THE DEPOSITION OF THE GUICOWAR.
IT is hard to say what Lord Northbrook ought to have done in the Baroda affair, but harder to remain satisfied with what he has done. His decision of April 23rd rids India of a bad Prince,
and perhaps averts some political danger, but it does not create that impression of even-handed and fearless justice which is the first claim of the foreign government upon native ac- quiescence. According to the brief abstract of the Viceroy's proclamation hitherto forwarded to this country, Lord North- brook, in his capacity as supreme judge in all political cases, has accepted the divided report of the Commissioners as equiva- lent to a verdict of "Not proven," and therefore, as far as the alleged attempt to poison Colonel Phayre was concerned, he takes no action. He does not exonerate the Guicowar, he does not condemn the Guicowar ; he simply accepts, it may be with the reluctance apparent in Reuter's synopsis, the absence of a verdict as fatal to the particular charge. At all events, he waives it. That in thus acting he was in the right, we have not the shadow of a doubt. The Viceroy of India is not bound, any more than the Diet of the former Germanic Empire was bound, before he deposes an Indian Prince to bring him before any tribunal whatsoever, least of all before any tribunal submitting to the usual laws of legal evidence.
Cases may occur, and do occur, in which he must act "on his own conscienee,"—that is, must satisfy him- self, the responsible Secretary of State, the Executive Council in India, and the deliberative Council at home, that reasons exist for an extreme course, and then act, out of that ultimate right to defend the State and its people without which the whole Government in India must either perish or be unjust. He is not bound, and cannot be bound, by native opinion, which might not only be ill-informed, but radically incompetent to do justice in the matter. Suppose the Viceroy, for instance, to know that a native Prince is about to proclaim a Jehad, or religious war, or has shown a desire to massacre a class, or is misgoverning in the interest of Brahmins to an extent which threatens the State with bankruptcy, he must act on his own opinion, and strike out of the blue, even though certain that all natives throughout India will misap- prehend alike his motives and his end. Their judgment that Jehad, or massacre, or waste is right has nothing to do with the matter, is merely one more proof that British sovereignty is needful to preserve them from themselves. But when he has granted from the plenitude of his power a " trial " or an " inquiry " which, but for that power, would have been resisted by arms, which he was no more bound to grant than to promise five per cent, for loans instead of four, then we contend he is bound to stand by his own decision, to accept the report of his own nominees, or if they are equally divided, to allow that the evidence produced is insufficient. He cannot take the half of the Report which he likes and act on that, rejecting the other half which he dislikes, or cast aside both halves as worthless, and hear the whole matter over again. He has granted justice in British form, and must accept the consequence. Even supposing him convinced of the guilt of the accused, or of the honesty of the hostile evi- dence, or of the partiality of a division of the Commissioners,•he is still bound, as a sovereign, as a just judge, and as a responsible statesman, to abide by his own act, and give the accused the choice which he agreed to give. It is impossible to do otherwise, without seeming to mock the criminal, and shocking the instinctive sense of justice, which is the same in India as in England, and which, though it does not always rebel against despotic acts, always rebels against despotic acts done under judicial forms. Lord Northbrook, we hold, was bound to accept the verdict or absence of a verdict, and he has done so, and so far he deserves support, even if his own judg- ment is in no way contented.
