Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/101

Rh The Cornwallis Code, whether for revenue, police criminal and civil justice, or other functions, defined and set bounds to authority, created procedure, by a regular system of appeal guarded against the miscarriage of justice, and founded the Civil Service of India as it exists to this day. This Code has been the basis of every attempt to introduce law and order into each successive acquisition of districts and kingdoms. Very possibly its provisions were in some instances cumbrous and minute, and not suited to races more manly and warlike and less prone to litigation and chicanery than the population of Central and Lower Bengal. Some of its sections and clauses were ruthlessly put aside when new, simple, and equitable Codes had to be suited to purely savage or warlike tribes. It may be also said that criminals were allowed a fatal facility of appeal, which in the working proved disadvantageous to the general welfare of the community. But the Cornwallis Code was dictated by an anxious desire to conciliate Hindus and Muhammadans, to soothe their feelings, to avoid offence to religious and social prejudices, and at the same time to substitute order, method, and system for anarchy, chaos, and the irregular and uncontrolled exercise of judicial power. Objections have occasionally been made to the phraseology of these Regulations, and doubtless they suffer by comparison with the precise, correct, and luminous language of the later Acts dating from 1833, when the legislation of