While all this is true of Ancient India, we cannot claim the existence of the same system of Government for mediæval India. Even as regards Ancient India, all that is claimed is that it possessed as much democracy, if not more, as Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The non-existence of slavery in Northern India gives it therefore a superior character to that of the Ancient republics of Greece and Rome. In the South, it is believed slavery did exist. Coming to mediæval times generally known as the Mohammedan period of Indian History consisting of two epochs, from 400 to 1200 A.D. and from 1200 to 1800 A.D., we notice that the country enjoyed a durable kind of government, cities under absolute rule, and villages, as before, self-governed. The absolute rule was a benevolent or malevolent despotism according to the character of the Hindu or Moslem sovereign who reigned. But in the villages India maintained a democratic form of government right up to the beginning of British rule; and though under British rule, it has been practically superseded by the rule of the officials, yet in some parts of the country the spirit is still alive, as will appear from the following testimony recorded by Mr. Sidney Webb in his Preface to Mr. John Matthai's volume, _Village Government in British India_: "One able collector of long service in Central India informed me that he had been, until a few months before, totally unaware that anything of the sort existed in any of the villages over which he ruled. But being led to make specific inquiries on the subject, he had just discovered, in _village after village, a distinctly effective if somewhat shadowy, local organization, in one or other form of panchayat, which was, in fact, now and then giving decisions on matters of communal concern, adjudicating civil disputes, and even condemning offenders to reparation and fine_. Such a Local Government organization is, of course, 'extra-legal' and has no statutory warrant, and, in the eyes of the British tribunals, possesses no authority whatever. But it has gone on silently existing, possibly for longer than the British Empire itself, and is still effectively functioning, merely by common consent and with the very real sanction of the local public opinion." Mr. Matthai has also made a similar remark in Paragraph 22 of his book (Introductory). Village councils ordinarily called village _panchayats_ have often been confounded with caste panchayats and that fact has been emphasised to prove that these Indian _panchayats_ were or are anything but democratic. Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. John Matthai both have controverted that position and upon good evidence. Says Mr. Webb: