duties of a minister of State and of a member of Parliament. The first duty in a deliberative body is to give sincere advice and vote accordingly. As a Privy Councillor's sworn duty to the Queen, such is the unsworn duty of an M.P. to the Parliament. To argue sophistically there, is a sin of deep dye, and very demoralizing. The system now accepted is of necessity a school of immorality. Every M.P is a Trustee of the nation, with the highest interests in his charge; these he is bound to guard conscientiously, and give open faithful counsel. But a Cabinet minister, sharing delicate secrets, may not tell all that he knows; his place is to obey, and the less he talks the better, when no one is so unreasonable as to expect from him frank and full truth. His business is to act, but he is too much hampered by his colleagues, or perhaps by the Crown, to allow of accepting him as a colleague in deliberation, when it is his duty not to speak his mind. As well might you ask a military subordinate to criticize his general. Immoral results cannot be avoided, when the same man is charged with incompatible duties.

The stronghold of mischief is planted in a false theory concerning an Executive. It is assumed that the Executor must set the policy, and its chief man have the selection of his comrades, who are his political friends and subordinates. This arrangement is, no doubt, pleasant, but not therefore necessary. Appeal is often made to the reign of our Elizabeth, as displaying continuous administrative ability; yet her ministers sitting at the same table were sometimes bitter enemies. No Premier selected a Cabinet. In old Rome the Senate set the policy, and required the high officers to obey it. They were often elected by aristocratic intrigue, and military disaster followed (as with us) from the incompetence and inexperience of generals. But ministers of State then no more belonged to the same party, than colonels and generals with us. All had to obey the Senate, and the Senate enforced obedience. Evidently no other relation of the Deliberative Assembly and the Executive officers is reasonable, or can in the long run be satisfactory. foreign powers would always deal with the same corporate England; now deep injustice towards weak nations and rude tribes; and difficult tangle with European powers, result from our Foreign Office falling alternately into hands which represent only half of England. In old Rome and under personal rule in England, the Executive comprized every shade of the nation;

now with us the ablest administrators are excluded by Party animosities, and eminently valuable experienced public servants mischievously ejected. Activity and administrative skill is wanted in Executive officers, not soundness of opinion or theory, much less eloquence, fluency, or the arts of rhetoric. If our constituencies were wiser, they would refuse to elect as their representative anyone holding office under the Crown.

OUR RELATION TO THE PRINCES OF INDIA.

From "Westminster Review," 1858, much abridged and recast to condense it.

ASSUREDLY, as Englishmen, we desire and hope that

English rule in India may not come to a violent end; but it is not at all too early to study how that may be averted. Our dangers must increase with the enlargement of our direct administration, also, in proportion as we reduce the empire to homogeneity, as our most sagacious Indian statesmen have vehemently warned us. A foreign rule, displacing from high posts not only all the native aristocracy but all the native talent, can be permanent only under peculiar and rare conditions, as when the military force of the rulers is overwhelmingly superior, when the talent of their race is manifestly much higher, or when nationally and individually they far excel the subject race in virtue. As to the last point, it is easy to praise Englishmen to the English. Nothing is commoner with us than to chant English uprightness, moderation, and wisdom, and to vilify the natives of India; but our most distinguished men do not speak in this tone. However we may flatter ourselves, neither the native Indians, nor (as far as we can learn) intelligent foreigners will consent to swell the chorus of praise. We have virtues which Indians in general have not, but we sell our virtue dear to them; nor can it be pretended that in talents we excel their highly gifted races. Moreover, the wider our direct rule reaches and the longer it lasts, the less will be our military superiority; nor can any English army take the field without a host of natives to minister in various capacities to its needs. Already there is danger of our suffering in England a drain of men for our Indian armies; and if we are so mad as to rest our supremacy on force alone (as so many now advise), the mere argument of safety would suggest a contraction rather than an extension of our territorial area.

