Sir Stafford .Northeote has published his decision on the Orissa
report. It is just like Sir Stafford Northcote, very sensible, very official, and very tame. The Viceroy is blamed, Sir Cecil Beadon is blamed, the Board of Revenue is blamed, but everybody is blamed gently, except unlucky Colonel Nicholls, chief of the Public Works Department in Orissa, who was less responsible for the province than anybody directly connected with it. Nobody is punished, though everybody is considered guilty, and officers held responsible for not preventing the loss of 600,000 British subjects by starvation are treated more mildly than they would have been if they had expended too many office pen-knives. The order is thoroughly discreditable to its author's sense of responsibility for -a people who have on earth no other protector, and who have died of starvation without one political riot.-
Previous page
