mer, all the arrears of work in all the offices were cleared off for the first time since the occupation by us of any part of India. Bengal, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjaub must soon be made into "governorships," instead of "lieutenantgovernorships," so that the Viceroy may be relieved from tedious work, and time saved by the Northern Governors reporting straight home, as do the Governors of Madras and Bombay, unless a system be adopted under which all shall report to the Viceroy. At all events, the five divisions must be put upon the same footing one with another." This being granted, there is no conceivable reason for keeping the Viceroy at Calcutta-a city singularly hot, unhealthy, and out of the way. On our Council sitting at the capital, we ought to have natives picked from all India for their honesty, ability, and discretion; but so bad is the water at Calcutta, that the city is deadly to water-drinkers; and although they value the distinction of a seat at the Council more than any other honour within their reach, many of the most distinguished natives in India have chosen to resign their places rather than pass a second season at Calcutta. It is not necessary that we should argue about Calcutta's disadvantages. It is enough to say that, of all Indian cities, we have selected for our capital the most distant and the most unhealthy. The great question is, Shall we have one capital, or two? Shall we keep the Viceroy all the year round in a central but hot position, such as Delhi, Agra, Allahabad, or Jubbelpore, or else at a less central but cooler station, such as Nassuck, Poonah, Bangalore, or Mussoorie? or shall we keep him at a central place during the cool, and a hill place during the hot weather? There can be but little doubt that Simla is a necessity at present, but with a fairly healthy city, such as Agra, for the head-quarters of the Government, and the railway open to within a few miles of Mussoorie, so that men could run to the hills in six or seven hours, and even spend a few days there in cach summer month, an efficient government could be main * An enormous monetary saving--out of which the customs duties could be remitted-would be effected if the Madras and Bombay governorships were reduced to appointments of £10,000 a year, without a "durbar fund," and filled by Indian civilians, and if the worse than useless Madras and Bombay commander-in-chicfships were abolished. tained in the plains. We must remember that Agra is now within twenty-three days of London; and that, with the Persian Gulf route open, and a railway from Kurrachee (the natural port of England in India), leave for home would be a matter still more simple than it has become already. With some such central town as Poonah for the capital, the Bombay and Madras commander-in-chiefships could be abolished, with the result of saving a considerable expense, and greatly increasing the efficiency of the Indian army. It is probable that Simla will not continue to be the chosen station of the Government in the hills. The town is subject to the ravages of dysentery; the cost of draining it would be immense, and the water supply is very limited the bheesties have often to wait whole hours for their turn. : Mussoorie has all the advantages and none of the drawbacks of Simla, and lies compactly in ground on which a small city could be built, whereas Simla straggles along a narrow mountain ridge, and up and down the steep sides of an Alpine peak. It is questionable, however, whether, if India is to be governed from at home, the seat of Government should not be at Poonah, within reach of London. The telegraph has already made viceroys of the ancient kind impossible. The sunrise view of the Snowy Range from my bungalow was one rather strange from the multitude of peaks in sight at once than either beautiful or grand. The desolate ranges of foot-hills destroy the beauty that the contrast of the deodars, the crimson rhododendrons, and the snow would otherwise produce, and the height at which you stand seems to dwarf the distant ranges; but from one of the spots which I reached in a mountain march, the prospect was widely different. Here we saw at once the sources of the Jumna, the Sutlej, and the Ganges, the dazzling peaks of Gungootrie, of Jumnotrie, and of Kamet; while behind us in the distant plains we could trace the Sutlej itself, silvered by the hazy rays of the half-risen sun. We had in sight not only the 26,000 feet of Kamet, but no less than twenty other peaks of over 20,000 feet, snow-clad to their very bases, while between us and the nearest outlying range were valleys from which the ear caught the humble murmur of freshrisen streams. CHAPTER VIII. COLONIZATION. CONNECTED With the question of the site of the future capital is that of the possibility of the colonization by Englishmen of portions of the peninsula of India. Hitherto the attempts at settlement which have been made have been mainly confined to six districts-Mysore, where there are only some dozen planters; the Neilgherries proper, where coffee-planting is largely carried on; Oude, where many Europeans have taken land as zemindars, and cultivate a portion of it, while they let out the remainder to natives on the Metayer plan; Bengal, where indigo-planting is gaining ground; the Himalayan valleys, and Assam. Settlement in the hot plains is limited by the fact that English children cannot there be