Thus we find arrayed against us millions who firmly believe that a good Government must necessarily be a theocracy. Our own institutions, founded as they are on a sincere regard for the good of subject races, have conspired to bring about a state of things which is full of political danger. The dissemination of the English language and of the half-truths with which our political literature teems has produced aspirations which can be gratified only by the abdication of our supremacy. Thus the prestige of the conquerors, which must be upheld if 200,000 white men are to govern three hundred millions of their fellow-creatures, has been declining for many years past. And we labour under the immense disadvantage of being aliens in blood, language, and traditions from the Asiatics whom we are called upon to rule. For communities which have arrived at a high pitch of civilisation, conquest is an anachronism, and assimilation with a subject race an impossibility. We can have no sympathy with the workings of these enigmatic Oriental minds, for we view every problem that presents itself from an entirely different standpoint. Thus we must always be sojourners in India, and our dominion can never strike its roots deeply into the soil. But for the bayonets on which our throne is supported it would fall, even as those of our predecessors in the purple have fallen. Central Asia, on the other hand, is thinly peopled, and the standard of comfort is comparatively high. The conquerors and conquered are connected by the ties of blood, and there is a latent and unconscious sympathy between them which renders the task of government easy and assures its stability. In one point the difference between British and Russian methods of administration is very marked--the relations between the judicial and executive functions. Our readers are doubtless aware that in India, under the native rule, there was an entire separation between the judge and the ruler. This divorce continued till, under the régime of Lord William Bentinck, functions apparently dissonant were united. It was considered essential in a country so peculiarly constituted as India that the Central Government should have, in every district, a single representative in whose hands all the threads of administration are gathered. In Russian Asia, on the other hand, offences against the state and individuals alike come within the purview of courts entirely independent of the executive, which is on a military basis and concerns itself only with obedience to these tribunals’ behests. Some friction occurred between the rival branches when the country was first invaded by Judges of Instruction and of the Peace, free from the control of local authorities and subordinate to the Ministry of Justice at St. Petersburg. This agitation was calmed by a hint from a high quarter that it was puerile and displeasing. Nowhere is discipline, both in the army and civil service, maintained so sternly as in the Russian Empire. The