary of events at Etawah contributed to the journal India by his friend Colonel C. H. T. Marshall of the Indian Army, which shows how Mr. Hume, by the confidence he inspired among the people of his district, was able to save the lives of the European residents, to organize a force of faithful local levies, and finally to restore order, after defeating in a pitched battle a far superior force of disciplined mutineers, and capturing their six guns. The following is the account given by Colonel Marshall : —
"Allan Hume joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1849, towards the end of his twentieth year. Before he had been nine years in India, the great Mutiny of 1857 broke out, and he had many opportunities of showing his capabilities as a soldier as well as a civilian. He got rapid promotion ; for though only twenty-six, he was officiating as Chief Civil Officer in charge of the Etawah District, in the North-West Provinces, with an area of 1693 square miles, a population of 722,000, and a revenue of £136,500. The headquarters were at the town of Etawah, which contained 34,000 inhabitants.
"When the fatal month of May 1857 opened, all was going smoothly — crime decreasing, revenue flowing in easily, the Great Canal spreading fertility through an ever-widening area, the railroad fast ripening. The community seemed happy and contented. The storm burst on the 10th, when the 3rd Cavalry mutinied at Meerut, some two hundred and fifty miles to the north. Within two days the news reached Etawah and a small party of the mutineers appeared a day or so later. These were, after stout resistance, either captured or shot.
"What happened immediately after this is graphically told by Kaye in his work on the Sepoy Mutiny. He pays a fitting tribute to the subject of this article. He writes: ^The Magistrate and Collector was Mr. A. O. Hume, a son of the great English reformer, who had inherited the high public spirit and the resolute courage of his father.' He continues: 'On May i8th and 19th, another party of fugitives from the 3rd Cavalry appeared at Juswuntnuggur, ten miles from the town of Etawah. Being called upon to surrender by a patrol of police, they made a show of submission and then shot down their captors and took possession of a Hindu temple in a walled enclosure ; there they prepared to defend themselves. When Hume heard of this he at once ordered his buggy, armed himself as best he could (with shot gun and revolver) and accompanied by his assistant, Mr. Daniell, started at 9 a.m. It was a blazing hot day and neither had broken his fast. On arriving, Hume invested the place with some irregular troopers and police. The difficulty was that the people were on the side of the mutineers. It was hopeless to assault, as they could obtain no support, on account of the great danger of storming. As the day passed, and the sun was setting, these two Englishmen, followed by only one policeman, made an effort to carry the place by themselves. The native was shot down and Daniell was shot through the face. Hume heroically got him away through the crowd to the carriage. They had killed one mutineer and mortally wounded another. The rebels escaped, during a storm, in the night.'
"Kaye adds ; 'This was one of the first of those heroic deeds of which I have before spoken . . . and bore noble witness to the courage and constancy of the national character. This English Magistrate and his assistant, in the face of an insurgent population, nobly strove to avenge themselves upon men who had a few days before murdered our own people.' They returned to Etawah, and 'for a while British authority as represented by Allan Hume was again in the ascendant.'
"The troops at Etawah still remained faithful ; but not for long ; for a few days later they also mutinied. They plundered the Treasury, burnt and looted the bungalows and released all the prisoners from the two jails. The ladies were got away safely to Agra Fort, escorted by loyal officials. The men remained at their posts trying to restore order. Mr. Hume began to raise local levies and hoped he might weather the storm, but all was in vain. News of disaster after disaster came in : the tide of the mutiny rose hourly, and by June 17 it was clear that the lives of none of the English there were safe, and that no good would result from their remaining at headquarters. They felt compelled to fall back upon Agra, and escaped during the night, reaching the Fort in safety.
"From the Agra Fort Hume kept in touch by correspondence (which was secretly conveyed) with the officials of his district, whom he knew to be still faithful. By proclamations and private letters he tried to let every one know the true state of things from the British point of view and to keep alive feelings of loyalty to the State.
"On July 5th a battle was fought at Agra. The rebel force consisted of two thousand of the best-drilled native soldiers with a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery. It was a sanguinary engagement in which many officers were killed. Hume was through it all serving with a battery. Colonel Patrick Bannerman, who, as a subaltern, was in the Fort with Hume (and is one of the few survivors), knew him well and admired his courage ; he says he was one of the pluckiest men he had ever met. He was out in the open with the guns for several nights, until he was laid low by cholera and had to be sent back invalided to the Fort.
"As soon as he was fit for work he was most anxious to return to Etawah, but was not allowed to do so until December 30th, when he started, with Mr. G. B. Maconochie, his assistant, escorted by fifty of the 2nd Punjab Infantry, under Lieutenant Sheriff. He managed to re-occupy the town of Etawah on January 6th. Once there he lost no time in raising local levies. By the end of the month he had drilled 200 infantry and 150 cavalry ; he also had five guns and fifty gunners. Later his force was strengthened by a detachment of Alexander's Horse.