But though we approve of the Viceroy's action in this part of his difficulty, that action by no means proves that he was right in choosing such a time to depose the Guicowar, upon a charge with which the Commission had nothing to do, which it was forbidden to examine, and on which no one could, in fact, decide, except the Supreme Government. Grant all that is alleged of Mulharrao's mis- government, evidence of which will, of course, be forthcoming in the Blue-books, and which we have no desire to deny. Grant also, as we should do most fully, that the Government of India, which prohibits insurrection, is therefore morally bound to depose any Prince whose conduct would in its judgment justify insurrection, and still we are no further than we were. Those doctrines are admitted on all hands, by both sides, by the Viceroy and by the Indian Princes, and had been acted on within the twelvemonth with universal approval. The Viceroy had decided, by his Minute of July 25, 1874, that the state of affairs in Baroda could not be borne, had warned the Guicowar in an autograph letter, had formally pledged the Indian Government to remove him if within eighteen months he did not mend his ways. The concession of a term of grace may have been an unwise proceeding, it may, if the misgovern- ment was heinous, have been an immoral one, and certainly, as the Government had no intention of annexing, and proposed no gain to itself through the exercise of its ultimate power, it was an unnecessary one; but still it was made, and it has been withdrawn, for no cause intelligible to the world. The Gui- cowar could not of course reform anything while under arrest., and nine months therefore remained to him of his allotted period. We daresay, judging from the history of the man, that he would have misused it, have threatened witnesses who testified against him on the inquiry, have made away with State trea- sure, have created a serious agitation amongst the Mahratta peoples. But then he could just as easily have misused the eighteen months as the nine. Every argument which exists for dethroning him now, existed for dethroning him then, and we can only justify the summary proceeding of April, 1875, by de- claring that the delay granted in July, 1874, was most unwise. If it would have been wrong to grant him nine months' grace after the Government had agreed to do so, it was wrong to grant him eighteen months' grace when no such agreement had been signed. The truth is, we suppose, that the original term was not granted from any real hope of reform, but from an ex- cessive desire to appear just to the last degree of forbearance ; but then that idea should have become the basis of a con- sistent policy, not have been acted upon at one moment when it may have been weak, and abandoned at another just when it would have been strong. If, as we are bound to believe, the grant of eighteen months' probation was the result of a settled policy—not of a generous fancy or of a mere hesitation, but of a fixed policy—why was it abandoned ? Nothing new had occurred in the interval except that the Guicowar had been accused of a political assassination, had submitted to an arrest, thereby proving, at all events, that he intended nothing directly treasonable, and that after an elaborate inquiry nothing had been sufficiently proved against him to satisfy a majority of the official Commissioners of Inquiry. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen thinks there had been, and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen has one of the most judicial of minds ; but granting him right, all
that is proved is that the Guicowar was- guilty, and that
the Commission failed to see his guilt. That failure did not revive the Viceroy's right of deciding without public inquiry which he had so formally abandoned. It only proved that Lord Northbrook—and, we must acknowledge, the Spectator also—had blundered in thinking the Commission
admirably selected. Instead of that, on Mr. Stephen's theory, it was so badly selected that it failed, or half its members failed,
to see the true import of the evidence before them. If they failed honestly, they were badly selected for intelligence ; if dis- honestly, badly selected for impartiality ; but in either case they
were selected, and if their verdict or failure to give a verdict is
not binding on public opinion, it is binding on the Government which selected them. It was perfectly open to Lord North-
brook, if he thought it prudent, to say he agreed with the Europeans and disagreed with the natives, or to say he trusted the Europeans and distrusted the natives, but it was not open to him to act as if the Europeans formed the whole Commis- sion. He had made his jury bilingual of his own accord.
Lord Northbrook will, of course, be able to plead political reasons for his action of which we can take no account, and there is little probability that Parliament will override a final
decision which must, we presume, have been supported here ; but it is greatly to be regretted that he did not act either on one policy or the other,—that he did not either remove the Guicowar on his own judgment as a political act, or if he pre- ferred to try him, did not accept the consequences of that trial's result, however deplorable they might have been. Either course would have looked strong, and want of strength is the want most to be dreaded in the government of India. As it is, the two systems of administration, the English and the autocratic, have clashed violently, to the discredit of both. The Guicowar has been tried without having the benefit of a trial, and has been removed just at the moment when the beneficial effect of removal is spoiled by its apparent injustice. An immensely strong act has been made to seem a weak one, and a bad Prince thrown into the position of an oppressed victim. It is fortunate for British credit that the Government has foreseen some of these consequences, and has exerted itself to remove, with jealous care, all ground for a suspicion of self-interest. It has not only not annexed, but has not even assumed the temporary government of the country. It has allowed the widow of the last Guicowar to adopt any one of the Herdsman family she and the Viceroy may approve—the last qualification being usual, and intended to avert any unpopular or dangerous selec- tion—and has nominated a native instead of a Hindoo Regent. Madhava Rao has been tested in Travancore, and will adminis- ter Baroda as Salar Jung administers Hyderabad, that is, as wise native sovereigns—not as wise English officials—adminis- ter their territories. Every native Prince will see that his dominions are not coveted—for Baroda, though not the "power" some Englishmen imagine, as a revenue-producing province would be worth having—and every native will perceive that the highest career but one is open to his ambition. If a native can no longer hope to rise to a throne, at least he can hope to rise as high as any Englishman at home not descended from the Electress Sophia.
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