Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎517v] (159/238)

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Proceedings of the East India Association.
desponding a view as Mr. Rogers had taken as to how far things were
working satisfactorily. The municipalities of Madras with which he was
acquainted were doing very much better work than had been anticipated
by many ; and in the reports which had been quoted he did not think
there was much room for condemnation. In Madras, out of sixty munici
palities, only two were considered unsatisfactory, and although in nine
more it was said the administration was not efficient, still, that was only
eleven as against sixteen which were absolutely good. Of the remaining
thirty-three more than half were considered fairly satisfactory. With
reference to the point as to efficiency being tested by the attendance of
councillors, he was sorry there was nothing to show how far in this country
the attendance of councillors was good or bad. Possibly those meetings
which were adjourned for want of a quorum were on subjects of no very
great importance, and the number, after all, was only 10 per cent. With
reference to the suggestion that marks of honour should be given to those
who did good municipal work, to his knowledge that was done now in the
Madras Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. . Regarding the suggestion that larger municipal
centres should be created in rural tracts, there were in Madras, besides
the municipalities in the towns, a number of villages created into unions,
with certain portions of the work of the district boards, chiefly sanitary,
entrusted to them ; so that in fact Mr. Rogers’ suggestion had been anti
cipated.
Sir W. Wedderburn said that he approved of the lecturer’s recommen
dation that the powers of local bodies should be extended, but he observed
that this recommendation was subject to a condition precedent, the condi
tion being that there should be a previous creation of local public spirit.
It appeared to him that this was rather putting the cart before the horse,
because the best way of creating local public spirit was to give the local
bodies some real power in the management of their affairs. Where there
was some real power there came the feeling of responsibility, and that was
followed by active work. There was a complaint that the attendance at
meetings was not sufficiently regular, but in no country would people give
up their time unless they felt that they could do some good by their
attendance. The remedy therefore seemed to be to give the local bodies
a larger administrative and financial control. I hat would provide them
with scope for their energies, and develop the public spirit which was
desired. Reference had been made to the remarks of Sir Mackworth
Young regarding the objects of Lord Ripon’s local self-government scheme.
That scheme was primarily intended to benefit the country and to have
an educational effect; but no doubt an additional object was to relieve the
overburdened official machinery. This was a very important object, and
had far-reaching effects. For they all knew that the English officials in
India were overworked, and had to entrust the details of administration to
subordinates. Owing to financial pressure, the pay of large classes of these
subordinates was very inadequate, so that it was difficult to secure men of
good character. The consequence of this was that the lowest grades of
police and other departments had great opportunities of oppression. The
object of the local self-government scheme was to transfer these details of