logical and statistical reasons for the
measures they propose, and are thus able to make them attractive to,
and believed in by, the authorities. But they lack the more perfect
knowledge of human nature, and the deeper insight into, and greater
sympathy with, the feelings and prejudices of Asiatics, which those
possessed in a remarkable degree who proved by their success that they
had mastered the problem of the best form of government for India.
I allude to men like Thomas Munro, Mountstuart Elphinstone, John
Malcolm, Charles Metcalfe, George Clerk, Henry and John Lawrence,
William Sleeman, James Outram, Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and
many others. These administrators, while fully recognizing the need
for a gradual reform, understood the peculiarities of our position
in the east, the necessity for extreme caution and toleration, and a
'live and let live' policy between us and the Natives. The sound and
broad views of this class of public servant are not always appreciated
either in India or England, and are too often put aside as
unpractical, obstructive, and old-fashioned.

Amongst the causes which have produced discontent of late years,
I would mention our forest laws and sanitary regulations, our
legislative and fiscal systems--measures so necessary that no
one interested in the prosperity of India could cavil at their
introduction, but which are so absolutely foreign to Native ideas,
that it is essential they should be applied with the utmost gentleness
and circumspection.

I think, also, that the official idea of converting the young Princes
and Nobles of India into English gentlemen by means of English tutors
and English studies should be carried out with great care and caution.
It has not hitherto invariably succeeded, and the feeling in many
States is strongly opposed to it. The danger of failure lies in the
wholesome restraint of the tutor being suddenly removed, and in the
young Prince being left at too early an age to select his advisers and
companions. The former, perhaps not unnaturally, are interested
in proving that the training of their young Ruler by his European
governor or tutor has not resulted in good either to himself or his
people, while the latter are too often of the lowest class of European
adventurers.

The proceedings and regulations of the Forest Department, desirable
as they may be from a financial and agricultural point of view, have
provoked very great irritation in many parts