"Nor are we without hope that the reforms will themselves help to provide the remedy. We would not be misunderstood. Representative institutions in the West, where all are equal at the ballot box, have checked but not abolished social exclusiveness. We do not make a higher claim for similar institutions in India than that they will help to soften the rigidity of the caste-system. But we hope that these incidents of it which lead to the permanent degradation and ostracism of the lowest castes will tend to disappear in proportion to the acceptance of the ideas on which the new constitution rests. There is a further point. An autocratic administration, which does not share the religious ideas of the people, obviously finds its sole safe ground in leaving the whole department of traditional social usage severely alone. In such matters as child-marriage, it is possible that through excess of caution proper to the regime under which it works, it may be actually perpetuating and stereotyping customs which the better mind of India might be brought, after the necessary period of struggle, to modify. A government, in which Indians themselves participate, invigorated by a closer touch with a more enlightened popular opinion, may be able with all due caution to effect with the free assent or acquiescence of the Indians themselves, what under the present system has to be rigorously set aside." Nor are the authors unmindful of the effect of free institutions on the character of the people as they themselves over and over again recognise. "Free institutions have, as we have said, the faculty of reacting on the adverse conditions in which the start has to be made. The backwardness of education may embarrass the experiment at the outset; but it certainly ought not to stop it, because popular government in India as elsewhere is sure to promote the progressive spread of education and so a widening circle of improvement will be set up."[7] Among the authors' reasons for what they call a gradual advance they state the following also: (a) "We find it freely and widely admitted that they (i.e. the Indians) are not yet ready." This admission may legitimately be used against the total withdrawal of all control of Indian affairs by the Parliament. Firstly, it is questionable whether any such admission is really "freely and widely" made. Secondly, the admission justifies the retention of the powers of vital, general supervision and general control and also the retention of some Europeans in the higher services, but not the total denial of all responsibility for maintaining law and order and of all power to control the central Executive. (b) That the responsibility of India's defence is the ultimate burden which rests on the Government of India; and this duty is the last which can be intrusted to inexperienced or unskilful hands.