which would at once attract the best of British character and brains. The recruits on arrival in India should be posted to an Indian State for the purpose of training and of learning the languages and the manners of Indians. Two years in Rajputana, when the mind is plastic, give the young civilian a better and sounder idea of the great qualities and possibilities of the Indians than can ever be acquired by long years and observation in British territory. This applies equally to the British officers of the Indian Army. Those who have served with the Imperial Service troops maintained by the Indian States have a different outlook on India. They see the Indians from a new and perhaps a better angle.

As the members of the Simon Commission must have seen during their first short tour in India, the Indians have their own world of thought, and though some of them use the English language, they think in Indian terms. Their standards of life, their motives, and their mentality are wholly unlike those which are common to Great Britain and the Dominions. In India itself it is difficult to find any common standard, any common outlook. The Pathán of the north has nothing in common with the Tamil of the south; the Mahratta of the west has visions which the Assamese of the east never sees. Even in the provinces there are the same startling dissimilarities. In the Punjab, for example, the Punjabi Moslem, the Sikh and the Dogra have nothing in common with one another, though they live in the same province. They have only one thing in common, and that is their devotion to the King-Emperor of India. And this devotion is also the one thing which the peoples of British India have in common with the subjects and with the rulers of the Indian States.

What are the facts which the Simon Commission have ascertained? Where is the common factor on which they can base their decision? It so happens that another commission has been hard at work-the Agricultural Commission. But Lord Linlithgow and his colleagues have this advantage, that agriculture -and India is agricultural to a degree almost inconceivable to those who live in Great Britain-bristles with facts, and these facts can be ascertained. The soil, the crops, the peasantry, and the plough bullocks are real facts. They are the facts on which the prosperity, the peace and the happiness of the Indians depend : and, varied as the divisions of India are, there is a

remarkable similarity in the life and the work of the peasantry. It is to be hoped that the Linlithgow Commission will have noticed one ancient and indigenous institution in the villagethe village council of five-the Panchayat-the very basis of real local self-government, on which some day a healthy representative system might be founded. But, strangely, this homely institution was forgotten when the scheme of diarchy was conceived.

It is fortunate for India and for the British Empire that the Simon Commission works with great deliberation; for they will have facts presented to them both by Lord Linlithgow's researches and by the Indian States Committee, which may prove of immense value. Facts will emerge from these two enquiries which may help to place India in a clearer light, a truer light than flashes out in the generalisations and forensic dissertations of the Indian politicians who claim to speak for all the millions of India. From the first enquiry the Simon Commission may learn that India is not entirely a matter of cities: from the second they may learn that there was already something Indian, indigenous and Swaraj-something racy of the soil-in the way of political institutions before the new wine of diarchy was cascaded into the old, mellowed flasks of India. There may be few who can or will tell the Simon Commission of the constitution of the Indian States. The stage is so crowded with the lively and eloquent leading stars of the great cities of British India that there is no room and no scope for the rather quiet and reticent protagonists of the Indian States.

Yet the Rájas, or Ruling Chiefs-either term is preferable to the new designation of "Princes "could fill the centre of the Indian stage with dignity and congruity. They are born to the leading part. They have not merely dreamed and talked of the arts and forms of government-they have governed. They understand their people and they know how to maintain discipline. And though they have been penned up in their own States, and have been relieved by the suzerain power of the great duty of defence, they have not perished of inanition, but are a living, moving organisation, moving often quite as briskly and healthily as their neighbours in British territory. Some have adopted constitutions; many have limited their privy purse and civil list, and most of them are moving with the times. They move like the sagacious elephant, and feel the ground. No democratic Mahout can force them into a quagmire.

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It is impossible, indeed, it would be impertinent, to guess what the opinions of the two commissions and of the committee will be. The Simon Commission may, on the evidence, decide that the best course to steer will be towards some form of democratic government; and parliament may confirm that decision, and then there is no more to be said. Macaulay is perhaps now out of date, but he once said," that is the best government which desires to make the people happy and knows how to make them happy." If this old-fashioned idea still has weight it might be wise even now to consider the Indian States from the Indian point of view.

