in the districts are municipalities which have local magistrates
and councils, commissioners, district and local boards and other
bodies for various purposes similar to those of our county and
city organizations. The elective franchise is being extended in
more or less degree, according to circumstances, all over India,
suffrage being conferred upon taxpayers only. The municipal boards
have care of the roads, water supply, sewerage, sanitation, public
lighting, markets, schools, hospitals and other institutions
and enterprises of public utility. They impose taxes, collect
revenues and expend them subject to the approval of the provincial
governments. In all of the large cities a number of Englishmen
and other foreigners are members of boards and committees and
take an active part in local administration, but in the smaller
towns and villages the government is left entirely to natives,
who often show conspicuous capacity.

The policy of Lord Curzon has been to extend home rule and
self-government as rapidly and as far as circumstances will justify.
The population of India is a dense, inert, ignorant, depraved and
superstitious mass of beings whose actions are almost entirely
controlled by signs and omens, and by the dictation of the Brahmin
priests. They are therefore not to be trusted with the control
of their own affairs, but there is a gradual and perceptible
improvement in their condition, which is encouraged by the
authorities in every possible way. And as fast as they show
themselves competent they are trusted with the responsibility
of the welfare of themselves and their neighbors. The habitual
attitude of the Hindu is crouching upon the ground. The British
government is trying to raise him to a standing posture, to make
him a man instead of the slave of his superstitions.

No one can visit India, no one can read its history or study
its statistics, without admitting the success and recognizing
the blessings of British occupation. The government has had its
ups and downs. There have been terrible blunders and criminal
mistakes, which we are in danger of repeating in the Philippine
Islands, but the record of British rule during the last
half-century--since the Sepoy mutiny, which taught a valuable
lesson at an awful cost--has been an almost uninterrupted and
unbroken chapter of peace, progress and good government. Until
then the whole of India never submitted to a single ruler. For
nearly a thousand years it wa