16 SEPTEMBER 1893, Page 24

Our Indian Protectorate. By Charles Lewis Tupper. (Long- mans.)—We should

recommend the reader to begin his perusal of this volume with chapters xii.-xv., in which " Native Rule" is discussed historically, and with a view to actually existing con- ditions. India must be governed somehow. If we do not govern it well, who will do it better, or, let us say, as well? "The Indian Government must be judged not merely by what it does, but largely by what it prevents ; and if the British nation desires to pass a just judgment on the manner in which some of its most onerous responsibilities are fulfilled, it is only right to bear in mind what a vast store of the political forces of the Indian Govern- ment is used up in the mere prevention of the commonest evils incident to immature civilisation." Let the English reader, there- fore, begin by hearing what Mr. Tupper has to say abort the way in which the Afahrattas, the Sikhs, the Mahommedan rulers of Oudh and other regions, governed before we took their dominions over. Then let him further see, under Mr. Tupper's guidance, what is done, even in protected States, at the present time. Some very strange things happen, we may almost say, at the present time. Only ten years ago, in a certain protected State—Mr. Tupper wisely refrains from giving its name—two women were burnt alive in a certain village—by their own offer, it is true—in order to bring down a curse on the authorities who had imposed an unpopular assessment. The description of another State recalls the stories of the very worst of the Greek tyrannies. Of ten Prime Ministers, in forty-eight years, five were executed or murdered, one saved his life by flight, another was imprisoned, the property of another, who died a natural death, was confiscated. In another State, only five years ago, there was a colony of eight hundred

descendants of Thugs, who were accustomed to travel over India for purposes of plunder. They had secured the connivance of the native officials. These are only samples of the facts which Mr. Tupper puts before us. It must not be supposed, however, that he is content with the present order of things. He sees much room for improvement ; so does every intelligent and ex- perienced observer. But this is a very different thing from the sweeping condemnations of anti-English doctrinaires.