ugurs well for the future. India has not yet, of course, by any means
grasped the full significance of representative government. The party
system is still in embryo, although two somewhat vague and nebulous
parties calling themselves the "Nationalists" and the "Democrats" do
exist. But these parties have no clear-cut programme, and they do not
follow the lead of the Ministers, who are regarded, not as representing
the elected members of the Council, but as newly-appointed additional
members of the official bureaucracy. There will doubtless in time be
gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two
unbridgeable gulfs in the Indian social system which must always
militate against the building up of a solid political party system:
first, the gulf between Hindu and Moslem, which still yawns as wide as
ever, and second, the gulf between the Brahman and the "untouchables"
who, by the way, have found their fears that they would be downtrodden
under the new Councils completely baseless.

There are and must be breakers ahead. Some we can see, and there are
doubtless others still bigger which we cannot yet glimpse over the
welter of troubled waters. What we can see is this: first, there is a
danger that unless Government and the Councils together can before the
next elections in 1923-24 take definite steps towards the industrial
development and the self-defence of India, the extremist party are
likely to come in in full force and to create a deadlock in the
administration; second, unless the Councils continue to accept a fiscal
policy in accordance with the general interests of Great Britain and the
Empire, there will be trouble. The fiscal position is obscure, but it is
the crux, for the Councils can indirectly stultify any policy
distasteful to them, and this too may mean a deadlock; third, there is a
danger that the Indianisation of the Services will advance much more
rapidly than was ever contemplated, or than is desirable in the
interests of India for many years to come, for the simple reason that
capable young Englishmen of the right stamp will not, without adequate
guarantees for their future, accept employment in India. Those
guarantees can be given satisfactorily by one authority alone, and that
is by the Indian Legislatures voicing popular opinion. For a complex
administration bristling with technical questions, administrative,
political, and economic, it is essential that India should have for ma