Sir Louis Mallet
by Bernard Mallet (9780217555197)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INDIA 1872-1883 The arrangement by which Sir Louis Mallet's official career was prolonged decisively marked the intention to remove him from the sphere of work which he had made his own, for in February 1872 he was nominated a member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India. This rather incongruous appointment was, however, justified by the pressure which had been put upon the Secretary of State by the commercial classes since the extinction of the East India Company for a more adequate representation of British commerce in the new Government. In Mallet the Duke of Argyll accordingly found a man who was not only acceptable to the commercial interests of the day, but a trained official and financier. It was a position which might have easily proved discouraging to a man of less industry and character, but his natural geniality and tact placed him on good terms with his Indian colleagues, and he soon became engrossed in new work and new problems. He was at once struck with the financial disorder prevailing in the Government of India and with the inherent vices of principle in the chief sources of revenue, while the India Office system with its " constant friction and almost invariably negative result" impressed him unfavourably from the outset. With his friends Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff as Political Under-Secretary and Lord Northbrook as Governor-General, he was, however, not likely to be alone in ideas of reform; and the former was soon writing that " Mallet is taking an ever more and more active part here, and will, I think, be a tower of strength for all good things and people." This opinion was doubtless shared by the Duke of Argyll, whose last official act was to transfer him to the permanent Under-Secretaryship vacated by the death of his cousin...

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