Part 9 (1/2)

s.p.a.ce precludes me from entering upon the legislative work of Lord Mayo. That work was voluminous, and of a most searching character.

But it was practically conducted by the two eminent jurists, Sir Henry Maine and Sir Fitzjames Stephen, who held in succession the office of Law Member of Council during Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty. It has, moreover, been narrated by Sir Fitzjames Stephen himself, in full detail, in my larger _Life of Lord Mayo_.

In the foregoing pages many will miss a familiar feature of the Earl of Mayo's Viceroyalty. In India, hospitality forms one of the public duties of the governing race--a duty which they discharge, some laboriously, all to the best of their ability. The splendid hospitalities of Lord Mayo to all ranks and all races, amounted to an additional source of strength to the British Rule. He regarded it a proud privilege that it fell to his lot to present, for the first time, a son of the English Sovereign to the people and Princes of India. His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh's progress touched chords in the oriental imagination which had lain mute since the overthrow of the Delhi throne, and called forth an outburst of loyalty such as had never before been awakened in the history of our rule. It was the seal of peace; an {186} act of oblivion for the struggle which placed India under the Crown, and for the painful memories which that struggle left behind.

In his ceremonial as in his official duties, the Earl of Mayo had the ease of conscious strength. His n.o.ble presence, the splendour of his hospitality, and his magnificence of life, seemed in him only a natural complement of rare administrative power. The most charming of Indian novels,[2] in portraying an ideal head of Indian society, unconsciously delineates Lord Mayo. But indeed it would be almost impossible to draw a great Indian Viceroy in his social aspects without the sketch insensibly growing into his portrait. Alike in the Cabinet and the drawing-room there was the same calm kindness and completeness. Sir Fitzjames Stephen, not given to hero-wors.h.i.+p, has said: 'I never met one to whom I felt disposed to give such heartfelt affection and honour.'

[Footnote 2: _Dustypore_, by Sir Henry Cunningham.]

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CHAPTER IX

THE END

One branch of the internal administration in which Lord Mayo took a deep interest was prison discipline. The subject had come prominently before him when Secretary for Ireland, and his Indian diaries contain valuable remarks and suggestions noted down after inspecting the local jails. He found a chronic battle going on between the District Magistrate, who was _ex officio_ the head of the District jail, and the Medical Officer who was responsible for the health of the prisoners. The District Magistrate was determined that prison should be a distinctly uncomfortable place for the criminal cla.s.ses within his jurisdiction. The Medical Officer was equally determined to bring down the terrible death-rate which obtained in Indian jails. Indeed, the more enthusiastic doctors would have liked to dismiss every convict at the end of his sentence, weighing several pounds heavier than when he entered the prison gates.

Lord Mayo had therefore to deal with the opposite extremes of severity and leniency. On the one hand, {188} he was resolved that the discipline of Indian jails should be a really punitive discipline. On the other hand, he wrote, 'You have no right to inflict a punishment of death upon a prisoner who has only been sentenced for a term of years or for life,' by keeping him in a disease-stricken jail. Among the most distressing and clamant cases which came before him was the great Convict Settlement in the Andaman Islands, in which the mortality amounted in 1867 to over 101 per thousand. The measures taken by Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo, had by 1870 brought down the death-rate to 10 per thousand. But the inquiries made by Lord Mayo disclosed a laxity of discipline productive of scandalous results. In 1871 a cruel and mysterious murder committed in the Penal Settlement, and which had been somewhat slightly reported on by the responsible officers, forced on Lord Mayo's mind the necessity of a complete change in the system pursued.

He found that a few English officials with a handful of soldiers were holding down, in an isolated island group, 600 miles across the sea from Bengal, the 8000 worst criminals of Northern India. Many of them came from the fierce frontier races; most of them were life prisoners, reckless, with no future on this earth. The security of such a settlement depends on clear regulations, exact subordination among the officials, and strict discipline among the convicts. The inquiries conducted under Lord Mayo's orders in 1871, disclosed the absence of every one of these {189} essentials of safety. He found dissension and disobedience among the authorities; and a state of discipline that allowed a convict to acc.u.mulate a practically unlimited store of liquor, with which to madden himself and his comrades to further crime. It was a murder committed after a general debauch of this sort that led the Viceroy to reconsider the const.i.tution of the Settlement.

