12.  The tendency of modern India is to rely too much on formal law and the exercise of the powers of the central government.  The contemplation of the vast administrative machinery working with its irresistible force and unfailing regularity in obedience to the will of rulers, whose motives are not understood, undoubtedly has a paralysing influence on the life of the nations of India, which, if not counteracted, would work deep mischief.  Something in the way of counteraction has been done, though not always with knowledge.  The difficulties inherent in the problem of reconciling foreign rule with self-government in an Asiatic country are enormous.

13.  But panegyrics on the self-government of Indian villages must always be read with the qualification that the standard of such government was low, and that hundreds of acts and omissions were tolerated, which are intolerable to a modern European Government.  Hence comes the difficulty of enforcing numerous reforms loudly called for by European opinion.  The vast Indian population hates reform and innovation for many reasons, and, above all, because they involve expense, which to the Indian mind appears wholly unwarrantable.

14.  The same phenomenon is observable in rural Ireland, where, as in India, an unhappy history has generated profound distrust and dislike of official authority.  The Irish peasant has always been ready to give his neighbour ‘the loan of an oath’, and a refusal to give it would be thought unneighbourly.  An Irish Land Commission and an Indian Settlement Officer must alike expect to receive startling information about the value of land.

15. Ante, chapter 49, text at [16].

16.  Hume, in speaking of Scotland in the fifteenth century, says, ’Arms more than laws prevailed; and courage, preferably to equity and justice, was the virtue most valued and respected.  The nobility, in whom the whole power resided, were so connected by hereditary alliances, or so divided by inveterate enmities, that it was impossible, without employing an armed force, either to punish the most flagrant guilt, or to give security to the most entire innocence.  Rapine and violence, when employed against a hostile tribe, instead of making a person odious among his own clan, rather recommended him to their esteem and approbation; and, by rendering him useful to the chieftain, entitled him to the preference above his fellows.’ [W.  H. S.]

17.  Gibbon, chap. 5.  The remark refers to Septimius Severus.

18.  The Ballot Act became law in 1872.

19.  All that the author says is true, and yet it does not alter the fact that Indian society is and always has been permeated and paralysed by almost universal distrust.  Such universal distrust does not prevail in England.  This difference between the two societies is fundamental, and its reality is fully recognized by natives of India.

20.  Compare the author’s account of the fraudulent practices of the Company’s sepoys when on leave in Oudh. (Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, vol. i, pp. 286-304.)