Living India

I

THE CIVILIAN

WITHIN the narrow limits of this article I wish to consider the Indian Government and its ideas; that is to say, the men and the laws by which they govern.

First, take the personnel, for there is no complaint more insistent on all sides than that the officers of to-day are not the same as those of fifty or more years ago. They are out of touch with the people.

It was for some time supposed by Government that this was only partially true. That Government itself, that is, the Secretariats, were out of touch, was felt and avowed. But it was supposed t hat t his arose from the specializing of function. The work of Secretaries had become so difficult, so special, so different from district work, that instead of there being interchange of officers, the Secretaries usually passed all their official lives away from actual contact with the realities of the people. Orders were passed that in future this was not to occur; men were to come and go, to do district work for a while, then secretarial work, bringing to the latter knowledge gained in the former.

But it was quickly seen that this had little or no result. If the Secretaries were out of touch, the district officers were hardly less so. Government as a whole had separated from the people. English and Indians were divided; nothing was gained. What then was the difference between the men of the past and those of the present? Let us consider.

They went out younger in those days: sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, were the usual ages. The usual age for cadets was twenty. Clive, Warren Hastings, Nicholson and John Lawrence went out at eighteen, Henry Lawrence at seventeen, Meadows Taylor at fifteen. Many of the administrators were soldiers first, and they too went out young. Lord Roberts, for instance, was sixteen when he landed in India. Addiscombe cadets joined at sixteen or seventeen. When Haileybury was established the average age was raised to twenty-three or more, and at that age it now remains.

Thus, as the first year in India is also spent in training, out there a man is now not far from twenty-five before he is allowed to act independently; he used to be twenty-one or less. This is a great difference.

In England the age when a boy attains his majority and has full freedom before the law is twenty-one, and in order to elucidate this question I have tried to discover why the law of England fixed twenty-one. In Rome a boy was legally of age as regards his person at fourteen, though he had a curator over his property till he was twenty-five. Therefore this age of twenty-one does not come from Roman law. It seems to have arisen from a general consensus of observation that at twenty-one the average young man is fit to be free and should be free.

There seems to be about that age a critical mental stage of adolescence corresponding to the physical stage at fourteen. However this may be, there seems to be no doubt that to keep a young man in tutelage till he is twentyfour or twenty-five is bad for him. The powers of initiative and the sense of responsibility which mature at twenty-one atrophy thereafter if not fully used. And no book-learning can replace them. Thus nowadays tutelage is too long continued.

Again, education began later in those days than now, and there was less of it. Boys ran wild far more than now, when they are cramped up in schools and conventions at a very early age.

Thus the men of old had individualities; they had not been steam-rollered flat by public school and university; iheir boyish enthusiasm and friendliness were still in them. They had no prejudices, had never heard of ‘the Oriental mind,’ were not convinced beforehand that every Oriental was a liar and a thief, but were prepared to take men as they found them. They were willing and eager to learn. Their minds were open as yet to new impressions. They had not been ‘fortified by fixed principles’ to ‘safeguard them’ against acquiring any sympathy with Eastern peoples. Therefore they did so understand and sympathize.

If you will read the records of the past you will see this in a most marked degree. Englishmen had Indian friends; how rarely do they have such now! They knew the people’s talk, their folklore and their tales. They looked on them as fellow humans. And the feeling was reciprocated. See, for instance, how they kept the same servants throughout their service. Nowadays there is a general howl of the badness of Indian servants and their untrustworthiness. It was not so then. One of the most pleasing features of that old life was the affection often shown between masters and servants. Dickens has noted it. How much of that do you find now? Not much. A little still there is — who should know better than I? And if now it is so rare, where is the fault? Good masters make good servants. And it requires so little goodness in the master, — only a little consideration, a friendly word sometimes. They give back far more than they receive. If there are many bad servants, who makes them bad? Their masters; those with whom they began their service, who did not know how to treat them, how to help them, howto keep them. At Arcot the sepoys gave the rice to their officers and took the conjee themselves; how many regiments would do that now? There may be one or two.

I do not say that there was ever close personal intercourse between English and Indian; there was not, and in the nature of things there could not be. But there was mutual consideration and respect. ‘We have different ways and customs; we have different skins. But underneath it all we are both men.’ So they thought in the old days.

