with the concurrence of His Imperial Majesty, which, for such a purpose, and with such important profits assured to him, certainly would be forthcoming. In cooperation with this work would, of course, be the improvements of the navigation of that great river, the Karun, which, it may be remembered, is the only river in Persia whose waters flow into the ocean, every other river in the North flowing into the Caspian Sea. The Karun is the one ocean river in Persia, and it has been opened to the commerce of the world by the exertions of the British. Government. In connection with and synchronously with the irrigation of the Karun district should the construction of the carriage-road from Ahváz to Teheran be undertaken. This, indeed, can be commenced at once. The concession is granted, while the returns from the Russian road in the North, and from the completed portion of this road from Teheran to Kum, prove it to be an excellent investment.

I would also say that when the German railway approaches Baghdad, I trust that English capitalists will unite with German capitalists to make the extension from Baghdad to Khanikin on the Persian frontier, and continue the line from Khanikin to Teheran, which I have already mentioned as commercially sound, carrying the great pilgrim traffic of Central Asia and Persia to the celebrated shrine of Kerbela in Turkish territory.

Our policy in Persia has been throughout the whole of this generation one of peace, We have shown no desire to annex any portion of the Persian dominions; we have no territorial ambition. Our only desire in Persia is to strengthen the hands of His Majesty the Shah, and to work in accord with him for the advantage and regeneration of his country; and the Persians know this very well. They know this as well as the Ameer of Afghanistan knows it with regard to his country, and although their fear of outside pressure may induce them sometimes to be swayed by other influences, yet in their hearts they know that the best friends of both Persia and Afghanistan are the English

people and the English Government. We are now in a somewhat anxious position so far as the outside world is concerned, and doubtless our difficulties and reverses - because we have had no defeats our reverses in South Africa have had a disquieting effect, not only in but throughout the East. That time, we hope and trust, is past, and I have little doubt, as I have never doubted for a moment since war was declared, that the result of this campaign will be to leave us far stronger in every sense of the word than we were before; and that not only in Persia, but in the rest of the world, it will be acknowledged that the power that could at so short a notice place 200,000 men in the heart of South Africa, with its difficult communications and its long sea-voyage, could, if occasion required, make a far greater effort, and place a far larger number of men in any quarter of the world where its vital interests were assailed.

THIRD SERIES. VOL. IX.

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THE CIVIL SERVICE OF INDIA-PAST AND

PRESENT.

AN OBJECT OF AMBITION TO BRITISH YOUTH.

BY SIR JOHN JARDINE, K.C.I.e.

THE Indian Civil Service has long been the chief instrument created by Imperial Parliament for the work of governing India, where our Empire extends over 1,750,000 square miles, with a population which in 1891 came up to about 290 millions, without counting Baluchistan and the Somali Coast Protectorate in Africa. Included in these figures are 750,000 square miles, with nearly 70 million people, under native kings and chiefs, great and small, over whom the Viceroy's Government exercises various kinds and degrees of control, by means of officers stationed at their Courts. Wherever we travel over this vast area we encounter the Indian Civil Servant at his work-on the Afghan frontier of the Punjab, on the sweltering plains of Bengal, in the marshes and forests of Burma, and in our older possessions on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts of Madras and Bombay. His ordinary duty consists in supervising the fiscal, judicial, and police work of hundreds of other officers, for the most part natives, in all the thirteen governments, large and small, into which we have divided our territories. He wanders about the villages, towns, and counties with his tents and camp for months in the year till the heavy rains or the fierce heat compel his return to the bungalow in the district headquarter city, where he meets and consults with his comrades and superiors for some months, till the approach of the cold weather calls them back to the wandering life. But as much of the work which in this country is done by statesmen falls in India on the more experienced and able Civil Servants, we find them at the seats of government in exalted and important positions, like Cabinet Ministers holding the civil portfolios, or as

Judges of the High Courts, or as Ambassadors to the great Native States. Bengal, with its 70 millions, the NorthWest Provinces and Oudh, with 47 millions, the Punjab, with 20 millions of people, are provinces each under the direct rule of a Lieutenant Governor, chosen out of the Civil Service. To these I must add the LieutenantGovernor of Burma, while smaller areas, like Assam and Baluchistan, are under Governors modestly styled Chief Commissioners, or Agents, or Residents, one of these tracts, the Central Provinces, having a population equal to that of Holland and Belgium combined. Stately appointments like these are the prizes of the Service, falling usually to those survivors who combine bodily and mental energy. Distinguished men like Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Richard Temple are now and then made Governors of Madras or Bombay, alternating with peers and home politicians. I mention these facts not only as showing to ambitious young men that there are great rewards for the few at the close of their careers, but to indicate also that the Service affords many varieties of life for the many. For each of these potentates has secretaries and registrars to frame his orders, and these younger men emerge from the life of the camp and the small station to spend some years, at least, in the wider social and political life of centres like Calcutta and Simla, Rangoon, Nagpur, Bombay, and Madras, varied with tours with the Governor and changes to the delightful air of mountain resorts. To others the change comes in getting into the Foreign or Political Department when the work lies in Native States, amid more feudal institutions, more pomp and pageantry, and an older surrounding of law and custom. Moreover, there are great varieties of climate in an empire extending between the 8th and the 37th degrees of north latitude. There are seventy-eight divers languages, besides many dialects; the Hindu, Mohammedan, and Buddhist religions, all contrasted strongly with one another, have in different parts of India several forms and schools; and, if my space permitted, I could argue in many

other connections that when one thinks of India he should bear in mind that the term of geography is like the word Europe or South America: it encloses many countries and climates and peoples, and so the circumstances of the Indian Civil Servant in one part differ a good deal from those of his comrade in another. For example, in the Bombay Presidency, Sind, Gujerat, Deccan and Carnatic are regions each with its own language; and it often happens that an officer promoted, say, from Poona to Belgaum or Karachi has to set to work at once with a new grammar and dictionary. It happened to me in the course of six months to be employed at Simla, Bombay, and Rangoon; and I well remember the surprise and delight I felt when, after thirteen years of India, I was sent to Burma, where I found myself among very different nations, with many strange and picturesque surroundings quite new to me. The vastness of the spaces and populations makes it rather hard for me to know where to begin and how to develop what I would wish to say, especially when I add that while the present work of the Indian Civil Service is commensurate with the whole Indian Empire, including Burma and Aden, the Andamans, and the Persian Gulf, the history of this Service begins with our earliest trading to the Eastern world, three centuries ago, when, in the year 1600, the East India Company, the greatest and most powerful trading company ever formed, got its first charter from the Crown of England some years before the Scottish James ascended the English throne, in what Tennyson aptly calls "the spacious times of great Elizabeth." The East India Company, which ceased to trade in 1834, continued, at the request of Ministers, to be the direct means of governing India till 1859. It was always essentially English in its character, with its seat in the City of London, where a number of merchants met the Lord Mayor in the Founders' Room, and, knowing the great risk of capital in foreign trade from the enmity of the Spaniards and the Dutch, petitioned for a guarantee of monopoly.