orthy
of his free race, lately declared that it would be hypocritical to pray
for victory over autocracy in Europe and to maintain it in India. Now it
has been clearly and definitely declared that Self-Government is to be
the objective of Great Britain in India, and that a substantial measure
of it is to be given at once; when this promise is made good by the
granting of the Reforms outlined last year in Lucknow, then the end of
the War will be in sight. For the War cannot end till the death-knell of
autocracy is sounded.

Causes, with which I will deal presently and for which India was not
responsible, have somewhat obscured the first eager expressions of
India's sympathy, and have forced her thoughts largely towards her own
position in the Empire. But that does not detract from the immense aid
she has given, and is still giving. It must not be forgotten that long
before the present War she had submitted--at first, while she had no
power of remonstrance, and later, after 1885, despite the constant
protests of Congress--to an ever-rising military expenditure, due partly
to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and partly to the cost of various
wars beyond her frontiers, and to continual recurring frontier and
trans-frontier expeditions, in which she had no real interest. They were
sent out for supposed Imperial advantages, not for her own.

Between 1859 and 1904--45 years--Indian troops were engaged in
thirty-seven wars and expeditions. There were ten wars: the two Chinese
Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the Abyssinian War of
1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the massacre of the Kabul
Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in an advance of the
frontier, in the search for an ever receding "scientific frontier"; on
this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, "from the line of
the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and from Peshawar
to Quetta"; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the Indian troops
markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese War of 1885 ending
in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the invasions of Tibet in 1890
and 1904. Of Expeditions, or minor Wars, there were 27; to Sitana in
1858 on a small scale and in 1863 on a larger (the "Sitana Campaign");
to Nepal and Sikkim in 1859; to Sikkim in 1864; a serious struggle on
the North-west Frontier in 1868; expeditions against the Lushais in
1871-72, the Daflas in 1874-75, the Nagas in 1875, the Afridis