obligations to which Egypt was a party. Will Egypt recognise the facts and realise that a wider independence may in truth be hers if she willingly submits to its limitation in certain directions for the sake of peace; or will she continue to be a running sore in the body politic of the world? Great Britain can do no more. Egypt must choose.

J. DE V. LODER

THERE

THE INDIAN STATES

"HERE are welcome signs throughout Great Britain of an increasing interest in the affairs and progress of the Overseas Empire. The practical efforts recently made to bring the good things of the Dominions to the notice of the housewives of England are bearing fruit, and an interest in the products stimulates a sympathy for the producer. Every year the Dominions come nearer Home. But India, which contributes perhaps more than the Dominions to the sustenance of the British citizen, seems still far off and remote. It is a different world, and a difficult world to understand, and many of the troubles in the still-vexed Dependency are due to the lack of understanding. For without understanding there can be no real sympathy. We are proud of all that goes with the very name of the British Empire; but how few realise that without India the great system, which tells in three words of our glorious achievement and our high destinies, would dwindle and our greatness become a mere memory.

The few who know the facts of the British Empire know that their countrymen have raised a monument more lasting than bronze; but the student of contemporary affairs may be excused if, when he reads the Indian news which from time to time reaches England, he doubts whether the great and noble monument has been raised on solid foundations. Yet if he could spend six months in British India, away from the great cities and the packed bazaars-if he could travel in the territories of the Indian States-his anxieties and his doubts would probably disappear. And if he knew some of the languages of the peoples of India, and could understand and could learn their thoughts, he would realise that the talk of the town was unrelated to the real wants and the desires of the millions who dwell in the various and dissimilar countries which make up a considerable portion of that world, which has been pieced together by British administrators, and is called for convenience, India. Before long, a new interest will have to be taken in the affairs of India, and many who previously cared little about a somewhat puzzling problem will be called upon to form an opinion, and help to a decision on which the future of our Empire may depend.

Some of these, indeed, may already have been watching with sympathy, and even with anxiety, the fortunes of the Simon Commission as it quietly moved from province to province of British India. The verdict of this high court of enquiry will not be pronounced till next year, and before the members of the Simon Commission revisit India in the winter months, the senseless boycott and the silly hartal will, it is hoped, be a regrettable memory, and the proverbial wisdom and the traditional courtesy of the East will welcome and work with Sir John Simon and his colleagues in their difficult and patriotic task. The parliament of Great Britain is the one and final arbiter, and something in the nature of the Simon Commission was the obvious, fair, and impartial method for presenting the real facts of the case to the British people.

While all men of good-will must wish success to Sir John and his mission, sympathy should also be extended to the Viceroy of India. His task is even more difficult and more responsible than that of the Royal Commission. For he is engaged in the baffling problem of instructing the Indians in the art of government, and at the same time is held responsible for the efficiency and the honest working of the present administration.

Nor is the Viceroy responsible only for the good government of the millions who dwell in British India; he is also concerned in the welfare of the Indian States, whose subjects outnumber the population of Great Britain and the Dominions. We hear little about these Indian States, and most of us have forgotten how they stood by us in the evil days of the Mutiny. In times of war we hear of their gallant and loyal efforts as they haste to the help of their King-Emperor; in times of peace, some rare scandal, some boyish escapade is seized on and published to the world. But at no time do we hear much of the steady progress in the Indian States, of the devoted efforts of certain of the Chiefs to make their people prosperous and happy in their own way-the Indian way and not the Western way.

In addition to the present enquiry into the problems of British India, there should also be a very careful diagnosis of the condition of the Indian States, of their history, their rights and their guarantees. The pity is that so many in Great Britain, and even in British India, are ignorant of the facts and realities of these Indian kingdoms. Travellers visit their capitals; a small handful

of British officials are attached to the various courts; but the vast majority of officials, British and Indian, who guide the onward march of British India, know nothing of the aims, ambitions and sentiments of the Indian Chiefs. Fortunately the Viceroy knows, for the Indian States are in his special charge, and he has called into being a small committee known as the Indian States Committee. It differs in constitution from that of the Simon Commission, for the head of the committee is a distinguished Indian Civil Servant.

In such enquiries as the Simon Commission and the Butler Committee have undertaken, the ordinary Englishman seeks for facts, and if he finds them, his commonsense and love of fairplay enable him to form a sound conclusion. But at present, British India is like a dark labyrinth without a clue, full of voices, now loud and persistent, now timid and whispering; some crying on," others crying" back"; some over-confident and reckless of consequences, others greatly fearing the consequences, and only hoping that, at any rate, the consequences will not touch them or their homes.

There is one clue perhaps to the labyrinth, the clue of history. Doubtless the members of the Simon Commission have steeped themselves in the history of India from the days of Lord Hastings, from the days when the Pax Britannica saved the Indian States, the only old political institution which has survived in India. The Commission will certainly find much that is important and suggestive in the strenuous administration of Lord Dalhousie, in whose time so many Indian States "lapsed" to the British Government. His successor put an end to the policy of "lapse," and the Indian States have, since India came under the Crown, been secure. They are, indeed, at present perhaps the best protected institutions in the world. But it should always be remembered that most of the treaties made with Indian States were made when British arms swept victorious through the length and breadth of India. The treaties were made between British overlords and Indian chiefs. They were re-affirmed when, after the Mutiny, India passed from John Company to the Crown. Up to the end of the last and the beginning of the present century the Indian States went on, isolated from one another-for this was the policy of the government-slowly advancing, adopting of their own will the improvements in administration introduced in the British

provinces adjacent to their territory, gladly responding to Lord Dufferin's invitation to furnish troops for the Imperial service; and later still more gladly answering Lord Curzon's call to them as "colleagues in Empire"; doing their best to develop their States, but always hampered by the fact that they had no access to the world of finance. They saw British India making railways and extending irrigation with money borrowed on easy terms from London. But they were isolated and apart. They might not have relations with one another, nor with the outside world, and their only refuge in time of trouble was the Viceroy.

British India is the home of regulation. Without a severe system of rigid rule it would have been impossible for the Government of India to carry on its giant task of ruling the huge provinces, in which peoples sharply divided by religion, race and outlook are herded so tightly and often so uncomfortably. British rule was a miracle of efficiency, a model of justice and benevolence, and it was, above all, cheap. In this land of regulation one generation after another of officials followed loyally the maxims bequeathed by the great men who had brought India through perils and suffering to a secure haven of peace and prosperity. One of the many maxims of the men of old was that taxation should be low and that expenditure should be curbed. It was also a maxim that the Indian States should remain isolated, and the prevailing view of British officials was that the Indian in British territory was a happier man than the Indian who dwelt in an Indian State. In proof of this it was stated that no Indian would leave British territory for an Indian State. It was forgotten that the British had annexed the fat lands and had constructed irrigation channels. When irrigation reaches the Indian States there will be little reluctance to migrate from British territory.

The writer of this article lived much in Indian States adjoining British territory; and also lived in a British district entirely surrounded by Indian States, and so had opportunities of comparing the lot of the Indians living in Indian States with the lot of those who passed their lives in a British district. Often they were men of the same religion and tribe, and related to one another by marriage. Among the many charming qualities of the Indian is his courtesy and politeness. He dislikes saying anything that might wound or offend, and when asked by an Englishman