of previous foreign dynasties has been that the invaders of the country had become effeminate by their long possession of power, and had lost the original energy and vigour which had enabled their predecessors to gain a throne. The constant recruitment of English rulers from their fatherland wholly prevents this cause of internal decay from making its appearance among the British.

It is not, then, by our hold on the affections of the people that we maintain our dominion in India. The strength and probable endurance of our rule are based on our real power, on our endeavours to do justice, on our toleration. The memory of the excesses committed under Mussulman rule has probably become dim with the great bulk of the people, but it is very vivid among educated Hindus. A strong conviction prevails among them that if British rule were to disappear in India, the same rise of military adventurers, the same struggles for power, and the same anarchy as prevailed during the first half of the last century would again appear. The latest expression of Hindu opinion on this subject which I have met with is contained in a pamphlet published in the present year by Mr. Dadoba Pandurang.* He is an aged scholar, and though not a Brahmin, well versed in the Vedas, but, above all, he is distinguished by his devout views and by his desire to elevate and improve his fellow-countrymen. He writes:

If there is a manifestation of the hand of God in history, as I undoubtedly believe there is, nothing to my imagination appears more vivid and replete with momentous events calculated for the mutual welfare and good of both countries than this political union of so large, important, rich, and interesting a country as Hind in the further south-east with a small but wisely governed island of Great Britain in the further north-west. Let us see what England has done to India. England, besides governing India politically, has now very wisely commenced the important duty of educating the millions of her Indian children, and of bringing them up to the standard of enlightenment and high civilization which her own have obtained. She has already eradicated, I should add here, to the great joy of Heaven, several of the most barbarous and inhuman practices, such as Sutti,t infanticide, Charak Puja,‡ and what not, which had for ages been prevalent among a large portion of the children of this her new acquisition. These practices, which had so long existed at the dictation of an indigenous priesthood, except for the powerful interference of England could not have been abolished.

Opinions like these, I am persuaded, prevail throughout the educated community, and the presence of British rule amongst them is recognised as indispensable in the present state of Hindu society.

III.

With respect to a successful invasion of India, it must be confessed that the English mind has always been keenly susceptible of aların. The wide plains of Hisdustan, which offer so ready an access to aggressive armies, the absence of fortified places, and the frequency with which India has been won and lost in a single pitched battle, all tend to encourage the belief that some day or other British domination will be in *A Hindu Gent'eman's Reflections. Spiers, London, 1878. † Widow-burning. The swing-sacrifice.

danger from some incursion of this sort. It may be observed that for nearly a century past the English nation has been subjected to periodic fits of Indian panic. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Afghan War," states that in 1797 the whole of India was kept "in a chronic state of unrest” from the fears of an Afghan descent upon the plains of Hindustan. In 1800 the Emperor Paul of Russia and Napoleon conceived "a mad and impracticable scheme of invasion," which greatly increased local alarm. In 1809 these fears assumed even larger proportions when an alliance between Napoleon and Persia was on foot with a view to the proposed invasion; and the mission to Persia under Sir John Malcolm was inaugurated. In 1838 Russia took the place which Zeman Shah, Persia, and Napoleon had previously occupied, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan was commenced by Lord Auckland from his mountain retreat at Simla.

Since that period the suspicions of the nation have been continually directed against Russia by a small but able party, who, from their chiefly belonging to the Presidency of Bombay, have been termed the Bombay school. The late General John Jacob was the originator of the antiRussian policy inculcated by them. He was a man of great ability and original views, and, if he had moved in a wider sphere, he might have left a name equal to that of the most illustrious of his countrymen in India. But he passed the greater part of his life on the barren wastes of Sind, and rarely came in contact with superior minds. In 1856 General Jacob addressed a singularly able paper to Lord Canning, then Governor-General, and which Sir Lewis Pelly afterwards published to the world.* This was just at the close of the Crimean War, when England was about to undertake an expedition against Persia to repel her aggression on Herát. It was Jacob's firm conviction that, unless India interposed, Russia, having Persia completely under her control, could, whenever she pleased, take possession not only of Herát, but of Candahar, and thus find an entrance to the plains of India, on which our dominion was to disappear. To thwart this contingency, and render the approach of a European army towards our frontier impossible, he would, as an ultimate measure, garrison Herát with twenty thousand troops, but in the first instance would occupy Quetta. These proposals were carefully considered by Lord Canning's Government, but were rejected.

