hands of the Legislature. The Committees of either house appointed to investigate this subject will no doubt anxiously inquire

1st. Whether this machine, having fulfilled its mission, had better now be put aside with other rare and ancient anomalies, to be replaced by a machinery more simple and more in accordance with the altered relations of England towards her Indian possessions, the discoveries of modern science having brought India and England almost into juxta-position.

2nd. Whether that, notwithstanding the anomalous character of the machine, if the result of its operation having promoted the good of the people subjected to its influence, and the glory and advantage of England, it would not be more advisable to suggest certain alterations in its parts, so as to lessen existing friction, and ensure greater simplicity and efficiency in its working.

Those who would, from various causes, see the power of the East India Company at an end, are constrained to silence, for they have hitherto been not only unable to point out a better mode of government than that of the Company, but have failed to point out any mode of government whatever. It was well said by Desch-u-lubun Ocharik, in reply to one of these declaimers against the government of the East India Company, that "Nothing of good can originate with them (the East India Company); they have erred, you would make out, from their very first illegitimate birth in good Queen Elizabeth's virgin time, up to the present portentous era of Free-trade and political economy. Thus they have blundered and bungled on, from step to step, into the lamentable undisturbed possession of one of the largest and finest empires in the Universe; their very pre-eminence in the East-the quiet peacefulness of their subjects-the unobtrusive and simple machinery of their local governments-the silently progressive amelioration of the population committed to their charge, and the extensive diffusion of education and useful knowledge; the numerous institutions for the sick, the indigent and the uninformed, embracing every class, Hindoo or Mussulman-their delicacy towards ourselves (more, I may venture to say, than they exhibit towards their own European servants, civil or military), and scrupulous regard for the protection of the lands, religion, ordinances, and feelings of the millions they govern-nay, the very state itself of the Government, which obtains loans from us at half the interest for which the traders of Calcutta can procure money (during the Burmese war the East India Company borrowed money at five per cent., while the mostre

spectable merchants and agents of Calcutta were paying ten)-these and every other just and honourable characteristic of our present rulers, are misrepresented, vilified, decried.

"No one acquainted with our ancient history and government can deny, that however many of us may complain of the loss of dignities and immunities formerly, but precariously, possessed, the mass of our people have derived many substantial advantages from British connection, which has not only rescued us from the numerous evils which we suffered under our native rule, but has gradually led to our incorporation as a part of the British Empire, to the diffusion of literature among us, the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences, and the benefit of equal laws, and a distribution of justice similar to that enjoyed by the parent state."

Since, then, it appears to be generally conceded that the intervention of the East India Company in some form or other is essential to our government of India, the question is narrowed to the examination of the existing governmental machinery, and the results obtained by its operation.

It is admitted on all hands that those entrusted with the administration of India, have on the whole, conducted the government of that empire with singular ability and honour.

If, in by-gone times, India has had much to complain of-of positive injustice, superadded to neglect-the odium of this injustice rests with us as a people, or rather with our representatives, for it was they who, by legislative enactments, treated India more as a foreign country but little favoured, than as the most magnificent and dazzling jewel of the Imperial Crown. In times of peace, India and its affairs have been too often treated with an apathy not to be accounted for, till some new victory, some new nation, little heard of before, or if heard of not known, has lent its unwilling neck to our yoke; when the national vanity is flattered, its curiosity excited, and the prime minister of England declares at once the sovereign's and the nation's voice in applauding and rewarding the victors. But whenever our connexion with India was not adorned with some remarkable achievement, our ministers and legislators, unmindful of the tide of wealth which flowed from India to our shores, crushed the energies and redoubled the labours of her sons, by unwise and unjustly exorbitant duties on the fruits of

• Letter of Desch-u-lubun Ocharik, of Calcutta.-Indian Railways. Second Edition. By An Old Indian Postmaster.

those labours, and this gloriously free country held back, with all the freezing rigour of despotism, the advance of a mighty nation, in whose hands an all-wise Providence had placed its destinies in the career of social improvement, and suspended the development of the inexhaustible riches of its soil, by refusing to open its ports, excepting on the most cruel terms, to its valuable merchandise. While so little reciprocating the nature of our dealings with India, when thus refusing its products, our own manufactures were poured into it under a small and nearly nominal duty, to the annihilation of the native cotton fabrics, once so celebrated, and the total disappearance at last, in many instances, of all local manufacture. The Dacca muslins, those wonderful gossamers once so celebrated, have for years ceased to enchant the eyes of our fair country women in England, while the suburbs of the great eastern metropolis of the cotton trade where those exquisite specimens of the loom were produced are gradually merging in the jungle. Restraining with one hand the free labourer of the East, we encouraged with the other the slave owners of the West. These errors are now however partially repaired; but time presses onward, and much is still to be achieved by the most enlightened, the most moral and religious government in Europe, to elevate in the scale of nations the people of India.