It may be said by way of preface, that there is nothing in the world exactly analogous to an Indian State. It signifies personal rule; and though the Indian States are numerous and in many respects dissimilar, yet they all are subject to a personal ruler. The office of ruler can never cease to be, for if the ruler dies without an heir, a successor is adopted. In his State the ruler has full power, but not complete sovereignty, for he may have no relations with external States save through the Viceroy of the King-Emperor, who is the suzerain power. The Indian State is amply compensated for this limitation of sovereignty by the fact that it is safeguarded from foreign attack or encroachment. The Viceroy rarely intervenes or interferes in the administration of an Indian State. His agents reside at the capitals of the various Indian States, and can advise the ruler when he asks for advice. But although the ruler has full powers, he is greatly swayed by the opinion of his people, and he knows that if he unwisely sets public opinion at defiance, and if serious trouble follows, there may be intervention on the part of the Viceroy. This intervention usually takes the form of appointing a Council of State. But as noted above, such intervention is happily rare, and when it comes it is a death-blow to the repute and good name of the ruler. All who know India understand that repute, whether it be called "izzat " or " neknámeh," is the breath of the nostrils of an Indian. This is a good lever and an all-powerful sanction.

It must be admitted that from the Western point of view the standard of administration in most of the Indian States is lower than that of British India. But from the Indian point of view, the standard of administration in British territory is too highinconveniently, uncomfortably high. It was tremendously efficient, working with the rhythmical monotony of a mighty engine.

Everything was standardised. While the British controlled the engine there were many admirable results. It was cheap and taxation was light. It was even, and all were treated with machine-like, equal justice. But it was a machine, and no machine can be run efficiently and economically if little things like sentiment, tradition and hereditary prejudices have to be considered. Now the average Indian, industrious, frugal and homely as he is, has more leisure than we imagine, and in our hours of leisure we like to get away from the insistent drone of the machine. It is difficult to get away in British India. There is a tax collector's office on one side of the road as you walk along; opposite is the police station and the lock-up; a little further on is the post where octroi is taken. Plenty of places to remind you of government and at every corner there lurks the Chuprasi. He is part of the machine. He is laconic. Like the two daughters of the horse-leech, he just says "give, give."

Still the machine was admirable, and its benefits outweighed all its disadvantages. It was admirable while it was controlled. by the British; for they are detached from all things Indian. They care for justice and honest industry; they are impartial and can take no part and have no lot in the matters which interest the Indians more than crops and food and material well-being. But with diarchy there is a new element in the control of the machine. Some think that it is running unevenly, that it creaks, and that it should be scrapped. One of the essentials of the old machine was that the British officials in the districts should suppress corruption and bribery. It was no easy task; but the peripatetic district officer heard things, for all had access to him as he moved through the villages, and the wrong-doer hesitated. Under the new dispensation the district officer has little leisure for this, the most important of his duties; life is becoming more expensive for the village folk, and the Chuprasis are putting on weight.

Over the border, in the Indian State, there is no sound of the machine, though the villages look the same. The people are much the same, but there is a difference. They walk as though the country belonged to them; they carry themselves more proudly, and they often carry arms. There are not perhaps the same excellent roads, the marvellous canals for irrigation, the same ugly masonry buildings which house the Indian officials, the police, the schools, and the dispensaries, as are found in

British territory. But in spite of the absence of the outward signs of regulation, the people seem bright, alert and independent, and where the soil is good they look just as prosperous as their brethren over the boundary. They have something which their brothers in British territory lack. They have a personal ruler, a human providence, one whom they know, as they knew his father; and indeed some of the grey-beards in the village can remember his grandfather, and the wise words he said and the good deeds he did. They not only know him, but they can see him, when they feel so inclined: for the capital and the palace and the hall of audience are within reach. So much is the hall of audience (Durbár) a part of their life and the raison d'être of their ruler, that they often speak of him, not as " Maharája," but as "Durbár Sahib." "Durbar Sahib " is an Indian like themselves. He eats the same food, wears (off duty) the same clothes, thinks the same thoughts, knows their language, and knows more than his ministers about the people, their wants, their troubles, and their hopes. He is their leader : he leads in their ceremonies, and a day in the capital, when the Maharaja dons his bravery and rides out in his might and majesty, is a day to be remembered. And there are many such days, great holidays and glorious fairs, where all meet and are happy, and their leader is there and they are proud of him. They are fond of him, for he respects their customs and is true to the old traditions: he is courteous and dignified and never jars on their feelings. He is sure of himself and they are sure of him. They often almost worship him, and this is the quintessence of Indian sentiment. All Hindus must have some object for worship, and there is no more appropriate object than a good Maharaja.

The Maharája sometimes goes over the border to visit the Viceroy, and it is worth while to watch the Maharája in British territory and to notice how he is received by the leading Indians. He seems to have the same effect on them as he has on his own subjects. It is an effect never produced by the Viceroy and his British officials. It is a mixture of veneration and of affection. For the Maharája is an Indian, and they are Indians.

The news which for some years has been coming from India suggests that there is unrest in British territory: uneasiness in the Indian States. Some have attempted to find out the real causes of the unrest. Phrases have been invented such as the "inferiority complex," the "desire for self-determination," and the like,