municipal boards shall not be interfered with; but the law is one thing and the practice another.

Then every village should have its popularly elected council, to which should be restored the control of the village school, the village wells and irrigation tanks, the grazing lands, the supply of fuel, and other matters closely connected with the life of the people. Especially, make the village council responsible, as of old, for collecting its quota of revenue for the Government. Let these councils be elected on a broad popular basis, giving, if need be, proportional representation to Mohammedans and pariahs. Then let the Taluk Boards be elected by these, and the District Board by the Taluk Board, and that will work wonders. The change would not be great-simply the creation of a popularly elected village or parish council; but the whole would thus be based on popular election, and not on nomination, as is the case at present over the greater portion of India, and that would make all the difference.

I would also revert to Lord Ripon's proposal of 1884, that no collector or other permanent official should be chairman of any board. Let him and others be present as advisers, not as dictators. Finally, let the District Boards, singly or in combination, elect members to the Provincial Councils, and clothe these councils with living powers. Let certain matters be delegated to the councils, and then leave them free to deal with them. If it be thought that this would be dangerous, let it be borne in mind that the Governor of a province, as

also the Viceroy, has always the power of veto in

reserve.

The one thing I ask is that the people of India shall be made to feel that they are being trusted, and are not being regarded and treated either as incapables or rebels. They are neither the one nor the other. They are, if anything, too loyal; whilst their capacity as rulers and administrators is being proved in every direction.

One other reform I would suggest. Let the way be opened up whereby men of tried and proved capacity may be promoted from the Provincial Civil Service to the Indian Civil Service. It is monstrous that an Indian, no matter what his qualifications, who has not been able to visit London in order to pass his I.C.S. examination, should have nothing higher than a deputy collectorship or sub-district judgeship to look forward to, whilst an Englishman of perhaps inferior capacity, who has sat for a certain examination in London, may one day rule over a department at Simla, or even become Lieutenant-Governor of a province.

There is nothing wild or startling about these proposals, nor would they be difficult to realise if only the necessary spirit were there in which to approach them. But that spirit and influence must come from without; the bureaucracy, after the nature of its kind, is hopeless. The one way to break down the colour line is to raise the official status of the people. So long as they are being govered as a subject race, just so long will they be looked down upon by their rulers. Just so long

also will men of education and ability feel the bitterness of the insult which their present position implies. In this, as in so much else, self-government is the solvent to which we must look for dissolving a difficulty rapidly becoming unbearable. Educated India, a small but growing proportion of the people, is realising the truth of Mill's dictum that such a thing as a government of one people by another does not and cannot exist. "One people may keep another for its own use, a place to make money in, a human cattle farm for the profits of its own inhabitants." It is this "cattle farm" method of treatment that educated Indians are revolting against; and thus there are tendencies on both sides which are broadening the colour line and leading to greater estrangement of the races. When Indian can meet European as a fully enfranchised equal, and compel that respect which is his due, then, and not before, will race prejudice begin to die out and finally to disappear. So long as India is held in subjection the growing alienation of the races is bound to continue with increasingly serious results upon the good government of the country.

RECAPITULATION.

EVERY Session Parliament gives one day, or part of a day, to the discussion of the Indian Budget. On these occasions the Secretary of State for India is able to paint the state of Indian finance in glowing colours. What is rarely hinted at is that hidden in the background lies the plaguestricken emaciated figure of the starving peasant, from whose ceaseless toil the taxes are extracted. The income of the peasantry, who form 85 per cent. of the population, has, as already stated, been variously estimated as ranging from 26s. per head per annum to as low as 12s. 6d. One spare meal a day is common over vast tracts of country, and even that is not always forthcoming. When it is borne in mind that the Budget surpluses are wrung from people in this condition, there is room for other feelings than gratification. The land revenue paid by the starving ryots has gone up from 229,000,000 rupees in 1888 to 304,000,000 in 1908, an increase of 32 per cent. in twenty years. Every new irrigation canal, or railway, is used as a further means of extorting more revenue, and is, therefore, of very doubtful value to the people. The famine area in 1908 spread

over 133,000 square miles, and affected 49,000,000 people, a fact of itself sufficient to give our complacency pause. Military expenditure has been growing in India with alarming rapidity, and there is only a very modified hope that it will be reduced. During the last eight years the sum accounted for in the Indian Budget under this head has risen from just over £14,000,000 to £20,750,000 -an increase of £6,500,000. That in itself is a very serious item, and in my opinion accounts for much of the unrest in India. It is not merely the money to which I refer, but the growing spirit of militarism in the administration of the civil affairs of India which the increased expenditure upon the army implies.

Then in regard to education. It gives great satisfaction to every friend of India that the expenditure upon education is being gradually, though slowly, increased. The increase, however, is far from being sufficient to meet the requirements of the case. The educational needs of India are great, and the desire for the education of their children on the part of the ryots is one of the most cheering signs of the times. One of the sights which I never failed to see when visiting the villages away from the big towns, was the local village school. The parents of the children are charged fees which, considering their position, are considerable, yet those fees are paid cheerfully. The village schoolmaster, out of his fifteen rupees monthly salary, will sometimes pay the fees of children whose parents are too poor to pay them