the beneficent administration of India, and for its efficient protection. These means are utterly wasted by the great majority of those in whose hands they have been left. A part of the revenue of our own provinces is equally wasted in watching over, and guarding against, the possible treachery and mischief-making of our puppets. We should not be able, for example, to advance the troops ordinarily stationed in Oude to the north-west frontier; because, first, the king is entitled to, and would probably claim, protection against his own subjects; and because, secondly, he has some corps of ragamuffins who could not be left behind the force which ordinarily overawes them, without jeopardy to the treasuries of our adjoining districts, and to the lives and properties of their unarmed inhabitants! We fear that, consistently with the maintenance of the national faith, none but the most ineffectual half measures are open to us for the amelioration of the condition of the people of whom we are virtually, though through such wretched intermediate agency, the rulers.

We gladly turn from the distressing consideration of this choice of evils, to contemplate our general position as the absolute masters of the largest and fairest provinces of Hindostan; and the prospects of increasing power and wealth which appear to be opening to us, in inseparable connexion with the improvement of the condition of the millions whom Providence has in so signal a manner committed to our guardianship.

Her means and capabilities being the standard of measurement, India is a very poor country. The great body of her people are lamentably degraded; the moral and intellectual superiority of the classes which are in easy pecuniary circumstances, is exceedingly small. There are proofs every where upon the surface, that, evil as the effects of political tyranny endured for centuries have been, other debasing causes have carried their corrosion more deeply and mischievously into the vitals of society.

The first of those causes is the worst of false Religions; the second the system of Caste ;-a superaddition of moral poison from which the victims of error in other heathen lands, with the exception, it may be, of the ancient Egyptians, have happily been exempt.

Perverse ingenuity, analogous to that which at one time laboured to demonstrate the superior advantages of the savage state, but sharpened by a disposition to depreciate the temporal blessings which follow in the train of Christianity, has been earnestly employed in arguing that the Hindoos have been grievously misrepresented; and that, if self-love would permit us to hold the balance even, the preponderance of moral excellence in

favour of Christendom would be barely sufficient to turn thescale.

We need not adduce here, for the purpose of exposing them, all the fallacies by which this position has been supported. The most common are founded on the enormous crimes which are too frequently committed in Christian lands, and on the toleration there of too many immoral practices. But there is this grand distinction, that in India the most frightful crimes excite no horror-kindle no indignation; and that the universal moral darkness prevents any one from perceiving that there is any thing wrong, or any thing which is not venial, in practices which the broad light of Christianity exhibits in all their abominable deformity. No native of India suffers any perceptible loss in the estimation of his countrymen from being convicted of fraud, of judicial corruption, or of perjury. The simple impression is, that his being found out argues folly. No native prince or landholder scrupled, to our knowledge, to harbour Thugs, in full cognizance of their dreadful vocation; or to receive, as the price of protection or concealment, a share of the profits of systematic cold-blooded murder: no infamy attached, in the judgment of co-equals, to such participation in the most horrible

crimes.

The institution of Caste produces the effect which Lord Bacon ascribed to superstition. It dismounts' all the natural motives and emotions, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds ⚫ of men.' A Brahmin would sooner eat, drink, and consort with a Brahmin Thug, if he thought his own life secure, than with the most virtuous man of low caste. A few years ago, a man was hung at a station near Calcutta for a dreadful murder. The magistrate superintending the execution heard, to his great surprise, unwonted expressions of indignation against the criminal. It was, indeed,' the English officer remarked, a most barbarous and unprovoked murder.' That's nothing at all,' was the reply; but the villain, being a man of low caste, has passed himself off in jail as a Rajpoot, and half of his fellow-prisoners have lost caste by their intercourse with him.'

Such is the depth of moral degradation from which the regeneration of India has to commence. To be complete, to be such as true benevolence will rest satisfied with, it must, seemingly, be that regeneration which the mighty and purifying power of Christianity alone can effect. This, humanly speaking, and unless the work proceed in an accelerated ratio upon which we cannot at present calculate, must be the work of ages. And it is clear to our judgment, that it is not desirable, upon the highest grounds, even if consistent with its safety, that the Government

should take part in any direct attempt at conversion. But this restriction observed, two distinct and most important duties devolve upon the ruling power: it should preserve an honest neutrality-doing nothing to foster error, and giving individuals free scope to labour for the promulgation of the truth; and it should dispense to its subjects the greatest possible amount of light, consistent with the necessary reservation.

