of this was to revive the Censure abolished by Metcalfe nearly half-a-century before, it would seem that so retrogressive a step ought not to have been made the occasion for suspension of the standing orders. But it was held that to invite discussion might have involved a letting loose of the flood whose control was the very object of the law. The Native Press produced journals and pamphlets for which-so it was argued there was no real need or demand; but the absence of paying circulation was supplied by inducements to political discontent and by personal scurrility leading to blackmail. Instances of these abuses were not difficult to obtain, and were recorded in Council; but it was not shown that the existing Penal Code was insufficient for their due punishment if properly applied. The result was the short-lived Statute known-until its desuetude and repeal-as Act Ix. of 1878.

Such were some features of this administration; able and well-intentioned, no doubt, but not always wise, and mostly unfortunate. Lord Lytton has been said, by a recent writer, to have "taken Antony and Verres" as his models.* Nothing can be more unjust; he neither governed as a vulgar and rapacious Propraetor, nor lost the world for love. If he resembled any ancient ruler, it was rather that Roman of whom a stern critic said that every one thought him fitted to govern until they saw him governing.

[Parliamentary papers, Annual Register, "Calcutta Review," Vols. 71-2, London, 1885.]

* "England under Gladstone," by J. H. McCarthy.

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CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUSION.

Section 1: Policy of Lord Ripon-Section 2: Panjdeh and BurmaSection 3: Summary.

SECTION 1. With the treatment of current events and contemporaneous controversy History, in its proper acceptation, can have no concern. For History, being by virtue of its name the report of a scientific inquiry into the origin and progress of nations, cannot concern itself with the discussion of unsettled questions; nor can it be expected to decide whether the events that are taking place in our presence are tending to progress or the reverse. If we are thus generaliy debarred from anticipating the verdicts of events, least of all can we judge living men.

Especially is this the case with the Marquess of Ripon, who belongs to a school of statesmen still under trial, men whose policy has evoked criticism to a degree almost unequalled in the events of the present reign. Lord Ripon was the grandson of a Yorkshire country gentleman, Sir Thomas Robinson, who had, to the surprise of men, come to be a member of the Duke of Newcastle's cabinet in the days of King George II., and had been raised to the peerage as Lord Grantham at the beginning of the next reign. His second son was President of the Board of Trade in 1818, and was made a peer in 1827, by the title of Viscount Goderich. When Canning died he

was for a few months Prime Minister: in 1833 he became Earl of Ripon, and Lord Privy Seal; and died in 1859. The son and successor of this statesman had sat in the Commons as Liberal representative of several Yorkshire constituencies; and after succeeding to the peerage was made Secretary of State for India. His selection as Viceroy under the next Liberal Government was thus-if he wished it-an accomplished fact; and he began his incumbency by going on to Bombay with almost unequalled rapidity, and by delivering frank and eloquent speeches from the moment of his landing. The first duty that awaited him after taking charge was the evacuation of Afghanistán, and the handing over to the new Amir of the whole country, from Kábul to Kandahár, and from Herát to the foot of the western Pamir. He then turned, under inspiration from the Queen's Ministry, to the work of infusing a liberal spirit into Indian administration; and never, since the days of Bentinck, has there been such rapid movement in this direction, or so much alarm and indignation excited among the Anglo-Indian community. On such contentious matters we may touch lightly without expressing any judgment. But, before doing so, we may glance at a subject which admits of but one opinion-the restoration of the Wodeyar dynasty to power in Mysore.

This State, it may be remembered, had been usurped by Haidar Áli, the famous soldier-of-fortune, about the middle of the 18th centuty, but his Empire was of short duration. On the defeat and death of Haidar's son, in 1799, the territories they had filched from their neighbours were taken back, and the remainder of the country was restored to the Hindu line in the person of Rája Krishna Ráj. From that date the State was administered, during the Rája's minority, by Purnia, a Mahratta Brahman, who was both able and honest; in a few years the annual revenue rose to nearly three-quarters of a million. On Purnia's retirement the Rája tried to carry on the administration, with the result that the revenue dwindled, the treasury

VOL. II.

B B

was depleted of its reserves, and the people suffered and fell into anarchy. The State was accordingly sequestrated in 1831. And the British methods of business, carried on by selected Natives, and directed by excellent British officers, gradually brought about the required reforms. The famine of 1877-78 fell on the country with special severity, and 280,000 of the small population were in receipt of relief; while the deaths averaged 120 per diem; including remissions of land-revenue the State lost a million of Rx. But the prosperity of Mysore only suffered temporary interruption; and in the beginning of Lord Ripon's rule the debts of the late Rája had been paid; a number of vexatious imposts had been abolished; and the yearly revenue had increased to over a million. The State, with these improvements and a handsome cash-balance under a good Native staff of officials thoroughly trained to their work, was handed over to the lawful heir, 25th March, 1881. The Native machinery is now under a Native Minister, but the system has otherwise undergone but little change, and the prosperity of the State and people shows no symptoms of deterioration. When an Englishman thinks with sorrow of the story of Audh he can have no better consolation than the memory of Mysore; and he can only wonder why the course so successfully pursued in regard to the one could not be adopted in the case of the other.

Some of the success in Mysore, with much of the prosperous tranquility of the Carnatic and its dependencies, was due to the good qualities of the local Governors. The Duke of Buckingham had been succeeded by Mr. W. P. Adam, who died at his post, to the general regret of all who knew his unselfish character, on the 24th May, 1881, just one day before the formal completion of the Mysore arrangement. He was succeeded by Sir M. E. Grant-Duff, a distinguished diplomatist and statesman, son of the Capt. Grant-or Grant-Duff whom we have seen as the friend and colleague of Elphinstone, and

the historian of the Mahrattas. Bombay was administered by Sir James Fergusson, who had succeeded Sir R. Temple in April, 1880.

The period of Lord Ripon's administration was one of uninterrupted peace, during which the Government of India enjoyed abundant leisure for internal reform, of which, in the opinion of hostile English critics, it availed itself with pernicious impulse. It is held by this school of politicians that in domestic as in foreign affairs there may be an activity that is not masterly, and what a poet has called raw haste half-sister to delay." To bring European institutions into Asia is compared to transplanting to the banks of the Ganges a full-grown British oak.

Leaving metaphor and questionable analogy aside, it is our business to see what Lord Ripon's Government was, and what it did. At the beginning of his Viceroyalty he had for colleagues Major E. Baring-since Lord Cromer-as Finance Minister, an able and sympathetic councillor; Sir D. Stewart as Military Mémber, and later as Commander-in-Chief; the Law Member being Mr. Courtenay Ilbert: on the whole a Government well-prepared to carry out a Liberal policy under the inspiration of Mr. Gladstone, the Premier at home.

One of the first of the steps thus taken was the repeal of Lord Lytton's Vernacular Publications Act. The question of the Press in India was one that had divided men of the greatest distinction for more than fifty years. Sir Thomas Munro was strongly opposed to complete liberty, though forward in the advocacy of liberal principles generally. That the British in India should largely avail themselves of Native agency, and should endeavour in all legitimate ways to command Native support and sympathy, he was ever ready to maintain. But he recorded a clearly pronounced opinion against unfettered journalism, in the very maturity of his experience and responsibility. When Governor of Madras, and not long before his