right when he says he could levy a million extra from salt with less practical oppression on the people than he could raise 100,000l. by a new local direct cess. And I am quite sure the people of Bengal would like the payment of the million on that wise better than the payment of the 100,000l. There is nothing for India like taxes few in number, but of productive amounts; and when the Government of India tries merely to shuffle off responsibility in this manner, it can be only accepted as an unmistakable indication that they are at their wits' end to make both ends meet. And that is the honest, simple truth of the whole matter.

I will now, finally, sketch a policy for India as it may be.'

Suppose we determine that we will support no more tyrants and no more tyrannies in India, and that we resolve that our subsidiary princes shall be constitutional sovereigns. Take Hyderabad as a first example, as there the Treasury is presided over by European officers now. Suppose we insisted on the entire disbanding of the private Mussulman and Arab army-that we then abolished our subsidiary force, and kept only a division of the Queen's forces in occupation of Hyderabad. In place of a triple army we should have one, and we should make the Hyderabad revenues pay for the British division in occupation. Suppose next we set aside a Civil List for the Nizam's personal maintenance, and took care, through our European Treasury officers, that not another rupee of public money reached his pocket. This Civil List might be ample, on a larger scale compared to revenue than that of the Autocrat of All the Russias. The administration of the province might still be left entirely in the hands of the Nizam and his native Ministers. The state revenues, minus his own salary and the cost of the British division of occupation, would be large, and would be dis

posable for the administration of justice, police, education, tanks, irrigation, railways, roads, canals, letterpost, telegraphs, forest conservancy, agriculture. The disposable revenue in states thus circumstanced would be very large; and if the subsidiary prince was once thoroughly relieved from his notions about a private army, there is every reason to believe he would take up some of these healthy forms of Government expenditure. Some of the Madras subsidiary princes do now.

Suppose a similar state of things were established in Scindia's territory, and in all the subsidiary territories lying within our ring fence. A careful distinction between the annexation of an island enclosed in our own area and the conquest of an outlying state like Nepal or Birmah should be preserved. At present Scindia spends nothing except on his army or on his own pleasures. Possibly he might not care to do the work of a constitutional sovereign ; but if he would not, I would let him sink into a landholder.

Supposing these reforms carried out, instead of 55,000 English and 150,000 native troops, we should require about 65,000 English and 60,000 native troops; but about 10,000 of the English and 15,000 of the native troops would be paid for by the local subsidiary states they occupied. I do not propose that a man of the native army should be disbanded, but that recruiting should be absolutely stopped till the reduction required was reached. The time has arrived for a consolidation of the Empire; and if the abovesketched change in policy were carried out, it would be looking our deficit fairly in the face.

There is no more favourite theory spouted' in England about India than that we are educating the country in self-government, and that when we see she is able to take care of herself we shall walk out. There are numberless ways of exhibiting the unsubstantiality of this theory,

of which I give two-one proceeding on theoretic grounds, the other on practical.

The most differentiated (i.e. the most improved) organism is also the most differentiable (i.e. improvable). There was a certain gap between the Englishman and the Hindu in 1770 -what progress have the English nation made in the past century, and what have the Hindu? Think of arts, manufactures, science, the progress of public opinion in every subject. The Hindu is virtually unaltered. Whatever gap there was between the nations in 1770, there is thrice as great a one in 1870, and there will be ten times as great a one in

1970.

Secondly. There is the practical proof. Suppose the Queen's Government and troops were withdrawn tomorrow, who would govern the country? The Hindus? No: the English reader knows better than that, and says the Mussulmans. But does the Englishman who has never been out of Europe reflect that there are tens of thousands of English who are denizens in India, who are reconciled to the country, whose whole fortunes are bound up in the country? What would they do were Britain to abandon India? They would have a committee meeting in Calcutta, take volunteers from the departing regiments or from merchant seamen, they would slip into the Government of the country without the slightest disturbance the ordinary natives would never understand what had happened any better than they did the transfer from John Company to the Crown. A large section of the English in India would be very glad to see England abandon India to-morrow, for they think they could manage the country far better without home interference. This talk about educating and abandoning India is reproduced in Calcutta, and reported by baboos who have visited England as the really adopted theory there. But no harm

is done: the Bengalee has come to think that the English are nearly as great at talking high sentiments and beautiful feelings as he is himself, and he knows that the real sentiment and feeling of every Englishman in India is-With our own good sword we took the land, and with that sword we will hold it, come pandy, Russian, or devil.

However this question of the ultimate future of India be regarded, it will be no reason for not transforming our subsidiary tyrants into subsidiary constitutional sovereigns. Those who believe in educating India up and then abandoning her should surely, above all others, approve the policy advocated in this article.

