The law of primogeniture at present prevails only where it is most
mischievous under our rule, among the feudal chiefs, whose ancestors
rose to distinction and acquired their possessions by rapine in times
of invasion and civil wars. This law among them tends to perpetuate
the desire to maintain those military establishments by which the
founders of their families arose, in the hope that the times of
invasion and civil wars may return and open for them a similar field
for exertion. It fosters a class of powerful men, essentially and
irredeemably opposed in feeling, not only to our rule, but to settled
government under any rule; and the sooner the Hindoo law of
inheritance is allowed by the paramount power to take its course
among these feudal chiefs, the better for society. There is always a
strong tendency to it in the desire of the younger brothers to share
in the loaves and fishes; and this tendency is checked only by the
injudicious interposition of our authority.[13]
To give India the advantage of free institutions, or all the
blessings of which she is capable under an enlightened paternal
government, nothing is more essential than the supersession of this
feudal aristocracy by one founded upon other bases, and, above all,
upon that of the concentration of capital in commerce and
manufactures.
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