The fact is that, under an orderly government like ours, the causes alluded to above as impeding the growth of capital become very much aggravated. Population largely increases, waste lands are brought under the plough, grazing grounds for stock disappear, and the fallows, formerly so beneficial in restoring fertility to the soil, can no longer be kept free from cultivation. All these considerations form portions of the very difficult problems in government which day by day present themselves to the Indian administrator. But does Mr. Hyndman think they are to be solved by recurrence to the native system of government; by the substitution of a local ruler, sometimes paternal, more frequently the reverse, for the courts of justice which now administer the law which can be read and understood by all; by civil contracts being enforced by the armed servant of the creditor, instead of by the officers of a court acting under strict surveillance; by the land assessment being collected year by year through the farmers of the revenue according to their arbitrary will, instead of being payable in a small moderate[15] sum, unalterable for a long term of years? If he thinks this--and his allusion to the system of the non-regulation provinces favours the conclusion--he will not find, I think, an educated native in the whole of India who will agree with him. There are great harshnesses in our rule, there is a rigidity and exactitude of procedure which is often distasteful to native opinion, there are patent defects arising out of our attempts to administer justice, there is great irritation at our constant and often ill-conceived experiments in legislation, there is real danger in the fresh burdens we lay upon the people in our desire to carry out apparently laudable reforms. But with all these blemishes, which have only to be distinctly perceived to be removed from our administrative system, the educated native feels that he is gradually acquiring the position of a freeman, and he would not exchange it for that which Mr. Hyndman appears to desiderate. E. PERRY, _in Nineteenth Century_. FOOTNOTES: [1] This rock on its eastern face contains the decrees of Asoka, who began to reign 263 B.C.; on the western face is the inscription of Rudradaman, one of the Satrap-rulers under an Indian Greek dynasty, circa 90 B.C.; and the northern face presents the inscription of Skandagupta, 240 A.D. [2] Preface to _Vishnu Purana_. [3] Elphinstone, _History of India_, vol. i. p. 511. [4] See Aitcheson, _Treaties_, vol. vi. p. 18. [5] _A Hindu Gentleman's Reflections._ Spiers, London, 1878. [6] Widow-burning. [7] The swing-sacrifice. [8] _Views and Opinions of General John Jacob._ London, 1858. [9] October 1865, and October 1866. [10] _England and Russia in the East._ Murray. [11] 59 Geo. III. c. 55, s. 43. [12] _Report on East India Public Works_, p. 85.