Let the liberality and energy of the future, in peace as in war, make amends for the past. Fortunately for us no sentiment pervades the masses but that which Hindoo and Mussulman feel in commonthe instinctive and abiding conviction of the power, the beneficence and the permanency of our rule. This was demonstrated when the Government could raise money in loans during emergencies which appeared critical at five per cent., while the most respectable merchants were paying ten.

The interests of England and India are one; so intimate is the connection of the two countries, so great the commercial relations, so vast the stream of opulence which flows annually from India to our shores, whether as the proceeds of trade or the private fortunes of the Anglo-Indians, which are constantly being added to the general wealth.

Before addressing ourselves to the proposed analysis or examination of our immediate object, viz., the existing governmental machinery of India and its results, a few observations appear necessary to engage the attention of the general reader, by demonstrating to him the magnitude of the interests involved in the good or evil government of that

country. It is very true that to any person acquainted, through study or service, with the history and statistics of that Empire such preliminary information may be unnecessary. But how far or wide is such information diffused? Not many years ago one of our most accomplished writers and speakers, and at one time a cabinet minister, avowed his conviction that not one in ten of our most highly educated gentlemen had the faintest conception of those incidents in Indian history which would compare with the victories of Alfred or the landing of the Conqueror in our domestic annals. But for ten of such persons who may be acquainted with the deeds of Munro, of Clive, or of Lake, or who might haply track the rise and fall of the Mahrattas or the Sikhs, or trace the dynastic fortunes of Oude or Hyderabad, could one be found who could describe the different modes of assessment in the several Presidencies, and the reason why the Bengal Sepoy, in so many hard-fought fields a brave and loyal soldier, should yet at the mere mention of going beyond the seas, forget his duty and desert his colours, or was aware of, much less be able to explain, the ancient and admirable municipal institutions of India, which have contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people through all the changes and revolutions they have suffered ? Nor can imagination here supply the place of knowledge. "Though India is too remote to be appreciated, it is too familiar to be dazzling. The old fables of gold and rubies have vanished under the scrutiny and experience of a century, and the realities of unbounded resources and prodigious productiveness have not yet supplied the void. There may be no diamonds at Golconda, but there is the worth of a ship-load of diamonds in the cotton fields of the Deccan."

No subject was ever more entitled to consideration, whether as a domestic or Imperial question, yet, true it is, that ever since the days of Burke, India has been the dinner-bell of the House of Commons, and there were moments even during the debate in April last, as was remarked by an honourable member, "when there were hardly members enough to make a House," yet the subject involved the interest of upwards of 100,000,000 of our fellow-beings, a population which might, indeed, fairly be extended, if we include tributaries, to 150,000,000-a larger population than has ever been, in modern times at least, entrusted to the government of a single sceptre.

The apathy and prejudice regarding all that relates to India is too notorious to dwell upon. Questions affecting the happiness and interests of a hundred millions of our fellow-subjects, and indirectly

our own prosperity and power, cannot command the attention of either House of Parliament half so readily as the report of a row in Covent Garden, or the reiterated description of the merits of an exploded invention.

This indifference results inevitably from unacquaintance with the greatest and most magnificent of our Imperial dependencies; hence the necessity is apparent of an acquaintance with her history, her people, and her resources, as the first step towards forming an enlightened judgment on the government and requirements of India.

In this place it is obvious we can only glance at a few of the facts and circumstances of paramount importance.

When we reflect on the pre-eminence we have attained as a nation, both for political sagacity and an enlarged philanthropy, the neglect with which we have treated, in some respects, our Indian dominions and subjects, cannot but be matter of surprise, if not of indignation; and this surprise is by no means lessened when England is regarded as the great centre of the world's commerce: her sons wise, brave, and humane, yet ever in the van of commercial enterprise with an energy of purpose which secures to them success, whether they pant and toil in the luxuriant fields of a tropical clime, or patiently, as fishermen, pursue a precarious commerce in the frozen regions of the north, where the womb of nature is for ever sealed.

(To be continued.)