"The position in Etawah was, however, very critical. They were twice threatened by a strong body of mutineers. On February 7, 1858, an action was fought at Anuntram, twenty-one miles from Etawah, in which Hume greatly distinguished himself. The rebels, some twelve or thirteen hundred in number, with one gun, were very strongly posted in a large grove of mango-trees with a six-foot wall all round and a small ditch in front and a village on their left. The attacking force were sixty troopers of Irregular Horse, under Captain Alexander, some three hundred matchlock men, and eighty Sowars of the Local Horse, with Mr. Hume and Mr. Maconochie. They had also one 3-pounder brass gun. It will be sufficient for the purpose of this article to record the following extracts from official reports,
"From Captain Alexander to Brigadier Seaton : 'Mr. Hume, having with some difficulty collected about two or three hundred matchlock men out of the 700, advanced most gallantly with them towards the entrenchment ; the fire of the enemy had been directed towards my troop, but seeing the advance of our matchlock men, turned it towards them ; our gun then opened, advancing nearer each discharge. About the fifth discharge our gun was close up to the wall, and a rush being made, headed in the most gallant manner by Mr. Hume, the enemy began to retreat. A copy of Mr. Hume's report to Government is enclosed . . . and shows the active and gallant part taken by that officer and his matchlock men.'
"The Commander-in-Chief, in reporting to the Governor-General (Lord Canning), requests that he may 'bring to the special notice of his Lordship the extremely gallant conduct of Mr. Hume and Captain Alexander.'
"The Governor-General's reply is, that he 'has great satisfaction in publishing for general information the subjoined reports of an action fought with the rebels at Anuntram on the 7th instant by Alexander's Horse and a body of Zemindaree troops led by Mr. A. O. Hume, Magistrate of Etawah, the whole under the command of Captain Alexander. The Governor-General entirely concurs with his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief in considering this affair to reflect the highest credit on Captain Alexander and Mr. Hume, as well as Mr. Maconochie, who, with conspicuous bravery and cool determination, led their men against the very superior number of the rebels and obtained a signal victory over them.'
"The result of this action was that 131 of the rebels were killed, their gun, ammunition, baggage, ponies, and arms were captured. Hume, in his own report, says : 'The pursuit over, we returned with the captured gun to Etawah, having accomplished the whole affair, including the fifty miles' ride, in twelve hours.'
"During the following six months Hume was constantly at work in the field against the rebels escaping from Oudh. One or two extracts may here be given from his final report when the pacification of the District had been accomplished : —
" 'On April 21 we made a most successful cavalry attack on a party of Roop Singh's at Ajeetmul, and though the enemy were in great force all round, drove them with the loss of seven men helterskelter into the ravines. The audacity of this attack, for the time, completely frightened the rebels. Next day, by a very pretty combined movement from two directions, we surprised the enemy, cut up fifteen, took prisoner and hung three. . . . Mr. C. Doyle was shot through the right shoulder.'
"In the May following there came a series of desperate operations on the banks of the Jumna against Feroze Shah, of the Delhi royal family. 'Of this,' wrote Hume, 'it is sufficient here to say that in an open boat in the middle of May (with a force of 410 horse and foot, and two 3-pounders) we in seven days collected and raised (often under the enemy's fire) 36 boats, and after many skirmishes and a pitched battle (in which we defeated a far superior force of the mutineers, taking the whole of their six guns, all their baggage, and killing eighty-one regular sepoys), safely conveyed them 63 miles down the river, past hostile villages and forts.'
"By the end of the year the District of Etawah was once more at peace ; and in closing the notes on this important stage of Hume's career, no better summary of the work he did can be given than by quoting some of his remarks at the end of his report : —
" 'No District in the North- West Provinces has, I believe, been more completely restored to order. None in which so few severe punishments have been inflicted, Mercy and forbearance have, I think I may justly say, characterized my administration. . . . We had before us then a great and glorious problem to solve, viz., how to restore peace and order and the Authority of Government with the least possible amount of human suffering.'
"There can be no doubt that his statesmanlike tact, his brilliant courage and tenacity of purpose made it easier for him than it would have been for many others to restore confidence among the people and evolve peace and order out of chaos.
"He did not receive his reward until i860, when he was created a Companion of the Bath. Little enough reward was it for his great services. But those days were different from the present day, when honours and decorations are thrown broadcast among the deserving and the undeserving alike."
Let us now proceed to review some of his most notable work for the peace and progress of his district.
(i) Popular Education.
