spicuous among them was the work commenced under the orders of Sir Richard Temple in 1866, when Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces; and in 1867, the Governor-General in Council, in obedience to orders received from Her Majesty's Secretary of State, directed a Statistical Account to be prepared for each of the twelve great Provinces of India.[1]
The Local Governments struck out widely different schemes for conducting the work. It was as if an order had issued from some central power for a Statistical Survey of all Europe, and each nation had set about its execution on a separate plan. It became apparent that large sums of money were likely to be expended, while considerable uncertainty existed as to the results. Meanwhile several public bodies pressed on the Government of India the necessity of a systematic organization, with the view to ensuring uniformity of plan in the execution of the work. Without such uniformity, the Council of the Asiatic Society pointed out that when the local compilations came to be finally digested into the General Account of India, there would be no basis for comparative statistics, and much 'of the original work would have to be gone over again de novo.'
The Governor-General in Council arrived at the same conclusion; and in 1869 directed me to visit the various Local Governments, to ascertain what each had done in the matter, and to 'submit a comprehensive scheme for utilizing the information already collected, for prescribing the principles according to which all local Gazetteers are in future to be prepared, and for the consolidation into one work of the whole of the materials that may be available.'
In obedience to these orders, I submitted, in 1869, a Plan for an Imperial Gazetteer of India. It was found necessary,
- ↑ These Provinces, or rather political divisions under separate administrations, are:—(1) Bengal; (2) Bombay; (3) Madras; (4) North-Western Provinces; (5) Panjáb; (6) Assam, in 1867 included within Bengal; (7) Central Provinces; (8) British Burmah; (9) The Berars, under the Resident of Haidarábád; (10) Mysore and Coorg; (11) Rájputana; (12) Central India.—Orders of the Government of India, No. 1758, dated 19th Oct. 1867.
