manitarian spirit came also a sense of duty and obligation toward subject people. At first a vague sentiment which found expression in protest, it became in course of time an effective and controlling force. The impeachment of Warren Hastings did much to strengthen it and direct it particularly toward India. By the sacrifice of an individual an iniquitous system was destroyed and a principle established. Burke's speeches left an indelible impression upon the public mind. "The great lesson of the impeach1 ment," says Lord Morley," was "that Asiatics have rights and that Europeans have obligations; that a superior race is bound to observe the highest current morality of the time in all its dealings with the subject race. Burke is entitled to our lasting reverence as the first apostle and great upholder of integrity, mercy, and honor in the relation between his countrymen and their humble dependents."

But for several generations thereafter the principle meant little more than that natives should not be ruthlessly killed, robbed or otherwise mistreated. In fact, their exploitation was involved in the theory that colonies existed for the exclusive benefit of the colonizing state. Benevolently inclined colonists adopted the theory that if the languid denizens of the tropics were forced to labor hard enough and long enough they would form the habit and thereafter all would be well for the country.

The people of India are, and during the entire period of British rule have been, very different from those of any of the other colonies or dependencies. They are the product of an ancient and highly developed as well as distinctive civilization. In blood, religion and philosophy they differ from the English. The great mass of the people of India are ignorant, but there has always been a small proportion of highly cultivated and educated native people. England's responsibility for the good government of · the natives was recognized long before the administration of the country was formally taken over by the Crown. To Lord William Bentinck, says Sir Charles Trevelyan,73 "belongs the great

72 Life of Edmund Burke,

P. 133.

73 Rulers of India, III, p. 137. "The foundation of British greatness upon

praise of having placed our dominion in India on the proper foundation in the recognition of the great principle that India is to be governed for the benefit of the Indian and that the advantages which we derive from it should be such as are incidental to and inferable from that course of proceeding."

This doctrine was accepted without reservation by the Crown. In the famous proclamation of November 1, 1858, Queen Victoria announced that

"We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil.

"It is our further will that so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service the duties of which they be qualified by their education, ability and integrity duly to discharge.

"We know and respect the feelings of attachment with which natives of India regard the lands inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands of the State; and we will that generally, in framing and administering the law, due regard be paid to the ancient rights, usages and customs of India."

For many years the specific promises of this proclamation were not fully performed. The Indian people were being slowly educated and the country developed. But the higher English education given a few of the natives and the comparative material prosperity resulted in dissatisfaction with the government. Had England deliberately planned an educational system designed to destroy the type of government which she established in India it is doubtful whether she could have improved on the one actually adopted. It commenced at the top and has never reached very far downward. It was inevitable that a generation of Indians brought up on the philosophy of English Liberalism, and nourished on the writings of Burke and Mill, would demand that

Indian happiness was to be Lord William Bentinck's own special work." Ibid., p. 133.

their principles be applied to India. Why, they asked, did not the arguments of Burke's speech on Conciliation with America hold good in India? There was no answer other than that India was not America and Indians not Americans or Englishmen. That answer, which implied inferiority, was not satisfactory to the Indians.

It seems difficult for an Englishman to understand why any person, white, black or yellow, should not wish to live under the British flag. Does it not, he asks, mean the blessings of law, order, peace and justice, and what more should any reasonable and well disposed person desire? In fact, these very desirable things, as understood by Europeans, are what the majority of Orientals do not want and object to having imposed upon them.

If the English government desired to perpetuate British rule in India it should in 1836 have rejected instead of approved Macaulay's plan for reorganizing the educational system.”

It decided that Indian youth should be educated on English instead of Oriental lines and proceeded to give an Oxford training to excitable young men who were destined to be clerks and subordinate officials. The history and literature of England are instinct with the spirit of personal liberty and political freedom, and it was to be expected that an India educated on such lines would demand control of her own affairs.

The movement took the form of an agitation for greater participation in the government—that is, for more offices for natives. The so-called National Congress which met annually after 1885 enabled the agitators to reach the ear of the world.75 Being without vision the government attempted at first to ignore and then to suppress aspirations which under the circumstances were as natural as the sequence of the seasons. The concessions made were made grudgingly and therefore were not appreciated. British policy is generally just but seldom generous. It is never idealistic.

74 Vide Chailley, Problems of British India, Book II, Chap. 6 (1910), for a review of the Indian educational problem.

75 For a fair estimate of the work of the Congress, see Sir Charles Dilke's Problems of Greater Britain, p. 432.

The United States pursued a different policy in the Philippines. She skilfully adopted as her own the cry which the Filipinos had raised of "the Philippines for the Filipinos," and has been able in a measure to direct a movement which could not be suppressed. Writing of the situation in India M. Joseph Chailley says: "If the English were an idealistic people their rule would be easy and splendid; in their turn they would seize on the motto, 'India for the Indians.'

The modest concessions produced no great moral effect. In 1870 Lord Mayo inaugurated a restricted system of local government which was somewhat extended by his successor, Lord Lytton. By 1878 the native press had become so violent that it was necessary to establish a censorship. The first serious effort at reform on principles favorable to native participation in the government was made by Lord Ripon—“the first Viceroy to discover the new India, the India not of expanding boundaries, but of expanding souls." During his term of office" municipal and urban boards based on the elective principle were established. For the first time "the natives became of some account in the management of their own affairs." The Press Act was repealed, but an attempt to authorize the trial of Europeans by native judges raised such a storm of indignation that it had to be materially modified.76

In 1892, under Lord Lansdowne, a large non-official element was introduced into the Provincial Legislative Councils. Some very substantial concessions were thus made, but nevertheless the Indians remained politically strangers in their own land.

Thus matters rested for sixteen years. During that time there was a general movement throughout Asia which boded ill for European control. The success of the Japanese in the war against a European power greatly stimulated the activities of those who were working to develop the idea of nationality and to consolidate the Asiatic races. Lord Curzon, who ruled India from 1899 to 1905, sympathized with the aspirations of the In

76 For the history of the famous "Ilbert Bill," see Lord Cromer's article on Sir Alfred Lyall, in The Quarterly Review for July, 1913.

dians for greater national unity and with their ambition to play a part in the life of the country, but he believed that India then needed administrative reforms more than political concessions. The keynote of his remarkable administration was "efficiency," a word which he believed to be a "synonym for the contentment of the governed."

The experience of the British in India and of the Americans in the Philippines shows that this, like many other perfectly sound and valid principles, will not always work with Orientals. The fact is that they care very little for efficiency in administration. In a community of politically half developed and excitable Eastern people who are living under the imposed dominion of an alien race, it is a waste of breath to advise them to eschew politics and devote themselves solely to the developing of the material resources of the country. Probably it is exactly what they should do, but certainly it is what they will not do.

Soon after Lord Morley became secretary of state for India in 1905 it was decided to make further substantial concessions to the natives of India. The jubilee of the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 furnished an occasion for stating this intention in an impressive way. In the Proclamation of the King-Emperor, November 2, 1908, it was announced that:

"Steps are being continually taken toward obliterating distinctions of race as the test for access to posts of public authority and power. In this path I confidently expect and intend the progress henceforward to be steadfast and sure, as education spreads, experience ripens, and the lessons of responsibility are well learned by the keen intelligence and apt capabilities of India.

"From the first the principle of representative institutions began to be gradually introduced, and the time has come when in the judgment of my Viceroy and Governor-General, and others of my Counsellors, that principle may be prudently extended. Important classes among you, representing ideas that have been fostered and encouraged by British rule, claim equality of citizenship and a greater share in legislation and government. The politic satisfaction of such a claim will strengthen, not impair,