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they perform them, will be found in the following pages.

Looking back over the history of our connection with the country, with the renewals at intervals of the Company's Charter, we cannot fail to be struck with the apparently unconscious character of our action. Here and there, an able man, such as Sleeman or Geddes, has understood that the destruction of native rule was by no means an unmixed benefit; the administrators at home have constantly protested against the proceedings of a Wellesley or a Dalhousie; but still the pressure of circumstances has pushed us relentlessly on, until our frontiers are practically conterminous with the great Russian Empire on one side, and the great Chinese Empire on the other. Never, even in the days of the most complete Mahommedan ascendancy, was the rule of one power recognised so completely from one end of the great peninsula to the other. But never, also, was the responsibility of this domination less felt by those upon whose shoulders it rests, and who will have to bear the brunt of any great catastrophe which may come to arouse their indifference.

I.

THE CONDITION OF INDIA.

SINCE 1874 the Bengal famine, the visit of the Prince of Wales, the proclamation of the Queen as Empress at Delhi, the frightful dearth, far exceeding both in extent and intensity that of Bengal, which for more than two years afflicted Madras and Bombay, the ordering of the Indian contingent to Malta, and other more recent events have had the effect of keeping India before the minds of the English people. The movement of the Indian troops at the crisis of the Eastern difficulty, served to manifest more clearly than anything else the intimate connection which now subsists between ourselves and our greatest dependency.

Lord Beaconsfield, by calling in Asia to redress the balance of military power in Europe, threw into the strongest relief the direct responsibility which rests upon Englishmen of all classes for treating India as an integral portion of the empire. That great and populous country depends absolutely upon us for good government, moderate taxation, and consideration of its general needs. Any blunders which we make affect 190,000,000 fellow-subjects, and are wholly irremediable save by ourselves.

Insurrection against unintentional oppression or wellmeant injustice is hopeless, and the natives have no appeal but to the capacity and openness of mind of us, their conquerors, to remove any grievances from which they may be suffering. It is essential for them that, in spite of other topics, the serious consideration of the relation which England bears to India and the future policy which ought to be pursued, should be forced upon the nation.

India in 1878 had been for fully twenty years under the direct administration of the Queen and Parliament. In 1858 the famous proclamation was issued which finally transferred the supreme authority from the old East India Company to the Crown, its only possible substitute. The twenty years between those two dates were, so far as the internal condition of India is concerned, a period of more than Roman peace. The few frontier expeditions rendered necessary by the turbulence of wild tribes beyond our border were little more than reminders that all Asia does not belong to us. All that could be gained by profound peace ought therefore to have been already secured. Between 1858 and 1878 we constructed nearly 7,000 miles of railway through the country, connecting all the great cities and provinces; we carried out vast irrigation works intended to act as a general preventive of the dangerous effects of drought; and we laid down besides a whole network of ordinary agricultural roads. No effort, indeed, has been spared to develop our great dependency according to the most approved modern methods; and none can doubt that, although too frequently a bad in

clination has been shown at home to charge India with expenses which do not rightly fall upon her, there has been a most earnest desire on the part of our officials in that country to raise the condition of the great body of the people, and thus to make them thoroughly contented with our rule. It has been universally felt that we must depend for the stability of our government on the goodwill of the people even more than on our own strength.

We are constantly assured that we have succeeded in this noble attempt; that the natives of India are not only peaceful, but prosperous under the control of England; that in particular the cultivators are, as a class, far richer than they were; that the traders are at least equally flourishing; and that, generally, the great population of Hindostan, notwithstanding the necessarily increased taxation, due to a superior and more highly organised administration, is in every respect better off than when Lord Canning took up the reins of government.

All this Englishmen, as a rule, believe, and some of the benefits which we have conferred upon India are so obvious that the rest might not unfairly be taken for granted. Knowing that no harm is meant, it seems impossible that the gravest harm should be done.

But of late more detailed interest is taken in the subject, and it has been noted that almost every Indian official who has left the service and is free from the cares of administration openly gives it as his opinion that taxation in some directions has reached its utmost limit, even if it be not already

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too heavy for the simplest well-being of the agricultural classes; that although there is no evidence to show that the seasons from 1858 to 1878 were exceptional, the famines in almost every part of India were unprecedented in number and probably unequalled in severity; that, so far as can be judged, the supply of cattle for agricultural purposes has dwindled considerably as well as gone off in quality; that in many districts the ordinary scale of nourishment is below what it was some years ago, approaching dangerously near the limit of permanent starvation; and that there are not wanting grave indications as to the deterioration of the soil all over India, owing to excessive cropping, want of fallows, and insufficiency of manure. These and other equally serious symptoms have occasioned the gravest uneasiness to those who have observed them.

Even Lord Northbrook, certainly far from an economical viceroy, who said, in 1877, with all the authority derived from his high position and wide experience, that he "did not think any one who had any knowledge of the subject could doubt that the expenditure on the Indian railways was one of the most profitable investments that ever was made by a great nation," and further asserted that "in his opinion the finances of India were in a perfectly sound condition "-even Lord Northbrook was compelled by the urgency of the case to protest against our financial policy as involving the gravest danger, and to move a resolution to that effect in the House of Lords. Twelve months could not so entirely change the situation in such a matter. The previous

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