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HISTOR Y OF BRITISH RULE.
Earl of
Dalhousie,
1848-56.
His
admini-
strative
reforms.
HisPublicW orks.
vince; but appointed a Sikh Protectorate. By the terms ofpeace which we then dictated, the infant son of Ranjit, Dhulip Singh , was recognised as Raja; the Jalandhar Doab, or tractbetween the Sutlej and the Beas, was added to the British territory; the Sikh army was limited to a specified number;Major Henry Lawrence was appointed Resident, to assist theSikh Council of Regency, at Lahore ; and a British force wassent to garrison the Punjab on behalf of the child-Raja. TheGovernor-General, Sir H. Hardinge, received a peerage, andreturned to England in 1848.
Lord Dalhousie succeeded. The eight years’ rule of thisgreatest of Indian proconsuls (1848-56) left more conspicuousresults than that of any Governor-General since Clive. Ahigh-minded statesman, of a most sensitive conscience, andearnestly desiring peace, Lord Dalhousie found himself forcedagainst his will to fight two wars, and to embark on a policyof annexation. His campaigns in the Punjab and in Burma ended in large acquisitions of territory; while Ndgpur, Oudh,and several minor States also came under British rule. ButDalhousie’s deepest interest lay in the advancement of themoral and material condition of the country. His system ofadministration carried out in the conquered Punjab , by thetwo Lawrences and their assistants, is probably the most suc-cessful piece of difficult work ever accomplished by English-men. Lower Burma has prospered under our rule not lessthan the Punjab . In both cases, Lord Dalhousie himself laidthe foundations of our administrative success, and deserves alarge share of the credit.
No branch of the administration escaped his reforming hand.He founded the Public Works Department, with a view tocreating the network of roads, railways, and canals which nowcover India . He opened the Ganges Canal, still the largestwork of the kind in the country; and he turned the sodof the first Indian railway. He promoted steam communi-cation with England via, the Red Sea, and introduced cheappostage and the electric telegraph. It is Lord Dalhousie’smisfortune that these benefits are too often forgotten in therecollections of the Mutiny, which followed his policy ofannexation, after the firm hand which had remodelled BritishIndia was withdrawn. But history is compelled to record notonly that no other Governor-General since the time of LordWellesley had ruled India with such splendid success fromthe military and political point of view, but also that no other