442 



INDIA. 



think it essential to preserve broad legal dis- 

 tinctions between the races. Race prejudice, 

 which is a universal feeling, and is strongest 

 among the most ignorant, is largely responsible 

 for this sentiment, which is less justified than 

 formerly, since a considerable class of natives 

 have received a European education, while a 

 class of degraded, ignorant, and idle Europeans 

 has accumulated in the cities. It was o\ving 

 to this idea that the natives must be treated as 

 an inferior and servile race that the Govern- 

 ment met with sudden and unexpected oppo- 

 sition to a proposed law of slight importance, 

 but from which, in view of their general poli- 

 cy, they were unwilling to recede. A native 

 member of the Civil Service, Mr. B. L. Gupta, 

 called attention in January, 1882, to the anoma- 

 lous position of native magistrates and sessions 

 judges. Native judges in presidency towns 

 have jurisdiction over Europeans; but when 

 transferred or promoted to a position in the 

 Mofussil, or country districts, they lose this 

 right, although it is exercised by their assistants, 

 if of European birth. In accordance with the 

 usual practice, the Indian Government sub- 

 mitted the question to the local administrations 

 for their advice. Among the provincial gov- 

 ernors and their councils there was a general 

 agreement of opinion in favor of removing the 

 anomaly, and recommending the Secretary of 

 State to sanction a bill which will give native 

 magistrates the powers conferred upon Euro- 

 peans of the same grade, except in the matter 

 of criminal jurisdiction, which should be re- 

 stricted by confining the office of justice of the 

 peace and the power of trying European Brit- 

 ish subjects to persons who, whether native or 

 European, have received a training calculated 

 to fit them for the exercise of such jurisdiction 

 in harmony with English judicial notions. The 

 same point was raised during the discussion of 

 the criminal procedure code in the Legislative 

 Council in 1872. 



Prior to 1872, judicial officers outside the 

 presidency towns were not permitted to pass 

 sentences of imprisonment on European Brit- 

 ish subjects, who were sent to a presidency 

 town for trial by a jury before the High Court. 

 When the criminal procedure code of 1872 

 was under discussion, it was proposed to abol- 

 ish this privilege. The proposition to confer 

 the jurisdiction on all superior magistrates, 

 native and European, was negatived by a ma- 

 jority of two votes. A compromise was ar- 

 rived at, whereby district judges and magis- 

 trates who were themselves Europeans, and 

 justices of the peace, were granted a certain 

 limited jurisdiction over European British sub- 

 jects, and allowed to pass upon them sentences 

 of imprisonment not exceeding one year; while 

 the more serious offenses remained triable, as 

 before, only by the high courts. 



In presidency towns the native magistrates 

 exercise the same jurisdiction over Europeans 

 that they do over natives. Mr. Gupta, who had 

 received an appointment in the Mofussil, after 



discharging the duties of a magistrate in Cal- 

 cutta, was the only person who would be im- 

 mediately affected by the change. Another 

 native member of the covenanted civil service 

 might be called upon to exercise jurisdiction 

 over Europeans in 1884. Not more than five 

 would become eligible within five years, and 

 very few for many years to come. Yet the 

 introduction by Mr. Ilbert of the criminal pro- 

 cedure amendment bill in the Supreme Coun- 

 cil, embodying the recommendations of the 

 majority of the provincial officials, raised a 

 storm of protests. The Ilbert bill proposed to 

 empower the Government to appoint to the 

 office of justice of the peace, with jurisdiction 

 over Europeans, subject to the rights of appeal 

 and trial by a mixed jury, such persons as it 

 thinks fit from among the members of the 

 covenanted civil service and the statutory na- 

 tive civil service, or from among the assistant 

 commissioners in non-regulation provinces, or 

 cantonment magistrates. 



The opposition to the Ilbert bill was almost 

 universal in the European community. It bore 

 the character of a somewhat artificial agita- 

 tion, fomented by the class whose prospects of 

 power and emolument were impaired by the 

 policy of the Government to throw open the 

 civil service as far as practicable to natives, 

 and to develop the principle of local self- 

 government. The Ilbert bill offered a tangible 

 ground for opposition which appealed to popu- 

 lar passion and prejudice. Its opponents made 

 the best use of the opportunity to stir up race 

 animosities and to provoke retorts from the 

 native journalists and orators, who possess a 

 talent for vituperation. The bolder and more 

 far-seeing Indians pointed out that if the Eng- 

 lish do not allow and encourage the develop- 

 ment of free institutions, which, with the 

 spread of English education in India, the peo- 

 ple had learned to understand, they would 

 copy their European masters in establishing 

 freedom by revolution. The impossibility of 

 holding India by the sword was shown, and 

 the fact recalled that it was the fidelity of 

 Indians which rescued English power in 1857. 

 Such expressions were cited by the Anglo- 

 Indians to show the prevalence of the belief 

 that the days of the English Raj were num- 

 bered, and that the reforms offered the Indians 

 in the direction of self-government and the 

 equality of the races were the outcome of fear 

 and weakness. 



The ground for opposing the Ilbert bill was 

 that it abolished a distinction founded upon 

 race. The specific reasons why it was un- 

 advisable to give native magistrates power to 

 inflict punishment on Europeans, or to decide 

 cases between Englishmen and natives, were 

 that the Hindoos were lacking in the sense of 

 justice and truth innate in the English charac- 

 ter. It was said that in the tea districts and 

 other parts of the country natives would bring 

 false and interested complaints against plant- 

 ers' assistants, railway officials, etc., supported 



