being made a shuttlecock in the strife of party.  Not so Mr. Mallik.  He shudders at the idea of Indian affairs being considered exclusively on their own merits.  “If it is no party’s duty to champion the cause of any part of the Empire, that part must be made over to Satan, or retained, like a convict settlement, for the breeding of ‘Imperial’ ideas.”  He is himself quite prepared to adopt an ultra-partisan attitude.  In spite of his evident dislike to the nomination of any Englishman to take part in the administration of India, he warmly applauds the appointment of “a young and able official” to the Viceroy’s Council, because he was “associated with a great Liberal Minister of the Crown.”

It is not quite clear what, beyond a manifestation of that sympathy which his own writings are so well calculated to alienate, Mr. Mallik really wants.  He thinks that there is “perhaps some truth” in the assertion that the “Aryans of India are not yet fit for self-government,” and he says that “wise Indians do not claim at once the political institutions that Europeans have gained by a long course of struggle and training, the value of which in advancing happiness is not yet always perceptible in Europe.”  On the other hand, he appears to be of opinion that the somewhat sweeping reforms recently inaugurated by Lord Morley and Lord Minto do not go far enough.  The only practical proposals he makes are, first, that the old punchayet system in every village should be revived, and that a consultative assembly should be created, whose functions “should be wholly social and religious, political topics being out of its jurisdiction.”  He adds—­and there need be no hesitation in cordially accepting his view on this point—­that the “plan would have to be carefully thought out” before it is adopted.

The problem of how to govern India is very difficult, and is unquestionably becoming more and more so every year.  Although many of the slanders uttered by Mr. Mallik are very contemptible, it is useless to ignore the fact that they are believed not only by a large number of the educated youth of India, of which he may perhaps to some extent be considered a type, but also by many of their English sympathisers.  Moreover, in spite of much culpable misstatement and exaggeration, Mr. Mallik may have occasionally blundered unawares into making some observations which are deserving of some slight consideration on their own merits.  The only wise course for English statesmen to adopt is to possess their souls in patience, to continue to govern India in the best interests of its inhabitants, and to avoid on the one hand the extreme of repressive measures, and on the other hand the equally dangerous extreme of premature and drastic reform in the fundamental institutions of the country.  In the meanwhile, it may be noted that literature such as Mr. Mallik’s book can do no good, and may do much harm.

[Footnote 95:  Orient and Occident.  By Manmath C. Mallik.  London:  T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d.]