the English Government to seek to induce girls to marry men who had wives living, public opinion being as at present. ?

39. CHIEF COMMISSIONER BRITISH BURMA.-(Sir C. Bernard). The analogy of the laws against Satti and infanticide is not quite applicable to the present questions. Those were hideous crimes, against the natural sense of mankind. Child marriages and child widowhood no doubt, sometimes lead to crime and cause loss of life. But drinking similarly leads to crime, and midwifery as practised by Easterns often causes death. Yet these things are not proscribed by law or put down by State interposition

.......

The only safe way for the Government and the safest course in the interests of reform itself, is to leave the forces of education, of common sense, of enlightened public opinion, and of natural feeling, to work on as they are now working against the practices and customs which Mr. Malabari rightly characterises as harmful

Married undergraduates and scholarship-holders are not unknown at our English Universities. If such exclusion (i.e. of married students from honours and scholarship, &c.) were made the rule, questions would at once arise whether a betrothal or an unconsummated marriage operated as a bar to studentship.

40. J. G. CORDERY, M.A.. C.S., RESIDENT AT HYDRABAD.--The evil caused by the institution of the pardah is probably attended with far more general and more widely reaching evils than the social restriction against the remarriage of a widow, which is confined to a comparatively small section of women. But, beyond according a legal permission to the violation of such injurious customs by any women who may desire to break them, Government can hardly proceed, without engaging in an unequal conflict with social prejudice

Apart from this question of early widowhood, it may well be doubted whether the present system by which betrothals of children are arranged at an early age by their

parents, is not well suited to the present status and character of the people taken as a whole, and especially to the masses of the agricultural villages. The obligation of the tie makes the honour of the child respected by others and by no means necessarily leads to premature consummation by the husband for whom she is safely reserved. It is of course true that, as in many other countries, the parties to the contract have little or nothing to say to their selection of each other. But could the principle of free choice be wisely advocated or safely introduced in a country where physical capacity for sexual intercourse exists at so early an age? The question is one beset with difficulties, for which he would be a bold man who would be confident that the people themselves had not found the best solution. At any rate it appears to me manifestly no subject for prohibitive legislation.

41. VISHNU MORESHWAR MAHAJANI M.A., HEAD MASTER AKOLA.-Home is at present the centre of blind conservatism, and whatever efforts the educated natives might make to bring about social reforms, they are thwarted from day to day by women and elderly persons. So long as therefore, the wife has not become the real help-mate of her husband, so long as her mind is tied down by rules of immemorial custom, Hindu society cannot hope to move at a more rapid rate than we have hitherto done. Some of our English friends take the educated young men to task for not carrying out the first and greatest of reforms ie., those at home, and disappointed to see that they still observe practices which they profess to condemn, are led to think that their young friends are no better than a set of hypocrites, or, at the best, as persons that have no courage of their convictions. But outsiders know not what a life of daily trouble the educated natives lead at home, always arguing with their wife with their aunts with their father or uncles, always meeting with the stock objection "our ancestors were wiser than we.' It should not therefore be supposed that the reformers have always been defeated. While they yielded much, the old

party had to yield a little and already we see in 25 years an advance in the marriageable ages of girls and boys from 8 to 10 and 13 to 16 respectively. This does not refer to Berar where the movement has scarcely begun. I am here referring to Poona and other similar districts of which I have personal knowledge.

