upon the degree to which the British people can be induced to exert their power with reference to India. Our one great ultimate question is that of a Parliamentary control over Indian affairs. If that can be obtained, all will be well. The case of India in England is really a simple one. The Crown and Parliament of Great Britain have laid down certain broad and liberal principles for the administration of India, and have solemnly pledged themselves that these shall be acted on. With those principles the people of India are fully satisfied. But the difficulty is in the practice. For owing to the necessity of the case the actual administration has to be entrusted to official agents in India. And the problem is, how under the circumstances can an effectual control be exercised from England so as to ensure these principles being carried out and these pledges fulfilled? Unfortunately there is one very serious fact which much enhances the difficulty of this problem, and it is this, that in certain important particulars the professional interests of our official administrators in India are in antagonism with the interests of the Indian tax-payers whose affairs they administer. This is a somewhat delicate matter, but it is an important one, and I feel it my duty to speak out clearly. Perhaps also it is easier for

me than for most people to speak freely regarding the Indian official class, and that for two reasons. First, because I am deeply interested personally in the honor of that class. (Hear, hear.) The Indian Civil Service has been a sort of hereditary calling in our family since the beginning of the century. My father entered the Civil Service in 1807; and my eldest brother followed him until he lost his life in the Bengal mutinies. I came out shortly afterwards so that we are identified with what may be called the Indian official caste. The other reason is, because my complaint is against the system not against the man who carry it out. On the contrary, it is my deliberate belief that the Indian Civil and Mili

tary services have never been surpassed for honest hard work and unselfish devotion to duty. (Cheers.) Such being the case, I have no hesitation in repeating that the interests of the Indan services are in great measure antagonistic to the interests of the Indian tax-payer. The main interests of the Indian tax-payer are peace, economy and reform. But all those are necessarily distasteful to the civil and military classes. A spirited and well-equipped army naturally desires, not peace, but active service. And who can reasonably expect officials to love economy which means reduction of their own salaries ; or reform, which means restriction of their authority? (Cheers, and laughter.) It cannot be expected that as a class our official administrators in India will work for peace, economy and reform. But this very fact makes all the more urgent the necessity for a control in England which shall be both vigilant and effectual. We have therefore now to see what is the state of that control. Is it strong, vigilant, and effectual? I am sorry to say that the answer to this question is highly unsatisfactory. A brief historical review will, I fear, show that, in the matter of Parliamentary control, things have gone from bad to worse, until they are now about as bad as can be. It is now more than a hundred years ago since Edmund Burke (Cheers) pointed out the crying need for a strong impartial control in England over Indian affairs. And Mr. Fox's India Bill would have provided an organized machinery for exercising the control. But unhappily, owing to party struggles unconnected with India, this Bill fell through, "India's Magna Charta," as Burke called it, and never since has a similar attempt been made. But although no remedy was then applied, things were so bad until the passing of the Grvernment of India Act in 1858, which transferred the Government from the Company to the Crown. It is from the Act that I date our principal misfortunes. Till then we had two important safe-guards. The first was the wholesome jealousy felt

by Parliament towards the East India Company as a privileged Corporation. The other was the necessity for the renewal of the Company's charter at the end of every 30 years. At each of those renewals the Company's official administration had to justify its existence; there was a searching inquiry into grievances; and there never was a renewal without the grant to the public of important reforms and concessions suited to the progressive condition of Indian affairs. (Cheers.) Now unfortunately both those safe-guards are lost. The official administrators, who used to be viewed with jealousy, have now been admitted into the innermost sanctum of authority; and, as Council to the Secretary of State, form a secret Court of appeal for the hearing of all Indian complaints. They first decide all matters in India, and then retire to the Indian Council at Westminister to sit in appeal on their own decisions. Such a method of control is a mockery, a snare and a delusion. This evil is very far reaching, for when a decision is passed at the India Office the Secretary of State becomes committed to it, so that if an independent member tries to take up the case in the House of Commons, he finds himself cofronted, not by a discredited company, but by the full power of the Treasury Bench. But the loss of the periodical inquiry once at least in 30 years, is perhaps a still more serious disaster. There is now no day of reckoning. And Indian reformers find all their efforts exhausted in the vain attempt to obtain a Parliamentary inquiry, such as was before provided, without demand and without effort. At the present moment such an inquiry is much over due. The last periodical inquiry was held in 1854, so that under the old system a Parliamentary inquiry would have been begun five years ago. But although such an inquiry has been constantly asked for, and has been promised, it has never been granted. No doubt, we shall manage to get it in the end, but it will be at the cost of much wasted energy.

с

I think, gentlemen, I have shown that the last state of our control is worse than the first. On the one hand, we have been deprived of our periodical inquiry into grievances, while on the other hand, all complaints are calmly referred for disposal to the very officials against whom the complaints are made. (Hear, hear.) I should like, by way of illustration, to give a couple of instances to show how this system works in practice. The first čase I will take is that which was well-known, at the time, as the Break of Gauge controversy. In that matter General Strachey, as Public Works Member of the Viceroy's Council, held his own against the whole united public opinion of India, European and Native, official and un-official; and the railway gauge was fixed in the way he wished it. Later on, the question came in appeal to the Secretary of State. But by that time General Strachey had retired from his position in India, and had been appointed to the Indian Council (laughter), where he was the official adviser of the Secretary of State in matters relative to railways and public works. When therefore the public fancied they were appealing from the Government of India to the Secretary of State, they were really enjoying an appeal from General Strachey to himself. (Laughter.) This instance shows how the system of the Indian Council is even worse in fact than in theory. One might perhaps suppose that there being 15 member of the Council, one's grievance might come before those not personally affected. But such is not the case. Each member is considered as an expert as regards his particular province or department, and is allowed to ride his own hobby, provided he allows his colleagues also to ride their own hobbies in the way they choose. The other instance is taken from my own experience, and has reference to Agricultural Banks. We cherish the idea that if he had fair play, the Ryot might develop into a substantial Yeoman instead of being the starveling he is. With a fertile soil, a glorious sun, and

abundance of highly skilled labour, there is no reason why India should not become a garden if the Ryot were

crushed by his debts. The only thing that is required - capital, in order to settle these old debts and make advances to the Ryots on reasonable terms, so that they may be supplied with water for irrigation and manure. As you know, we prepared a practical scheme, founded on the German system of peasant Banks, and got all the parties concerned to agree to it. The Bombay Government approved of the experiment, which was to be on a very limited scale; and the scheme was forwarded for sanction to the Secretary of State by Lord Ripon's Government, Sir Evelyn Baring as Finance Minister having agreed to advance 5 lakhs of rupees for the settlement of the old debts. In England the scheme was well received. Mr. John Bright took the chair at a meeting in Exeter Hall in furtherance of the project, and each of the leading London daily papers expressed approval. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce also memoralized the Secretary of State in its favor. Well, gentlemen, this scheme entered the portals of the India Office, and never left it alive. (" Shame!") It was stabbed in the dark, no one knows by what hand or for what reason. Not long ago our friend Mr. Samuel Smith asked a question about it in the House of Commons; he inquired why the experiment recommended by Lord Ripon's Government was not allowed; and he was informed by Sir John Gorst that the scheme was not considered "practicable." Not practicable indeed! I wonder whether Sir J. Gorst is aware that in Germany alone there are 2,000 such Agricultural Banks in active working, and that throughout the continent of Europe it is admitted that without such financial institutions the peasant proprietor is absolutely unable to maintain himself without falling into the clutches of the village usurer. I think I may say with confidence that the India Office has not yet