Thus in the old days the embryo official came out young, free from prejudices, full of enthusiasms, ready to learn: to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all phases of Oriental life about him. Even thirty years ago, when I first went to India, there were many of this type still left. They thought it their duty, as it was their pleasure, to study the people in order to understand what lay beneath their customs. It must be thirty years ago that an old civilian turned on me sharply when I made some ignorant remark about some Malabar custom and said, ‘The custom has arisen out of the circumstances of life, and no peculiarity of nature in the people. All peoples are much alike in fundamentals, and great apparent differences are but superficial and arise from environment.’

The absurd doctrine of the ’Oriental mind’ had not then arisen to be an excuse for ignorance and want of understanding. Nowadays it is supposed to be the mark of culture to talk of it; to the old officials it would have been the mark of a fool; they thought it their duty to study the people.

But it is not so now. Young civilians come out with their minds already closed, and as a rule closed they remain. The harm is done in England before they start. Let me give instances.

It is a custom, when a young civilian joins, to send him to a district headquarters for six months first, to learn his way about before posting him to any specified work. One such was sent to me ten years ago, and if I give an account of him it will do for all. For nowadays they are all turned out of the same mill, have all the same habits of mind and thought, and their personalities are submerged. If anything, he of whom I speak was above the average in all ways. He was a very nice young fellow, with charming manners, and I greatly liked him.

He became an officer of great promise and would have risen high, but he is dead now, and therefore what I say cannot offend any one. Besides, I have nothing to say that would offend. He was, I think, twenty-three years of age, of good people, educated at a public school and Oxford, and was as nice a boy as could be found. He had passed high in the examinations. He was said to be clever, and as regards assimilating paper knowledge, he was able, but his mind was an old curiosity shop. He had fixed ideas in nearly everything. He was full of prejudices he called principles, of facts that were not facts. He had learned a great deal, but he knew nothing; and worse, he did not know how to obtain knowledge. He wanted his opinions ready-made and absolute first, and only sought for such facts as would support those principles. He had no notion how to make knowledge by himself. He wanted authority before he would think. Give him ‘authority’ and he would disregard or deny fact in order to cling to it. I will take a concrete instance.

There is among Englishmen in Burma a superstition that the Burmese do not and cannot work. They are ’lazy.’ The men never work if they can help it, and all the work that is done is done by women. How this idea arose is an interesting study in the psychology of ignorance, but I need not enter into that now. The idea obtains universally, and is an acknowledged shibboleth. My young assistant was not with me many days before he brought it up.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘the Burman is so lazy.’

’You are sure of that?’ I asked.

He stared at me. ‘Why, every one says so.’

‘Every one said four hundred years ago that the sun went round the earth,’ I answered; ‘were they right?’

‘You don’t mean to tell me,’ he said, ‘that the Burmese can work.’

‘I don’t mean to tell you anything,’ I answered. ’Here are a quarter of a million Burmese in this district. Find out the facts for yourself.’

The necessity of having to support, his theories with facts seemed to him unreasonable. ‘But,’ he objected, ’I can see they are lazy.'

The Burman is lazy. That is enough said. What have facts to do with it? He did not say this, but undoubtedly he was thinking it. However, at last he did find what he considered a fact.

‘You remember, when we rode into that village the other day about noon, the number of men we saw sleeping in the veranda? ’

‘True,’ I said.

‘ Does not that show it ? ’

‘Suppose,’I said, ‘you had got up at four o’clock in the morning and worked till ten, in the fields, would you not require a rest before going out at three o’clock again?’

‘Do they do that?’ he asked.

‘You can find out for yourself if they do or not,’ I answered.

He looked at me doubtfully.

‘But,’ he objected, ‘it is notorious.’

‘So is the fact that the standard of living in Burma is very high. How do you reconcile the two? Laziness and comfort. The comfort is evident and real, perhaps the laziness is only apparent.’

‘A.rich country,’ he said.

‘Is it?’ I asked. ‘Look at the dry bare land, of which nearly all the district. and most of Upper Burma is composed. Is it rich? You have eyes to see. You know it is not rich; why do you say it. is?’

He shook his head almost as if I had hurt him and searched about for a defense.

‘But Lower Burma is rich.'

‘Certainly; and if you look at the export returns you will see the enormous amount of rice it grows and exports. Is that rice the product of laziness?’

‘But,’ he said at last in despair, ‘if this laziness of the Burman is untrue, how did the idea become general?’

‘Ah,’ I answered, ‘that is another matter. Let us stick to one thing at a time. We are concerned now with whether it is true or not. Decide that first. See for yourself. Find out an ordinary man’s work, and I think you will find it is sufficient. You have the opportunity of judging, and unless you use that opportunity you have no right to an opinion at all.’

