Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/43

 niceties and quibbles of refined bureaucracy, but have not the slightest sympathy with the moral purpose which underlies great administrative schemes. The end of it all was in Bengal that there did grow up a class of men who had a recognized title to what may vaguely be called territorial ownership. In Lord Amherst's time the faults of the Permanent Settlement were more obvious than its merits, nor had the alternative methods adopted in Madras of direct assessments on the proprietary peasants worked to more apparent advantage. Whether the 'village' system was bad per se, or worked badly because the assessments were too high, is a disputed matter. It must suffice here to say that the improved ráyatwárí system of Sir Thomas Munro was formally started two years before the coming of Lord Amherst, and that its beneficial operation was one of the noteworthy features of his term of administration. But the long controversy found a special text in the problem presented by the as yet unsettled tracts of the provinces on the Ganges and the Jumna, and the newly acquired districts which make up the Presidency of Bombay. The best thoughts of some of Lord Amherst's most trusted advisers were given to this—the fundamental issue of Indian administration. Nothing is more pathetic than the tales to which district officers had to listen with impotent regret. There had been violence and confusion in the wild Maratha days, and from that the conquests and annexations of Lord Welleslry, followed by the