CHAPTER XIV - FIGHTING THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL

Summary

Lord Auckland had been Governor-General for four years when, for the second time, Dr. Duff landed at Calcutta. Apart from contemporary history, his appointment to the most responsible office under the British Crown forms the most scandalous instance of the sacrifice of the good of the people of India and of the peace of the Empire to the intrigues and the selfseeking of political parties. India is so far outside of, so high above, the level of purely party politics, that it used to be true that its governing and commercial classes left Whig and Tory prejudices behind them. Even the purely British officials who, as Governor-General, governors, and law member of council, owed their appointments to partisan considerations among others, were generally raised by the very elevation of their duties to the disinterested and philosophic level which looked only at the good of India. From the high vantage ground of a Governor-General's seat, the purely domestic questions which cause the rise and fall of ministers in England often look petty indeed. It may be accepted as an absolute test which marks off the really able statesmen among the nineteen Governor-Generals from the few whom history despises, that the former in every case acknowledged first their duty to India; the latter, their selfish gratitude to the party which sent them out. Against rulers like Warren Hastings, Lords Wellesley and Hastings, W. Bentinck and Dalhousie, Canning and Mayo, we have to set Cornwallis (the second time), Amherst and Auckland, not to mention the living.