He said no more at the time, but a few days later he returned to the subject. A high official had been opening a public work in Mandalay and had made a speech. Much of the labor for the work had been Burmese, where usually such labor is imported Indian, and he referred with satisfaction to the fact.

’I am glad to see,’ said the High Official, ‘that the Burmese are taking to hard work.’

My assistant brought this up. ‘Here is authority,’ he said.

‘Certainly,’ I said, ‘there is authority on one side; now let us look at fact on the other; whether it is better to be a peasant proprietor on your own land, or a day laborer?’

‘The proprietor, of course,’he said.

‘This has been a bad year in some districts. Crops have failed. You can read that from the weekly reports in my office. Many cultivators have had to abandon their holdings and turn to day labor. Is that good? Are they to be congratulated on it ?’

The boy looked downcast.

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Well, then,’ I asked, ‘what will they think of a government which says such things?’

He reflected for some time. ‘But,’ he said at length, ‘when one authority (the high official) says one thing, and another authority (you) says the reverse, what am I to believe ? ’

Then came my opportunity. ‘You are to believe nothing,’ I said. ‘You have eyes, you have ears, you have common sense. They are given you to use and see facts for yourself. The facts are all round you. You will never do any good work if you refuse to face facts and understand them. If you are to be worth your salt as an official you will have to work by sight, not by faith.’

He laughed. At first he seemed puzzled; then he was pleased. He had been educated to accept what he was told and never to question. His mind had been stunted and the idea of exercising it again delighted him. To judge by himself was a new idea to him entirely and he welcomed it. He began to do so. For the first time since childhood he was encouraged to use that which is the only thing worth cultivating: his common sense. Hut even yet he could not emancipate himself.

Some time later a new subject came up. This time it was the disappearance of the Bur man. He is supposed to be dying out. The Indian is ‘outing’ him. Before long there will be none left. My assistant had read it in the paper and heard it almost universally, therefore it must be true. I said nothing at the time, but. that day when I went to office I sent him the volumes of the last two Census tables with a short note. ‘Will you kindly,’ I wrote, ‘make out for me the Burmese population in 1891, and the same in 1901, district by district, and let me know where there have been decreases, also increases, and the percentage of increase.’

The next day he came to me with an amused expression on his face and a paper of figures in his hand.

‘I have made them all out,’ he said, ‘as you wished. Here they are.’

‘Then,’ I said, ‘let us take the districts with the decreases first. Please show me them.’

‘There are none,’ he answered. ‘They all show increases.’

‘Large?’ I asked.

‘Yes, large,’ he said, ’from a population of about, nine million to ten million in ten years is a good increase. The Burmese are prolific.’

‘But,’ I remarked also, ‘I thought the Burman was disappearing? You said so on authority. How is that?’

He laughed; he had taken his lesson.

And again, another point. I had received an order from Government which I thought was mistaken, and I said so. He was a Government official also, and I could say to him what I could not say to others.

‘Then you won’t carry it out?’ he asked, surprised.

‘I am here to carry out. orders, and of course I shall carry it out.’

‘But. why then do you criticize it, if it, must be carried out ?’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘before very long you will be sent to a subdivision of my district to govern it. I shall send you many orders, and shall expect you to carry them out,’

‘Right or wrong?’

‘Right, or, as you may think, wrong. You must do as I say. Without this, government is impossible. But I do not want you to think as I do. I want you to think for yourself. If an order appears to you issued from a misconception on my part, you must not refuse to obey, but I should expect you to tell me any facts that would lead me to better knowledge. Your business is not merely to carry out orders, but to furnish me with correct information how to better t hose orders. You are not merely to be part of the district hand but of its brain too. I should want you to criticize every order in your mind, try to understand it, and if you disagree with it, examine your reasons for disagreement and see if they are good.’

‘And let. you know?’

‘Whenever you are sure that I am wrong, and the matter is important.’

‘But would n’t criticism be “cheek?” ’

‘Not if it is true and valuable. You would be doing me a valuable service. It is what I want. How do you suppose we are ever to gel on if opinions are to be stereotyped? Thought must be free. But don’t give me opinions or “authority.” I don’t care for either. Give me facts, and be sure of your facts.’

‘ I see,’he said.

' You can be quite kind about it, you know,’ I suggested.

‘Is that what you are to Government,’ he asked, ‘when you disagree with them?’