The same arguments were brought forward eleven years later by Sir Bartle Frere, whilst Governor of Bombay, and were laid before the Government of India. That Government was then remarkably strong, consisting of Lord Lawrence, Sir William Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst), Sir Henry Maine, Mr. Massey, and Major-General Sir Henry Durand; but the proposals to improve our frontier by extending our dominions westward, and by the annexation of independent foreign territory, were unanimously disapproved of.

* Views and Opinions of General John Jacob. London, 1858,

About the same time that Sir Bartle Frere was endeavouring to stimulate the Government of India to occupy Quetta, my distinguished colleague and friend, Sir Henry Rawlinson, published two articles in the "Quarterly Review, "* in which he called the attention of the public to the rapidly increasing extension of the Russian dominions in the direction of our Indian frontier, and to the necessity of maintaining outworks such as Herát and Candahar for the protection of our Eastern Empire. But he raised the question in a more solemn form in the confidential memorandum which he transmitted to the Government of India in 1868, and which he afterwards published in 1875,† with additional matter, forming a complete conspectus of the aggressive policy to be adopted to guard against a Russian invasion. The views of the Government of India on these papers have not, I believe, beengiven to the world, but it is well known in Indian circles that the masterly activity therein advocated did not find acceptance.

At the present moment Russophobia is raging to a greater extent than at any previous period; but this is ground on which for the present I am precluded from entering. It is gratifying to observe, however, that in the great conflict of opinion which, as it will be seen, has thus been raging for the last forty years, as to the best method of protecting our north-western frontier from an invading foe, both schools have ultimately agreed on one conclusion, namely, that a successful invasion of India by Russia is in nowise probable. The one side would avert any possibility of an attack by the occupation of Afghanistan, the Suleiman mountains, and probably the Hindu Kush; the other would husband the resources of India, and not waste blood and treasure in anticipation of a conflict that may possibly never occur, and that certainly never will occur without years of warning to the nation.

I cannot pursue this interesting question further at a moment when the whole question of our policy on the Indian frontier is ripening for discussion, and when the materials on which a sound conclusion can be drawn are not yet laid before the public. It is sufficient for my present purpose to repeat that the probability of British dominion in the East being terminated by a Russian invasion is rejected on all sides.

IV.

If the views which have been now put forward are at all sound, we may perhaps conclude that whilst our Indian empire requires on the part of its rulers the utmost watchfulness to guard against dangers and contingencies which may at any moment arise, yet that with ordinarily wise government we may look forward to a period of indefinitely long duration during which British dominion may flourish. That sooner or later the links which connect England with India will be severed, all history teaches us to expect; but when that severance occurs, if the growing spirit of philantrophy and increasing sense of national morality

* October 1865, and October 1966. † England and Russia in the East. Murray.

which characterise the nineteenth century continue, we may fairly hope that the Englishman will have taught the Hindus how to govern themselves. It is England's task, as heretofore, "to teach other nations how to live." A very long period, however, is required before the lesson can be fully learned, and the holders of Indian securities need not fear that the reversionary interests of their grandchildren will be endangered. Our rule in India dates back little more than a century; and although from the first a wise spirit of toleration and an eminent desire to do justice have prevailed, it is only within the last thirty or forty years that any serious attempts to elevate the character of the nation have been manifested.

