[To ERE Lanes OF ERE SPECLEFOR."1
Sin,--1 have a pretty fair knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of a fee- of the many races that inhabit India, and I cannot accept without protest Mr. Houghton's confident assertion (Spectator, October 1301) that there exists a general demand for self-govern- ment among them. I believe that of the three hundred and fifteen millions of natives of India three hundred and fourteen millions are satisfied with the system of government under which they live and have no desire to change it. The remaining million includes those natives who have received an English education at our Government and Missionary Schools and Colleges, and have thus imbibed European ideas and adopted Western ideals. These met have a monopoly of the Press and the platform (both of them European institutions transplanted in Indian soil), and their utter- ances are taken na voicing the wishes of the masses of the peoples by Europeans who do not know India. There is much talk nowa- days about reform in the Government of India, but that Govern- ment is a very good Government as it is, and it stands in no need of reform. The present state of the Empires of Russia and China is a striking example of the folly of putting new wine into old bottles. The desire of the natives of India for a larger share in the administration of their own country is fair and reasonable, but that can be granted without reforming a system of government which suits the needs and the conditions of the country. As Lord Melbourne would have said, " Why can't they leave it alone?"—I
Lieut.-General and Colonel, 74th Punjabis.
28 Trinity Street, Cambridge.
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