‘I try to be,’ I said. ‘I put myself as far as I can in their position and give them what I would like to receive,'

Again it was quite a new idea to him that any one should want criticism. He had been educated to believe that any doubt of what aut hority said was a sin, perhaps inevitable sometimes, but anyhow always to be concealed; and he had been told that every one, from the Creator down, resented criticisms and would annihilate the critic. That any one should prefer knowing the truth, even if it prove him wrong, seemed to him impossible. He did not like ever to admit that he had been wrong. He thought truth was absolute and fixed, whereas it is comparative and always growing. He had, unconsciously, the mind of the Pharisee in the Temple.

Now, these three instances will point out what seems to me to be wrong in the previous training of young men sent to India, and in fact in all training. Their minds instead of being cultivated are stifled. They are taught to disregard fact, and to accept authority in place of it. They are not only to do what they are told, which is right; but to think what they are told, which is wrong. And they do. They are taught to repeat in parrot manner stock phrases and imagine they are thinking. And this habit once acquired is difficult to get rid of.

There is throughout nearly all English officials (and non-officials) in India not only a disregard of facts about the people among whom they live, but a want of any real sympathy with them, which is astonishing. They often like the ‘natives,’ they often are kind to them, wish them well, and do their best for them, but that is not sympathy. Sympathy is understanding. It is being able to put yourself in another’s place.

I could tell many stories illustrating this want of understanding. One will suffice. An official I knew well—an excellent fellow, kindhearted, humorous and able, holding a good position then and a high one now, with a charming wife, living among the Burmese and ruling them, with Burmese servants, clerks and peons, and continual Burmese visitors of all classes— called his dog ‘Alaung.’ Now, ‘Alaung ’ means somet hing very similar to ‘Messiah’ and is a sacred word. A parallel would be if, say, a Parsee in England called his dog ‘Christ.’ I have seen this official’s servants wince when he called out to his dog. Yet I am sure it never struck him that there was anything out of the way in this nomenclature. I am sure he never dreamed he would hurt any one’s feelings by it, or he would not have done it. He certainly intended no jeer at the religion of his subordinates. It was simply that he wanted understanding.

Now, sympathy is inherent in all children, and is the means whereby they acquire all the real knowledge they have. A girl being a mother to her doll, a boy being a soldier or hunter, is exercising and training the most valuable of all gifts — imaginative sympathy. It is the only emotion which brings real knowledge of the world about you. Without it you never understand anything.

II

THE TRAINING OF A CIVIL OFFICER

Therefore there is a wide difference between the men as they came out in the old days and as they come out now. Then they were young, not very well instructed, but capable of seeing, understanding and learning; nowadays they are so drilled and instructed that they can deal only with books, papers and records, whereas life has been closed to them; they can enforce laws, but not temper them.

After they come out the difference of life and work is still greater. In the old days, for instance, they picked up the language quickly and well. The time to learn a language is when you are young, the younger the better. We learn our own language as children. The older we grow the harder it is, because it means not merely learning by heart a great many words, not merely training the palate and tongue to produce different sounds, but adopting a new attitude of mind. Nothing definite has been discovered as to the localization of faculties in the brain, therefore nothing certain is known, but it has always seemed to me and to others whom I have consulted that when you learn a new language you are exercising and developing a new piece of brain. When you know several languages and change from one to another, you seem definitely to change the piece of brain which actuates your tongue. You switch off one centre and switch on to another. You will always notice in yourself and others that there is a definite pause when the change of language is made. Now it becomes every year more difficult to awaken an unused part of the brain and bring it into active use, and to begin at twenty-three is late. True, languages are taught them at Oxford before they come out, but the result seems nil. You must learn a language where it is spoken. Moreover, the way they have been taught Latin and Greek is a hindrance, for living languages are not learned that way. A child, for instance, learns to talk perfectly without ever learning grammar. I never heard that any great English writer had a grounding in English grammar. There is no real grammar of a living language, because it grows and changes. You can only have a fixed grammar of a dead language.

The fact is that correct talking is the outcome of correct thinking, not of any mechanical rules. You must think in a language before you can speak it well.

Out at twenty-three it is far too late for the ordinary man to learn to think in Hindustani or Burmese or Tamil. Of course there are occasional exceptions, but the way these languages are usually spoken is dreadful. I could tell tales about myself as well as others, for although I worked very hard for years, I never knew Burmese well, nor yet Canarese, nor yet Hindustani. Yet who will doubt that it is very important, the most important acquisition in fact that you can make. Without it you can never really get near the people. So that in this way the old-time civilian had again a great advantage.