The Liberal party in England are very tender over subsidiary princes, no one more so than worthy John Bright; and they have no scruple about multiplying taxes on the people in order to maintain these puppet vassals, and to supply to them the means for great personal extravagance and for keeping a turbulent soldiery. The income-tax, the salttax, the customs, the court fees and local rates, that is to say our most objectionable taxes, ought to be regarded as supplying directly part of the cost of the Nizam's and Scindia's hordes. The Liberal mind of England may perhaps consistently continue to regard this system as true liberality and real generosity towards the peoples of India. Residents in India will rather regard it as a vain and empty pluming of ourselves on being liberal and generous with trust property placed in our hands. English Liberal writers, from Lord Macaulay downwards, have attacked the great Indian heroes of last century for their treatment of conquered princes. But it may fairly be asked, Did not these great men see their true duty to the people of India more clearly than we do? If we had a Warren Hastings in power but for six months, we should hear no more of the Indian deficit.

IN

N the spring last year a sketch with the above title appeared in this Magazine. The Irish Land Bill was under discussion in the House of Commons. English prejudice and English ignorance were busy with the reputation of the unfortunate country, clamorous with despair of its amendment by that or any other measure. I thought that at such a time a record of my own experience in Ireland might contribute, if infinitesimally little, towards setting her condition in a truer light -towards showing how among the darker features there were redeeming traits of singular interest and attractiveness. Pleased with my own performance and intending to continue it, I trusted that if my friends in Kerry did not approve of all that I said, they would at least recognise my goodwill. How great was my surprise to find that I was regarded as an intruder into business which was none of mine, affecting English airs of insolent superiority, and under pretence of patronage turning the county and its inhabitants into ridicule! Struck by the absence of petty vices among the peasantry, their simplicity of habit, and the control for good which was exercised over them by the priests, I had said rashly that religion in Kerry appeared to me to mean the knowledge of right and wrong, and to mean little besides. What dark insinuations the writer never dreamt of may be discovered in an unguarded word! By 'little besides I had myself intended to imply that no Fenian sermons were to be heard in the chapels there, that no hatred was preached against England or English landlords there, the subjects believed on this side St.

George's Channel to be eternally inculcated in Catholic pulpits. Our excellent priest at Tuosist-I take this opportunity of apologising to him-declared in the county papers that he was cut to the heart; that he had suffered many wrongs in life, but never one that had afflicted him so deeply as the insinuation that his flock learnt nothing from him but the obligations of morality. He must excuse the English stupidity, the English preference for the practical results of religion, which betrayed me into forgetfulness of its mysteries. He was able, as will appear in the sequel, to punish me with kindness, and to show that at least I had not overrated his practical authority.

But this was the least of my offences. I had stirred a hornets' nest. In describing the manners of a past generation I had sketched the likeness of a once notorious character in the neighbourhood. To avoid mentioning his real name I looked over a list of Irish chiefs, three centuries old, and called him at hazard Morty O'Sullivan. A dozen living Morty O'Sullivans, and the representatives of a dozen more who were dead, clamorously appropriated my description, while they denounced the inaccuracy of its details.

More seriously, I had used expressions about the Liberator' for which I was called to account by a member of his family. 'The Liberator,' I conceive, made himself the property of the public. I do not think he was a friend to Ireland. If he cast out one devil in carrying Catholic Emancipation he let loose seven others, which must be chained again before England and Ireland can work in harmony.

His invectives never spared others, either alive or dead; and I see no cause why I or anyone may not express our thoughts freely about him. If the anecdotes of his forefathers, which remain among the traditions of the coast, are untrue or exaggerated, I meant no dishonour to the past or present owner of Derrynane. In the days of high duties, English gentlemen who lived on the coast were not particular how they filled their wine cellars; the restrictions inflicted by English selfishness on Irish trade in the last century erected smuggling into patriotism; and if the O'Connells on the shore of the Atlantic submitted quietly to the despotism of the officers of the revenue, tamer blood ran in their veins than might have been expected from the character of their famous representative.

Anyhow I had given mortal offence where I had least thought of offending. I was an instance in my own person of the mistakes which Englishmen seem doomed to make when they meddle, however lightly, with this singular people. I hesitated to take another step on so dangerous a soil, especially as (let me drop my disguise, and acknowledge myself as the tenant of the spot to which I described myself as a visitor) especially as my lease was unexpired. I had another season before me in the scene of my delinquency; and courteous as the Irish uniformly show themselves to strangers who have nothing to do with them, they are credited with disagreeable tendencies when they consider themselves injured. It was hinted to me that I should be a brave man if I again ventured into Kerry. The storm was renewed in America-files were forwarded to me of the Irish Republic, in which I was denounced as a representative of the hereditary enemies of Ireland. And though I found a friend there -let me offer him my cordial thanks -himself an exile, having loved his

country not wisely, but too well, who could yet listen patiently to an Englishman who loved her too, but did not love her faults, I held it but prudence to suspend the prosecution of my enterprise till the summer should have again passed, and we birds of passage had migrated to our winter homes.

