colonies to legislate for themselves. Yet we have dealt with the millions of India without ascertaining their feelings: on the one hand, as if they were mere savages; on the other, as though the laws that suit us must necessarily suit them. This was done more especially from the expiration of the old Company's Charter in 1833 to the explosion of 1857, during which time the prevailing policy was to spread the red colour on the map over the whole continent of India.

In proof of our national onesidedness, let us take a very recent act of an able Governor-General who, desiring to ascertain the relative value to the people of British and native rule, called for the opinions of our own functionaries only. Surely, if we wish to know whether or not the shoe pinches, we should rather ask the wearer than the maker. An anecdote seems in point. Every old Indian sportsman knows the reputation enjoyed by Stunt's shoes. I owe my life to a pair during a tussle with a wild boar, and on taking my home furlough went to him, as a matter of course, for a pedestrian outfit. Having become somewhat crippled therefrom, I

applied for remedial measures, and was surprised, if not amused, by being told 'it was all the fault of the fut.' In vain were my remarks that it was generally considered rather the business of the shoe to fit the foot than the foot the shoe; the angry foreman replied that their articles were made on scientific principles, from which he had no idea of swerving. Of course I went elsewhere for my wants, and found an equally scientific but more practical artist in Bann of Bond Street, who made a point of ascertaining where the shoe pinched and why; and thus providing for any little peculiarity, up to the time of his firm passing away, enabled me in comfort to take what exercise I pleased.

Why will not our rulers adopt the Bann rather than the Stunt policy—that is, endeavour to find out the tender points of native character, and make due allowance for them? The question is more applicable to the period above alluded topreceding 1857-than since, but there is still great room for improvement. Had we acted persistently on this policy-one, indeed, that gained our footing

in India-we might have obtained better discipline in our Sepoys, and have been spared the horrors of the great outbreak.

Our measures may be very scientific, but the question is, Do we want to preserve our clientelle ?

We are hurrying on measures that entail heavy outlay and increased taxation, and legislating far too rapidly for a people so thoroughly engrained with conservatism as are the Hindoos. Accustomed only to patriarchal government, they would willingly rather pay a bad tax, if paid by their forefathers, than one, however theoretically superior, that was new to them.' I grant the difficulty of ascertaining

1 The following extract of a recent letter from a very intelligent native friend, a well-wisher to our rule, is to the point :'I trust the E. I. Association may be able to watch the progress of the Committee now sitting. I think the financial policy of the Government has done and is doing a great deal of mischief. Development in India means more taxes, and more departments, and nothing more. Government should not betake itself to cotton growing and breeding cattle. The freest market is the cheapest, and in India no market can possibly be free wherein the Government is a grower and seller.

'So long as the taxes reached only the higher classes there was not much to fear. But now the area has been widened and the sweep goes deeper than it ever did before. The masses are too simple to understand decentralisation and federalisation, but they see the taxes plainly enough. Even some of the repealed taxes are being revived

the feelings of so multifarious a community, the greater part but half civilised, and at best holding a civilisation entirely foreign to our own. Still it is not impossible; and each year as we rear natives capable of understanding and appreciating both states, the task will become easier. But there have never been wanting Englishmen of cosmopolitan character and generous sympathies, enabling them to gain the confidence of the people they ruled over or dwelt amongst, whose voice has been raised to warn Government of the danger it was courting. in vain, if their voice was classed with that of others advocating more than just deference to native usages; or lost amid the din of arms, the clamour of men supposing the cause of Christianity advanced by measures that led to its being hated; above all, because of the lust of power.

It was not their fault if they cried

under different names. We have irrigation, railways, surveys, forests, and what-not; and all go to swell the number of taxes.

'All this arises from over government and hot-house legislation. I must say that I find it hard to keep pace with what goes on. What the common people must be thinking and doing may easily be conceived. I am sorry to say there is no hand able and willing to stay or slacken the progress of the legislative car.

'Let me assure you that the speed is getting positively dangerous.'

I have long hoped to read a full account of the

Sepoy War' by one so thoroughly qualified to give it as the historian Kaye, whose recent nomination, by the way, to the Star of India does. quite as much honour to the order as to himself. There are men who gain nothing by a handle to their names, and his past writings stamp him as one such. But time draws on. I shall probably pass away before his history is completed, if indeed it ever be so; wherefore, while still able in some degree to record my testimony, I stand before my countrymen as a witness to facts.