Dalhousie's rule. In several eases the annexation was practically unavoidable. But this does not alter the fact that Lord Dalhousie deliberately enforced in dependent Hindu States the principle of lapse upon the failure of male heirs. He found this principle laid down for him alike by the Government of India, and by the Court of Directors in England, before his arrival. He did not extend that principle to the sovereign Native States of India, but strictly confined it to dependent principalities which the British Government had itself created. In their case he held it impolitic, as Lord Hardinge had held it impolitic before him, to create afresh, on failure of male heirs, a subordinate government between the British rulers and the people — a government directly dependent on the British Power for its maintenance, but only indirectly subject to British supervision and control.
In uniformly enforcing this principle, however, Lord Dalhousie unquestionably advanced a step beyond his predecessors. In the time of our weakness in India, during the eighteenth century, British administrators had been too anxious to emerge in safety from the break up of the Mughal Empire, to think about the validity of titles. When the British Power succeeded de facto to the Mughal Empire, it slowly but unavoidably began to consider this question. During the first half of the