Once upon a time there was a district officer and there was his district, and for some reason they did not seem to agree. At least the district did not like its Head. It felt uneasy and it became restive, and at last it complained. It took up many grievances and amongst them was this: ‘There is a good deal of building wanted in various parts, and there is timber and there are sawyers, but no licenses can be obtained. When the Head comes round on tour we ask him, but he always refuses. So all building work is stopped.’

An inspecting officer went to inquire, and he began with this complaint.

' Why do you refuse them sawpit licenses when on tour?’ he asked.

‘I don’t,’ the Head replied.

‘They say you do.’

‘But they never even applied; so how could I refuse?’ he answered.

‘Very well,’ said the inspecting officer, ‘let’s see the file of your petitions received.’

A clerk brought it out, and there, written in Burmese of course, were many sawpit applications, and below each, written by the Head, was his indorsement,—

‘I cannot allow more guns to be issued.’

Then the machine of government was far less perfected than it is now. There were of course laws and rules, and there was supervision, but to nothing like the present extent. The district officer then had a personality. He was required to have one, for local conditions differed more than they do now, and he had far more latitude. Moreover, the machine being less effective, he depended a great deal upon his personal influence to keep the place quiet and get things done. He could not ask for orders because there was no telegraph, and he could not get help quickly because there were no railways. Therefore he was obliged to acquire a personal knowledge of people and peoples, of individuals and castes and races, which he thinks is not so necessary now. The result was that all laws and orders passed through his personality before reaching the people, thus acquiring a humanity and reasonableness that is now impossible. He studied his district, and used his powers, legal and otherwise, as he found best. If he found a law harsh,—and in the last resort all laws are so, — he would ameliorate its action. Nowadays he cannot do that. Formerly he administered, as best he could, justice; now he administers the law, a very wide difference. Thus he was forced by circumstances to acquire a knowledge and sympathy which are unattainable to-day; for you only learn things by doing them.

The old district, officers were known personally by name and by reputation all through their districts. The people looked to them for help and understanding and protection as much against the rigidity and injustice of the laws as against other ills.

But nowadays, except the government officials and headmen, I do not believe that any one in a district knows who the head is. At all events it makes practically no difference, because the application of the laws is supervised and enforced and the district officer must ‘fall into line.’ If any personality has survived his schooling it must now be killed.

Now, few men, I think, learn anything except from two motives; a natural driving desire, or necessity. But a natural desire to study the people round you is scarce, and the necessity of other days has passed away. A district officer can now do his work quite to the satisfaction of Government and know next to nothing of the people. In fact, sometimes knowledge leads to remonstrance with Government, and it does not like that.

Again, there has crept into secretariats a cult of energy and efficiency, and a definition of these words which acts disast rously upon the district officer, both when he is under training and subsequently.

Now the proper meaning of an efficient officer is, I take it, one who sees the right thing to do and does it quickly and effectively; and probably Government really has this in its mind when it uses the word. This is what it wants; but very often what it gets is almost the opposite, and it is as pleased with this as if it got what it expected. In fact, it does not seem to know the difference. An example will explain what I mean.

There is, we will say, in a district a good deal of cattle theft going on, and the thieves cannot well be detected. Cattle graze in Burma in the fields and in the jungle on their outskirts; they roam about a good deal, and it is easy enough to steal them; detection is difficult.

But there is in Burma, as in parts of India, a provision of the Village Regulation which is called the Track Law, and it is substantially as follows: —

If cattle are missing their tracks can be followed. When they pass out of the area under the jurisdiction of the village wherein the owner lives and enter another village land, that village becomes responsible. The tracker calls the headman of that village and shows him the tracks, which he must follow up and demonstrate that the cattle have not stopped in his jurisdiction, but have gone on. In this way the tracks can be followed till they are lost, when the village in whose land they are lost is considered as being the village of the thief, and is therefore responsible for the lost cattle. It can be fined, and the owner of the lost bullocks indemnified.

This act is taken from a very old custom common to most of India and also, I believe, to places in Europe; and several hundred years ago, when villages were widely separated by jungle, it had some sense.

There was then a presumption either that the stolen bullock had been taken to that village, or that some of the villagers had seen it pass. The thief would probably have stopped there for food or rest, as it was a long way on. But nowadays, in most of the country, village fields are conterminous, with litlle or no jungle between; there are many roads, and except where the tracks actually go into the village gate the presumption does not arise. Cattle are common, and the villagers are not expert trackers. Moreover there is a very strong premium on dishonesty, or at least carelessness in keeping to the right tracks. Suppose the right track lost in a wet place, or a dry bare place, why not pick up some other? Most cattle tracks are very similar. The owner wants his compensation.

