456
HISTORY OF BRITISH RULE.
Dual sys-tem ofadmini-stration,1767-72;
Dual
system
abolished,
1772.
His admi-nistrativereforms.
paltry, and quite insufficient for a livelihood. But they hadbeen permitted to augment them, sometimes a hundred-fold,by means of private trade and gifts from the Native Powers.Despite the united resistance of the Civil Service , and anactual mutiny of 200 military officers, Clive carried throughhis reforms. Private trade and the receipt of presents wereprohibited for the future, while a substantial increase of paywas provided out of the monopoly of salt.
Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767.Between that date and the Governorship of Warren Hastings in 1772, little of importance occurred in Bengal beyond theterrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to haveswept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system ofgovernment, established in 1765 by Clive, had proved a failure.Warren Hastings , a tried servant of the Company, distinguishedalike for intelligence, for probity, and for knowledge of Orientalmanners, was nominated Governor by the Court of Directors,with express instructions to carry out a predetermined seriesof reforms. In their own words, the Court had resolved to‘ stand forth as diwan, and to take upon themselves, by theagency of their own servants, the entire care and administrationof the revenues.’ In the execution of this plan, Hastingsremoved the exchequer to Calcutta from Murshidabad , whichup to that time had remained the revenue headquarters ofBengal . He also appointed European officers, under the nowfamiliar title of Collectors, to superintend the revenue collec-tions and to preside in the courts.
Clive had laid the territorial foundations of the BritishEmpire in Bengal . Hastings may be said to have created aBritish administration for that Empire. The wars forced onhim by Native Powers in India , the clamours of his masters inEngland for money, and the virulence of Sir Philip Francis with a faction of his colleagues at the Council table in Calcutta ,retarded the completion of his schemes. But the manuscriptrecords disclose the patient statesmanship and indomitableindustry which he brought to bear upon them. From 1765 to1772, Clive’s dual system of government, by corrupt Nativeunderlings and rapacious English chiefs, prevailed. Thirteenyears were now spent by Warren Hastings in experimentalefforts at rural administration by means of English officials(1772-85). The completion of the edifice was left to hissuccessor. But Hastings was the administrative organizer, asClive had been the military founder, of our Indian Empire.