reared, so to the hill districts the discussion must be confined. One of the commonest of mistakes respecting India consists in the supposition that there is available land in large quantities. on the slopes of the Himalayas. There are no Himalayan slopes; the country is all straight up and down, and for English colonists there is no room no ground that will grow anything but deodars, and those only moderately well. The hot sun dries the ground, and the violent rains follow, and cut it through and through with deep channels, in this way gradually making all the hills both steep and ribbed. Mysore is still a native State, but, in spite of this, European settlement is increasing year by year, and there, as in the Neilgherries proper, there is room for many coffee-planters, though fever is not unknown; but when India is carefully surveyed, the only district that appears to be thoroughly suited to English settle ment, as contrasted with mere planting or landholding, is the valley of Cashmere, where the race would probably not suffer deterioration. With the exception of Cashmere, none of the deep mountain valleys are cool enough for permanent European settlement. Family life is impossible where there is no home; you can have no English comfort, no English virtues, in a climate which forces your people to live out of doors, or else in rocking-chairs or hammocks. Nightwork and reading are all but impossible in a climate where multitudes of insects haunt the air. In the Himalayan valleys, the hot weather is terribly scorching, and it lasts for half the year, and on the hill-sides there is but little fertile soil. The civilians and rulers of India in general are extremely jealous of the "interlopers," as European settlers are termed; and, although tea cultivation was at first encouraged by the Bengal Government, recent legislation, fair or unfair, has almost ruined the tea-planters of Assam. The native population of that district is averse to labour, and coolies from a distance have to be brought in; but the Government of India, as the planters say, interferes with harsh and narrow regulations, and so enormously increases the cost of imported labour as to ruin the planters, who, even when they have got their labourers on the ground, cannot make them work, as there exist no means of compelling specific performance of a contract to work. The remedy known to the English law is an action for damages brought by the employer against the labourer, so with English obstinacy we declare that an action for damages shall be the remedy in Burmah or Assam. A provision for attachment of goods and imprisonment of person of labourers refusing to perform their portion of a contract to work was inscribed in the draft of the proposed Indian "Code of Civil Procedure," but vetoed by the authorities at home. The Spanish Jesuits themselves were not more afraid of free white settlers than is our Bengal Government. An enterprising merchant of Calcutta lately obtained a grant of vast tracts of country in the Sunderbunds-the fever-haunted jungle near Calcutta-and had already completed his arrangements for importing Chinese labourers to cultivate his acquisitions, when the jealous civilians got wind of the affair, and forced Government into a most undignified retreat from their agreement. The secret of this opposition to settlement by Europeans lies partly in a horror of "low-caste Englishmen," and a fear that they will somewhat debase Europeans in native eyes, but far more in the wish of the old civilians to keep India to themselves as a sort of "happy hunting ground "a wish which has prompted them to start the cry of "India for the Indians "—which of course means India for the AngloIndians. Somewhat apart from the question of European colonization, but closely related to it, is that of the holding by Europeans of landed estates in India. It will perhaps be conceded that the European should, on the one hand, be allowed to come into the market and purchase land, or rent it from the Government or from individuals, on the same conditions as those which would apply to natives, and, on the other hand, that special grants should not be made to Europeans as they were by us in Java in old times. In Eastern countries, however, government can hardly be wholly neutral, and, whatever the law, if European landholders be encouraged, they will come; if discouraged, they will stay away. From India they stop away, while such as do reach Hindostan are known in official circles by the significant name of "interlopers." Under a healthy social system, which the presence of English planters throughout India, and the support which would thus be given to the unofficial press, would of itself do much to create, the owning of land by Europeans could produce nothing but good. The danger of the use of compulsion towards the natives would not exist, because in India-unlike what is the case in Dutch Java-the interest of the ruling classes would be the other way. If it be answered that, once in possession of the land, the Europeans would get the government into their own hands, we must reply that they could never be sufficiently numerous to have the slightest chance of doing anything of the kind. As we have seen in Ceylon, the attempt on the part of the planters to usurp the government is sternly repressed by the English people, the moment that its true bearing is understood, and yet in Ceylon the planters are far more numerous |