In a detailed report dated 21st January 1857, Mr. Hume describes, as follows, the circumstances under which he initiated his system of free schools in Etawah : "In February last I received semi-official permission to attempt the establishment of Elementary Free Schools, to be supported by a voluntary cess, contributed by the landed proprietors. After no little opposition had been overcome by patient argument and perseverance, a large majority of the Zemindars of Pergunnah Etawah consented to the levy of the cess ; and they having formally declared the same at a great public meeting held for the purpose, and paid up the first instalment of their subscription, 32 schools were opened on the 1st of April, in the more important villages of the Pergunnah." These proceedings were approved by the Lieutenant-Governor, by the Government of India, and subsequently by the Court of Directors. Encouraged by this auspicious beginning, this system (known as the "Hulqabundee" system) was gradually extended to the whole of the District, and by the 1st of January 1857, 181 schools had been established, with 5186 scholars (including 2 girls) on the lists. As regards school buildings, the beginning was made in a humble but effective way : "Only three buildings and these 'cutcha' ones have yet been erected for the schools. At present these are chiefly located in some commodious apartment of the Zemindar (if he is popular) or in some till-lately ruined house, repaired after a fashion by the villagers. Nevertheless cleanliness is enjoined, and attained ; and every school has been furnished with thick carpetings, sufficient to accommodate the teacher and all his pupils." It was hoped that later on neat and permanent buildings for the larger schools would be erected from surplus school funds, but in the meantime no financial alarms were allowed to impede the opening of a school where accommodation could be found sufficient to meet the modest requirements of village life. For the 181 schools teachers were found (8 on Rs. 6 per mensem, 39 on Rs. 5, and 134 on Rs. 4), many of them "for the pay they receive very able men" ; and detailed rules were printed in Hindee and Oordoo, prescribing the course of study, the duties of teachers, and the arrangements to secure a strict and consistent supervision. But early in this movement, a want was felt for some institution which should serve as a stepping stone for the scholars from the elementary schools to the Agra College ; and accordingly on the 1st of August 1856 Mr. Hume opened at Etawah a Central English and vernacular school, as the germ of such an institution. Here too he met with opposition ; but this was overcome, and by the 1st of January 1857 there were 104 students in attendance. One step more remained — the foundation of scholarships in connection with the Central School, for the maintenance of a few of the best of these students, during the completion of their education in the Agra College. One such scholarship he recommended to the Government in memory of his lamented friend and coadjutor Koour AjeetSing ; another he proposed to found himself ; and he hoped that some of the local gentlemen might in this matter be induced to follow his example.
Upon this happy development of peace and progress the Mutiny of May 1857 fell like a thunderbolt. Yet, after two years, when order had been re-established, Mr. Hume was able to report, on the 25th of January 1859, that his system of education was again in active life : "This system even the past revolution failed to obliterate ; some of the schools remained open from first to last, and now though it is but a few months since we finally regained possession of the whole district, the schools are once more numbered by hundreds, the scholars by thousands." Unfortunately, following the Mutiny, official opinion appears to have suffered a reaction on the question of popular education, and he expressed his concern that many "entirely disapprove of any efforts to cultivate the native mind ; many condemn, as unconditionally, a merely secular education." In this report, therefore, of January 1859 he vindicated the policy of enlightenment, declaring that "assert its supremacy as it may at the bayonet's point, a free and civilized government must look for its stability and permanence to the enlightenment of the people, and their moral and intellectual capacity to appreciate its blessings." The reactionary spirit showed itself shortly afterwards in a Government Circular of 28th January 1859, in which objection was taken to the employment of native agency for the promotion of education, and the Collector was warned not to attempt to persuade the people to send their children to the schools or to contribute to the maintenance. Against these orders Mr. Hume, in a letter of 30th March 1859, respectfully, but earnestly protested, pointing out that the Court of Directors had directed officers "to aid with all the influence of their high position the extension of education." He further explains, in considerable detail, why he believes that it is through the influence of their own leaders that the people can best be convinced of the benefits of education ; and he concludes on a personal note of deep pathos : "I cannot," he says, "but found hopes of indulgence on the intense interest that I feel in the subject, and the ceaseless attention that I have paid it. For years past it has been the dream of my leisure moments, the object of my hopes, and although I have achieved little as yet, I cannot as I watch the feeble beginnings avoid recalling an alpine scene of happy memories, when I saw the first drops of a joyous stream trickling through the huge avalanche that had so long embayed it, and feeling confidence from that augury that day by day and month by month that tiny rill gathering strength and size will work out its resistless way, and at last dissipating the whole chilling mass of ignorance, the accumulations of ages, pass on unobstructed to fertilize and enrich an empire. History, alas ! presents us with too many examples of the long obstructed stream hurling aside at last roughly its opposing barriers and sweeping onwards an ungovernable flood heaping up desolation where it should have scattered flowers. Let it be ours to smooth and not impede its path, ours not by cold explanations of policy but by enlisting the sympathies and affections of the people in the cause, to watch and direct its progress and turn it, under God's blessing, to good, and good alone." The documents at my disposal do not state what, at the time, was the effect of this passionate appeal. But the whole episode, showing how gallantly, under the most difficult circumstances, the battle was fought more than half a century ago, should hearten those who have now taken it in hand to emancipate their poorer brethren from the bonds of ignorance, by making elementary education not only free but compulsory.
(2) Police Reform.
In i860 Government issued orders to reorganize the police in accordance with the recommendations of the Police Commission, and Police Superintendents were appointed for each District, to act under the orders of an Inspector-General of Police. By the 1st of January 1861 the Etawah police were reorganized by Mr. Hume, as directed. But, having duly carried out the orders of Government, he felt it his duty (see his despatch of March 1861) to report his belief that the new system was "defective in principle," "impracticable in its chief provision," and, with few exceptions, "a change for the worse." Briefly stated, his objections were, that the system failed to secure the severance of police and judicial functions ; that it created a divided responsibility between the Police Superintendent and the District Magistrate ; and that the Police Superintendents, on whom practically devolved the work of criminal investigations, were destitute both of local experience and of local influence. His remedy was that the Chief Civil Officer of the District (the "Collector") should represent the Executive Government in all departments, including the police ; but that neither he nor his subordinates should exercise any magisterial powers whatever. The police duties should, he considered, be performed by the several grades of the Collector's subordinates, men well in touch with the population, and possessing influence as representing the supreme authority in all departments ; while the Collector, as head of the District police, should be responsible, through the Inspector-General, to the Government for the repression of crime and the general peace of his District. The ordinary magisterial work of the District would be entrusted to Honorary Magistrates and Subordinate Judges of the various grades, working under a Stipendiary Magistrate, from whom an appeal would lie to the Sessions Judge. This scheme provided for the complete separation of police and judicial functions which still remains a pressing need at the present day ; and it must also strongly commend itself to those who hold that the Collector should be the responsible embodiment of the "Sirkar," in all branches of the administration within his own district, and lament the present destruction of his authority by the encroachments of the centralized departments.
