Political unrest cannot always or permanently be halted at their frontier, though His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, whose ways are still largely those of the Moghuls, has not hesitated, albeit himself a Mahomedan Prince, to proscribe all Khilafat agitation within his territory.  The Extremist Press has already very frequently denounced ruling Princes and Chiefs as obstacles to the democratic evolution of a Swaraj India which will have to be removed, and if the Nagpur Congress pronounced against extending its propaganda to the Native States, it did so only “for the present” and on grounds of pure and avowed expediency.  Apart from the menace of Indian Extremism, there must obviously be a fundamental conflict of ideals between ruling Chiefs bent on preserving their independent political entity and the aspirations towards national unity entertained by the moderate Indian Nationalists whose influence is sure to predominate over all the old traditions of Indian governance if the new reforms are successful.  Some Princes are wise enough to swim with the current and have introduced rudimentary councils and representative assemblies which at any rate provide a modern facade for their own patriarchal systems of government.  But all are more or less conscious that their own position is being profoundly modified by constitutional changes in British India, which must, and indeed are intended to, alter the very character of the Government representing the Paramount Power to whose authority they owe their own survival since the beginning of British rule.  Their survival has indeed always been an anomaly, though hitherto, on the whole, equally creditable to the British Raj that preserved them from extinction in the old days of stress and storm and to the rulers who have justified British statesmanship by their fine loyalty.  But in a democratised and self-governing India it might easily become a much more palpable anomaly.

How was this new situation to be dealt with?  Some of the ruling Princes and Chiefs whose views appear to have prevailed with the Secretary of State and the Government of India, came to the conclusion that they should combine together and try to secure as a body a recognised position from which their collective influence might be brought more effectively to bear upon the Government of India, whatever its new orientation may ultimately be under the influence of popular assemblies in British India.  Some, doubtless, believed that once in such a position they would be able to oppose a more effective because more united front to interference from whatever quarter in the internal affairs of their States.  Circumstances favoured their scheme for the loyalty displayed by all the Native States, and the distinguished services rendered in person by not a few Chiefs inclined Government to meet their wishes without probing them too closely, and in the first place to relax the control hitherto exercised by its