The new Indian Frontier Province created by Lord Curzon was
opened last Saturday with great military display. All native chiefs and notables were assembled, slid Colonel Deane, the first Chief Commissioner, made thehi a speech specially exhorting them to give up their jealousies. He said the principles.of law by which the Province is to be governed will remain unaltered, but it appears that the Province is to be administered in the old " non-regulation" way, under which the individual will and capacity of the administering officers have much freer play. This has roused once more an old Controversy in India, where a section of the governing Service has always maintained that a regime of strict law works better than a system which must depend upon individual capacity and zeal. We believe it does if the first object of government is to let wealth grow, but if the reconciliation of subject and ruler is paramount it does not. The regime- of pure law is too rigid, and seems to the Indian too "leaden." It is, of course, impossible to apply the " non-regulation " system to an Empire, because we never could find the men, who must be carefully picked, but in wild frontier provinces it is far the most efficient. The Oommissioner can bend his
system to snit circumstances, and even individuals, the people like it better, and the officers who work it grow prouder of themselves and of their work.
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