Yet the ‘energetic’ officer will be expected to work this act à pied de la lettre.

I saw a good deal of its actual working at one time, when I was a subordinate officer. Every time a beast was lost it had to be tracked, and the village where the tracks were lost had to pay. It made no difference whether t here was any reasonable presumption against the village, — there the law was. The tracks might be lost two miles from the actual village, simply crossing its boundary; the law was there.

I remember one village had a bad time because it was near a frequented road, and when the tracks got on this road they were always lost, as the surface was hard. So the village had to pay. Yet what evidence was there against the village? None. I had the curiosity for some time, whenever a case wherein a village was fined was subsequently cleared up, to find out what village had been fined and see if that village had been in any way cognizant of the theft. It never had. The fine was purely gratuitous, was worse than useless, for it was wrong.

Yet it is a government rule — not I think actually laid down, but understood— that whenever an offense occurs, unless the culprit, is arrested, a village must be held responsible.

Now the points that I wish all this to illustrate are these. Men at the headquarters of Government, out of touch with real life, read the Track Law, think it most useful and just, and insist on its being enforced. Officers on the spot, accustomed to accept all law as the epitome of justice, follow the act without thinking. The responsibility is really on them, as Government tells them to judge each case on its merits; but they fear that if they reported that no ease under the Track Law ever had any merits they would be written down as ‘wanting in energy.’ Moreover not having been trained to think for themselves they do not do so. They fulfill all the requirements of the act and are satisfied. Moreover, subsequently, to justify their own action they must praise the act. Therefore a vicious circle is created. Government says, ‘District officers praise the act, therefore have it stringently enforced, for they know its actual value.' And district officers say, ‘Government declares this to be an admirable act, therefore I must enforce it.' No one ever investigates the facts. If a district officer have doubts he discreetly smothers them as babies, lest, they grow.

And this is but one instance. I might mention others, but even many instances would not expose its whole evil. It is the spirit that renders such things possible that is disastrous. So are officers trained to believe that when anything untoward happens they must do something; they must punish somebody. The idea that if they act without full knowledge the something they do will be wrong, and the persons they punish will be innocent, is not allowed to intrude. They will of course always act by law, but then, summum jus, swnma injuria. In the old days this could not have happened. In the first place, Government trusted its officers, and its trust was not misplaced; now it trusts its laws; yet there is nothing so unintelligent, nothing so fatal as rigid laws — except those who believe in them. In the second place, officers with the personality and knowledge of the men of former days would have insisted on seeing for themselves and judging for themselves. They would have cared nothing that they might be supposed not to have ‘energy.’ They would know that they had something better than that — they had understanding.

The possibility of making our laws and our government generally endurable to the people depends on the personality of the district officer. Nowadays he is sent out with his personality crushed, and it gets still more crushed out there. He becomes in time, not a living soul, but a motor engine to drive a machine. Whatever knowledge he acquires is of the people’s faults and not of their virtues. When you hear an official praised as ‘knowing the Indian’ or ’the Burman,’you know that it means that he knows his faults. He knows the criminal trying to escape, the villages trying to evade revenue. It does not mean that he knows more than this. Some do, especially among the police and the forest officers, but then, they have no influence.

III

COURT REFORMS

The regeneration of India must bring forth great changes in the penal law. The pressing need in criminal procedure is, I think, a change in the treatment of an accused person when he is arrested.

The first instinct of an offender is as I have said to confess, even if an understanding person is not available to confess to. He has offended the Law, he wants to make all amends he can by confessing to the representative of That offended Personality. I have seen very many first offenders and talked to them before they got into the hands of pleaders and others, and my experience tells me that a man who has committed his first offence is very like a man who has caught his first at tack of serious illness. He is afraid not so much of the results as of the thing itself. Sin has caught him and he is afraid of sin. Me wants protection and help and cure. He does not want to hide anything; his first need is confession to some understanding ear. Many, many such confessions have I heard in the old days. That is the result of the first offense.