(3) "Abkaree" — The "Wages of Sin."
Similarly, as regards the Liquor Traffic, he reported, 14th September i860, that the orders of the Government had been carried out, producing an increase of receipts, Rs. 1858 in excess of the previous year, and Rs. 5251 in excess of the average collections of the past ten years ; but at the same time he did not hesitate to express, in the strongest terms, his abhorrence of such a source of revenue : "Financially speaking," he wrote, "bearing in mind the almost unexampled distress in the face of which this settlement was concluded, it may be regarded as eminently successful. To me however the constant growth of the Abkaree revenue is a source of great regret. Year after year, but alas in vain, I protest against the present iniquitous system which first produced and now supports a large class whose sole interest it is to seduce their fellows into drunkenness and its necessary con- comitants, debauchery and crime. Unfortunately these tempters are too successful, and year by year the number of drunkards and the demand for drugs and spirituous liquors increases. Those only who like myself take great pains to ascertain what goes on amongst the native community, really have any conception of the frightful extent to which drunkenness has increased during the last twenty years. Moreover, while we debauch our subjects we do not even pecuniarily derive any profit from their ruin. Of this revenue, the wages of sin, it may in the words of the old adage be truly said that illgotten wealth never thrives, and for every rupee additional that the Abkaree yields, two at least are lost to the public by crime, and spent by the Government in suppressing it. I fear that it is useless saying more now on this subject — for five years I have yearly but without avail protested against the present system, and though I at this moment see no hopes of reform, 1 have no doubt whatsoever that if I be spared a few years longer I shall live to see effaced in a more Christian-like system one of the greatest existing blots on our government of India. I trust that this letter may be submitted in full to the Board." Sad to say, after half-a-century this "greatest existing blot" still remains uneffaced.
(4) "The People's Friend."
Mr. Hume, looking forward to coming years, had a special care for the young, both for the docile and the wayward. Each year the schools were turning out boys and youths, able to read, and with their intelligenee awakened, but the only books in their own language were scarce and dear, and for the most part neither instructive nor edifying. He therefore, in co-operation with his friend Koour Lutchman Sing, determined to supply this want ; and towards the end of 1859 they started The People's Friend, a vernacular paper, carefully conducted, and published at so cheap a rate as to be accessible to the poorest of the village youths. It was intended originally for Etawah alone, but its fame went abroad, and it circulated throughout the North-West Provinces, and even penetrated to Gwalior and Bhurtpore. Not being an official publication it did not come under the suspicion of partiality, and rendered valuable service in explaining the policy of the Government, and in counter-acting influences prejudicial to good feeling. The Government of the North-West Provinces subscribed for six hundred copies, and The People's Friend came under the favourable notice of the Viceroy, at whose suggestion copies of the paper were forwarded, with translations, to the Secretary of State, for submission to Queen Victoria. It was felt that Her Gracious Majesty would be interested in seeing this early specimen of Indian journalism, and in realizing the gratitude and affection inspired by her personality among the humblest and most distant of her subjects.
(5) Juvenile Reformatories.
And the bad boys had to be remembered as well as the good boys. It appears that the Etawah District was periodically invaded by bands of professional young thieves, coming from certain outside tracts. They were dealt with by the police, brought before the magistrates, and were punished by flogging and imprisonment. They thus became thoroughly hardened, and eventually ripened into dacoits and receivers of stolen property. Evidently there was need for special treatment of this class ; and as early as 1863 Mr. Hume pressed for the establishment of a Juvenile Reformatory, where these boys would be separated from adult criminals, and given a chance of amendment by discipline, by instruction, and by training in useful industries. ^ At first the Supreme Government did not favour the proposal for reformatories, and preferred that separate accommodation should be provided in the central jails for juvenile criminals. But m 1867 Mr. Hume returned to the charge, and being supported by the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, he submitted (2nd September 1867) a detailed scheme for a Juvenile Reformatory on a desirable site close to Etawah. He was fortunate in having the sympathy of Dr. Clark the Inspector-General of Prisons, and of Dr. Sherlock the Superintendent of the Jail, a very valuable coadjutor, who volunteered to take charge of the Reformatory in addition to his other duties. The system proposed was that known as the Irish system ; the building was to be circular and radiating ; and as the scheme was experimental, he proposed that a beginning should be made with one "sector," equal to one-fourth of the circular building. This could be ready by the 1st of January 1868 for the reception of one hundred boys, the expense for building this portion being Rs. 11,000, and the cost of maintenance Rs. 464 per mensem. The idea was that the Divisions of Agra and Allahabad would produce yearly about one hundred boy convicts, and that in each of the three following years another sector should be built to receive them. As the term of retention would usually be four years, it was calculated that by the 1st of January 1871 the first sector would be vacated, and ready to receive the boy criminals belonging to that year. When completed the cost of the whole building would be Rs. 35,000, and maintenance Rs. 1250 per mensem. This scheme was cordially approved by the Government of the North-West Provinces, and forwarded for sanction to the Government of India.