We went back to Derreen in spite of warnings, but our hearts beat uneasily as we approached the charmed neighbourhood. At Mallow, where we changed carriages, a gigantic O'Connell was sternly pacing the platform. I felt relieved when he passed our luggage without glancing at the address. The clouds on the mountain tops seemed to frown ominously. The first thing that met our eyes at the hotel where we stopped to luncheon was a denunciatory paragraph in a local paper. When we arrived at our beautiful home a canard reached us that we had been censured, if not denounced, at a neighbouring Catholic chapel. The children at the National School, for whom in past years we had provided an occasional holiday entertainment, had been forbidden, it was whispered, to come near us any more. For a few days

such was the effect of a guilty conscience—we imagined the people were less polite to us. The Good evening kindly' of the peasant coming home from his work, the sure sign of genuine goodwill, seemed less frequent than silence or an inaudible mutter. Fewer old women than usual brought their sore legs to be mended or pitied, fewer family quarrels were brought to us to arbitrate, interminable disputes about grass of a cow' or the interpretation of a will where a ragged testator had bequeathed an interest in a farm over which he had no more power than over a slice of the moon.

the

One day, so active is fancy in the uneasy atmosphere of Ireland, we conceived that we had been 'visited.' On a misty Sunday afternoon, when the servants about the place had

gone to the dance,' and we were alone in the house watching the alternate play of fog and sunlight on the lake, there appeared round the angle of a rock on the gravel walk before the windows a group of strangers. Going out to enquire their business, I found myself in the presence of ten or twelve men, not one of whose faces I recognised. I asked what they wanted. One of them said they were looking at the place, which was obvious without their information. I suggested that the grounds were private - they should have asked leave. He replied, as I thought, with an odd smile, that he saw no occasion for it. And when I insisted that there was occasion, and that if he put it in that way they must go away, the rest looked enquiringly at their leader, as if to ask whether they should make me understand practically that I was not in England. He hesitated, and, after a pause, moved off, and his companions followed. I found afterwards they were boys from beyond the mountains, out holiday-making. They had meant to pic-nic in the woods, and, looking on me as an interloper, had not troubled themselves to remember

my existence. My alarms were utterly groundless; but we had been reading Realities of Irish Life, and our heads were full of chimæras.

Something had been amiss, but there was more smoke than fire. Our kind priest, when he understood at last that I had meant him no ill, but had rather intended to compliment him, forgave me on the score of 'invincible ignorance.' He had vindicated himself before the diocese in the Chronicle, and could now admit that I was no worse than a stupid John Bull. We held our feast of reconciliation, at which he was generously present, with the school children on the lawn. They leapt, raced, wrestled, jumped in sacks, climbed greasy poles, and the rest of it a hundred stout little fel

lows with as many of their sisters ; four out of five of the boys to grow up, thanks to the paternal wisdom of our legislators, into citizens of the United States; the fifth to be a Fenian at home; the girls to be mothers of families on the Ohio or the Missouri, where the Irish race seems intended to close its eventful history and disappear in the American Republic.

Quit, then, of my self-made difficulties, I might resume my story where I let it fall, and fill in with more discretion the parts of my original canvas which I left untouched. Longer acquaintance with the county, however, presented other matters to me, of fresher, perhaps more serious, interest. I prefer therefore to wander on in somewhat desultory fashion.

I dropped my thread on the eve of the sportsman's festival-the day of sufficient consequence to be marked in almanacs-on which grouse-shooting commences.' The momentous event takes place in Ireland on the 20th of August. All things lag behind in the sister country, and even grouse and partridges do not attain their full size till England and Scotland have set the example. May Ireland in this department of her business lag behind for ever. The spoilt voluptuary of the Northern Moors, whose idea of sport is to stand behind a turf bank with a servant to load his guns for him, while an army of gillies drives the grouse in clouds over his head, will find few charms in the Kerry mountains. Cattle graze the lower slopes; sheep and goats fatten on the soft sweet herbage of the higher ridges, which snow rarely covers or frost checks, and the warm winds from the Gulf Stream keep perennially green. Each family in the valley has its right of pasture on one or other of the ranges for its cows or its flocks, and the boys and girls that watch them disturb the solitudes elsewhere