On all these matters, Miss Nightingale suffered much disappointment and felt great impatience. The positive and statistical bent of her mind inclined her to the conviction that for every acknowledged evil there must be a definite remedy. She wanted a positive policy, clearly laid down and immediately carried out. The attitude of successive Secretaries of State and Governments of India in the years under consideration in this chapter was different. There is a State Paper in which Lord Salisbury, when Secretary for India, wrote a Philosophic Defence of the Policy of Drift.[180] The immediate reference in the Paper was to the land question in Madras, but its argument is applicable to larger ground: it is entirely in keeping, as the reader will observe, with Lord Salisbury's letters to Miss Nightingale on the subject of Irrigation in India. "We must be content to contribute our mite towards a gradual change.... Sir George Campbell appears to dread this gentle mode of progression which he denounces under the name of drifting. I cannot accept the metaphor in its entirety, for I believe that there is still left some, though not a very important, influence for the helm. But with this reservation, I see no terror in the prospect of 'drifting.' On the contrary, I believe that all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations, to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of 'drifting.' It is assuredly only in this way that a permanent solution of these difficult questions will be given to the vast communities of India. The vacillation of purpose, the chaos of opinion we are now deploring, only indicate that the requisite convergence has not yet been attained." [180] India Office Memorandum, April 26, 1875.