But the suspicion arose from more general and permanent causes as well. There remains the standing sense of wrong, because an Englishman has the right to a different form of trial from an Indian. A magistrate with power to inflict a two years’ sentence on an Indian, may inflict only six months on a European. No Indian may try a criminal case against a European, and in criminal cases a European may claim a jury, with a majority of Europeans on it. Lord Ripon’s attempt gradually to modify these distinctions is one of the well-remembered events of his famous Viceroyalty—one of the many reasons which have endeared his name to India as no other Viceroy’s is endeared—but his endeavour was thwarted. As to the separation of functions, the Viceroy’s Council, through Sir Harvey Adamson, has lately (March, 1908) promised an experiment with this purpose in Eastern Bengal; but in India generally the District Magistrate who tries cases himself, or arranges for their trial by his subordinates, also controls the police, and in nearly all cases the police bring the charge. The injustice of this arrangement, with all its opportunities for official influence on legal decisions, has long been so obvious that one would have thought the cost of the change was the only obstacle to it. But while I did not hear much about the danger of increased cost, I heard a great deal about the danger of diminished dignity, if the District Magistrate lost either half of his functions. After a battle of over half a century, we may hope, however, that this grievance is now to disappear. On the other hand, I found that the old scandals about the police had survived Sir Andrew Fraser’s commission of inquiry (1902). Promotion still went in practice by the number of convictions obtained, and convictions too often depended on evidence derived by the police from the accused themselves—so-called “confessions,” extorted by means which, rightly or wrongly, were spoken of with horror among the people, and even among Anglo-Indians. Between his arrest and his sentence the prisoner was left in the hands of the police, and at their mercy, thus giving them the opportunity of compelling him to give evidence to his own detriment. Wherever I went in India I heard the same complaint of the unscrupulousness and corruption of the police. Some of the British police officers with whom I became intimate, appeared to be experienced and sympathetic men, struggling rather hopefully on the side of reform. But the pay of the ordinary native policeman is so ludicrously small (from 8_s._ to 10_s._ a month), even when the low scale of wages in India is considered, that the constant temptation to extortion can hardly be resisted, especially among a population so indifferent to this world and so deferential to authority, that even the innocent will volunteer bribes in hopes of being left in peace.