Nothing can be more simple, clear, and decisive than the

arguments of such men as Wellington, Sir Thomas Munroe, and Sir John Malcolm, which urge the importance of maintaining the native princes of India for the sake of our own safety; and although among officials a dangerous reaction has set in, yet of the generation not yet past, Elphinstone and Melville and General Briggs, and (we are glad to add) Lord Ellenborough are staunch to the old doctrines. We recommend our readers to the fourth and ninth Tracts of the India Reform Society for a valuable sixpennyworth on this critical subject. Sir Thomas Munroe declares that the natives of our provinces lose every quality that makes a people respectable, and, under our rule, become the most abject in India. Among all the disorders of the native States (says he) the field is open to every man to raise himself; hence among them is a spirit of emulation, of restless enterprize and independence, far preferable to the servility of our Indian subjects.

The abjectness of the British provincials is not only attested. by many especial witnesses, but is even insisted on by our panegyrists, in tones which assure us that it is notorious. They say that the mass of the people under our rule are indifferent as to who are their rulers, and incapable of any national feeling: and this is made the justification of perpetuating their political degradation. The principle of our administration has been (and with small exception is still), to exclude natives from all high office. This is that which (as Sir Charles Napier emphatically remarked) debases a nation. There has never been anything like it under the Mussulman kings of India. Under Mogul princes Hindoos have frequently been prime ministers, and from very low grade men have risen into high offices. Nor in China has there been any such degradation of the natives under Tartar dynasties, but superior native talent has always been allowed to rise. Nowhere can be found a parallel to the English rule, except in the old Roman Empire, which trained the provincials into a sort of tame cattle,-industrious, thriving perhaps, rich, sensual, without public aim or spirit, without bravery, incapable as women of self-defence, and liable to be slaughtered by barbarians, the moment the regular army was withdrawn. In important moral respects, the spirit of our rule is vastly superior to that of Rome, yet the form of our rule is much worse than theirs. For first, many provincials were adopted into full Roman citizenship, and all such were at once treated in every respect as real equals to the native Romans. Next, the climate of India forbids our taking

root in it, and identifying our interest with that of the natives. We never adopt India as our home; no amalgamation takes place. Mere youths, inexperienced in English freedom, go out from England to assume high power over Indians whose habits and language is strange to them. All these youths hope to return home in ripe manhood, with hands not empty. Subjection to the rule of youthful strangers, who will always be foreign in heart and purpose, is peculiarly degrading. In both respects the form of our despotism is more offensive to human feeling than that of the Romans.

Moreover, however good our intentions, the circumstances must thwart them. Only the higher and lucrative posts are accepted by Englishmen; the lower paid offices are filled by natives, to whom we virtually commit the enormous force of the British Executive. While our own officers were ill paid, they were corrupt and flagitious in avarice: who then can expect anything better from the Indians whom we employ? If anyone be sanguine, let him reflect on the recent revelations concerning the practice of torture as the ordinary mode in half of India for collecting revenue. This was notorious to our missionaries, notorious to our indigo planters; yet was scoffed at as a dream by our highest officials in Parliament, even when attested there by Mr Danby Seymour, an M.P., who had visited India for the very purpose of investigating its truth. Finally, after three years' delay, a Royal Commission reported that all was true; only the officials had been ignorant of it, to whom the police gave no information, well assured that the English Sâhib would be pleased when abundant revenue was collected, and would make no anxious inquiry into details. Yet our public and even our high officials think that it is only through these regular channels that truth is to be learned! *

In the affairs of Baroda and Bombay it was brought to light by General Outram, how naturally every honest free-speaking Hindoo is repelled by a bureaucrat as a rude and bad fellow, while a smooth, false, cringing man is thought loyal and trustworthy. Readers may consult the evidence given before the

*Note in 1885. - About twenty-three years ago my colleague in University College, London, Mr Goldstüche, Professor of Sanskrit, told me that he had purchased a MS. copy of Sir Charles Metcalfe's despatches, which contained his letters to the Secret Committee. Therein Sir Charles revealed in 1820 the whole system of torture, condemning it emphatically. Yet thirty years later our high officers were ignorant of it, and scornfully incredulous of its existence.-F. W.N.