Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎518r] (160/238)

Proceedings of the East India Association.
373
administration from the low-paid official subordinates to the respectable
citizens and villagers. He believed that the work would thus be better
done, while the people would be more contented. Also English officials,
being relieved from much detail, would have leisure to mix more with the
people and to learn their wants and wishes ; and the result would be that
our rule would become more popular. As regarded the ancient village
system, he must express his respectful concurrence with such authorities as
Sir Henry Maine, Sir Charles Trevelyan, and Sir James Caird, who regarded
this system as the sheet-anchor of Indian rural society.
Mr. Petre said that, though all must lament the disappearance of the
village communities, and the consequent loss of a great deal of assistance
which might have been gained from them, especially in the matter of
police and the disposal of small civil suits, he did not see that the question
of village communities very much affected that of municipalities. In all
the areas in which municipalities could possibly be started the village com
munities had practically disappeared; the towns were too large for them
to survive in. With regard to relieving the pressure of work on European
officials, he thought something might be done, and was being done, in
appointing village Moonsifs. He had had a great deal of experience of
municipalities in the North-West Provinces. They were of all degrees
and qualities, from the large municipalities like Lucknow and Allahabad,
where there was a great deal of intelligence available, to smaller outlying
towns, where much could not be expected. If a railway wanted a new engine-
driver, they did not take the first man they met in the street, but they took
a man who was to a certain extent trained, and let him drive under the
supervision of a trained man for some time. In most Indian municipalities
the community was not yet ripe to drive its own engine. They wanted to
be educated, and to work under official supervision for some years. The
Chairman had said that there was a desire to go in, in too great a hurry.
People had not been long at municipal work in India. Fifty years ago it
was hardly known, and he would like to know what municipalities even
in England were fifty years ago. There was even now much that was bad
and uncleanly in the management of London, which was very much behind
Paris, for instance. In the Indian municipalities the time had not come
for non-official chairmen, although in the only instance in the North-West
Provinces in which there was a non-official chairman he was an exceptional
man and had done well.
Mr. Wagle confessed a certain amount of disappointment with the
paper, and with the conclusions drawn by Mr. Rogers from the statistics.
He had heard the opinions of many who were capable of forming them, and
they were that the results were most satisfactory under the peculiar circum
stances of the country. The absence of members at meetings was a grievance
which was common to the whole world. The presence of the members of
that Association that afternoon might be taken as an illustration. (Laughter.)
Now, the reason of the absence of members on the municipalities was the
feeling that very little power was left in their hands. The difference between
city municipalities and country municipalities had been mentioned at that
meeting. How was it they found the Indian members of city municipalities so