Sir Bampfylde Fuller has a striking letter in Tuesday's Times
on the connexion between the unrest in Bengal and the position of the Indian Civil Service. The attempts now being made to disestablish the Service and break up its solidarity on the ground that it has outlived its usefulness, and that the time has now come to entrust the administration of India to officials less firmly compacted by esprit de corps and more amenable to political influence, he regards as a huge mistake. The Indian Civil Service may be open to criticism, but it possesses one immense advantage : " It presents to the people of India a Government of continuity, of dispassionate determination—in fact, a Government that they can respect." Sir Bampfylde Fuller adds the trenchant observation: "Few races but the Anglo-Saxon will obey an authority which they do not admire." Our Indian policy, he continues, has been one of alternate doses of " cane and jam ": the native press has been censured, while a notable protagonist of unrest has been made much of at home. Special laws have been passed to strengthen the Executive, with the ludicrous qualification of an appeal to the High Court of Calcutta, which ever since the days of Warren Hastings has always posed as the antagonist of the Executive Government.
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