to an English country gentleman.' The same journal makes the following remarks on the training of young Rajas :

The idea of placing a young Hindu prince, who is going to rule over a Hindu people, under the care of a European tutor, without allowing his own family or people a voice in his bringing-up, is a most unnatural one. Lord Roberts was wise enough to ridicule such an arrangement. But the procedure is ever recurring, with the result that ruling Indian chiefs become strangers among their own people, and even in their own household.

It should be remarked that this extract has no reference whatever to that immediately preceding it, which concerns an individual Hindu prince.

On the frontier question most Indian papers complain of the cost of the little wars, of the policy, or want of policy, which led up to them, and all approve the step lately taken, whereby troops are withdrawn from certain advanced posts on the frontier, and replaced by local militia and police corps, alike in the interests of economy and efficiency. The Bengalee, a very important Calcutta paper, while condemning the Afghan buffer policy root and branch, quotes Skobeleff's statement that England is a vampire sucking the last drop of India's blood,' and adds, 'India thinks otherwise. Russian rule would blast our hopes of political progress and advancement and destroy our dreams of self-government.'

Few subjects receive more frequent notice than the so-called 'English and Native question.' The Amrita Bazaar Patrika says:

England's unpopularity on the Continent is the mere tribute of jealousy to success. But it is a serious matter if Englishmen are unpopular in India. Yet they are brusque and bigoted, and an Englishman who mixes freely with the natives is persecuted by his countrymen. Mahomedan rulers and Hindu ruled differed over matters of sentiment, but got on together, though the former killed cows to annoy the latter, and not merely for beef as the English do. Nor do our present rulers ever desecrate temples or carry off women. But the fact is India was alike the home of ruler and ruled. There were no tributes. None the less, if the English proposed to leave, the people would entreat them to remain. The Indians have forgotten how to fight, because they are not allowed to fight, and, forbidden to govern, they have unlearnt the art of government. Why is loyal India less kindly treated than disloyal Ireland? India never mutinied, but only the sepoys. India wants no parliament or separation, but only justice on a few minor issues.

The Bengalee in a strain of sarcasm comments on the inadequate punishment awarded to Europeans for using violence towards Indians, and suggests the passing of a White Man's Exemption Act, declaring Europeans to be exempt from the purview of all enactments providing punishments for such offences. The Viceroy's action in this behalf meets with warm and unqualified approval.

In fact, historians and others do not always distinguish with sufficient clearness between the mutinous sepoys and the Indian

VOL. XLIX-No. 291

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villagers, who were by no means universally unfriendly, and very frequently saved the survivors of the Mutiny at the risk of their own lives. Nor is some exasperation unnatural when a leading Anglo-Indian journal states that the Hindu lies by preference, and that the deep-seated canker at the heart of Indian life is its hopeless want of honesty, its unexampled mendacity.' Such was not the opinion of Sleeman, Lawrence, Outram, Fayrer, and many others of their class, nor indeed is it my own.

On public instruction, reams upon reams are written, all in favour, of course, of lavish expenditure by Government on higher education. Lord Curzon is claimed as a warm friend of this cause, because in his Convocation speech as Chancellor of Calcutta University he said: 'Nothing was more striking than the manner in which the science and learning of the Western world had penetrated the Oriental mind, teaching independence of judgment and liberty of thought.' The Amrita Bazaar Patrika thinks the English are less anxious now than they were to acclimatise Western science, art, and literature in India, and the education now imparted is spurious and artificial, doing some good and much harm.' The Bengalee, taking up the commonplace criticism that Indian youths look on education only as a means to obtaining Government appointments, remarks that it is an impertinence in those who pursue knowledge for gain only, to make this charge against Hindus, who formerly, at any rate, pursued knowledge for its own sake. Now there is no rest and repose for so doing. The University sets a premium on haste and cram.' This is very like Matthew Arnold's stanza on our English unrest. In fact, it is a complaint that we have inoculated India with the disease:

We see all sights from pole to pole,

And glance, and nod, and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.

Religion will never fail to occupy its allotted, and perhaps the largest, space in the newspapers, and India is proud of the effect produced on modern thought by the writings of its sages and philosophers. The Indian Mirror no doubt reflects India's views in this behalf, and it sees in an earthquake which early this year visited Southern and Western India a portent of evil :

Our words, deeds, and thoughts leave their impress on the ether, and so create corresponding disturbances on the earth. These great upheavals come to warn men to repent and mend their ways. We pollute the air by our sinful words, acts, and thoughts. Man becomes an universal contaminating agency. The Hindu has no place among the nations, because he has fallen away from his religion. He should go back to his Shastras. The Rishis knew men must live in purity. Spiritual and religious concerns should come first, political effort should come after them.

The Bishop of Calcutta issued an encyclical letter couched in a very broad and tolerant spirit, but assuming, of course, that

Christianity is the only true religion, and also asserting that India would gain by its adoption. The Mirror says: These assumptions are quietly and not offensively made, and the new Bishop and new Viceroy both alike desire that a new era of friendliness should be inaugurated.' The same journal refers to the thanksgiving services held by Hindus, Parsees, and Mahomedans for our African victories, and sharply criticises an Anglican Bishop who said, 'We should co-operate with God.' What a travesty of Christianity! The Man of "Thy will be done," but the Anglican Bishop co-operates with the Almighty!' A leader in another issue might have been written on Horace's text:

Sorrows said to God,

Delicta majorum immeritus lues,
Romane, donec templa refeceris,
Edesque labentes deorum.

