SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as hare not been
• seerred for review in other forms.]
A Short History of the British in India. By Arthur D. Innes (Methuen and Co. 7s. 6d.)—This "Short History" is written in a vigorous and effective style. Readers of Indian history are often in the habit of neglecting considerations which should influence our judgment of persons and events, the nature of its government, for instance, varying as it did from the simple trading company of the earliest time, with successive modifica- tions, down to the formal taking over of power by the Crown in 1853. To these Mr. Innes gives due prominence. Generally he gives a thoughtful and impartial account of the persons and the events of whom it is his business to write. It must be understood that he is a friend of the British rule. He sums up the case when he says that the " intelligent natives recognise in the British supremacy the only alternative to anarchy ; that they are alive to the need of some one Power whose paramountcy is beyond dispute; that they know that no other overlord would give them the same security, or tax them so lightly." They know it, but some of them will not say it. That there are inherent weak- nesses in the system must be conceded; the drain of money paid in pensions, &c., is one of them,—but the remedy is yet to be discovered. It must exist as long as India is governed by a non- Indian Power. Would the burden be lighter if it were imposed by the Russian or the French bureaucracy ? Let the malcontents begin with formulating their alternative.
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