The educational movement, which is silently producing prodigious changes in India, received its first impulse from England, and the clause in the Act of Parliament which recognised the duty of educating the masses, enabled men like Lord Macaulay, Sir Edward Ryan, and others, to lay the foundations of a system which has since established itself far and wide. But the Court of Directors never took heartily to this great innovation of modern times, and it was only under the direction of English statesmanship that the Indian authorities were induced to act with vigour in this momentous undertaking. Sir Charles Wood's celebrated minute on education, in 1858, laid the foundation of a national system of education, and the principles then inculcated have never since been departed from. Some generations will require to pass before the Oriental mind is enabled to substitute the accurate forms of European thought for the loose speculations that have prevailed through long centuries. But already happy results are appearing, and in connection with the subject of this article it may be noticed as a most hopeful sign of the future that our English schools are turning out native statesmen by whom all our best methods of government are being introduced into the dominions of native princes.

The administration reports of some of these gentlemen may vie with those of our best English officers; and the names of Sir Dinkar Rao, Sir Madava Rao, Sir Salar Jung, and others, give full indication that among the natives of India may be found men eminently qualified for the task of government. Wittingly or unwittingly, English officials in India are preparing materials which some day or other will form the groundwork for a native empire or empires. I was thrown closely into contact with the Civil Service whilst I was in India, for I employed all my vacations in travelling through the country, mostly at a foot's pace. Everywhere I went I found a cultivated English gentleman exerting himself to the best of his ability to extend the blessings of civilisationjustice, education, the development of all local resources. I firmly believe that no government in the world has ever possessed a body of administrators to vie with the Civil Service of India. Nor do I speak only of the service as it existed under the East India Company, for, from all

* 59 Geo. III. c. 55, s. 43.

that I have heard and observed, competition supplies quite as good servants of the State as did in earlier days the patronage of the Court of Directors. The truth is, that the excellence of the result has been attributable in nowise to the mode of selection, but to the local circumstances which call forth in either case, in the young Englishman of decent education and of the moral tone belonging to the middle classes of this country, the best qualities of his nature. But in these energetic, high-principled, and able administrators we have a danger to good government which it is necessary to point out. Every Englishman in office in India has great power, and every Englishman, as the late Lord Lytton once observed to me, is in heart a reformer. His native energy will not enable him to sit still with his hands before him. He must be improving something. The tendency of the English official in India is to over-reform, to introduce what he may deem improvements, but which turn out egregious failures, and this, be it observed, amongst the most conservative people of the world. Some of the most carefully devised schemes for native improvement have culminated in native deterioration. A remarkable illustration of this position is afforded by the late inquiry into the causes of the riots among the cultivators of the Deccan. It has been one of the pretensions of British administration that they have instituted for the first time in India pure and impartial courts of justice. And the boast is well founded. In the Presidency of Bombay also the Government has substituted long leases of thirty years on what may be called Crown Lands for the yearly holdings formerly in vogue. They have also greatly moderated the assessment. The result has been that land in the Bombay Presidency from being unsaleable has acquired a value of from ten to twenty years' purchase. But the effect of these two measures upon the holders of these lands has been disastrous. Finding themselves possessed of property on which they could raise money with facility, they have indulged this national propensity out of all proportion to their means; and the money-lenders in their turn drag the improvident borrowers before a court of justice, and obtain decrees upon the indisputable terms of the contract, which no judge feels competent to disregard.

Another danger of the same sort arises from the short term of office which is allowed to officials in the highest places in India. When the Portuguese had large dominions in India, they found that their Viceroys, if permitted to remain a long time in the East, became insubordinate, and too powerful for the Government at Lisbon to control. They accordingly passed a law limiting the tenure of office to five years. This Imitation seems to have been adopted tacitly in our Eastern administrative system, and has undoubtedly been observed for more than a century. But the period of five years is very short to enable either a Governor-General, or Governor, or member of Council to leave his mark on the country; and there is a temptation to attempt something dazzling which would require for its proper fulfilment years to elaborate, but which, if not passed at the moment, would fail to illustrate the era.