THE CONFLICT OF CIVILISATIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."1
Sin,—Does it not seem somewhat strange that the politicians and journalists who oppose the immigration of British Indian subjects into the Colonies do not perceive that with reversed conditions the same argument applies with considerable force to the relations of this country with India? They argue that adverse traditions and incompatible ideals of life cannot well coexist in the same region; but that is exactly what the Btitish in India have been endeavouring to bring about ever since the days of Bentinck and Macaulay. At that time a wind of reform was blowing over Europe; and the anti- Monarchical and anti-aristocratic doctrines that then became prevalent there naturally found their way to the Calcutta Council Chamber. In vain did H. H. Wilson and others of the old school plead for Asiatic sympathies and instruction on Oriental lines : the fiat went forth that India should be brought into the Western sphere. It thus became a doctrine that the old civilisation of twenty or thirty centuries was to be contemned as barbarous, and the British oak, so to speak, transplanted to the banks of the Ganges. Little cause have we to-day to congratulate ourselves upon the result. —I am,
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