APPENDIX. A. Minute by the Honourable the GOVERNOR, dated 30th of INTRODUCTION. 1. Ar a period when I am leaving a government over which I have presided for three years, it may be useful to those who succeed, and satisfactory to my superiors, to take a general review of the different measures I have proposed, the reforms and changes which have been made, as well as their financial results; and to offer my opinion as to the means which appear best adapted to maintain what has been done, and further to promote economy as far as practicable, without injury to the efficiency of the public service. POLITICAL. 2. The principal measures in the political department have been those connected with the Guicowar state. A reform has been effected in the conduct of the political duties, which, while attended with considerable reductions, has, as far as I can judge, added to the efficiency of this branch of administration in Guzeerat. It would far exceed the limits I have prescribed to myself to enter upon the detail of the various arrangements proposed and adopted: suffice it to say, they appeared to me indispensable to root out evils more inveterate than I had ever found in any political connexion with a native state in India; and when all past efforts to remedy these evils had but tended to increase them, by adding to the debts of the prince, and to our embarrassing obligations, there seemed to me to be no option between allowing an ill-managed and distracted native state to hasten to dissolution, or to adopt measures which might save it from the baneful effects of its own impolicy and weakness. 3. The most marked feature in the first arrangement was the sequestration of districts, to the amount of about twenty lacs of rupees, to discharge loans for which we had recently become guarantee, in order to promote a beneficial settlement of the debts of the Guicowar, which had been impeded and broken by Syajee, with the view of enriching his private purse, and of adding to his power of conferring boons upon his low and unworthy parasites and favourites. This measure was too necessary for the APP. B and protection of the Baroda state, and the vindication of the honour maintenance of the good faith of the British Government, to permit attention to the violent and continue remonstrances of Svajee against its adoption. The sequestration was carried peaceably into effect; and we have a prospect, by the liquidation of the principal debts, of being early released from our guarantee engagements, which, however recommended by expedience at the tune they were adopted, were of a character that associated our acts as much, if not more, with the bazar, than the durbar at Baroda. We shall also be freed by this arrangement from that recurring necessity for a constant fretting interference, which, in its every day's exercise through the agency of subordinate instruments, limits the sphere of action, and depresses the spirit of good princes, while it irritates and renders worse those that are bad, and terminates in both cases in what it is our policy and professed desire to avoid, the subjection of the countries of its dependent allies to the direct rule of the British government. 4. The Court of Directors. I am happy to state, have, in their despatch of the 28th April, 1530, fully approved of the measures to which I have alluded. Nothing can be more clear or more comprehensive than their letter upon this subject. 5. Referring to the effects which the increasing embarrassments, and our Bhundaree or guarantee engagements, have had upon the Baroda state, the Court justly observes, "Under a "native government, the near approach of total bankruptcy does "not generally produce reform. It rather produces increased "exactions from the people. Predatory habits are engendered by distress, and civil and military functionaries equally, without regular pay, introduce corruption and violence into every part of the government. Under these circumstances, our Bhandarry engagements render it incumbent on us to interfere. Our interference can hardly be exerted with efficacy, consistently with "the maintenance in the native government of the shadow of independent authority; and we are driven at last to a virtual "assumption of the government, apparently not by any desire to "alleviate the sufferings of the people, but by the consideration of our own pecuniary interests, and our engagements to individuals. We thus exhibit our government under circumstances of disparagement, and injure our character." 66 6. In a subsequent paragraph of the same despatch, the history of our pecuniary concerns with the Guicowar, and the successive failures of our plans to relieve that state are concisely and ably given. "When the British government first affixed its guarantee to the Guicowar debt, the receipts and expenses of "that state were prospectively calculated, and an arrangement ropec *Receipts estimated at 65.66.663 r.. Dislarsemeats at 51.49. 30 popces, leaving Surplus of 11.77.313 rupees, applicable to the payment of interest and the liquidation the principal of the delt. 66 66 46 66 framed, by which it was predicted that the whole of the guaran"teed debt would be extinguished in a certain, and that a small, "number of years. These predictions, however, were not veri"fied; and the time having expired without any material dimi"nution of the Bhandarry debt, new calculations were made, and new arrangements were grounded on them, by which it was pre"dicted with the same confidence as before, that the whole debt "would be paid off within a very limited period; and in this state "things have remained; the failure of each successive arrangement having been followed up by the adoption of another, which promised as much, and effected as little*. These arrangements failed, because in none of the calculations which were the basis "of them had sufficient allowances been made for adverse contingencies. But a new cause of failure, which no accuracy of "calculation could have guarded against, has arisen since 1820, "when Syajee Row was placed in the full exercise of the powers "of government. His highness diverted to his private coffers a large portion of the public revenues, in the form of bribes for annually underletting the land, and for granting, under various "pretexts, remission of revenue. While, therefore, Syajee accu"mulated a private treasure of more than thirty lacs, the revenues "of the state fell short of its expenses, the pay of the army, and " various other public charges, fell into arrears. As often as these arrears became, from their amount, a source of serious incon"venience to his highness, and should have induced him to part "with a portion of his hoard for their liquidation, our government "relieved him from the pressure by guaranteeing a further loan "to pay off the arrears. Under this system, the guaranteed debts, "instead of diminishing, naturally increased, and rose at length "to a greater amount † than that of the incumbrances of the "Guicowar government in 1804-5, before our Bhundarry system "had commenced." 66 66 7. On this view of facts, the court, after detailing the failure from similar causes of the septennial leases made by the resident, gave their approbation of the measure which the government was compelled to adopt of a temporary sequestration of territory. The year 1816-17 was fixed by Major Walker, in his report of the 10th January, 1809, as the period at which the Guicowar government would be out of debt. On the 29th November, 1816, the debt was stated to be 54,97,690 rupees, but there is reason to believe that its real amount was much greater. The year 1818-19 was fixed by Major Caruac as the period at which the debt would probably be extinct. In April 1820, it amounted to more than a crore of rupees, while the pay of the army was from three to five years in arrears. In that year Mr. Elphinstone visited Baroda, and guaranteed loans to the amount of a crore of rupees, at a reduced interest. According to Mr. Elphinstone's calculations, fifteen lacs were to be annually appropriated to the redemption of a debt now amounting to 13,22,7,981 rupees. In 1825-6, notwithstanding considerable payments made in liquidation, and a further reduction of the interest from 10 to 6 per cent, it amounted to 1,33,81,319 rupees. † 1,33,81,389 rupees. |