on the other hand, to be recollected that, as settlers from Europe find their way into the country, this class of persons will probably furnish candidates for those very situations to which the natives and mixed race will have admittance.  Men of European enterprise and education will appear in the field; and it is by the prospect of this event that we are led particularly to impress the lesson already alluded to on your attention.  In every view it is important that the indigenous people of India, or those among them who by their habits, character, or position may be induced to aspire to office, should, as far as possible, be qualified to meet their European competitors.

Thence, then, arises a powerful argument for the promotion of every design tending to the improvement of the natives, whether by conferring on them the advantages of education, or by diffusing among them the treasures of science, knowledge, and moral culture.  For these desirable results, we are well aware that you, like ourselves, are anxious, and we doubt not that, in order to impel you to increased exertion for the promotion of them, you will need no stimulant beyond a simple reference to the considerations we have here suggested.

109.  While, however, we entertain these wishes and opinion, we must guard against the supposition that it is chiefly by holding out means and opportunities of official distinction that we expect our Government to benefit the millions subjected to their authority.  We have repeatedly expressed to you a very different sentiment.  Facilities of official advancement can little affect the bulk of the people under any Government, and perhaps least under a good Government.  It is not by holding out incentives to official ambition, but by repressing crime, by securing and guarding property, by creating confidence, by ensuring to industry the fruit of its labour, by protecting men in the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights, and in the unfettered exercise of their faculties, that Governments best minister to the public wealth and happiness.  In effect, the free access to office is chiefly valuable when it is a part of general freedom.

B

Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India, November 1, 1858.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This memorable instrument, justly called the Magna Charta of India, was framed in August, 1838, by the Earl of Derby, then the head of the Government.  His son, Lord Stanley, the first Secretary of State for India, had drafted a Proclamation, and it was circulated to the Cabinet.  It reached the Queen in Germany.  She went through the draft with the Prince Consort, who made copious notes on the margin.  The Queen did not like it, and wrote to Lord Derby that she “would be glad if he would write himself in his excellent language.”  The specific criticisms are to be found in Martin’s Life of the Prince