Administrative Skill
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Due to his administrative power, this is the area that he secured in his time in India (above).
Cornwallis built up the administrative superstructure in India, which remained substantially in force till 1858. Being a shrewd diplomat, Cornwallis, from the beginning of his career in India, emphasized strengthening the judicial administration of the British Government in India. Before he arrived in India, the British officials corrupted the country and slowly made it worse. The judicial reforms undertook by Cornwallis laid its foundation in the British Indian administrative system in 1793. The judicial reforms of Cornwallis were documented in the famous Cornwallis Code. The Cornwallis Code effectively cleaned up India. In 1793, he had many of the Hindu and Muslim laws translated into English and then added his own set of laws and had this published as the set of laws to be abided by. This set of laws is informally known as the Cornwallis Code and it secured the British hold in India. Because of his principles, he chose to sacrifice native Indian participation in government in exchange for better and safer administration. He also worked to, and successfully ended, child slavery throughout India, a problem that had plagued the area. He was in India for eight years and only during one of those was he fighting. The rest of the time he organized the economy there and worked on making the British foothold more solid.
In Ireland he shows his administrative skill when he negotiated the Union Act, bringing the Irish into Great Britain, with the Parliaments combined. Crucial Irish support for the Union had also been gained by the holding out to the majority Catholic population, an intended quid pro quo in the form of Catholic emancipation. Catholics already had the right to vote in elections in Ireland, but this would also have enabled them to stand for Parliament, subject to the existing property qualifications. Cornwallis clearly hoped that he could steer through emancipation, viewing it as an essential element of his policy of uniting Ireland with Britain on an harmonious and sustainable basis. George III, who apparently had no inkling of his plan, vetoed any such attempt.