Minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission upon Decentralization in Bengal of witnesses serving directly under the Government of India, volume 10 ([London?]: [House of Commons?], 1908)

Colonel
J. T. W.
Leslie.
4 Jan., 1908,

10

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE:

42646. I do not want you to criticize it; I want to
know how you have interpreted it during the last four
years ?—I have had no occasion to interpret that
particular phrase.
42647. You agree that sanitation is a matter of the
every-day life of the people ?—Certainly.
42648. And therefore it is a matter of provincial, if
not local, control ?—Provincial or local.
42649. In all such matters you must carry the people
with you ; you must not drive them ?—Exactly.
42650. Therefore all these matters require very close
knowledge of the habits and customs and prejudices of
the people ?—Certainly.
42651. They must practically be entirely in the hands
of officers and authorities close to the people ?—Yes.
45652. Therefore the details of sanitation are a
purely local matter ?—Yes.
42653. You cannot administer it all over the country
from one centre ?—Yes, you could ; for instance, you
might have people doing nothing, letting things simply
rest as they are, with enormous death rates, and nothing
done at all ; there you can do something ; you can stir
them up, and I think you ought to do so.
42654. You can bring such matters to notice, you
mean ?—Exactly.
42655. But you cannot administer ?—No.
42656. You can have a sort of central body of
information, and warning and so on, but you cannot
administer ?—You cannot administer.
42657. This resolution gives nothing in the shape
of the Head-of-a-Department position to the Sanitary
Commissioner ?—I think it was intended to give a
position of that sort, not with regard to Local Govern-
ments at all ; it would be a Sanitary Department under
the Government of India ; there is no intention to
control the Local Governments in any way, or to con-
trol the officers under the Local Governments ; that
is specifically avoided.
42658. Will you turn to your letter of the 14th
August, 1906 : in paragraph 2 you will see the phrase
“ to co-ordinate the work under Local Governments ” ;
■does that refer to research 1—No, it refers to a great
deal more than that ; for instance, you visit a place in
the United Provinces where you have very good water-
works, suitable for a small town ; you visit a town, we
will say in another province, a town of similar size,
where they want a water-works : you put the two sets
of people in communication.
42659. You pass information ?—You pass informa-
tion ; that is co-ordination.
42660. The word “ co-ordination ” in that passage
then does not quite mean what it meant when you first
used it?—No.
42661. Now look at paragraph 9 ; you say “ Thus,
in Bombay Lieutenant-Colonel Channer, who entered
the Service in 1876, is Sanitary Commissioner, while
Major Jameson, who entered the Service in 1890, was
Inspector-General of Prisons,” I suppose “ Jameson ”
is a mistake ?—It should be “ Jackson.”
42662. He is not Inspector-General of Prisons?—
He was when I wrote.
42663. He was only acting in a furlough vacancy ?—
He was acting.
42664. The permanent Inspector-General was really
four or five years senior to Lieutenant-Colonel Channer ?
--Yes.
42665. Does not that sentence, therefore, produce
rather an inaccurate impression ?—It was not intended
to do so.
42666. But do you not think it does ?—No, I do not
think so ; I took that example simply by chance ; the
point was applicable all over the country.
42667. But the fact is not accurate ?—That is so ; it
was true at the time ; it was an ill chosen example ; I
will put it in that way.
42668. I think you would have to say that he was
acting in the vacancy ?—But the matter was of slight
importance, because there were any number of ex-
amples ; I took that one ; it was a badly chosen one.
42669. I do not say that it was badly chosen, but I
wanted to bring to your notice that the facts as stated
are not quite correct.—The next fact, which is just as
striking, is absolutely correct.

42670. I am not touching the merits of an argument ?
—But surely the merits of an argument are considerably
touched when the facts are not accurate ?
42671. I put the question because I have seen it
stated, not with reference to yourself, but with
reference to other officers, that the Government of
India must rely on their Inspectors-General and similar
officers for truly living information as to what is going
on in the provinces, rather than on the Local Govern-
ments ; I only put the question to point out that the
information they got on this particular occasion was
not exactly accurate ; I do not want to go any further.
Again, you say “ It should be impressed upon the
Bombay Government that if they are to make full use
of their Sanitary Department, the expert officer must
be directly responsible to them for his work.” Surely
the question of the position to be given to the Sanitary
Commissioner under the Local Government is a little
outside your sphere ?—I was asked to make a reorgani-
zation of the Sanitary Department.
42672. Is it not rather interfering with the details
of local government ?■—I do not see that this is
interfering at all ; it does not go near the Local
Government; it is merely a recommendation to the
Government of India.
42673. Would you be surprised to hear- that the
Surgeon-General in Madras told us that he would very
much prefer a system by which the Sanitary Com-
missioner was one of his Deputy Surgeons-General ?—
I daresay.
42674. Is not the pay of a Sanitary Commissioner
only Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 1,800 a month?—Yes.
42675. Do you suggest that the Bombay Government
could get an officer on that salary who would con-
tentedly remain as Sanitary Commissioner and be able
to take independent charge of the whole of the delicate
business of the sanitary work of a Local Government ?
—I think his pay should be higher.
42676. Is that not a very good reason for the Govern-
ment of Bombay objecting to any system of giving
him independent authority under present conditions ?
—I think it would have been simpler for the Bombay
Government to have recommended more pay.
42677. Is not his present relation to the Surgeon-
General a very good reason for objecting to giving him
more pay ?—No, I do not think it is any reason at all.
42678. You also suggest as regards this imperial
scheme that you would make promotions to the office
of provincial Sanitary Commissioner from the general
body of provincial Deputy Sanitary Commissioners ;
does that mean that you would not necessarily promote
to the Sanitary Commissionership of a given province
from within that province ?—No.
42679. He may come from anywhere?—He may
come from anywhere within limits.
42680. That is to say, the Local Government would
no longer appoint their own Sanitary Commissioner ?
—They do not now in any province except Madras
and Bombay.
42681. Then you say “ The only real obstacle is the
language objection, which in my opinion is greatly
outweighed by the advantages of welding the depart-
ment into one whole.” Suppose for example an excel-
lent officer came from Bengal to Bombay on promotion
as Sanitary Commissioner, would he know anything
of the habits or customs or the general life of Mahrattas,
or Gujeratis, or Sindis ?—I think he would ; he knows
the broad general lines ; he knows how carefully he has
got to tread, and he will very soon find out.
42682. Sufficiently to administer a department inter-
fering with all the details of the daily life of the
people ?—They do not interfere very much.
42683. You further suggest that all full-time Health
Officers should be absorbed into this Sanitary Depart-
ment ?—You mean full-time Health Officers of ports ;
certainly.
42684. That is to say, you take those appointments
away from the local medical cadre and put them into
the Imperial Sanitary Department ?—Yes.
42685. For instance, the Port Medical Officers of
Bombay and Aden ?—Bombay certainly ; Aden is
perhaps different.
42686. You think there would be no difficulty in the
medical cadre losing a certain appointment of that sort ?