Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/21

 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.

Mr. Hume's early official training is thus graphically described by the Times of India : "In those far-off days