mitted with gratitude and respect to every act of the government. Times are changed, and are fearfully changing; but it is our own fault: the spirit of improvement, or rather innovation, which we so zealously support, will by and by recoil on our own heads; then will exclaim the wise men of the west, "Dear me, who would have thought it ?"

One parting word in good fellowship to all parties in politics and sects in religions: while we treat our subjects in India with kindness and care, let us not forget that prudence and vigilance, which alone can ensure our permanent dominion in the vast Oriental continent, and bear in mind, that what may be a blessing to Great Britain may be a curse to India.

As much misapprehension exists in England as to the state of society in India, I purpose offering in my next chapter a brief but accurate statement of society in that country, by which we shall see how incompatible a free press is with the order of things in our Oriental possessions.

FF

CHAPTER XVIII.

Popular notions-Divisions of Society in India-Civil and Military Officers-Reform-Local Governments-British PressAnglo Indians.

ALTHOUGH the particular question involved in the late discussions at the India House respecting the press in our Asiatic possessions may be considered to have been set at rest, by the decision passed by the Court of Proprietors on the 23d July, and the attention of the public has been since drawn to the subject generally in different papers which have been submitted to them; still it may be advisable further to consider, whether a free press in India is calculated to produce those advantages which the advocates for it so confidently anticipate, or whether it may not rather be productive of quite a contrary effect.

In every discussion of this nature, those who stand forward as the advocates of a free press, or of any other general privilege or immunity, have, at the onset at least, a decided advantage over their opponents. The former have only to embel. lish their speeches or writings with some general reflections on the liberty of the people, and with a few pointed paragraphs against arbitrary autho

rity, and they may rest assured that, in a country like this, their discourses will by many be well received, however deficient in solid argument or correct information. Those, on the contrary, who profess themselves advocates for any restrictions in India, to which the mind is not accustomed in this country, have to contend against impressions received in early youth, and afterwards nurtured and kept alive by popular feeling and free institutions to the last hour of existence. These circumstances, however, only render it the more essential dispassionately to consider, whether, in the actual condition of the people of India, that dependency of the empire is really fitted for discussions similar to those with which the press abounds in this country.

The question may be examined, first, with reference to the Europeans; and secondly, with regard to the natives of India, who may continually engage in discussions of that nature, embracing, as they obviously would do, the political connexion subsisting between Great Britain and India, the system of government established in the latter country, our relations with the different states of Asia, and the internal administration of our own territories by the local governments. It cannot, I say, be unimportant to consider whether either or both of the two classes of persons abovementioned are qualified by education, study, and experience, to engage in discussions so closely

connected with the dearest and most important interests both of the parent state and of its Asiatic dependencies.

With respect to the British subjects who resort to India, they may be subdivided with sufficient precision for the present occasion into four, viz., The Civil Functionaries; 2d, Military Officers; 3d, Gentlemen of the legal profession, and substantial Merchants; and 4th, Adventurers in any line of life by which they can obtain the means of subsistence.

A few lines will perhaps suffice to show that all those classes of persons are either precluded by their situation in life from engaging with advantage and propriety in discussions of the above nature, or are disqualified for the task by the want of knowledge and information, both local and general.

With respect to the first class of persons above mentioned, there is no country in the world in which the civil officers of government have such laborious and incessant duties to perform as in India. Admitting, therefore, what cannot indeed be disputed, that many of them are persons of cultivated minds and superior talents, it must be manifest, that few, if any, of them can find leisure from their official avocations to write for the press. Exclusively of this consideration, their actual situation as public functionaries disqualifies them for discussions of the nature of those which the

present remarks bear upon. It would not, I presume, be deemed very decent, or becoming in a Secretary to the Government, a Member of one of the Courts of Judicature, a Magistrate, or any other public functionary, to employ his pen in. animadverting upon the conduct or measures of the government by which he was himself employed. Neither is it desirable that he should exhibit himself to the public as its advocate or defender, as such procedure must always wear the aspect of adulation and unqualified subjection to authority.

If the civil servants of the Company be restrained, by the considerations above-mentioned, from engaging in publications of a political nature, still less should its military officers, while on duty, in India, occupy themselves with discussions and controversies of that description. It may not, perhaps, be universally known in this country, that the whole of the forces in India, both European and native, are uniformly kept embodied. and prepared for actual service. The natural and honourable duty of persons so situated is to defend the state with their arms; leaving the conduct of those who are invested with the immediate government of the country to the superintendence of the authorities which have been established in England by the Legislature expressly for that salutary purpose.

No country is more distinguished than India by