The horse which from foalhood has led a natural life in the open, with access to reasonable shelter, is the horse which grows up sound and capable of resisting the extremes which try his constitution when he is put into harness.

I most strongly urge the man who wishes to breed good Hackneys, to save the money he might lay out on elaborate stabling and horse-clothing, and spend it paying the service fees of the best stallion he can find. There is not a brick stable in the Elsenham paddocks; all are wooden structures proof against wind and rain, and the doors stand open always; thus we succeed in rearing sound and hardy stock.

Every one can understand and sympathise with the sporting instinct which tempts the farmer to try and breed a hunter. If he has a good hunter mare-and by "good" I mean a young, sound, well-shaped and roomy mare, by all means let him send her to a Thoroughbred or Hunter sire with bone if there be one within reach; but hunter breeding is something in the nature of a lottery; the mare may throw a foal which looks like making a hunter; on the other hand she may not. The hunter is no longer a true breed in England; time was when men hunted stallions, and thus we had true hunter breeding-stock.

Entire horses have not for many years been seen in the hunting-field, and would not be welcome if brought out; thus the old race of true-bred hunters described by writers of eighty and a hundred years ago has disappeared, and we cannot be sure that the produce of any mating will be a horse capable of carrying a man across country.

With the Hackney it is a different matter. Here we have an animal which breeds true to type-the best type of harnesshorse; it is, of course, the case that the famous Norfolk trotters were ridden in their road races and were therefore classed as saddle-horses; but in the generations during which the Hackney has been bred since, the conformation of the breed has undergone little change.

The modern Hackney is, perhaps, a little longer in the barrel as becomes a harness-horse; but in all other essentials he remains the same, and each succeeding generation follows its ancestor; the breed is "constant," and the breeder can depend upon the produce being a carriage-horse.

In these days there is far larger demand for horses for driving than for riding; and this offers a strong reason for devoting money and skill to the breeding of Hackneys rather than saddle-horses. A good carriage-horse will always find a purchaser at a price that will remunerate the breeder, whereas a good saddle-horse, if he is not a trained and proved hunter, will bring very little.

The time is very favourable to the intending breeder; last summer I had occasion to make inquiry into the subject, and I found that prices for horses of all descriptions-other than nondescripts-had risen; a fact which may, in some degree at least, be attributed to over-haste in abandoning the industry.

It was thought that the motor-car would ruin the horse market, and many ceased breeding; the event proved that we were not producing more horses than we require, or prices would not have risen.

I unhesitatingly advise those who contemplate horse-breeding to devote their attention to breed the best carriage-horses; this can only be done by treating a Hackney sire with a Hackney mare-but if sizatte carriage-horses are required then a Hackney sire upon a thoroughbred, or a three parts breed, big roomy

mare.

The French and German horse-breeders purchase annually at the Hackney Show held at the Agricultural Hall, London, large numbers of Hackney stallions, and it is almost certain that during the year as many stallions as mares find their way to France, Germany and America.

WALTER GILBEY.

INDIA THROUGH FRENCH GLASSES

M. JOSEPH CHAILLEY has seen us in India, and he has come back to bless, not to blame, and he is a man of much eminence, a publicist of the French colonial school, who has since 1906 represented one of the divisions of Vendée in the Chamber of Deputies. Moreover, he has made a long and special study of the methods of government in British dependencies, in 1892 published his well-known work La Colonisation de l'Indo-Chine, and twice since that day has visited India, charged with a mission to study our administrative systems, as a standard for comparison with those of the French colonies.

Then in 1909 he published his work on The Administrative Problems of British India (Messrs. Macmillan and Co.), and translated into English by Sir William Meyer, K.C.I.E., of the Indian Civil Service, who dedicated the volume to Lord Morley, "who in troublous times has guided the destinies of the British Empire in India with unflinching courage and far-seeing statesmanship."