There are other valuable reports on special subjects. For example, there is a long letter on cotton cultivation and supply, dated 24th July i860, in reply to questions from Mr. Haywood, Secretary to the Cotton Supply Association of Manchester. This letter cannot be con- densed or summarized, but it is so full of interesting facts ; it is so perfect a model of what such a report should be ; and the subject is so important at the present day, that it is reproduced in extenso, Appendix I. Again, there is a treatise, dated 1865, covering twenty closely printed pages, on "Canal irrigation in its relation to the Permanent Settlement"; but the subject is very technical, and the examples of his administrative work already given must suffice, as showing the wide scope of his activities, and the infinite patience with which his facts were collected and recorded. It is pleasant to find that his District management again and again received commendation from the higher authorities. As regards the police administration the Lieutenant-Governor congratulated him on "the extinction of the crime of affray in the once turbulent District of Etawah. It is also satisfactory to find that owing to that officer's influence and exertions, the crime of female Infanticide, once so prevalent, is now of rare occurrence in the District, and that no less than 173 outlaws have been apprehended during the year" ; and the Government, in its Order of 13th November i860, recorded as follows its appreciation of his work and character : "To much administrative ability, and great powers of sustained exertion, he adds a cordial interest in the prosperity of his District, and the welfare of its people, and sacrifices all personal considerations to the conscientious discharge of his duty." Again, in Government Resolution of 8th March 1861 it was recorded that "The Lieutenant-Governor has derived much satisfaction from his visit to the District of Etawah, and desires to place on record his acknowledgment of the ability, energy, and judgment with which its administration is conducted by Mr. Hume."
(B) 1867 TO 1870. Commissioner of Customs.
With so distinguished a record as a District Administrator, it is not surprising that Mr. Hume was selected to be the head of one of the great centralized departments ; and in July 1867 he was appointed Commissioner of Customs for the North-West Provinces. In this capacity his principal achievement was the gradual abolition of the vast Customs barrier, 2500 miles long, which had hitherto been kept up to protect the Government salt monopoly by excluding the cheap salt produced in the Rajputana States. This grotesque fortification, guarded along its whole length like the Great Wall of China, extended west to east across the continent of India, from Attock on the Upper Indus to near Cuttack on the Bay of Bengal. It was the source of wasteful expense, corruption, and great inconvenience to the public ; and the proposal for its abolition was of long standing, having received the approval of successive Governors-General ; but action had been always postponed because of the difficulties connected with the negotiation of a series of treaties with numerous Native states. These treaties were successfully negotiated Mr. Hume ; and the Secretary of State cordially recognized the value of his services, writing as follows to the Viceroy (Despatch No. 3 of 6th February 1879) : "I entirely concur in the high appreciation of Mr. Hume's long and valuable services expressed by your Excellency's Government ; for to him, as you observe, is due the initiation prosecution, and completion of that policy which has led to the agreements entered into with the several States concerned." In a letter from Mr. Hume to the Press some interesting particulars are given as to the merits of the award, under which the Sambhur Lake and other sources of salt supply were transferred from the Rajputana States to the British Government. On the one hand it had been contended that the amount awarded as compensation was mean and insufficient ; on the other hand he had been severely taken to task for his supposed reckless liberality. As regards the allegation of insufficiency, Mr. Hume points out that the two States chiefly concerned were Jeypore and Jodhpore, and under the award Jeypore received double the amount realized in previous years, while Jodhpore received three lakhs more than it ever did before. On the other hand, as regards the claims of the Government, Mr. Hume's award was accepted and confirmed by Lord Mayo and Sir John Strachey, the Minister of Finance ; and if the liberality to the Rajput States seemed at the time excessive, it was justified by the ultimate results ; for by the employment of scientific methods, the Govern- ment became a gainer financially from the transaction ; while the public was much benefited : where 1½ millions of maunds were before produced, 5 millions were now brought into the market, so that for Rs. 3 annas 2 per maund a better article was procurable than that for which Rs. 6 and 7 was previously paid.
An Agricultural Department.
But while thus engaged in large transactions for the benefit of the public revenue, his anxious thought continued always to be for the welfare of the peasant cultivators ; and fortunately his views met with the fullest sympathy from Lord Mayo, who became Governor-General in 1869. Lord Mayo was himself a practical agriculturist ; he had indeed farmed for a livelihood, and made a living out of it : "Many a day," he used to say, "have I stood the livelong day in the market selling my beasts." Hitherto the attention of the Government had been chiefly directed to collecting the revenue, and little had been done to develop agricultural resources ; more energy had been applied to shearing the sheep than to feeding him. Lord Mayo, as an expert, understood the fatal consequences of such a policy; and in consultation with Mr. Hume, proposed to provide a remedy, by organizing the agricultural ' department on a business footing as a genuine Bureau of I Agriculture, and placing it under a competent Director-General, with a free hand to work out the salvation of rural India.
