he contrast between the people of India today and of a century
ago is all but complete in this respect. While the educational
institutions of the land are revolutionizing the thought, the more
material elements of civilization are transforming the outer life of the
people.

England also is imparting to India the Anglo-Saxon conception of right, of
law and of justice. In order to know how widely apart the East and West
were in this respect, one should live in India a few years. The idea of
equal rights to all the people, of freedom of speech, of liberty of
conscience and of other similar rights which are regarded as elementary
and fundamental in the West, was all but foreign to India when England
established her power there. That the government itself should treat high
and low, the poor ryot and the wealthy rajah, the ignorant Pariah and the
cultured Brahman as one in their claim for right and protection, for
justice and for favour, seemed to the Hindu absurd. It is one of the best
commentaries on British justice and administration in India, that the
people have now come not only to regard it with satisfaction, but also as
an indispensable condition of their life.

The blessings of peace also are among the greatest which England has
conferred upon India. "Pax Britanica" is equally known and loved today in
India and in the British Isles. From time immemorial India had been torn
asunder, not only by internecine wars, but also by numerous attacks from
the peoples of other countries. India has always been a prey both to the
decimating wars of her own unjust and ambitious tyrants, and mutually
antagonistic castes and tribes; she has also been the easy victim of any
hardy, enlightened, ambitious people who sought to invade her. The
presence of Great Britain in India has been a voice commanding peace to
its troubled and exhausted people. With a strong hand she has put down
injustice of tribe against tribe and made impossible inter-tribal wars and
raids. She has brought rest such as India never before enjoyed and has
given safety to the most harmless and innocent classes, as she has peace
to the most warlike and aggressive in the land. This great land of the
East has thus had opportunities to grow and to develop in many of the most
essential characteristics of individual and national progress. These
blessings would have been impossible apart from the peace which Great
Britain assured and wrought out for the land.

In connectio