It may at least be claimed for M. Chailley that his mental equipment, experience, and general qualifications are not inferior to those of a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and his impartiality is greater, for he did not, like Mr. Keir Hardie, before starting for India announce that he was "going to let light in on the dark places of Indian government" or "to deal," with that slaughterous intention which the late Lord Salisbury ascribed to the word, "with the official [i.e., AngloIndian] caste, under which we hold the natives in the bondage of subjection."

Only those who have been occupied in the uphill task of making known in England the elementary facts of Indian administration are aware to what extent the minds of the British people

have been poisoned against their fellow countrymen and British rule in India, and there can be no doubt that the action of the self-styled Friends of India in the last Parliament was of the utmost assistance to the seditious party, and to the enemies of England in the East. There are some here at home who endeavour to stem the stream of ignorant denunciation and sentimental depreciation of the British in India, but evidence from a Continental neighbour, who is by no means unready to criticise when fault can fairly be found, is of special value. It is therefore most satisfactory to learn that he saw much to approve and admire, and little to condemn in our administration, that where we have fallen into error he thinks partial failure was almost unavoidable, and that in no case does he suggest or hint, far less allege, that our motives have been other than such as should inspire an honourable people engaged in a beneficent enterprise.

In the space which offers it is only possible to briefly summarise, analyse, and to some extent quote, the conclusions at which M. Chailley arrives, and it is obviously desirable to select cases which have formed the subject of severe criticism, what though such criticism be founded, as it too often is, on ignorance, and sometimes, on ill-faith. To begin with the police. Instead of being impressed by their inefficiency, which position is a plank in the Congress platform, in order to explain away the assistance sedition has received from Brahmins and high-caste natives, who have been accused and convicted of complicity, M. Chailley sympathises with the force and with the executive Government in "the difficulty they experience owing to the exacting standards of high courts in matters of evidence." "The lower tribunals," he says, "which are near the native population, and the magistrates of the first instance, who are largely native, know the customs of the country, and content themselves with proofs which rest on what one might call common sense. The superior courts have another standard, which often renders conviction impossible." "The Executive," he continues, “asks for remedies, and is supported in this by the bulk of native opinion, but not by the babus, by the men of the universities and Bar, or men of the Radical Party in England." Substitute for "Radical Party" "left wing of the Radical Party," and this is Gospel truth, but all through the last Parlia

ment every obstacle at command was placed by the Congress clique in the way of the Government in performing its primary duty of suppressing sedition and bringing offenders its justice.

Again, the police is of all departments of Government that in which there are fewest Europeans and most natives. The men are recruited from all classes of the population, and if they are indeed hopelessly corrupt and unfit for their duties, as the advanced Indians and their representatives in England contend, then there is no escape from the conclusion that natives of India are unfit for self-government, or even for the lowest rungs of the self-government ladder. Not that I say this; far from it; but neither do I, nor do the responsible heads of the administration in India, accept the Congress view of the police.

Turn now to the question of the separation of judicial and executive functions, which are to an extremely limited extent, as M. Chailley shows, performed by one and the same officer in certain cases, according to a system universal in the East, which, moreover, we inherited from our predecessors in title. The system leads to no abuses, and is only attacked in order to impair the position of the District Officer, and not because justice is not done between man and man. "Anglo-Indian courts," says M. Chailley, "are not inferior to those of any other country. Miscarriages of justice are rare. The native Press would be delighted to seize on judicial scandals, but can mention very few." Indeed, he is unkind enough to add that "the chief evil of our judicial system is the prodigious number of lawyers, who are sucking the substance of the people." Now these lawyers are the backbone of the advanced Reform Party, and under the system which obtained before the passing into law of Lord Morley's Indian Councils Act practically none but they were ever appointed to the Legislative Councils. Fortunately this evil is now to a great extent remedied.

M. Chailley has only two adverse criticisms to make upon our judicial system. He says "it is too slow, though no slower than elsewhere, and too costly." These criticisms may be allowed, and, indeed, the Secretary of State and the Government of India have been busily occupied of late in providing for expediting the wheels of Justice. Of course, as M. Chailley avers, "the system is too complicated, and simplification would be agreeable to the mass of