THE OFFICIAL STYLE.*

THESE two pleasant little volumes, the latest additions to The World's Classics, give enjoyment and interest quite apart from their political and historical value. They afford notable examples of the official style, a style of which English literature has a right, to be proud, whether in the region of law, civil administration, or diplomacy. But to this classification of State papers a third division may be added— those which deal with the government of our Indian

Empire. Owing to the long distance and the fact that the foundations of our government in India were laid by a commercial company, and a great deal of the super- structure was also put up by them, we have, in these publie documents, examples of the official style which differ very distinctly from_ those of other nations. Macaulay, in his account of the Warren Hastings trial, mentions the voluminous character of Indian official writings. Warren Hastings could hardly carry the MS. of his speech at his impeachment Minting, memorandum-writing, and the construction of reports have played a greater part in the govern- ment of India than in that of any other country which the world has experienced. The men who ruled India at the beginning were- always being required to explain to their masters at home—that is, to the directors of the Honourable East India Company—why they did not send a bigger dividend, or why they sent none at all, or why they must have more soldiers or more money. Of course, all distant governments demand" reports and explanations of this nature, but the East India Company directors had to put all these facts on special record because, like other companies, they had share- holders, and shareholders are " craving creatures" in the matter of documents, and might at any moment insist on knowing how their affairs were being managed. Again, when the State took partial control of the Company, there was a further need for reports. Parliament wanted to know.

The style adopted in these reports was the regular official style, which had been growing up in England ever since the time of the Commonwealth. By 1750, when the Indian reports were beginning, it had grown formal, exact and regularized, but, at the same time, flexible and vigorous. (Witness Walpole's official letters.) In the case of India, however, the official reports, owing to the reasons I have given why these reports were so many and so voluminous, took on a character of their own. The men who went abroad and who got in touch with the dying empire of the Moguls, with the military traditions of the Mohammedans, and with the strange polity of the Hindus, could not but have their

imaginations fired. Their spirits were touched with the fine issues with which they were called upon to deal. Clive is of course, the capital example. He was a great soldier and a great statesman ; but, partly owing to natural instinct and partly owing to the solitariness of the life led by any • Speeeha and Docunierits on Indian Poliey. Edited by Professor A. Berriedal• Keith, D.O.L.,2-vole. OtioreL:At teUniversity Prom [2:e. net eacli.1

Anglo-Indian youth who did not give himself up wholly to mere money-making, or to drinking and gambling, he was a lover and reader of books. His dispatches, his letters, and his reports, like his speeches, are stimulating and expressive in a high degree.

The present book, curiously enough, does not contain Clive's wonderful speech in the House of Commons. That is the speech in which such sentences as " If ever a Mussulman loved a Christian, Meer Jaffier loved me," abound, and in which, also, appears the still more famous "I wonder at my own moderation " Still, Colonel Clive's report to the Select Committee of the Directors, dated July 26th, 1757, here reprinted, is a good example, for it is the report which contains the victor's account of the Battle of Plassey. Clive's tremendous letter to William Pitt—I can use no other word—well illustrates Clive's manner of writing. It is in this letter that he tells the Great Commoner some of the secrets of Eastern politics. Here he speaks not merely as man to man, but as statesman to statesman. Take, for example, this passage :-

" The reigning Subah, whom the victory. at Plassey invested with the sovereignty of these provinces, still, it is true, retains his attach- ment to us, and probably, while he has no other support, will continue to do so ' • but Musselmans are so little influenced by grati- tude, that should he ever think it his interest to break with us, the obligations he owes us would prove no restraint : and this is very evident from his having lately removed his Prime Minister, and cut off two or three principal officers, all attached to our interest, and who had a share in his elevation. Moreover, he is advanced in years ; and his son is so cruel, worthless a young fellow, and so apparently an enemy to the English, that it will be almost unsafe trusting him with the succession. So small a body as two thousand Europeans will secure us against any apprehensions from either the one or the other ; and, in case of their daring to be troublesome, enable the Company to take the sovereignty upon themselves. There will be the less difficulty in bringing about such an event, as the natives themselves have no attachment whatever to particular princes ; and as, under the present Government, they have no security for their lives or properties, they would rejoice in so happy an exchange as that of a mild for a despotic Government."

But Clive could use the language of magnificent civility almost as naturally and as easily as the man he was addressing. Pitt could not have finished a letter with a grander gesture than that with which Clive concludes :— " May the zeal and the vigorous measures, projected for the service of the nation, which Hhve so eminently distinguished your ministry, be crowned with all the success they deserve, is the most fervent wish of him who is, with the greatest respect,

Sir, Your most devoted humble servant,

ROUT. CLIVE."