In a pamphlet entitled "Agricultural Reform in India," published in 1879, Mr. Hume gives particulars of this scheme, which proposed to make the Director-General of Agriculture a whole-time officer, supreme in his own department, and only nominally attached for official purposes to the Secretariat : "The Director-General was to have immediately under him a small staff of experts, and was to keep up only just such an office as was absolutely unavoidable. There was to be as little writing and as much actual work as possible. Directors of Agriculture were to be appointed in each Province, also to be aided by experts. They were to work partly through the direct agency of farms and agricultural schools, and partly through the revenue officials of all grades down to the village accountants." It was an open secret that Lord Mayo regarded Mr. Hume as an ideal Director-General of Agriculture ; and no one can read this pamphlet without seeing how intimately he had studied the peasant cultivators, on whose behalf he was striving — their merits and their shortcomings, their difficulties, and the remedies to be applied. The tradition and experience of three thousand years have given them minute knowledge with regard to their own ancestral holdings ; and he points out that they know to a day when it is best to sow each staple and each variety of each staple ; they accurately distinguish every variety of soil, and the varying properties and capacities of each ; they fully realize the value of manures ; they know the advantages of deep ploughing, and thoroughly pulverizing the soil ; but they also realize where, with a scanty supply of manure, it would be folly to break the shallow-lying pan : "As for weeds, their wheat-fields would, in this respect, shame ninety-nine hundredths of those in Europe." "So far therefore as what may be called non-scientific agriculture is concerned, there is little to teach them. . . . On the other hand, we must not overrate their knowledge ; it is wholly empirical, and is in many parts of the country, if not everywhere, greatly limited in its application by tradition and superstition. . . . So, then, it is not only external disadvantages against which the Indian cultivator has to contend, it is not only that his knowledge is still in the primary experience stage, but that even this knowledge is often rendered of no avail by the traditions of an immemorial religion of agriculture." In the Appendix to his Pamphlet are given a number of quaint couplets, current in Upper India, which record the traditional prognostications with regard to each of the "Nakhats," or subdivisions of the Zodiac. The twelve Nakhats which fill the critical period between the 23rd of May and the 4th of November, are the most important for the cultivator, and indicate good or evil influence with regard to sowings, harvestings, and the seasonableness of the rainfall. The obstacles to progress caused by superstition and the belief in omens and divinations will, it is hoped, give way before rural education, especially if it is free and compulsory. But the troubles of the cultivator arising from more material causes, form the main difBculty in the case : his want of capital for irrigation and manure, his bondage to the moneylender, the grievous mortality among the plough-cattle. As regards this last point, Mr. Hume feelingly describes the tragedy of these faithful and beautiful friends of man : " Over a great portion of the Empire, the mass of the catde are starved for six weeks every year. The hot winds roar, every green thing has disappeared, no hot weather forage is grown, the last year's fodder has generally been consumed in keeping the well-bullocks on their legs during the irrigation of the spring crops, and all the husband-man can do is just to keep his poor brutes alive on the chopped leaves of the few trees and shrubs he has access to, the roots of grass and herbs that he digs out of the edges of fields, and the like. In good years he just succeeds ; in bad years the weakly ones die of starvation. But then come the rains. Within the week, as though by magic, the burning sands are carpeted with rank luscious herbage, the cattle will eat and overeat, and millions die of one form or other of cattle disease, springing out of this starvation, followed by sudden repletion with rank, juicy, immature herbage." Mr. Hume estimated the average annual loss of cattle in India by preventible cattle disease at fully ten million beasts, roughly valued at ;£7,500,000. "And be it noted that it is not only the supply of manure that this fearful mortality amongst the cattle, and their resulting paucity, so greatly restricts ; it is the little hoarded capital of the peasant, the very mainspring of agriculture in India, that is thus flung away." Village plantations for fodder, the establishment of Veterinary Colleges, the spread of useful information among the people, and other well considered measures, organized by a competent Agricultural Department ; these were the practical remedies advocated by Mr. Hume : "The Indian climates, varying as these do, appear to be specially favourable to cattle. Every one who has kept cattle here knows that if moderately fed, and given plenty of work, and kept away from contagion, they never seem to be sick or sorry, but work on, hardy and healthy, from youth to extreme old age. They are very prolific too. If our poor beasts had only reasonably fair play, the whole Empire would swarm with cattle, and cattle able to work the heaviest ploughs, and, in soils and situations where this was necessary or desirable, to plough as deep as you like."
He held the Civil Courts in the rural districts directly responsible for the bondage of the cultivators to the moneylender ; and he recommended that rural debt cases should be disposed of summarily, and finally, on the spot by selected Indians of known probity and intelligence, who should be "sent as judges from village to village, to settle up, with the aid of the village elders, every case of debt of the kind referred to, in which any one of its inhabitants was concerned." The expected result is thus graphically described : "These judges would be fettered by no codes and no forms of procedure, and they would hear both parties' stories coram populo, on the village platform of the debtor's own village. It is needless to tell any one who knows the country that while, when you get him into court, no witness seems to be able to tell the truth, on his own village platform, surrounded by his neighbours, no villager in personal questions like these seems able to tell an untruth. Everybody knows everybody else's affairs ; let the speaker deviate perceptibly from the facts, and immediately out go tongues all round, and jeers and cries of 'Wah,' 'Wah,' remind him that he is not in court, and that that kind of thing will not go down at home." In 1879 a detailed scheme on these lines was formulated for the benefit of the distressed Deccan ryot, but it was disallowed by the Bombay Government.