We have no facts to warrant us in saying that if the reform be delayed, a permanent deterioration in physique will take place. Besides whatever danger there is, it does not proceed from infant marriage but from the early consummation of that marriage. But this the State cannot prevent, even if it rules that a girl under twelve cannot be married. For the girl reaches the age of puberty at the age of thirteen or fourteen and custom directs that the consummation should take place soon after. Her home-education, her surroundings, the talk among women, her sports, the proud celebration of the religious ceremonies attending the consummation, all work upon the imagination of the poor girl, and give an unnatural stimulus to her passion which is certainly mischievous. A girl as soon as the consummation takes place receives benedictions from old women and from priests: "Be you soon a mother of eight sons," and until she becomes a mother she has very little respect in the family. Her parents do not dine at her husband's until she gets a son. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder, that the consummation takes place at an age too early for her physiologically to become a mother. The evil consequences of this in the breaking down of constitution, giving up the studies of the boy, and the ushering-in of diseases and sickly children, we do not ignore, and we have been making constant efforts to mitigate them. These it is obvious no State legislation will prevent, unless public opinion is brought to bear on them. My view in short is this: if public opinion is strong, State legislation is unnecessary; if it is weak, State legislation is powerless. But in the latter case, it is worse than powerless............ The majority of the people i.e. outside the pale of educated classes

have not yet begun to recognise the evils of the practice (infant marriage), and may resent Government interference in the most susceptible of their religious feelings, for the practice has to them a religious sanction. It is not desirable that the educated classes who already are alienated by their sympathies and education from the majority of their countrymen, should be still more alienated by their joining in league with Government apparently to destroy their religion, and thus ensure their permanent helplessness in carrying out reforms from within, and a perpetual dependence and looking up to Government for everything they wish to do.

I have hopes in my own people and am loth to call in the aid of Government. I have faith in education, I have faith in educated agency when it is well organised and sustained by united efforts, I have faith in the contagiousness of example, and more I do not want. Let Government Officers give us moral support, if they will, sympathise with us when we fight with ignorant masses on the one hand, and old people on the other, and we shall conquer. Perhaps the victory may not be won in our lifetime, but our children will take up the cause where we left it, and having made some advance themselves will leave it to their children to be taken up in the same manner. We want this continuity of progress-this silent though inevitable change from within; no revolution from without, and least of all by force.

42. SHRIKRISHNA NARHAR, EXTRA ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, ELLICHPUR.-External interference has the unhappy effect of destroying the self-acting machinery by which a nation elevates itself, and by departing from its pronounced policy the Hindus will be put at least a few decades back.

43. WAMAN NARAYEN BAPAT, TAHSILDAR OF THE CHANDUR TALUK.-Malabari says Modern India has made woman the inferior of man. But we say this is quite beside the mark. In classes which allow her to remarry, she is inferior still, but her inferiority is no bar to her re-marriage

over and over again. He thinks a Hindu widow is not able to appreciate and protect her rights. But we reply that Act XV of 1856 which was made specially for her, did not help her in the least in getting this appreciation and therefore other legislation can only follow in its wake. First make her fit and then legislate. He believes that it is not in her nature to publish her wrongs. We say, amen, but we ask why not alter that nature by education, when she will complain as many of her sisters have complained, and do complain? Legislation can do nothing. Her appeals to the Mother-Queen will be equally helpless, so long as she is allowed to be ignorant...... Malabari says that Government in rescuing the widow from self-immolation, is bound to see that she has full permission to substitute another husband in the room of the one lost, and that too without the least social inconvenience to her. No such thing. By a parity of reasoning, Government is bound to cure one of his disease, since it does not allow him to commit suicide which he seeks and constantly longs for, only because nothing else will put an end to his lifelong sufferings.

44. RAGHUNATH B. TALVALKAR, B. A., HEAD MASTER, HIGH SCHOOL, AMRAOTI.-Sir H. Maine says that moral opinion and social necessities are more cr less in advance of law. The only justification of a new law is that it is called for by the prevailing moral opinion, and by pressing social necessities.

SECTION V. EXTRACTS FROM OPINIONS GIVEN TO MR. MALABARI.

45. THE MARQUIS OF RIPON, VICEROY AND GOVERNOR GENERAL OF INDIA (in August 1884).--The two questions are practically branches of one and the same question, the position of women in India..............Indirectly these practices undoubtedly lead to great evils, but they do not in themselves involve crime, nor are they so necessarily and inevitably mischievous, as to call for suppression by law, if they are sanctioned by the general opinion of the society in