Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/46

 tionaries whom they 'took over' (if we may use the expression) with the grant of the Diwáni, the native element was almost wholly excluded from the administrative hierarchy. Natives were employed as clerks and writers at salaries that were notoriously insufficient to provide them with a decent living. We have seen how they managed to build up enormous fortunes by a dexterous use of the opportunities of their humble state. It was the defect of Lord Cornwallis's system that under it all the ostensibly important and responsible positions were reserved for Englishmen, who had to learn the language and condition, the laws and the usages, of the people as they went on. The number of the foreign officials was, it need not be said, utterly inadequate for the work that lay before them. The reality of power therefore did not correspond with the formal devolution of it. The horde of underlings were masters in all that touched closely the life of the people. Under perfectly regular forms the grossest wrong was done.

It was reserved for Lord William Bentinck to correct this flagrant abuse and to do for the native servants of the Company what Lord Cornwallis had done for the Covenanted Civil Service. But though in Lord Amherst's day there was no definite step towards the creation of an Uncovenanted Service, the need was keenly felt and the reform was ripening in the stage of discussion.

The case was the same with the closely related question of land settlement. Not till 1833 did