Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎467v] (59/238)

272 The Progress of the Municipal Idea in India.
officers into some parts of the country to look after the
collection of the revenue from individuals. Where such has
not been the case, where the cohesion among the original
proprietors or coparceners of a village has been sufficiently
powerful to enable them to hold together and satisfactorily
perform the functions of village heads, they still remain in
their original position, and the effects of the two systems
can be contrasted. Is the continuation of the old one so
much in favour of the people as the laudatores temporis acti
choose to maintain ?
In considering this question in the abstract, one point
must be constantly borne in mind. Time does not and can
not stand still, and it may be safely said that under the old
regime there was no progress. Everything stagnated, and, if
the object of administration were merely to keep things going,
it did not answer its purpose badly. But there must come a
time, a time which has in many cases actually arrived, when
in consequence of the increase of population alone things
must outgrow themselves and necessitate changes. Greater
and greater subdivision of land among an increasing number
of people must force them to pass beyond its boundaries,
and bring back new ideas with them from outside incom
patible with the continuance of the old state of affairs.
Now, what has been done, and what was it possible to do
to meet these circumstances? All experience proves that
to provide an inefficient machinery for the purpose would
not only be useless, but would be positively harmful. The
Indian Governments have, therefore, merely locked about to
ascertain whether there might be anything in the ancient
native organization of society that showed in it an aptitude
for carrying out any particular branch of the public adminis
tration, and found it in the ability to execute public works.
Towards this, then, much attention has been directed in all
parts of the country, and laws have been passed with a view to
foster municipal institutions in every province. Thus it was
hoped, and not unreasonably, that a vent would be found for
the useful employment of any superfluous local energy that