of till the mine explodes, and you are blown clean out of the country.

At this stage of the discussion, my dear John, you looked sorely perplexed, and asked me what on earth was to be done, and why I expected to be believed as if I was some prophet. This was a question I had fully anticipated, and I discreetly replied, that I didn't expect you to believe me, at least till you had heard a good deal more on the subject from others, and that I should be quite contented if you would only go so far as not to disbelieve me altogether. I then proceeded to point out that you should neither believe nor disbelieve anything or anybody, but set to work, and examine thoroughly into the state of your Indian property. Here you got very angry indeed, and with difficulty restrained your feelings of impatience. After a short struggle, however, you broke out with, My good man, and is this really all you have got to suggest after all this talk? Why, I told you before that I had appointed a committee to enquire into the finances of my Indian estates.' This outburst, if you remember, I received with becoming and respectful submission; and feeling that the key of the position was nearly within my grasp, and that the result entirely depended on my skill in turning it, I humbly asked you, my dear John, how you meant to commence your investigations. To this you replied, that you had great confidence in your home agents, and that you meant to leave the committee to conduct the enquiry in any way they pleased. Upon this I observed that I had an equal confidence in the committee in some respects, but that it would be far more satisfactory if, at the outset, you were clearly to lay down the points most essential for determination, and on which all other points must rest. I then proceeded to

insinuate that the only sequence of enquiry that could be at all successful would be

I. To enquire into the material condition of the people, and into the resources of the country, and especially with the view of ascertaining whether the country is or is not accumulating capital.

II. To enquire into the practical working of the internal adminis tration of the country, with the view of ascertaining whether new taxes (as for instance the incometax and local cesses) can be collected without extortion and oppression.

Now, my dear John, unless these points are ascertained in the first instance, you will be working entirely in the dark, and your finance committee will turn out to be a snare and a delusion; for these, I repeat, are the points which must determine your whole financial policy. To this reasoning of mine you fully assented, but you very justly observed, that to talk about information as regards outlying estates, and to obtain it, are two very different things, and that you'd like to hear my plans for collecting information. Thereupon, my dear John, you will remember that I recommended you immediately to

I. Appoint a commission to proceed to your Indian property, and investigate matters on the spot.

II. To collect all the information possible, by examining witnesses in this country.

III. To start the American system of encouraging each officer in your employ to send you annually, for your private inspection, his free opinion on the working of Government enactments.

The first measure, my dear John, is evidently the measure of measures; the second is not at all to be despised; while the third cannot be expected to be of much service for some years, or until your officers have learnt that they may express

their opinions with entire freedom, without there being the slightest fear of their suffering in your good graces for uttering unpalatable truths. To all this you listened with a smile of approval, but you proceeded to say, This sounds all very well, and would, no doubt, provide me with a wide base, but several years must elapse before all this information can be satisfactorily collected, and what am I to do in the meantime?' But for this question of yours I was fully prepared; and I then pointed out that, in the meantime, as a provisional measure, you should keep down expenses, build no more bridges than are absolutely necessary, no more barracks, no more public offices, no more gaols. I also suggested that you should stop all funds for English education, all grants-in-aid to missionary schools (principally because they spend so much on English education), and all railway works, except those required to complete lines already commenced. Besides this you should at once prepare to reduce the number of highly paid English officials.1 To do all this, John, you must harden your heart. Your Indian agents will shout out to you to beware of the gulf of retrogression; but do you go on your way rejoicing, and retort upon them that it is far more important to beware of the gulf of bankruptcy. And here I had fully intended leaving off, but, as you seemed to be in a tolerably good humour, I thought it was as well to hint that there is just one thing, and one only, that you should not

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put a stopper on, and that is on irrigation works; as they had always been and will always be the whole key to the successful management of Indian properties. Eastern countries, I continued, irrigation is all that the camel is to the desert Arab, or the canoe to the sea-board savage. In short, my dear John, I observed that if you once look after your irrigation you may leave everything else to look after itself. And why,' you asked, 'should I not put off this piece of expenditure too until I see my way quite clearly?' To this I replied, that the key of finance is population, and the key of population food, and the key of food water; and that if you neglect your waterworks your financial resources are sure to be injured by famines. 'Famines, sir!' you exclaimed, famines! Why, at the very commencement of our conversation I told you that Duff had said, in his Indian budget speech, that "Fortune has conspicuously favoured us of late," and that we hadn't had any sort of what he called "overpowering physical disasters" for the last two years.' To this, John, I said nothing at all, you may remember, but producing from my pocket a neat little volume of Indian famine literature for the last ten years, just asked yeu to cast your eye over the famine facts of those two years throughout which, according to Duff's account, fortune had SO conspicuously favoured you. While you turned over page after page of the most sickening details that man ever read, I carefully scanned your coun

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tenance, and what I read there gave me hopes for your Indian estates that I had never ventured to entertain before. At length you threw down the volume, and with a sigh of relief said, 'Well, I see it all now, that's one comfort, and that what one of my English agents said the other day about my being like a man sitting on a volcano is only too true, and that if my agents go on as they have been doing I have simply to make my choice between the volcano of rebellion or the gulf of bankruptcy. Why, it

now seems to me as clear as noonday that my agents have commenced by heightening and gilding the pyramid, instead of by widening the base by the simple process of preserving the lives and adding to the resources of the agricultural classes on whom I depend so entirely for keeping the concern afloat.' At this point of the conversation, and finding that so much had been gained, I made a profound salaam and judiciously withdrew, with the intention of resuming the discussion of your Indian affairs on the very next opportunity that might occur.

As I wended my way home, however, pondering, as I went, on the exceeding difficulty of getting crooked sticks straight again, a messenger came running after me to tell me that there was just one point on which you wanted an immediate answer. On again entering the room I had left you sitting in, you may remember, my dear John, that you said you would like to hear what I had to say as to the carrying out of irrigation works, as there seemed to be such a difference of opinion as to the way of setting to work. 'Some,' you continued, 'tell me to go ahead and borrow more money to lay out on waterworks of one kind and another, while others tell me that won't do at all, and that they should all be paid for out of the current income

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of the concern. The Times, in especial, tells me that it won't do at all to discount the future as regards managing my Indian estates.' this, my dear John, I replied that the Times is perfectly right, not, however, because it is in itself impolitic to borrow capital to lay out on reproductive works, but because your agents are not fit to be trusted with the money. Here you became indignant, and abruptly asked me if I meant to accuse your agents of peculation. You may remember, however, that I speedily reassured you on this point, and that none of your money found its way into their pockets, except in the shape of salaries; but I pointed out at the same time that your agents are but human, and that no human beings as yet discovered in the world are fit to be trusted with the expenditure of public money where neither watch nor control is kept on the expenditure by the representatives of the people. I then proceeded to ask you how you could possibly expect your agents to form an exception to all human history. Without waiting for a reply, I then pointed, as rapidly as possible, to the numerous evidences which showed that your agents certainly formed no exception to the rule. I pointed to the ten millions spent on barracks during the last ten years; to departments erected which were entirely superfluous; to the department of public works, which was brought into being with such little forethought that your agents had to go out into the highways and byways and fetch in military officers who were wholly without engineering experience; to money squandered in agricultural exhibitions which were at once a loss and a laughing-stock; to thousands spent in printing useless returns, and to money recklessly spent on many things too numerous for recapitulation here. And finally I pointed to the hundreds of thousands of lives