mean membership of the whole Indian empire, with the rights and obligations which such membership implies. In order that each citizen may know what he owes to his fellow countrymen and to his government, he has to some extent to shake himself free of prejudices, and to remember that, besides his duty to his family or sect or village, he owes something to the whole country of which he has inherited the right to call himself a citizen.

3. The Village Community. The current of the people's life in a healthy state of society ought to flow through the family and the village into the province, and so forth to the whole empire. In times past each Indian village was a separate, and rather stagnant, centre of national life. The village community contained in miniature all the materials of the State. Within its walls or ring-fences families of different castes or religions dwelt together, supplying each other's daily wants, and uniting to defend their homes when attacked by an enemy, who generally came from a neighbouring village or province. All that the inhabitants knew of government and of the duties of he State to its subjects was collected before their eyes. Public authority was represented by the head-man, who united in himself the several functions of collector of revenue, of police superintendent, of magistrate, and even of civil judge. He was aided by an assistant, and by the village accountant. The other officials who took part in the public administration were the silversmith who assayed money, and the village watch in who tracked thieves, carried messages, guarded the boundaries, and arrested wrongdoers.

Outside these official classes were other families

THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.

5

which ministered to the wants of the community, bound to their neighbours by the ties of common interests, and rendering to them services in return for a share of the village produce and the protection which they received. They were the village blacksmith, the carpenter, the potter, the grass-rope maker, the sweeper, the cobbler, the barber, the washerman, and the watercarrier. The expenses of carrying on the affairs of the village and of managing the temple were met by a tax upon the lands or the houses of the village. Such is the picture of a little State contained in the village, which was drawn by a writer who was well acquainted with native society in the Dekhan in the year 1820.

4. The Past and the Present. The striking changes which India has witnessed in the last century have greatly changed the people's mode of life. The appearance of the villages themselves has altered; the rules which compelled the inhabitants to remain attached to their villages have been repealed, and the large

wers which were concentrated in the hands of the viilage officers have been divided. If you should look at a picture of any good-sized village as it appeared in 1820 you would see that it was walled round, or at least defended by a stout fence of prickly pear. In some of the native states, and in all the countries bordering on India, the villages are to-day in a similar state of defence, as if they expected attacks at night. Their walls and fences, no doubt, offer a substantial obstacle to the intrusion of robbers, but they also oppose the passage of free air, and otherwise interfere with ventilation and sanitary habits. It was in the interests of public health that the fine old walls of

B

THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.

Ahmedabad were partially demolished, but the gates are for the most part still preserved.

The interior arrangements of the village used to correspond to its exterior. The artizans could not leave their homes without great difficulty. At home their services were at the disposal of the government for the performance of forced labour, or else at the call of the villagers in return for certain moderate dues or shares of the village-produce fixed by custom with a sparing hand. In any case it was not convenient to let them emigrate until famine left them without their shares of grain. Then again the village officers exercised very large authority over the rest of the inhabitants. In short, all that the village thought about was itself and its lands, and all that it knew about justice and government was contained in the authority of its head-man. It was walled off from

the rest of the country in more senses than one. To-day the village walls are thrown down, and its prickly pear is severely pruned. The postman brings its newspapers from the capital of the province, and the villagers may go where they like in search of employment and profit. The divisional and district courts outside its limits are open to receive any complaints which the humblest inhabitant may prefer.

5. The Merits of the Old System. A statesman, Mountstuart Elphinstone, whose name is still connected with the leading college and high school of Bombay, and who felt a high admiration for the virtues of Indian rural society, expressed the opinion that the village communities were probably "not suited to a good form of government." But he added, "they are

an excellent remedy for the imperfections of a bad one, and they prevent the bad effects of its negligence and weakness, and even present some barriers against its tyranny." Every one must admit that there was much that was attractive in the picture of village society which has just been drawn. The villagers were taught to render services to each other, to work for each other according to their several trades, to depend upon each other, and to stand shoulder to shoulder in self-defence. At a time when disorder reigned, and the rulers employed no police to protect their subjects, the people were enabled to provide to some extent for their own safety. If the higher revenue officials exacted from the raiyats more than they could pay, the village rose up as one man to resist the demand. If families quarrelled, the public opinion of the village restrained them, and although the head-men combined executive with judicial powers, they had sometimes the united pressure of their fellow-villagers to correct them in the discharge of their duties. The provinces frequently changed hands and passed from one native ruler to another, but the village life usually ran on in an even course or without much alteration. The villagers sowed and reaped, even though their rulers carried off as much of the crop as they could.

6. Faults of the Old System. There was, however, another side to the picture which was not so pleasant. The villages received no real protection from government, and no help in time of distress. Their inhabitants had no motives of self-interest, no spirit of competition, to stimulate their labour or induce them to improve their condition. It will be well to realize the condition of Indian villages in past times in these