stimulants applied to it in the material sphere; mental characteristics, moulded by the influences of thousands of years, have, except in special instances, failed at once to live and act at ease in a new medium. Yet on the whole there has been a response, a growing one, and one that must grow year by year. In the field of education and of moral and political thought the ground was fertile, and the advance has been immeasurable. Activity starting from different bases must necessarily move by somewhat different ways, if not towards different ends. Thus the possi He govern bilities and means of progress, as viewed by the English friends of India and by Indians themselves, often stand widely apart. The enthusiastic Hindu, filled himself with the spirit of a Locke, a Jefferson, a Grattan, or a Bright, can hardly appreciate the distance between speculative admiration and practical assimilation. He forgets what long ages, what lessons of wisdom, piety, and suffering have gone to form the tendencies and stamp of mind to which working by the methods of liberty and individualism has become natural. dreams of freedom as the parent of civic virtues, not as its child. He conceives it rather as a share in ing others than as unfettered action in his own person. Self-government is to his aspirations a part for himself in government for himself and his friends. He thinks them capable, as if by mastering the theory of music and cultivating the ear one could learn to play the violin. Political capacity comes to the Englishman as riding to the Bedouin. By Orientals it can be but slowly acquired, and it must take a form suited to their own genius. Such a necessity need not induce despair or apathy, but it enjoins patience and contentment with a far-off interest for toil and baffled effort and self-renunciation. As our view of the past grows more extensive and accurate, our expectations of the future become more modest and remote. We find " that through the ages an increasing purpose runs," but also more and more that its realisation in any important phase transcends the limits of a generation. The reflection may act as a damper on selfish fussiness, but it is full of encouragement to those who, seeing the gradual amelioration wrought by innumerable exertions each small in itself, can live and die in the conviction that, the stream of tendency setting steadily from ill to good and better, their own small contributions to it will in no case finally be thrown away. These considerations should make ardent reformers somewhat less exigent in their demands than they are wont to be. Previous reformers have sometimes urged the pace too much. The intellectual distance is enormous between the Hindu barrister and the village labourer. The native press must be less one-sided and uncharitable and self-confident if it is to afford real aid and win deserved confidence. And yet for the Indian Government and for England it would be vain to say that all has been done because so much has been done. The appetite for political life grows with what it feeds on. It is not serfs but freemen who make revolutions, says Tocqueville. The movement which it is our glory to have achieved we must not now attempt to turn back or to stay. We must lead still or we must some day be overwhelmed. Under our fostering care a social system has grown up to which the official system is no longer completely adapted. Adherents of the old policy, justly proud of what it has accomplished, protest or sneer at every suggestion of improvement; yet the success of the past was won not by a blind immobility, but a quick apprehension of existing needs and a skilful use of existing materials. Nowhere else has there been so continuous and so complete a blending of the old with the new. The latest land revenue systems have a basis and a sanction in the Code of Manu, and the Civil Procedure was foreshadowed in the treatise of Vijnánésvara. The native panchayat is the type of all truly helpful councils, bringing impartiality and territorial knowledge to bear on questions of conflicting interests without trenching on the range and vigour of the executive. Here, then, we have safe and tried principles drawn from the past, from what has actually been done and recorded, to guide and encourage us in providing for the changing present and the uncertain future. There must be progress without haste, a progress founded on conviction and principle, not ungraciously yielded as a concession to necessity. It must include a generous appreciation of the intellectual wealth of the country, a free use of it, without any sudden abandonment of the methods, drawn themselves in a great measure from native example, which experience has shown to be locally the best. Britain must be the dominating partner, working necessarily in matters of high policy on British lines and with British hands; but she need not be a greedy, arrogant, or churlish partner. She must learn the truth of "Grasp all, lose all;" while her protégés in India, taking an ever-increasing part, though by measured degrees, in the work of empire, become more and more fitted to share the white man's burden, and more and more imbued with the imperial spirit of our race. The world seems contracting as the facilities of communication improve. The ambition and cupidity of powerful states grow hungrier. In such a state of things all the segments of the widespread British empire should be drawn closer together by a natural instinct in a community of patriotic feeling, in a readiness for mutual concessions and sacrifices, in mutual support, and a determination in every member to have a worthy part in working out the sublime, civilising, humanising task apparently assigned to us. While, however, all the teachings of history, and especially of English history, point to a gradual levelling up of the subject elements as the surest way of cultivating an indissoluble nationality, there is another aspect of the problem presented by India and its government, which calls for the most serious consideration on the part of men of light and leading amongst the native community. Such men, if they indeed need to be reminded, cannot read what this volume sets before them without being impressed with the conviction that the process of elevation and expansion which has effected so much in the past, is, if it be allowed to work itself out, still richer in promise for the future. The progress which, in spite of occasional checks, sound administration and sound ideas are making, calls not for peevish carping but loyal cooperation, and patience, and confidence in great principles. There is amongst too many of the educated classes in India a disposition to take all that has been done, all that has been conceded, as a mere matter of course, all that has been withheld as a just ground for discontent. Yet premature concessions are sometimes worse than none at all, as their failure provokes reaction. The habit of almost unvarying condemnation drives the governments to act quite regardless of native sentiment. The want of appreciation checks the selfdevotion of many a generous nature, such as, more frequently in former times than now, was ready to expend all its powers in furthering the welfare of the people. Worst of all, there is a tendency amongst clever but feather-headed Hindus to deem lightly and speak lightly of their obligations as subjects and citizens of the empire. They fret like spoiled children at the restraints set on their weakness, and play at disaffection in a foolish way without any really malignant purpose, indeed without any active purpose at all, and without any sense of the wickedness of disloyalty. But these displays of mock independence or misguided patriotism every now and then set some excitable nature on fire. Crime is committed, distrust and race hatred are stirred up, and the approach towards imperial union is postponed for many years. There are no doubt some real grievances to endure, and an education in English history and political ideas has perhaps unduly cultivated the freeman's sensibilities among those who have as a class still to fit themselves for constitutional responsibilities. In England itself there are many who feel they have grounds for complaint, yet remain loyal and patriotic subjects. Great political movements, however set in motion by some impulse of genius, must have time and space to grow and complete themselves as an outgrowth from the whole consciousness of the nation. If we had to accept the speculative notions, the personal grievances, of individuals as sufficient grounds for fundamental changes, then no system of religion, no form of government could have an abiding existence. Historical growth would be no more than a series of calamities; and political institutions a curse compared with anarchy. There are some who in theory, still more who in practice, are quite prepared to go this length. But, as Burke shows, the partnership of subjects in a state is not to be looked on as of a temporary, easily variable, nature. It is a partnership in the greatest of common ends, ends to be attained only by unity of feeling and purpose, and of effort continued through many generations. Thus loyalty and submission to incidental ills is a duty resting on supreme principles of morality as well as expediency. "This law is not subject to the will of those who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law." There is a point at which the oppression of a government may become. intolerable. It may disturb the foundations of religion. and social order, and rob ordinary life of its appropriate incentives and rewards. Examples of this kind of rule have too often been seen in Oriental countries, and when с |