and the nation at large. Accurate and accessible infor- mation regarding India was become, under the new system, an essential condition for the safe exercise of that control. Accordingly, in 1867, the Viceroy, acting on instructions from Her Majesty’s Secretary of State, ordered an account to be drawn up for each of the twelve great Provinces of India.
Their failure, 1869.
The Provincial Governments struck out widely diver- gent schemes for conducting the work. It was as if a command had issued from some central power for a Statistical Survey of all Europe, and each nation set about its execution on a separate plan. It became apparent that vast sums of money would be expended, while considerable uncertainty existed as to the results.
One local Government started on a scale which, if gene- rally adopted, would have involved an outlay of £ 100,000 for the District materials alone. The head of another Province himself 2 carried out the work, expeditiously and at scarcely any cost to the State; but on a system which, although admirably suited to the territories under his care, could not be applied to the rest of India.
Remonstrances by public bodies.
Mean- while, the commercial community and various public bodies were pressing upon the Government the necessity of systematic organization, with a view to ensure uni- formity 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!
These Provinces, or rather political divisions under separate administration, were— (1) Bengal; (2) Bombay; (3) Madras; (4) The NorthWestern Provinces and Oudh ; (5) The Punjab (6) Assam, in 1867 included in Bengal (7) Central Provinces ; (8) British Burma (9) The Berars, under the Resident at Haidarabad ; (10) Mysore and Coorg (11) Rajputana ; (12) Central India.—Orders of the Government of India, No. 1758, dated 19th October 1867.
2 Mr. Alfred Lyall, C.B., of the Bengal Civil Service, then Commis- sioner of West Berar; now Sir Alfred Lyall, K.C.B., and LieutenantGovernor of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh.
