customs, which, for a time at least, will continue to militate against the promptitude and completion of the relief measures." Attempts to deal with the plague, another deadly scourge, have been less successful, because "it was often found impossible to employ preventative measures recommended by science, owing to the panic of the native population, and their unconquerable opposition to isolation, hospitals, house-to-house visitations, segregation camps, and inoculation." Some of these difficulties have been fomented by the "incendiary writing of the vernacular press," a fruitful and perplexing source of discontent and agitation.

There exist, amidst the teeming hordes of India, a million or so more or less highly educated natives, among them forward aspiring spirits who resent the dependent state of their people and demand complete self-government for their country. While theirs is a legitimate aspiration, as a future possibility, the impartial observer must consider that these extreme nationalists err in idealizing the happy prosperous state of India before the British occupation, that they fail to conceive the insuperable obstacles to an immediate realization of their ambition, and that some at least have been worked on by German propaganda to overthrow the existing system by assassination, as well as organized revolt. Granted that a few are competent to rule, - and many are dreamy idealists with little capacity for practical administration who could choose them and what common harmonious basis of representation could be devised? "India is not a nation but a congeries of races and tribes exhibiting the most varied characteristics of language, religion, material civilization and social type." There are no less than 230 languages, more than 20 of which are spoken by over 1,000,000 each, while Hindi, the most numerous of all, is spoken by not more than one quarter the total population. Then there are strong racial, religious and social antagonisms - the warlike men of the Punjab have the utmost contempt for the peaceful intelligent Bengali, while a Mohammedan landowner regards a coolie much as a Southern planter regards a negro. As to religion, there are more than 200,000,000 Hindus, and, among its derivatives, 3,000,000 Sikhs and about 10,000,000 Buddhists, the latter practically confined to Burma; there are nearly 70,000,000 Mohammedans, and less than 4,000,000 Christians. The Hindus, the most numerous, are not only made up of various sects but include some sixty-nine castes, ranging from the Brahmans and the Rajputs to the lowest orders; they not only cannot intermarry or associate on terms of intimacy, but the higher sort are polluted by contact or even close proximity with the lower, though travel has done something to modify such extreme aloofness. While the Hindus are

in general the best educated, the Mohammedans have qualities making them most capable for ruling. A native once told the late Lord Roberts that to withdraw the British rule would be like opening the doors of the cages in a menagerie and that the tiger who overcame the rest would be the Mohammedan from the north. Nevertheless, of late years, there has been a strong nationalistic movement on the part of a group of progressive Hindus who believe that even "good government is no substitute for self-government." Their mouthpiece is the Indian National Congress which, since 1885, has held annual meetings. Even within this body there have arisen sharp conflicts between the extremists who are impatient for immediate results and those who realize that preparation for self-government must, perforce, be a plant of slow growth. Great Britain has committed blunders and even worse in her administration, many of which have been most vigorously denounced by critics among their own people; many of her merchants and officials have shown a stolid indifference and lack of appreciation of native customs and prejudices, others, with the best of intentions, have failed in this respect, but, on the whole, the British administration has been a marvel of wise achievement. Since immediate selfgovernment would result in incalculable turmoil and confusion, the best hope for the immediate future would seem to lie in the development of policies already in process - further instruction of officials in the language and customs of leading Indian peoples, a more extensive promotion of their industry, commerce and agriculture,1 increased education of natives in the English language, and enlarged representation in the legislative councils.

The Imperial Problem. Such is the British Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. The problem of administering this vast extent of territory, scattered over the globe and inhabited by less than 70,000,000 whites and more than 360,000,000 non-European people of distinct traditions and sentiments, is a complex and formidable one. It has been rendered easier from the fact that, in a considerable part of the expansion, extension of commerce and colonization has been a factor as potent as military force. So far as possible, too, Englishmen have been given an opportunity to practice self-government in their new homes, and "to train subject peoples for the discharges of similar responsibilities." Where responsible government has been impossible, efforts have been made, in the last half century, [ 1 At last, Great Britain, stimulated no doubt by a concerted international movement, put a stop to an old scandal, by announcing, May, 1913, that the IndoChina opium traffic was ended. This imposed upon the Indian Government the heavy burden of meeting a loss in revenue estimated at £4,000,000 a year.

to provide for effective administration by civil servants whose merits have been tested by examination. While British statesmen, from the generation following the American Revolution up to fifty or sixty years ago, expected and even wished for a sundering of the Imperial dominions - much to the distress of loyal Canadians and Australians — a great change has taken place, especially in the last generation. The British people, formerly ignorant and indifferent in all that concerned Imperial questions, are now owing in no small degree to the vision. and eloquence of Disraeli-enthusiastic and active. Conferences of Colonial Ministers, beginning at London during the Jubilee of 1887, have done much to draw the Colonies to the Mother Country. The aid furnished by Canada and Australia in the Sudan campaign of 1885 and in the Boer War, the penny post, the improved steam communications, and the cable to Australia have been additional links. The Colonial Conferences-known since 1907 as Imperial Conferenceshave now become regular institutions meeting every four years and have discussed such vital questions as Imperial defense. And in the intervals of their meeting a permanent Imperial secretarial staff is in constant session at London under the supervision of the Colonial Secretary to keep the Dominions informed of all matters of common concern that may come up at future conferences. The League of Empire has been active throughout the British Dominions for the furtherance of education in Imperial concerns. Although the prospect of a federation, with a common Imperial Cabinet and Parliament, was widely discussed during the last years of the nineteenth and the first years of the present century, the trouble of adjusting a fair system of representation between the Mother Country and the Colonies with their scanty white population, the enormous distances, the difficulty of keeping overseas representatives in touch with their constituents, the fact that Great Britain clings to free trade while Canada and Australia continue to favor protection, as well as their desire and that of South Africa to restrict the immigration of dark-skinned folk, and the question as to whether the Self-governing Colonies should be drawn into European complications except of their own free will, have combined to render the likelihood of a federal Parliament well-nigh out of the question. But the bonds of unity, based on community of interest and policy, have become steadily stronger, particularly in view of the supreme efforts and sacrifices arising from the World War. All indications seem

1 Another active organization is the Royal Colonial Institute, founded in 1868, to promote the cause of "United Empire." The Imperial Federation League, started in 1884, was dissolved ten years later, without effecting its particular purpose, though it achieved much in educating people to think imperially.