But this tendency to truth is choked when it is ascertained that as a result the offender will he vindictively punished and made in the end far worse than he was at the beginning. Naturally the offender says to himself: ‘ I am bad now. What will I be after two years’ jail? Better fight it out. If I win and get acquitted, at least I will have a chance to reform. If convicted, that chance will be taken from me forever. And fighting will not lose me anything. The penitent prisoner who confesses gets no lighter punishment than if he had put the court to the expense of a long trial. Why, therefore, repent? It will do me harm, not good.’ That is the case now; under reasonable laws it would be the other way. But even yet in country places he often confesses to the police by whom he is arrested.

Now, by Indian law no confession to the police may be offered in evidence. The reason of this is that the police in their keenness to secure a conviction may torture a prisoner to secure a confession, and there have been in fact enough of such cases to cause doubt, and to prevent the police being allowed to receive a confession. Therefore, if the offender wishes to confess, he is taken now to a magistrate; there his confession is recorded. Then he is sent back to police custody. Me is visited by his relatives, a pleader is engaged for him. His folly in confessing is pointed out to him and he withdraws the confession, alleging that he had been tortured to confess. His confession is not only negatived, but a slur is cast on the police which is hard to remove. Their case and evidence appear tainted, and the accused often secures an acquit tal although the magistrate knows that the confession was true.

Ail this is very common both in Burma and India, and it is disastrous to allow and to encourage such things as by our procedure we do encourage them. There should be a complete change.

When a man is arrested, some such procedure should be adopted as this. He should be told by the police that he is being taken direct, to the magistrate who will try the case, who will hear anything that he has to say. He should be warned to say nothing to the police. Then he should be taken direct to the magistrate, who should explain to him fully what he is accused of and ask him what he has to say.

Whatever his statement be, the magistrate should tell him that he will himself at once investigate it and summon witnesses; meanwhile the accused should be remitted to custody, but not to police custody. That is where ail the trouble comes in, and all opportunities for making charges against the police. If there be no jail there should be a lock-up in charge of Indian police who are under t he magistrat e and are not concerned in the guilt or innocence of the accused. The investigating police should have access to the accused only by permission of the magistrate. He should, however, be allowed to sec his friends and a pleader if he wish. But I am sure of this, that the first offender would rather trust the magistrate if he were a person who he knew would help him, than any pleader.

Further, if a man confess truly, his punishment should be greatly reduced. I do not say that this should be done because he gives less trouble, but because the frame of mind induced by a free and full confession is a sounder frame of mind on which to begin reformation than are the defiance and negation now inculcated by our system.

The trial need not wait till the case is complete. The magistrate could summon the police witnesses at once, and he should examine them himself, allowing the police only to suggest questions if they wish. So with the wit nesses for the defense: they could be examined as they came in, and should be examined by the magistrate himself. No one but the magistrate should be allowed to speak directly to any party to the case.

All cross-examination should be absolutely prohibited. If either side have matters they wish brought out of a witness, they should tell the magistrate and he would ask such questions as he thought fit. There is no such curse now to justice as cross-examination by a clever pleader or barrister. It is a sort, of forensic show-off by the advocate at the cost of the witness, and frequently at the cost of justice. For naturally no one cares to be bullied by a licensed bully, and witnesses consequently will not come to court if they can help it. When in court they are bamboozled and made to contradict themselves where they have originally spoken the truth.

I have often been told that acute cross-examination by a clever barrister is the greatest safeguard justice can have from false evidence. I do not believe a word of it. A magistrate can, by far fewer and simpler questions, expose false evidence better than an advocate does, because the magistrate is intent only on his business, — to find the truth; the advocate is advertising himself, and trying to destroy truth as well as falsehood.

But if the magistrate did all the questioning I believe there would not be much false evidence. Witnesses will lie to the opposite side, but not to an understanding court. Perjury would disappear. What is its present cause? Contempt for the court and sympathy with either complainant or accused, which sympathy sees no chance of justice for its object except by perjury. Because a trial is a fight. There is not a human being east or west who would not be ashamed to lie to a court that he knew was trying to do its best for all, parties and public. It is because the courts as at present constituted do as much harm as good that perjury is rampant and condoned. It is so in all countries; it has been so in all periods.

Then, as soon as possible, juries should be introduced. This cannot be done until the law, especially as regards punishment, is greatly altered in accordance with the common sense of the people, but it is an objective to be aimed at as soon as possible. Until the public cooperate with the courts in all ways you will never have a good system of justice. Crime hurts the people far more than it hurts Government. Don’t you think the people know that? And don’t you suppose they want it prevented even more than Government does? In any case that is the fact. They hate the courts now because they don’t prevent or cure crime; they only make matters worse.