The style is the man, even when it is official ; and therefore we do not expect to find the same note in the sensitive, imaginative, though eminently courageous Warren Hastings that we find in the Cromwellian Clive. Warren Hastings writes with a suavity and polish which are almost French. Here is the way in which Hastings explains to the Court of Directors that now that they have a great Empire on their hands in India they must make proper arrangements for its conduct and management :-

" Yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various state,

that although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies present to our choice those points on which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future advantages,

and guard against probable evils, are all that your administration can faithfully promise to perform for your service with their united labours most diligently exerted. They cannot look back, without sacrificing the objects of their immediate duty, which are those of your interests, to endless researches which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence both here and at home. May I be permitted, In all deference and submission to your commands, to offer it as my opinion, that whatever may have been the conduct of individuals, or even of the collective members of your former administrations, the blame is not so much imputable to them as to the want of a principle of government adequate to its substance, and a coercive power to enforce it. The extent of Bengal, and its possible resources, are equal to those of most states in Europe. Its difficulties are greater than those of any, because it wants both an established form and powers of government, deriving its actual support from the unremitted labour and personal exertion of individuals in power Instead of the vital influence which flows through the channels of a regular constitution, and imperceptibly animates every part of it. Our constitution is nowhere to be traced but in ancient charters, which were framed for the jurisdiction of your trading settlements, the sales of your exports, and the provision of your annual invest- ment. I need not observe how incompetent these must Drove for

the government of a great kingdom, and for the preservation of its riches from private violence and embezzlement."

Though Comwallis's dispatches are excellent and mark the nobility and humanity of the man, there is nothing which urgently demands quotation. The same may be said of Lord William Bentinek's very remarkable dispatch on the Sup- pression of Suttee. It is not, indeed, till we come to Dalhousie, the last of the great Viceroys, that quotation becomes irre- sistible. Lord Dalhousie, secure in the fact that the control of the Company had dwindled, I will not say to nothing, but to something very small, addresses his masters with a kind of hortatory politeness. Very magnificent is the way in which he informs them of the arrangements which he has made for dealing with the King of Delhi.

" Seven years ago the heir apparent to the King of Delhi died. He was the last of the race who had been born in the purple. The Court of Directors was accordingly advised to decline to recognize any other heir apparent, and to permit the kingly title to fall into _abeyance upon the death of the present King, who even then was a very aged man. The Honourable Court accordingly conveyed to the Government of India authority to terminate the dynasty of Timour, whenever the reigning King should die."

There is something wholly magnificent in seeing the Scottish Earl and the Merchants Committee at Leadenhall Street giving a push over the precipice to the heirs of Timour. Equally magnificent is a passage in the same dispatch in which Lord Dalhousie describes his settlement of Cashmere :- "Maharajah Golab Sing, of Jummoo and Cashmere, so long as he lives, will never depart from the submissive policy he announced, with unmistakable sincerity in his air, when in Durbar at Wuzeerabad he caught my dress in his hands, and cried aloud, ' Thus I grasp the sldrts of the British Government, and I will never let go my hold.' And when, as must soon be the Maharajah shall pass away, his son, Meean Rumbeer Sing, will have enough to do to maintain his ground against rivals of his own blood, without giving any cause of offence to a powerful neighbour, which he well knows can crush him at his will."

After reading passages like this, one can well credit the story about Lord Dalhousie, when annoyed with one of his aides- de-camp, going up to him at a ball at Government House

and cutting off his official career in one short sentence : " Go to your regiment, sir." The young man's regiment was a thousand miles away, and he thought he had got a soft billet for the rest of his stay in India And all he had done was to be heard saying that " the little lord " was proud of his legs !

And now I find that I have said nothing of Lord Wellesley's style, and yet Lord Wellesley's official style was the most perfect medium for conveying orders that the world has ever seen. In the little volumes before us, however, the example given is not, perhaps, the best that could have been chosen. I should certainly have preferred the great dispatch estab- lishing the East India Company's College at Calcutta—a veritable administrative university. Still, the dispatch printed is a good one, and has the advantage of being fairly short—a rare quality in Lord Wellesley. Dogberry boasted he could be " as tedious as a King." Wellesley could be as diffuse as a Dominican preacher.

J. ST. LOE STRACIIEY.