These brief extracts show how fully he was in sympathy with the ryot, and how peculiarly his past experience had qualified him to direct the work of agricultural reform. But in addition to this, he possessed scientific qualifications : he was well versed in practical European agriculture ; he was conversant with the more modern German and English writings on agriculture, both theory and practice ; and he had, for his own information and amusement, farmed in an experimental way throughout his many years of service in India as a District Officer. Moreover, at this time he was residing with Lord Mayo, and had discussed repeatedly with him all the details of his scheme. Add to this Mr. Hume's boundless energy and enthusiasm, and we can see what a hopeful prospect would have been opened out for the relief of the peasantry, and the development of the State's interest in the land, had he been placed at the head of a genuine Agricultural Bureau.
Unhappily, Lord Mayo was not able to carry out his scheme. Adverse influences, too powerful to resist, arose both at Simla and at the India Office in London. To meet financial objections. Lord Mayo modified his scheme, to its serious detriment. Yet even this modified scheme "was met with perhaps the most strenuous opposition any long-considered project of a Viceroy, himself a practical expert in the particular subject, ever encountered, and when at the last the Department was created, it had lost every one of the essential characters on which its possible success as a Bureau of Agriculture was absolutely dependent." This sinister and unreasoning obstruction reminds one of the bitter complaint of Sir Louis Mallet, when Permanent Under Secretary at the India Office in 1875. In a minute, printed in the report of the Famine Commission of 1880, he wrote : "I am compelled to say that, since I have been connected with the India Office, I have found just as strong a repugnance to the adoption of any adequate measures for the collection of a comprehensive and well-digested set of facts, as to the recognition of general principles "; and he instanced "the vehement opposition of some members of Council" to his advocacy of Dr. Forbes Watson's proposals for an industrial survey in India. The treatment accorded to Lord Mayo calls to mind how similar obscurantist counsels prevailed in 1884, when the scheme for Agricultural Banks, recommended unanimously by Lord Ripon's Government, and approved by public opinion in India and in England, was stabbed to death in the dark when it entered the portals of the India Office.
(C) 1870 to 1879, As Secretary to the Government of India.
As Lord Mayo was unable to carry out his scheme for a real working Agricultural Bureau, he had to content himself with making agriculture one of the subjects included in a miscellaneous department of the Secretariat, entitled the Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce. In July 1871 he appointed Mr. Hume as Secretary in this Department, on account of his special knowledge of agriculture, transferring him from the Home Department, where he had been acting as Secretary for a year. At the same time he changed the designation of the Department, putting Agriculture before Revenue ; but to this the Secretary of State took exception, and in his Despatch of 3rd August 1871, directed that in the title of the Department "Revenue," as the subject of paramount importance, should come first. At the same time he laid down the rule that "the officer appointed to the post of Secretary in this Department, should always be chosen on account of his knowledge of the subjects connected with revenue, rather than from any knowledge which he may possess of agricultural or commercial matters." Agriculture had therefore to take a back seat ; and upon this conclusion Mr. Hume remarks, "It will be seen, therefore, that as constituted, this Department never was, and never was intended by the Home Government to be, a Department of Agriculture. Lord Mayo hoped to convert it into this, but with his death India lost the warmest, most competent, and at the same time, most influential advocate for agricultural reform. No change, such as he contemplated, has ever been made in the constitution of the Department, and succeeding administrations have only made the official bonds more rigid, and converted its chief more and more thoroughly into a mere desk-tied secretary." It was reserved for a later generation to realize that improved agriculture is the backbone of Indian finance.
Though deeply disappointed by the frustration of Lord Mayo's scheme, Mr. Hume did not on that account relax his efforts. He was a workman of the sort that, if refused the tools of his choice, will make the best of the tools he can get ; and accordingly he admitted that, "Although circumstances had deprived Lord Mayo's new department of all claim to be considered an Agricultural Bureau, its formation marked an era in the history of the country, and served a most useful purpose. In it were gathered up into one homogeneous whole numberless branches of the administration, all more or less potential factors in the material progress of the Empire." Manfully therefore did he strive, during the years he remained a Secretary, to put fresh life into the operations of the various branches of the administration which came under his control. Besides matters directly pertaining to Agriculture and Horticulture, he had to deal with Forestry, including the conservation of existing forests, the "reboisment" of denuded tracts, and the supply of timber and firewood to the public ; Surveys, with explorations for minerals ; Fisheries, including the publication of Dr. Day's scientific manual of Indian fishes ; Emigration and Migration ; Meteorological observations, museums, and exhibitions of art and industry ; merchant shipping, harbours, lighthouses, and pilotage ; Inland Customs, including salt ; and Sea Customs, including the tariff of import and export duties. But among these multitudinous and distracting claims on his attention, Mr. Hume's thoughts were always primarily for the humble ryot, and his need for water supply, manure, developed products, improved implements ; and Note B of his Pamphlet on Agricultural Reform furnishes a record of carefully collected facts, with special information and advice, supplied in handy form to the rural population.
(D) 1879 to 1882. His Removal from the Secretariat.
