day submit to extortion as quietly as before.'
How could representative institutions be expected to work under such
conditions? They would have lacked the very foundation upon which alone
they can firmly rest: respect for law, and public co-operation in the
enforcement of it. Thus the supreme service which the government of
India could render to its people was the establishment and maintenance
of the Reign of Law, and of the liberty which it shelters. In such
conditions representative government would be liable to bring, not
liberty, but anarchy and the renewal of lawless oppression.

But although the extension of the representative system to India
neither was nor could be attempted in this age, very remarkable
advances were made towards turning India in a real sense into a
self-governing country. It ceased to be regarded or treated as a
subject dominion existing solely for the advantage of its conquerors.
That had always been its fate in all the long centuries of its history;
and in the first period of British rule the trading company which had
acquired this amazing empire had naturally regarded it as primarily a
source of profit. In 1833 the company was forbidden to engage in trade,
and the profit-making motive disappeared. The shareholders still
continued to receive a fixed dividend out of the Indian revenues, but
this may be compared to a fixed debt-charge, an annual payment for
capital expended in the past; and it came to an end when the company
was abolished in 1858. Apart from this dividend, no sort of tribute was
exacted from India by the ruling power. India was not even required to
contribute to the upkeep of the navy, which protected her equally with
the rest of the Empire, or of the diplomatic service, which was often
concerned with her interests. She paid for the small army which guarded
her frontiers; but if any part of it was borrowed for service abroad,
its whole pay and charges were met by Britain. She paid the salaries
and pensions of the handful of British administrators who conducted her
government, but this was a very small charge in comparison with the
lavish outlay of the native princes whom they had replaced. India had
become a self-contained state, whose whole resources were expended
exclusively upon her own needs, and expended with the most scrupulous
honesty, and under the most elaborate safeguards.

They were expended, moreover, especially during the later part of this
period, largely in equ