The only objection I see to this proposed alteration is that it will take more time and so cost more money. At first, it may do so, but even then, what the public loses by more taxes it will more than save in having to pay less to lawyers. How much unnecessary money is now paid to lawyers? Enough I am sure to double the magistracy and then leave a big balance. Now, courts are made for the people, not for lawyers. And in time crime would so decrease that there would be saving all round.

The reform of the civil courts should follow somewhat the same lines. A man should not. have to wait to see a civil judge till his case is all made out. He should be able to go to him at once and confide in him, and the judge should send for the other party and try to make an arrangement between them, so that no suit should be filed. Not until that has been done, and not unless a judge give a certificate of its necessity, should a suit be allowed to be filed as it is now.

And then, when it is filed, the judge should conduct the case and not the advocates on each side. That is the only way to stop the perjury, which increases and will continue to increase. Magistrates and judges must cease to be umpires of a combat, and become investigators of truth.

As regards the laws of marriage and inheritance, no great change can be made until there is a real representative assembly to make these changes, but even there something could be done. That fossilization of custom described by Sir Henry Sumner Maine should stop. Because a high court proved a hundred years ago that; a certain custom existed, there is no evidence that it does or should exist now. To establish precedents of this nature is to stop all progress of every kind; we have a vision different from the poet’s

Why should not fresh inquiries into custom be made from time to time, it being understood that any court ruling should apply only to that time and place and should not bind ihe future? Something must be done. Things cannot go on as they are. We reproach the Indians for want of progress, but we ourselves are the main cause of that stagnation. We bind them, and they cannot move.

As regards land policy, there is this to be said, — that fixed ideas are a mistake.

In Bengal there was at one time a fixed idea that all land must and did belong to large landowners, and so, partly out of sheer ignorance, partly out of prejudice, a race of zemindars was created out of the tax-gatherers to the Mogul Empire. The result has been sad.

Again in Burma the same idea prevailed for a while, and headmen were encouraged to annex communal waste as their private land. This was unfornate.

Then came a reaction, and all large estates were denounced as bad. There was to be a small tenantry holding direct from Government, forbidden to alienate their land, and all leasing of land to tenants was forbidden.

This I understand to be the policy still. It is a policy of fixed ideas, and as applied to anything that has life, like land tenure, it is unfortunate, no matter what the fixed idea be.

If there be one truth above another that is clear in studying land systems, it is that no one permanent system is good. The cultivation of land, like all matters, is subject to evolution and change. What is good to-day may not be good to-morrow. The English system of large estates cultivated by tenants did at one time in English history produce the best farming in the world. English farming was held up as an example to all countries, and was so regarded by them. The system of large estates allowed of the expenditure of capital, experiments in new cultivation and new breeds of cattle and variety of crops. It suited its day well. And though its full day has passed there will never be a time when some large estates will not be able to justify themselves. Even if, as apparently is the case now in England, ‘petit culture’ is that best adapted to the cultivation of the day and the needs of the people, yet there is still room for large estates. A dead uniformity of small holdings could not but be very bad for any country.

Further, although excessive alienation of land through money-lenders may be very bad, yet st agnat ion in ownership is bad also. India anti Burma are progressive, and changes must take place. Cultivators will become artisans and traders; city people will like to return to the land. There is an ebb and flow which is good for all. Too great rigidity of system will stop progress. A good system of land tenure is that, which is in accordance with the evolution of the people it applies to, and assists in that evolution. While recognizing that for the bulk of the people small holdings are best, it will not forbid larger estates; while admitting that the alienation of land through borrowing recklessly from money-lenders is bad, it will see that the progress of the people from a purely agricultural state toward a state of industrial activity is not checked. It takes all sorts to make a state.

It may be good for the cultivator to hold direct from Government, but if Government is to be the landlord it must act up to its name. It must give compensation for improvements when a tenant has to relinquish the land. Otherwise no tenant will improve, and the necessity for improvement — for wells, irrigation, manuring, embankments, and so on — is the greatest necessity of agriculture. In my own experience I have seen that the system of state land tenure in Upper Burma does stop improvements.

That is the light in which the land question has to be worked out, on broad comprehensive lines which, while acknowledging the present, see also the future; which, while seeing one form of good, do not deny another.

So with an understanding and a sympathetic personnel the administration would be brought nearer to the people, until at length, when their capacity for self-government had developed, they would be able to take over our administrative machine little by little and work it themselves.

They could never do that now. If by any chance they did get possession of the machinery now, they would set to work to smash it till none remained.