In both these duties, except as regards the freedom, of late years, of individual exertions, the India Company and its delegates have failed. The obligations of the Government to afford the means of secular education, have been most inadequately fulfilled; and it has voluntarily come forward, in many ways, to bolster the idolatry and superstition of its subjects; for it has by law spontaneously bound itself to interfere, in its executive capacity, to secure the due appropriation of endowments for idolatrous purposes, the most offensive and immoral, as well as for those ostensibly indifferent and harmless. Let the temple of Kali have no more and no less protection than the straw-built preaching station of the Missionary; let the Government take no more and no less account of the funds of Hindoo or Mahomedan religious endowments than of those of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

The Government, whilst it leaves the promulgation of religious truth to the zeal of Christian individuals, affording to all parties. equal toleration and protection, should make much greater exertions than it has ever yet done for the secular education of its subjects. The extension and elevation of secular education; the improvement of the administration of civil and criminal justice; and the enlargement of internal and external commerce; should be the paramount considerations of the delegated sovereigns of India. The former should be made a separate concern under a Secretary in the Department of Public Instruction: business so momentous should not be doubled up with all the general questions and all the pettiest details of finance-with the management of the salt and opium monopolies-with the affairs of the post-office, of steam-boats, of the excise, and with hundreds of miscellaneous duties. And means should be afforded with a far more liberal hand for placing the blessing of education within the reach of the higher and middling classes in every part of our provinces; and, at the same time, for stimulating them to avail themselves of it. Such is the general stupor, such the want of inter-communication, such the absence of individuals calculated to lead public opinion, that the Government must be emphatically a nursing-mother to the people; left to themselves, they will continue to grovel in the

dust: they have to acquire-and we must impart—not merely the power but the will to walk alone.

Room is wanting to indicate, even in the briefest manner, the principal deficiencies connected with the administration of justice. The existing state of things acts with a strongly repressing force upon the development of the resources of the country; and the best-directed exertions of agricultural and commercial enterprise are deprived of half their due rewards by defective institutions. The circumstances which hold the capitalist and the landowner apart, demand special consideration. But this subject must lie over until we are able, on some future occasion, to enter upon that ample field-so much darkened and perplexed by the meddling of ignorant empirics-the real grievances and the real wants of British India. We will only add here, that the direct drain of money occasioned by the late war, and by our present political relations, is an evil scarcely worth notice, when compared with the mischief inflicted upon the general wealth and prosperity of the country, by the unavoidable concomitant neglect or postponement of the many important matters requiring legislative measures, or administrative regulation.

Our parting reference to commerce must be almost equally short. As regards our own dominions, we remark with great satisfaction the anticipation of the Governor-General-expressed in his valuable Minute on the growth and preparation of cotton, recently printed and circulated in this country-that the inland transit duties of Madras (which we spoke of in a late number) will soon follow to extinction the corresponding cesses of Bengal and Bombay. This is as it should be. We are certain that there will be no eventual loss of revenue from this wise and statesmanlike measure.

The successful issue of the campaign beyond the Indus, and the complete freedom of the navigation of that noble river, which must result from the improvement of our relations with the chieftains of Scinde, will open fresh channels for commercial enterprise. From the marts which exist, or which will speedily arise, upon the Indus, our cottons, woollens, and hardware, freed from the enormous charges of a long preliminary land-carriage, and from the successive fiscal extortions of numerous petty princes and governors, will penetrate into Central Asia at a cost which will place them at the command of the general body of consumers. Under a settled government, Affghanistan will be an excellent customer. Its inhabitants, and the Uzbeks beyond them, are distinguished by energy of character, and by a commercial spirit. The observations of Captain Conolly, Sir Alex

ander Burnes, and Dr Lord, vouch for this; and the kind and liberal treatment which the former experienced from individuals personally strangers to him, when circumstances had placed him in pecuniary embarrassment, demonstrates that the truthfulness and integrity of our countrymen were known and esteemed beyond the limits of our political power. There is happily no want, even at points more distant than Affghanistan, of that confidence which is the vital principle of commerce. Sir Alexander Burnes says, speaking of the traders and bankers of Bokhara,- We could not but feel gratified at the favourable opinion entertained by them of the British in India. One of them, Sirwas Khan, a Lohanee 'merchant of great opulence, to whom we were never introduced, 'offered us any money we might require, and did it in a manner that left us no doubt of his sincerity.' We may calculate, without doubt, that this favourable impression will have gained strength from recent political events, and from the general conduct of our troops and civil officers in Affghanistan. Dr Lord says, that the restoration of Shah Shooja will give us great renown through the whole Uzbek nation."

We trust that prompt and effectual measures will be taken to follow out Sir A. Burnes' proposition to establish a commercial entrepot, with an annual fair, at Dera Ghazee Khan, or some more eligible point, if such there be, upon the Indus.† That officer and Dr Lord clearly prove, that such a plan is entirely accordant with the genius of the people with whom we have to deal; that it has been pursued with eminent success by the Russians; that the Affghans, and Uzbeks and Toorkmans beyond them, have both a strong taste for many articles of our staple manufactures, and the means, in the wool of their countless 'flocks,' their silk, dyes, drugs, gold, &c., to pay for them; and that our present position and relations give us the complete command of this great commercial line as far at least as Bokhara. The Commercial Reports published by the Supreme Government at Calcutta, contain much valuable information as to the demands and products of the countries now newly opened to us. They show that the Indus will give us, not as generally misapprehended, customers on its immediate banks, for such do not at present

* Political Reports published by the Government of Calcutta.-P. 123. + The mail which left Bombay on the 30th April, and which has arrived since the above was written, brings intelligence that a great ' annual fair has been established at Sukher,' (a place on the Indus, near Shikarpore,) to last for one month, and to commence in January 1841.'