Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/102

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94
DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA

weakness of any Board as a controlling power in a newly subjected province. Yet a Board was precisely the instrument he wanted in the Punjab. For he did not intend that the Board should be the controlling power: he had determined to be the controlling power himself.

It was a novel and most difficult experiment in Anglo-Indian rule. The brilliant success which it attained is due primarily to the master-mind of Dalhousie who designed and continuously directed it; in the next place, to the able instruments selected to work it out. The two Lawrences and Mr. Charles Greville Mansel formed the Board, with common responsibility, but each with his own Department. Mr. Mansel, as a trained civilian from a Regulation Province, smoothly and effectively organised the judicial administration of the Punjab. John Lawrence, as a strenuous revenue officer, re-settled the land-tax and fiscal system on a basis at once more favourable to the people and more profitable to the Government. Sir Henry Lawrence, as a soldier-political, was charged more directly with the military defence and our relations towards the lately subdued Chiefs and Sikh fief-holders. He also presided as head of the Board.

Lord Dalhousie did not, however, trust the success of his scheme entirely to the members of the Board — able as they were. He resolved that the administration of the Punjab should be, from