ion in connection with this point is also of some
importance. It is that British officials in Eastern countries should be
encouraged by all possible means to learn the views and the requirements
of the native population. The establishment of mock parliaments tends
rather in the opposite direction, for the official on the spot sees
through the mockery and is not infrequently disposed to abandon any
attempt to ascertain real native opinion, through disgust at the
unreality, crudity, or folly of the views set forth by the putative
representatives of native society.

For these reasons it is important that, in our well-intentioned
endeavours to impregnate the Oriental mind with our insular habits of
thought, we should proceed with the utmost caution, and that we should
remember that our primary duty is, not to introduce a system which,
under the specious cloak of free institutions, will enable a small
minority of natives to misgovern their countrymen, but to establish one
which will enable the mass of the population to be governed according to
the code of Christian morality. A freely elected Egyptian Parliament,
supposing such a thing to be possible, would not improbably legislate
for the protection of the slave-owner, if not the slave-dealer, and no
assurance can be felt that the electors of Rajputana, if they had their
own way, would not re-establish suttee. Good government has the merit of
presenting a more or less attainable ideal. Before Orientals can attain
anything approaching to the British ideal of self-government they will
have to undergo very numerous transmigrations of political thought.

The question of local self-government may be considered from another,
and almost equally important point of view.

When writers such as M. Demolins speak of the "particularist" system of
England and of the "communitarian" system prevalent on the continent of
Europe, they generally mean to contrast the British plan of acting
through the agency of private individuals with the Continental practice
of relying almost entirely on the action of the State. This is the
primary and perhaps the most important signification of the two phrases,
but the principles which these phrases are intended to represent admit
of another application.

It is difficult for those Englishmen who have not been brought into
business relations with Continental officials to realise the extreme
centralisation of their administrative and diplomatic procedures.