The spirit of rationalism and criticism evoked by Occidental influences has undermined the foundations of Aryan faith and religion. The festivals of the gods are neglected, life is one long struggle for existence, a warding-off of want. A religious revival would stimulate our national faith and feeling.

And such a revival is stated to be now in progress. In religion and spirituality lay our ancient supremacy, and in them too lies our future supremacy. Our gods are gradually becoming gods of all the cultured world. We must not fret because we are not a ruling nation. Power and wealth are ephemeral; only spiritual treasures are unfading and eternal.' The Maharaja of Dharbanga is indicated as the natural leader of the movement, not only because he is one of the most prominent noblemen in India, but also because to great wealth and position he adds the inestimable advantage of being a Brahmin. One may become a king, but one must be born a Brahmin.

The Tribune of Lahore, at any rate, does not think that Hindu social and religious systems have much to learn from us. Christianity,' it writes, 'humanised the people of the West; but they have now outgrown that religion, and want something more ethereal, more potent than what was presented by Jesus to half barbarians like the Jews.' And the Tribune offers the personality the material West requires in the prophet Gauranga, of Nadia in Bengal. The Hindu Patriot in like manner deplores the way ' in which legislation affecting the social institutions of the country, such as the Civil Marriage, and the Age of Consent Act, have been forced upon an unready and unwilling people.' In October 1890 I wrote against the latter Bill in the pages of this review. It passed, but has been a dead letter, which no effort is made to enforce. The same may be said of another Act, which 'prescribed a form of marriage,' the other day, for the inhabitants of the Malabar coast, who have enjoyed a form of their own for thousands of years, and are probably

the most contented, comfortable, and uncomplaining people in India. The latter law, indeed, is permissive, but all such laws become dead matter, encumbering the statute book, or, being enforced, engender discontent and disaffection. There are others of the same sort, and the clever lawyer, who frequently represents' the people on the Legislative Councils, too often represents progress with a capital P, and misrepresents the masses, who are linked together by one hatred of interference with their customs, which indeed Her Majesty guaranteed the people, when the administration was assumed by the Crown.

A proof of this position will be found in the references to current legislation, which, of course, are numerous. For example, the Indian papers generally-though there are conspicuous exceptions-disapprove a Bill before the Madras Legislative Council, for taking the gains of learning out of the joint family property, and securing to the person who makes them, the fruits of his own skill, learning, and education. This seems at first sight fair enough; but the joint family funds provided the skill, learning, and education, and should be recouped for the joint benefit. Not to argue the point here, the Press urges that the Bill deals with the interests of a microscopic minority, is a new departure, and will, pro tanto, tend to break up the Hindu family system. The Famine Commission, in vain, as it appears, pointed out that the breaking up of ancestral properties, under the case-made law of the Privy Council, entails social, administrative, and agricultural evils of the gravest character.'

The majority of the Indian papers hold the same opinion as regards this proposal to break up, so far as its purview extends, the joint family system, and it is curious to see a leading Anglo-Indian journal like the Madras Mail supporting them, while they are opposed in this behalf by a leading Indian paper, the Madras Hindu.

But India is the land of paradox. The people will accept and absorb new ideas and principles, but only at their own time and in their own way. An English official may truly represent the masses, while the Indian representative' may express the views of the Radical advanced guard. Many articles will be written, and the water of many monsoons will flow over many sandy beds before this subject is exhausted.

J. D. REES.

'AUSTRALIA FOR THE WHITE MAN'

AGAIN

The grinders cease, because they are few

THE perennial problem in Queensland is that which touches coloured labour. It is a pity, therefore, that a Colony which, without reservation, threw her particular politics into the common crucible should suffer so rude a shock as that proceeding from the Federal Premier's recent utterance at Maitland. It is true that Mr. Barton has in subsequent speeches tempered his blunt dictum that black labour must go, by explaining that no repressive legislation is immediately contemplated; but it is evident that the attractive euphemism, Australia for the White Man,' is still doing political duty in the Australian Colonies. In 1885 the same cry carried Sir Samuel Griffith into power; but it was to be supposed that by 1892 the ultra-patriotic party would have realised the uselessness of kicking against the pricks. Evidently the five years of Sturm und Drang which followed hard upon the Amending Act of 1885 have been forgotten by certain public men in a new political anxiety. It is, however, to be hoped that no colony will have to rue its trustful embarkation in the Federal ship. Without doubt Mr. Barton takes high and proper ground in declaring that henceforth the interests of All Australia must stand before the interest of any particular State, and that provincial selfishness must not unduly affect Federal politics; but the Commonwealth will not be strengthened or sustained by the sacrifice of any one province to a sentiment which too often avoids practical necessity.

It is now twelve years since I studied Queensland questions on the spot; but I am not forgetful of the conditions under which Australian sugar was, and is, successfully produced-conditions which, to my mind, must be maintained if the manufacture of sugar is to remain a profitable industry.

Before dealing at large with the employment of the Kanaka, a general statement of the system may be in place. One has only to glance at the map of Australia to see that, in the nature of things, the question of coloured labour must exist. Queensland lies latitudin