believe him to be a very intelligent man and very earnest for the good
of India. But he finds that at Madras he is like a man who is manacled,
as all the Governors are. He is able to do almost nothing. But he has a
spirit above being the passive instrument for doing nothing in the hands
of the Governor-General, and he has been disposed to make several
changes which have looked exceedingly heterodox to those who are
connected with the old Government of India, and which have shocked the
nerves of the fifteen old gentlemen who meet in Leadenhall-street, and
their brethren in India. I find that among the changes endeavoured to be
effected by Sir C. Trevelyan, the following are enumerated:--He has
endeavoured to conciliate the Natives by abolishing certain ceremonial
distinctions which were supposed to degrade them when visiting the
Government House; he has shown that personal courtesy to them which
appears to be too much neglected in India; he has conspicuously rewarded
those who have rendered services to the State; he has made one of the
Natives his aide-de-camp; he has endeavoured to improve the land tenure,
to effect a settlement of the Enam, and to abolish the impress of cattle
and carts. He has also abolished three-fourths, or perhaps more, of the
paper work of the public servants. He also began the great task of
judicial reform, than which none is more urgently pressing. But what is
said of Sir C. Trevelyan for instituting these reforms? He has raised a
hornets' nest about him. Those who surround the Governor-General at
Calcutta say, 'We might as well have the Governors of the Presidencies
independent, if they are to do as they like without consulting the
Governor-General as has been done in past times' The _Friend of
India_ is a journal not particularly scrupulous in supporting the
Calcutta Government, but it has a horror of any Government of India
except that of the Governor-General and the few individuals who surround
him. A writer in the _Friend of India_ says:--