the province of Bengal, where the rights conferred
on the zemindars under Lord Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement are still
respected in spite of occasional unwise suggestions that time and the
fall in the value of the rupee have obliterated any moral obligations to
maintain them. Nor are the results obtained in India altogether
dissimilar from those observable under Roman rule. The knowledge that
reassessment was imminent has, it is believed, often discouraged the
outlay of private capital on improving the land. More than this, it is
notorious that, at one time, some provinces suffered greatly from the
mistakes made by the settlement officers. These latter were animated
with the best intentions, but, in spite of their marked ability--for
they were all specially selected men--they often found the task
entrusted to them impossible of execution. Unfortunately political or
administrative errors cannot be condoned by reason of good intentions.
Like the Greeks of old, the natives of India suffer from the mistakes of
their rulers.

The intentions of the British, as compared with the Roman Government
are, however, noteworthy from one point of view, inasmuch as from a
correct appreciation of those intentions it is possible to evolve a
principle perhaps in some degree calculated to avert the consequences
which befell Rome, partly by reason of fiscal errors.

In spite of some high-sounding commonplaces which were at times
enunciated by Roman lawgivers and statesmen, and in which a ring of
utilitarian philosophy is to be recognised,[17] and of the further fact
that, as in the case of Verres, a check was sometimes applied to the
excesses of local Governors, it is almost certainly true that the rulers
of Rome did not habitually act on the recognition of any very strong
moral obligation binding on the Imperial Government in its treatment of
subject races. The merits of any fiscal system were probably judged
mainly from the point of view of the amount of funds which it poured
into the Treasury. The fiscal principles on which the Emperors of Rome
acted survived long after the fall of the Roman Empire. They deserve the
epithet of "barbarous" which Mr. Hodgkin has bestowed upon them.

The point of departure of the British Government is altogether
different. Its intentions are admirable. Every farthing which has been
spent--and, it may be feared, often wasted--on the numerous military
expeditions in which the Government of India has been