of my own service, and that the unanimity of opposition to that measure was as complete among civilian magistrates and judges as it was among planters, merchants, and members of the legal profession.

NON-INTERFERENCE AND ECONOMY.

No more complete type of a bureaucracy exists in the world than the Indian Government, and, like all other bureaucracies, its members are incessantly trying to justify their own existence by extending the sphere of their activity. This excessive State interference is now an extreme evil. In former times our predecessors in the administration of the country, with more practical sagacity than we possess, were always cautious in their interference, and instinctively favoured the adoption of Conservative principles. At the present day, when enormous advance has been made in the expansion of education, in the growth of political ideas, and in national development, the dead weight of administrative departments, needlessly multiplied, is profoundly prejudicial to real progress. Wise statesmanship would rather consist in the mere preservation of peace and order, and in the encouragement of spontaneous tendencies. What is needed is the pervading

presence of a spirit of relativity in the Government, of a capacity to refrain from unnecessary action, of an appreciation of the wide differences between the East and West, and between the different parts of India itself, and above all of a hearty sympathy with the wishes and interests of the governed. If these virtues are granted to our Indian rulers, we need not despair of seeing sound and healthy progress. But, unfortunately, these virtues are rare, and in their place a spirit is abroad breathing disturbance. Ambitious officials, whose tenure of office is short, are consumed with a fatal desire to distinguish themselves by the enforcement of their own ideas, irrespectively of the wishes and feelings of the people who are affected by them. I look with unconcealed misgiving on the restless proposals which are now so readily made by the young and irresponsible officials who advise the Government. I greatly fear that in our zeal for progress and reformation we are drifting into a campaign of executive and legislative action, the benefits of which are uncertain, while the certain result of it will be disturbance and ultimate retrogression. We are disturbing everything, and the Ilbert Bill agitation has thrown a lurid light on our intentions, which have been so much praised.

The experimental introduction of agrarian

theories into a country altogether unripe for their application, where the existence of an aristocratic community is still the material basis of order, and the maintenance of an hereditary landholding class is the very corner-stone of internal political reconstruction, is evidence of profound unfitness to appreciate adequately the necessities of the existing situation. Far from leading through any healthy channels to the settlement of disputes, experiments of this sort are calculated to produce nothing but disorder by setting up class against class in vain opposition to one another. The Bengal Tenancy Act, which has recently become law, admirably framed as it is in many respects, takes no regard of the social and political conditions of the provinces where it will be in force. The relationship between zemindar and ryots in Bengal is not the simple relationship of landlord and tenant. It is not merely that the zemindar collects the rents and the ryot pays them. The social aspects of the land tenure system of Bengal are not those of Ireland, or England, or of any country in Europe. The zemindar and ryot are as king and people; they are as monarch and subject. Over most parts of Bengal it cannot be alleged that there are disputes, oppression, or poverty. It is true that rights are unadjusted, the balance of rent is undeter

mined, the current demand is not fixed, the area of cultivation is often unknown; and yet it is not the case that the ordinary relations between zemindar and ryot are unfriendly. The narrow induction drawn by local officials from occasional disturbances which come to their notice misleads them, and has misled Government into the delusion that general disaffection exists. The one or two cases of disturbance come prominently to notice; the thousands and thousands of instances in which order and contentment prevail pass by unobserved. But the existing state of things, which is satisfactory because it is in accordance with the custom of the country and not objected to by any one, has already been gravely unsettled by the interference of zealous officials, who, with philanthropic motives no doubt, do not hesitate in their ignorant prejudice to brand a whole class of the community as inherently vicious, and who are incapable of recognising that the changes which must eventually take place ought to be allowed to arise. spontaneously out of the circumstances in which the country is placed. The occasional agrarian demonstrations to which so much importance has unduly been attached have, for the most part, been stirred up by the injudicious action of Government officers, countenanced and encouraged by Government. It is certain that

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