Page:Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors Vol 1.djvu/18

xii In a Minute written in March 1867, Sir W. Grey, mentioned that "the complete separation (below the head of the Government) of the administration of Bengal from the general administration of India dates from 1843, in which year Lord Ellenborough assigned a separate Secretariat Establishment to the Bengal Administration by which the whole civil business, including public works, was to be transacted. The establishment which it was at that time thought right to assign to the work of the Bengal Government was one Secretary and two Under-Secretaries."

An outline of the system which practically obtained in 1845, and presumably still obtained in 1853 (as no material changes had been introduced meanwhile), is to be found in an article of January 1845, by the historian Mr. J. C. Marshman,, on * Bengal as it is. "The Executive Government of Bengal," he wrote, "is administered by the Governor or Deputy Governor, aided by one Secretary and two Under-Secretaries. The duties annexed to it embrace the entire control of the Civil, Magisterial, and Police branches of the administration; of the Land Revenues; of the Salt and Opium monopolies; of the Abkari, or Excise on spirits; of the Ecclesiastical, Marine, and Steam Departments, as well as that of Public Instruction and the Post Office. It is also charged with the management of the Ultra-Gangetic settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore. With the Legislative, the Military, and Political Departments it has no connection; they belong exclusively to the province of the general Government. The duties which are thus thrown on the Government of Bengal have been supposed to exceed those which devolve on the united Governments of Madras and Bombay, in which the responsibility of deliberation is shared by two distinct Councils, and the labour of action is distributed among several bureaux. In reference to the finances, however, the functions of the Bengal Government are strictly administrative. The funds collected through its instrumentality are at the entire disposal of the Government of India, and are expended according to the arrangements laid down by it; and which can be modified only by its authority. The Governor of Bengal can make no alteration in the allowances of the public servants; he cannot establish a new school, or augment the pay of a daroga to the extent of a rupee, without a vote of the Council of India. But