That tenacity in evil, as in good, has certainly followed in India. Yet the arts and discipline have not been altogether preserved. Indeed, there has been a curious combination such as is a not uncommon mark of the hereditary bondsman. Alongside of the profound stagnation has been visible a superficial flexibility which makes a second distinguishing source of interest in Indian social studies. Brahmin, Buddhist, Greek, Arab, Afghan, Mughal, Portuguese, French, English, all in turn have scratched the surface and planted transitory growths in Indian fields. The Greek intrusion was short-lived and left but little impression or record behind it. The Brahmanic development and Buddhist reaction caused more durable results till almost swallowed up in the Puranic synthesis. The effects of the Moslem conquest have been summarised by the present writer in these and other pages; and those effects are still visible. Then came the European struggles of the last century, which have been agreeably popularised by the graphic pen of Colonel Malleson : the warriors of those days, with swords for pruning hooks, did good work in the social jungle, and cleared some space for their successors to work in yet more.

Lastly, is to be considered the special subject of modern British dominion-rather wide than deep, so far-of which the ultimate result is still matter for conjecture. This much, at present, may at least be said that, with defective sympathy and a too general empiricism, the British are the most honest, brave, and able of the many sets of masters whom India has yet obeyed. For their future performances one is accustomed to look in three main directions; intellectual and spiritual movement; political training; and economic operations upon congested populations with a low level of life.

As to the first, people generally expect great things to be done by the British in India, though there is not much agreement as to the means. On the one hand there is a natural feeling that some form of the religious creed that has so largely contributed to the improvement of European nations must bear the like fruit here. Many excellent persons accordingly, in various ways, endeavour, by means of support to the various denominations of missionaries, to propagate their respective religious views among the natives. Not much success has crowned these benevolent efforts, nor does there seem any prospect of early increase to the amount. In the mean time there is undeniable need of civilising efforts in our English cities; so that the old objection remains, why divert to unpromising crusading means that might be more reasonably used at home? Then there is the secular view which hopes for moral and social progress from a better and

more diffused secular knowledge. It would perhaps be hardly conceivable, were it not so clearly a fact, that any such unreasonable expectations should be entertained. The fallacy has been laid bare, with copious proofs and illustrations, in Herbert Spencer's Study of Sociology. Education of that sort may create a dangerous class of conceited and hungry malcontents. It probably will have that effect, and who can foresee the catastrophe to which this product might bring the country? But secular education cannot possibly make men bear poverty better or do harder work in the fields.

The other topics hang together. India is a vast land, almost a continent; and the regions of which it consists are, in many instances, occupied by swarms of frugal, home-keeping peasantry who pursue no calling but husbandry and know no secondary wants. These poor creatures depend, for the very moderate amount of prosperity which contents them, upon the principles by which they are ruled and the personal characters of their rulers. The natives of more advanced countries can hardly realise this. In a country of self-government such things have but little bearing on the happiness of mankind. A German or an Austrian will have nearly as much enjoyment and safety as a Frenchman, and his money will altogether go as far. But with the helpless subjects of a despotism, almost everything depends on the doings of functionaries. An incompetent administration means petty tyranny and general anarchy; which may do more harm than a seven years' war. A bad system of finance may load the members of such a community with burdens that will make them miserable to the third and fourth generation. Especially is this the case when their habits or circumstances will not permit them to emigrate. Finally, the educated natives have been promised a career and claim the fulfilment of the promise.

Here, then, is a mass of difficulty. You have to give your administration abundance of wisdom; you have to entrust its carrying out to the most capable and trustworthy employés; and you feel that, to make you rule popular here and respected elsewhere, you must give plenty of scope to honest native ambition. It is evident that India is not an easy subject and cannot be disposed of by simple treatment. It also appears that, for the Member of Parliament, for the Journalist, even for those unconspicuous private persons who make up public opinion, it would be very desirable to have a truthful, and a somewhat encyclopædic compendium, such as could be referred to for facts and consulted for sound counsels,

So far back as 1853 an attempt was made to meet this requirement by Sir George (then plain Mr.) Campbell. His book was

called Modern India, but soon went out of date owing to the rapid series of startling events that followed shortly after its publication. Then came Colonel Chesney's Indian Polity, a work which, without a single dissentient voice, was accepted as authoritative for the time at which it appeared. And now the versatile ex-Governor of Bombay, Sir Richard Temple, has come forward with a third work upon the same lines which seems to have been generally received with similar favour.

Sir Richard has many advantages for writing such a book. He has held offices of high power and trust in India for the full length of a generation, during which he has had an opportunity of seeing every part of the country and of becoming acquainted with almost every branch of the administration. With the exception of handling troops in the field, there is scarcely a task that he has not undertaken. District Officer, Settlement Officer, Secretary to Government, Secretary to the Treasury, Member of the Legislature, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chief Commissioner of Nagpur, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Governor of Bombay, he has shown that he can work on a stool, ride a horse, paint a glacier, plan a market-place, frame a Budget or lay out a line of railway. He assures us, in his preface, that his duties have taken him into "every part of the Indian empire from Thibet to Ceylon, from the Khyber pass to the frontier of Ava, from the valley of Assam to the city of Kandahar." He has been employed" under all the departments of the State:" he has "not only beheld, but made sketches of every scene which is described in these pages:" he has been "concerned in, or cognizant of, almost all the affairs which are here discussed."