The work occupied Lord Mayo's thoughts at Simla during the early half of 1871. He found that he had to create a government for a Colony 'which, a.s.suming that only life-prisoners were sent, would ultimately contain 20,000 convicts.' In the first place, therefore, he had to put together an administrative framework of a texture that would withstand severe strain, and ensure the safety of the isolated handful of Englishmen in charge of the islands. In the second place, he desired that the new const.i.tution of the Settlement, while enforcing a stricter surveillance and discipline, and increasing the terrors of transportation, more especially to new arrivals, should eventually allow of a career to the industrious and well-behaved; and as it were open up a new citizens.h.i.+p, with local ambitions and interests, to the exiles whose crimes had cut them off alike from the future and the past in their native land.

He resolved, in the third place, to establish the financial arrangements of the Colony on a sounder basis; and he hoped that the measures which raised the convicts out of criminal animals into settlers {190} would also tend to render them self-supporting. A Code of Regulations was drawn up under his eye, and revised with his own pen; and true to his maxim, that for any piece of hard administrative work 'a _man_ is required,' he sought out the best officer he could find for the practical reorganisation of the Settlement. He chose a soldier of strong force of character and proved administrative skill, and in the summer of 1871 sent him off with the new Regulations to his task.

'The charge which Major-General ---- is about to a.s.sume,' wrote Lord Mayo in a Viceregal Note, 'is one of great responsibility. In fact, I scarcely know of any charge under the Government of India which will afford greater scope for ability and energy, or where a greater public service can be performed. I fully expect that under his management the Andamans, Nicobars, and their dependencies, instead of being a heavy drain upon the Government, may at no distant period become self-supporting. The charge of the Colony to the Indian Exchequer has averaged 150,000 pounds a year; each transported felon costs the country more than 1 pound 12_s._ a month' [the average monthly cost in Bengal jails being then 11_s._ 5_d._ per man].

Lord Mayo then points out in detail the means by which he hoped this change would be effected, 'by a proper system of rice and pulse cultivation'; by breeding goats, and a more economical meat supply; by the adoption of jail-manufactured clothing, and {191} the growth of cotton and flax; by using the 'timber grown on the islands instead of imported timber'; 'by subst.i.tuting Native troops for free police,'

and by 'more economical steam communication' with the mainland. The immediate saving from these measures was estimated by the proper authority at 30,000 pounds a year. The Viceroy next comments on the recent reports 'that there is no system of supervision or discipline.' He then sets forth, in a well-considered summary, the points to be attended to in this important branch of the ordering of a convict colony.

The new Superintendent set to work to reorganise the Penal Settlement with great vigour. But he found that the changes really amounted to introducing a new government. While, therefore, after six months he was able to report encouraging results, he desired that Lord Mayo should 'personally realise the magnitude and difficulty of the task.'

'Progress has been made,' the Superintendent wrote to the Viceroy's Private Secretary, 'but I am anxious that Lord Mayo should himself see what has been done, before we commence the clearing. No one can thoroughly understand this place until he has seen it.' 'I look to the Governor-General's visit,' he again wrote in the midst of his difficulties, 'to set all these matters straight.'

On the 24th January, 1872, the Earl of Mayo left Calcutta on his cold weather tour. His purpose was first to visit Burma, next to call at the Andamans {192} on the return pa.s.sage across the Bay of Bengal, and then to inspect the Province of Orissa. In each of these three places, weighty questions of internal policy demanded his presence.

After completing his work in Burma, he cast anchor off Hopetown in the Andamans at 8 A.M. on the 8th February, 1872. A brilliant party of officials and guests accompanied the Viceroy and the Countess of Mayo in H. M.'s frigate _Glasgow_, and on the attendant steams.h.i.+p _Dacca_.

Lord Mayo landed immediately after breakfast, and during a long day conducted a thorough inspection of Viper and Ross Islands, where the worst characters were quartered. Ample provisions had been made for his protection. A detachment of free police, armed with muskets, moved with the Governor-General's party in front, flank, and rear.

The prisoners were strictly kept at their ordinary work; and on Viper and Ross Islands, the only ones where any danger was apprehended, the whole troops were under arms. One or two convicts, who wished to present pet.i.tions, handed them to an officer in attendance, without approaching the Viceroy; and the general feeling among the prisoners was one of self-interested satisfaction, in the hope of indulgences and pardons in honour of the visit.

The official inspection was concluded about 5 o'clock. But Lord Mayo desired, if possible, to create a sanitarium, where the fever patients might shake off their clinging malady. He thought that Mount Harriet, a {193} hill rising to 1116 feet a mile and a half inland from the Hopetown jetty, might be suitable for this purpose. No criminals of a dangerous sort were quartered at Hopetown; the only convicts there being approved ticket-of-leave men of good conduct.

However, the Superintendent despatched a boat to convey the guards to the Hopetown jetty.