although the Calcutta community may have its faults and wayward tendencies, it is an influential element in our body corporate and politic, and a Government which knows its duty may effect a great deal of good, and derive no little benefit, by coming into contact with it For the present, therefore, I think that Calcutta should continue to be the headquarters of Government; but that we should meet from time to time at other places for Legislative purposes, so as to qualify Calcutta local associations with other local associations.  This plan will be attended of course with some trouble and expense.  I intend to make some inquiries to ascertain what the latter is likely to be.  I do not see why we should not legislate in camp, if there be difficulty in providing house accommodation....  I should like, if possible, to hit upon a plan which would give us a sufficient range in choosing and varying our places of meeting.  More on all this hereafter.

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    To Sir Charles Wood.

    Roorkee:  March 19, 1863.

[Sidenote:  Value of training at headquarters.]

I confess I think it very important that the heads of the local Governments should have had some training at headquarters.  It is much easier for an intelligent officer who has been so trained, to supply a lack of local knowledge, than for one who has been constantly employed in a particular province to grasp in a sufficiently comprehensive spirit the general interests of the Empire, and duly to appreciate the relative claims of its component parts.  Already, among the high officers in the Provinces, there is a considerable disinclination to face the climate and labour of Calcutta.  Situations in the Provinces, where the work is lighter, where the summers can be spent on the Hills, and where the holders are in a much greater degree monarchs of all they survey, are naturally preferred to the sweltering metropolis.  This preference would be strengthened if it were supposed that this provincial career was the road to the Lieutenant-Governorship.  Moreover, it is to be remembered that the patronage exercised by these Lieutenant-Governors is very great indeed.  It is important that it should not fall too absolutely into the hands of the same local cliques.  So much on the abstract question of general versus local experience.

* * * * *

    To Sir Charles Wood.

    Simla:  May 6, 1863.

In a general way, I must say that I am inclined to give a preference, in disposing of these high offices, to persons who have served in the offices of the Supreme Government or in the Governor-General’s Legislative Council.  I would not, of course, exclude men of proved and eminent qualities because they had been employed only in the Provinces or minor Presidencies; but my impression is that the work is lighter, and that reputations are more easily won, in the service