In its obituary notice The Times refers to the circumstances under which Mr. Hume left the Secretariat of the Government of India in 1879 ; and it is there stated that his removal was caused by a conflict with a member of the Government, in which he was "in the wrong." No particulars are given as to the merits of this conflict, which was the turning point in Mr. Hume's official career. In a memoir it is important to clear up a matter of this sort ; and fortunately among Mr. Hume's private papers I have found letters and extracts which throw much light on this episode, and show that a cardinal principle, affecting the duties of his office, was involved in what Mr. Hume has called his summary ejection from the Secretariat. To those unacquainted with the working of the bureaucratic system in India, it may not be apparent how severe was the blow thus inflicted. But it must be borne in mind how extraordinarily influential and desirable is the position of a Secretary to Government, who is presumed to be an expert in his own department, who has the first say in all matters coming before the Executive Government, and who has constant access to the Viceroy. He is thus part and parcel of the Supreme Executive, which determines policy, and gives orders from the cool heights of Simla to the rank and file of the service in the plains below. Now what were the reasons given for Mr. Hume's expulsion from this official paradise ? The only reason that I find in the papers is contained in a letter from Lord Lytton's Private Secretary of 17 June 1879, where it is stated that the decision '*was based entirely on the consideration of what was most desirable in the interests of the public service." This platitude was in reply to a letter from Mr. Hume inquiring in respectful terms the reasons for his removal. No dereliction of duty, or incapacity, was alleged or suggested ; the reply was in substance a refusal to give any reason whatever for action altogether out of accord with official precedent. But if no reasons were forthcoming from the Viceroy and his advisers, public opinion, through the Press, was not slow to give its view of the merits. It was clear that a great principle affecting the morale of the public service was at stake, and I have before me extracts from leading Anglo-Indian journals, not usually too friendly to Mr. Hume, which declare, in uncompromising terms, that his offence was that he was too honest and too independent. The Pioneer characterized the whole proceeding as "the grossest jobbery ever perpetrated" ; the Indian Daily News said it was "a great wrong" ; and the Statesman, "Undoubtedly he has been treated shamefully and cruelly." But the best statement of the case is contained in an article in the Englishman of 27th June 1879, a part of which I will now reproduce. It is believed to have been from the pen of a distinguished member of the legal profession, and friends of Mr. Hume will be glad to read this vindication of his personal action, and of the principles for which he suffered. Referring to the ^' measure by which Mr. Hume was summarily superseded and degraded," the Englishman writes: "The plea advanced in justification of this arbitrary act was that Mr. Hume habitually, in his minutes on measures coming up for discussion in his department, expressed his views with great freedom, without regard to what might be the wishes or intentions of his superiors. If he believed a particular policy to be wrong, he opposed it without hesitation, using plain language for the expression of his views. We cannot find that any other charge has been brought against him. He is notoriously a very hard worker, and Government will not easily find his equal in knowledge of the special subjects dealt with in his department. But he is what, according to the present ' Imperial ' phraseology, is called insubordinate ; this is the alleged ground of his transfer, and this is the point which to us appears most seriously to call for consideration. By ^ insubordinate ' the Govern- ment appears to mean, not that an officer refuses to obey orders, not even that he neglects to carry out in the best possible way orders which he does not himself approve, but that he refuses to join in the cry of ' Peace, Peace ' when Government says it is peace, but when it is really war. The present theory of official subordination is, that an officer is not merely to obey orders, not only to do his best to facilitate their execution, but that he is even in his most confidential, semi-official utterances, to suppress any indication of his dissent from what he disapproves, if he knows or has reason to suppose that the Viceroy desires to carry the point. In the days of Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning, and Lord Mayo, the freest expression of the honest opinions of Secretaries and Under-Secretaries was not only permitted but invited. To have expressed to any one without the charmed circle of the Government opinions adverse to the Government policy, would article goes on to say that under Lord Northbrook change was initiated ; he could not endure the criticism by his own subordinates of measures he approved ; and Lord Lytton intensified this repression : "Clearly there is no security or safety now for officers in Government employment ; neither length of service, nor known ability, nor industry, nor all those merits which go to make up a public servant's claims — can avail to protect any man from summary dismissal from any appointment if he either ventures to think for himself, or fails to ingratiate himself with the reigning favourite."
In a close service like that of India, the temptation to cultivate the good graces of those in high office is only too great. Brilliant official prizes, carrying with them large incomes, extensive influence, and pleasant surroundings, await the happy man whom a Viceroy delights to honour. No exceptional discipline therefore is needed to promote the desire for self-advancement. On the other hand a whole service will be demoralized by a policy which penalizes honest independence, and stimulates, instead of checking, mean and selfish ambitions. As regards average human nature, Edmund Burke said in a similar connection, "Men will not look to Acts of Parliament, to regulations, to declarations, to votes, to resolutions. No, they are not such fools. They will ask. What is the road to power, credit, wealth, and honours ? They will ask. What conduct ends in neglect, disgrace, poverty, exile ? - These will teach them the course which they are to follow. It is your distribution of these that will give the character and tone to your government. All the rest is miserable grimace."
It will be for the public to decide whether, as suggested by The Times, Mr. Hume was "in the wrong" when he sacrificed a noble career in the public service rather than accept a policy which must prevent men of rigid principles and unselfish candour becoming the responsible advisers of Governors, Viceroys, and Secretaries of State.