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Jos's friends were all from three presidencies, and his new house was in the centre of the comfortable Anglo-Indian district. Owing to Jos Sedley's position numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne who before had never noticed her. Lady Dobbin and her daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and called upon her.
I would propose that we should have Presidencies, and not an Empire. If I were a Minister which the House will admit is a bold figure of speech and if the House were to agree with me which is also an essential point I would propose to have at least five Presidencies in India, and I would have the governments of those Presidencies perfectly equal in rank and in salary.
With boundaries thus conterminous, and placed centrally with reference to the three English presidencies of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, Hyder and the Mahrattas were in a position of advantage for mutual support and for offensive operations against the common enemy. At the beginning of the war between England and France, a French agent appeared at Poonah.
The visit of the Duke of Connaught last winter to India for the express purpose of representing the King-Emperor at the opening of the new Councils in the three great Presidencies, and of delivering a Royal Message of unprecedented import to the new Indian Legislature in the Imperial capital, bore perhaps its happiest fruits in the personal appeal, prompted by his old love and knowledge of the Indian people, in which he sought to dispel "the shadow of Amritsar" that had "lengthened over the face of India," and did in fact do much to dispel it.
If this revolt spreads though the three Presidencies the work of conquering India will have to be begun again, and worse than that, for we should have opposed to us a vast army drilled and armed by ourselves, and led by the native officers we have trained. It seems stupefying that an empire won piecemeal, and after as hard fighting as the world has ever seen, should be lost in a week."
The capitals of those Presidencies would probably be Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Agra, and Lahore. I will take the Presidency of Madras as an illustration. Madras has a population of some 20,000,000. We all know its position on the map, and that it has the advantage of being more compact, geographically speaking, than the other Presidencies. It has a Governor and a Council.
I would not, of course, exclude men of proved and eminent qualities because they had been employed only in the Provinces or minor Presidencies; but my impression is that the work is lighter, and that reputations are more easily won, in the service of the minor than in that of the Supreme Government.
I have often, since coming to England, been asked if I knew Mr So-and-so of India, as if India was a town or an English county. A glance at the map will show the immense extent of the British possessions in the East. They are divided into three Presidencies, or Sub-governments those of Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Connected with these are a great number of subsidiary and protected states.
What we want is to make the Governments of the Presidencies governments for the people of the Presidencies; not governments for the civil servants of the Crown, but for the non-official mercantile classes from England who settle there, and for the 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 of Natives in each Presidency. I should propose to do that which has been done with great advantage in Ceylon.
The Island of Bombay is situated on the west coast of the ocean, and one of the three Presidencies belonging to the Honourable East India Company, and is in Lat. 18° 55' N. and Lon. 72° 54' E. of Greenwich. As soon as we had discharged all our cargo, and the ship was docked, the ship's company and officers were sent to Butcher's Island.
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