The villagers hate it. A council of their own elders they could respect and submit to; a one-man rule they detest. Their appeal to the council on the spot (who know) has been lost; and in place of it they have an appeal to a distant officer who, with the best will in the world, cannot know. An appeal costs money, and even to win may be to lose. They all want to manage their affairs; they can do it far better than we can, and there is nothing they so much appreciate as being allowed to do so. Here is how I learnt this: Some eighteen years ago I was leaving a station where I had been for a year as subordinate officer, and had to cross the river by launch to the steamer station on the other shore. I went down to the bank to get the launch, but it was late. I saw it three miles away, and so sat down under a tree to wait. Presently two or three elderly Burmans came and sat down near me. Then came others, till maybe twenty elderly men were there. I recognised two or three vaguely, but none clearly. I wondered at their being there, and asked: "Are you crossing over too?" They shook their heads. "What are you here for, then?" They looked embarrassed, and at last one spoke. "We came to say 'Good-bye' to you." I stared. "But I do not know you, except that I suppose you are elders of the town." "We are," they said, "and you do not know us because you have not ever worried us in any way. When we had business together you did it quickly and decisively; otherwise you left us alone. You did not treat us as children. Therefore we are sorry you are going." I laughed. I could not help it. To come and express regret at a man's leaving on the ground that they knew next to nothing of him and did not want to know more seemed unusual. But it was true. And often, after, did I think over that "send-off" and take the lesson to heart. Now what is true in Burma is true over all India. The local circumstances of course vary. A lumbadar in the North-West, for instance, does not quite correspond to a headman in Burma. The actual form in which the village was organised differs from place to place according to local needs. Even in Burma it differed a good deal. But the differences were only of form. In all India there were self-contained village communities within which, to a certain extent, caste, religion, and race were subordinated to local communal feeling. And everywhere Government has killed it by turning the village officials into Government officials, responsible to Government and not to the village.