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government. Deference to authority tends to degenerate
 into servility among all who surround
the holders of power.

The Indian civil service has, during the last
century, acquired a position, unique in the history
of the world, for general efficiency and uprightness.


* The Indian civil service took its rise from the
establishment of merchants and agents employed
in buying or selling the company’s wares. For
many years after the company had come to be
governors of territories, as well as traders, the
members of the service continued to be ranked in
the grades and styled by the titles of senior and
junior merchants, factors, and writers. In the first
instance, the nominal salaries paid to civil servants
were very small, and their emoluments were
almost wholly derived from the profits of private
trade. The results of such an arrangement may be
imagined. Lord Cornwallis applied the remedy
by fixing the salaries at a sufficiently high figure to
place the members beyond the influence of temptation.
 This was followed by an immediate improve.
ment in every direction.

‘When the change from merchants to rulers took
place, the necessity for providing tests of qualification
 for admission was not at once recognized,

* Chesney’s Indian Polity, p. 217%.