These advantages, however, are not free from an attendant and perhaps necessary drawbacks. The book takes an exclusively administrative view. Now, to do his work well, our administrator must deal with phenomena as if they were realities; must think of the Present, rather than of the Past, or Future; if he is concerned with an Empire, he must consider it as a whole which are exactly the things most likely to mislead when they are done in a book. Less even than is usual in human affairs are things what they seem; the Present is in a state of rapid flux, leaning on the Past and looking to the Future; the Empire is not really a whole, but a vast extent of country, containing almost as many nations as the Continent of Europe. An administrator's book is likely to be defective in taking account neither of different communities having different needs and manners, nor of the various antecedent events which have made each of these communities, respectively, such as it is.

Moreover, great as are the author's gifts, natural no less than

acquired; and accurate as are most of his details; the reader will be disappointed who looks to it for that general truthfulness which comes of profundity. That is a quality which requires for its existence the union of historical sympathy with philosophic insight; and such a combination is not to be expected from a man who has had to spend the whole of his manhood in sacrificing his originality to the dictates of his superiors and the exigencies of the passing hour. This is said, not to detract from the merits of the book, but to explain why they are not of quite another kind. Sir R. Temple may seem sometimes to misinterpret his facts and misapply his figures; but he states them in good faith and with perfect modesty and good temper. The book is very well put together; it is not consciously apologetic in character or tone; but an Apologia it is, and it cannot profitably be followed as anything else.

There are, indeed, large portions which can be spoken of only with cordial praise. Such are, first and especially, the general chapters, including those on the "claims of India to the continuous attention of England;" the discouragement of European colonisation in the interior, accompanied by a candid statement of the good that is done by the commercial settlers in sea-port towns, by the Planters, and by the Anglo-Indian Press. The author is at his very best in his remarks on "Objects of beauty in Nature" and "Objects of beauty in Art." To be sure there are some mistakes in the treatment of this latter subject; thus, the temple of Man Sinh at Brindabun and the Palaces of his family at Amber, are cited as samples of Hindu architecture, whereas they are steeped in Moslem influence so as to belong almost wholly to the Saracenic school (pp. 33-7). Of the Taj at Agra, it is said that "to the Muhamadan alone belongs the imperishable renown of having raised this peerless structure" (p. 42.) The opinions of experts differ as to the architectural merit of the Taj; but all are aware that it was designed by a European. Brother Manrique-who was at Agra at the time -says plainly that the plans and estimates were supplied by a Venetian named Verroneo. Blunders however can hardly be avoided when an author undertakes a work of such wide scope as that which Sir R. Temple has here produced. And he gives a really useful, as it is a most readable, summary of what has been done in regard to canals, roads, railways, electric telegraphs, products and industries, trade, and sanitation. On famines, too, and the method of their relief he may be listened to with the respect due to an expert; provided, that is to say, that one concedes the principle that human life, however worthless, is to be prolonged at whatever cost. The chapters on physical science,

wild-sports, naval and military affairs, and foreign relations, though these great subjects have been disposed of with unavoidably rapidity, are extremely well sketched; if there is any absence of the critical faculty, it will hardly be regretted by those who run and read. The more attentive student will probably know where to go for further discussion of controverted points. On Finance, too, the author's experience makes him an excellent authority; Finance being essentially an empirical art which takes cognisance of the Empire as a whole, and as it appears for the moment, is exactly the sort of subject which allows itself to be treated administratively. Sir Richard shows that in spite of bogus-budgets, Indian Finance is in an encouraging condition. The debt of the Empire, if not small, is neither excessive nor unmanageable; new debt is not recklessly contracted, and the interest is being constantly reduced; the loss on exchange has a disturbing effect, but it is not unlikely that this evil will soon be mitigated. In facts, if not in name, this chapter is a good reply to pessimists of the school of Mr. Hyndman.

Why should not praise, then, be more general and strong? The answer is that the reader criticises because the author does not. The position is ably stated, existing facts are set out with much care and skill, but there is no sufficient mention of the difficulties, there is no attempt to reconcile objections or to solve doubts; to speak after the manner of Hegel, the thesis is good, the antithesis is defective, there is no synthesis at all. The real problem for the British in most parts of India is, the great misery of the agricultural labourers and petty cottiers and copyholders who form the bulk of the population. And by reason of the arrested development of the social system the administrative machinery that is being introduced from a country in quite another condition often does that helpless population more harm than good. By preventing civil war, famine and pestilential epidemics, you preserve a vast quantity of human weeds whom Nature is trying to dispose of: when you improve the value of property and of tenures, you increase indebtedness by strengthening the security on which it is incurred; while, by giving speedy and efficient justice, you favour the further operations of capital at the expense of labour; by extending commerce and inland traffic, you often take food from those who have not enough as it is. All the tonnage in Bombay, all the rise of prices and development of resources, the schools, colleges and universities that look so well on Sir Richard's pleasant pages, will not relieve the misfortunes of the millions who earn three pence a day and borrow at from twentyfour to thirty-six per cent. These are the cardinal Indian facts;