the surface of Indian problems, and it is unfortunate that our country has loaded itself with so many fresh responsibilities in Africa while a world of humanity hangs upon its policy in Asia. Surely the civilizing and elevating of nearly 300 millions of our fellow creatures is work enough for any country, however rich or powerful. I much fear that the vast expenditure on the South African war will divert from India the earnest care and the liberal expenditure of capital she needs. I look upon India as a great undeveloped estate suffering from neglect and absentee landlords. A great portion of the population is never far removed from famine. The mass of the peasantry are deeply and hopelessly encumbered by debt. They pay interest amounting generally to 12 per cent. per annum, but sometimes far more. It was alleged in recent Indian debates in Parliament (1902) that these debts amounted to 230 millions sterling. Probably all the calculations are little more than guess-work, but they will illustrate the terrific character of the problems that confront the Government. It would seem as though some great scheme for liberating the peasantry from the clutch of the moneylenders was the most urgent of all reforms. Agricultural banks are now favoured by the Government. Certainly in Germany they have been of immense value. Were it possible to get rid of old debts by some fair scheme of composition as we do with insolvent debtors at home, and raise the amount of capital required by loans from banks at moderate interest, a prodigious saving would be made to the peasantry. It would mean life and hope to countless millions of helpless and often starving human beings! But it will be said with truth that so long as the ruinous social customs of the Hindoos continue, so long as every marriage or funeral plunges a family into debt, the relief would only be temporary. I grant that this is a tremendous difficulty. The problem is not only material, but moral. It is a case where education and religion are paramount factors. I rejoice to think that our most able Viceroy, Lord Curzon, is fairly facing this question. I cannot refrain from saying that I advocated in Parliament that he should be given a second term of office, so as to be able to carry out a continuous policy for ten years at least. I may mention without impropriety that Lord Cromer stated to me at Cairo last year that his success in Egypt was largely due to eighteen years of continuous administration. This spared him the necessity of forcing the pace, which should never be done with Asiatic peoples. It also arose from keeping his eye fixed on

the main questions that affected the fellaheen-the cultivators of the soil-viz., irrigation and moderate land assessment. It is quite the same in India. We need the long continuous administration of a great reforming Viceroy, who can play the part of a modern Akbar as Lord Cromer has done in Egypt, and Lord Curzon could do in India; and we must concentrate our strength on the elevation of the Indian peasantry by raising their status and fighting those awful famines. Irrigation must be in the future what railways have been in the past-the chief work of the Government. So far we have spent ten times as much on railways as on irrigation. But railways do not grow food. They only carry it from food-bearing districts to those that are famishing. Where the people have no money they must be fed like the ancient Egyptians in the time of Joseph. They become the serfs of the moneylenders. It is far more important to provide water to fight the droughts. This cannot be done with ease as in Egypt: the problem is far more difficult. Most of India is an elevated plateau far above the river courses. Elaborate reservoirs for the storage of water would have to be constructed. In many places artificial lakes would have to be formed, but this could be done in many places, I am assured by eminent engineers. I am glad that Lord Curzon has appointed a commission of engineers to examine the possibilities of irrigation in India, presided over by Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff. I cannot imagine a nobler field for the exercise of the highest talent. I believe vast sums could be wisely and profitably spent in industrial development in India, but it would need a long continuous policy founded upon peaceful progress. There must be an end of these incessant wasteful frontier wars. There must be an end of friction with Russia in Afghanistan. The absorption of time and strength and the waste of resources on the north-west frontier is the great bar to the internal improvement of India. We have to show the Indian people by ocular demonstration that our Government is a paternal one, that its main object is not our own enrichment, but theirs, and that we put first and foremost the wellbeing of its multitudinous races.

We have also by wise and gradual concessions to meet the reasonable demands of the educated Indians for more share in the Government of their own country. We would thereby, in course of time, lighten the drain of remittances and pensions that go to Europe. India is governed much too expensively for so poor a country. We do not realize how much a little extra taxation

means to people almost on the famine line. Not a penny should be needlessly wasted, and native agency is far cheaper than European.' I may return to this subject later, but I take this opportunity of stating fully the views I have come to on a subject of paramount importance to our country, and to which I have given much of my life.

1 A Government return published in 1891-92 shows that the total salaries, allowances and pensions paid to Europeans by the Government of India, from 1,000 rupees (£67) and upwards, amounts roughly to 10 millions sterling (at Is. 4d. per rupee), against 24 millions paid to natives. This is far too costly a system for so poor a country, and we must try to replace expensive European by cheaper native agency as fast as qualified candidates offer.

CHAPTER XXIII

Session of 1886-The First Home Rule Bill-Death of Alexander Balfour-Visit to Flintshire-General Election of 1886-Autumn Session-Carnarvon Eisteddfod

WE sailed from Calcutta early in March by the P. and O. s.s. Shannon, and had a splendid passage to Marseilles, with hardly a rough day. We spent a pleasant day at Madras, where I visited Dr. Miller's great college, met the Indian Committee of Congress, and dined at Government House with Sir M. E. Grant Duff. At Colombo we halted for two or three days, which enabled us to make a charming excursion to Candy. Ceylon is a veritable earthly paradise. Incessant showers keep up a luxuriant vegetation, and the blaze of colour from the tropical flowers exceeds anything I have witnessed. The tea-industry was then just being started in place of coffee planting, which had died out in consequence of a disease fatal to the plants. Since then Ceylon has grown into a vast tea garden, which supplies almost as much tea as all the rest of India !

When we reached Port Said I found my letters from home describing the Election for Flintshire and Mr. Gladstone's change of policy towards Ireland. Truth requires me to say that it caused me much anxiety. Irish Home Rule was hardly above the horizon when we left England: now it had become the question of the day. I was most anxious to heal the feud between the Saxon and the Celt, were it possible, but I doubted the wisdom of so sudden a plunge. I resolved to keep my mind open and make no declaration of policy till I heard the exposition of Mr. Gladstone's scheme, and then decide according to the impression it made upon me. It was clear from the information that reached me that Mr. Bright, Mr. Chamberlain, and a large section of our party were not with Mr. Gladstone in his new policy.

We reached Marseilles on April 5, and I took my seat in Parliament on April 8, along with my friend, W. S. Caine, who had just been returned for Barrow. I also found my old friend, W. B. Barbour, member for Paisley. The three of us had often consorted as young men, nearly thirty years before, and studied some of these problems we were now called to adjudicate upon! This was the most epoch-making night witnessed in Parliament since the first Reform Bill. We got seats under the gallery, and found every corner of the House crammed to hear Gladstone introduce his Home Rule Bill. Chairs were placed all along the floor of the House, a thing I never saw before or since, The old man eloquent, then in his seventyseventh year, spoke for three and a half hours without a moment's hesitation, or failure of voice or language! It was a gigantic effort. My wife was in the gallery beside Mrs. Gladstone, who said at the close of his speech, "What a wonderful old man he is!" We all felt proud of him. We knew that no other man living was capable of such a feat at such an age.

The impression made upon me was favourable to Mr. Gladstone's scheme. It seemed to safeguard Imperial interests and keep the Irish legislature to strictly local duties. It was based somewhat on the Colonial model, but limited in several ways. No representation was provided at Westminster till time showed whether it was necessary or desired. It was a miracle of ingenuity. It was connected with a scheme of land purchase which would enable all the landlords to sell out on favourable terms if they wished; and this was only fair, as in the embittered conflict between landlords and tenants there was little chance of the former getting fair play in a Parliament practically elected by the tenants. This second part of his scheme was introduced subsequently.

Then commenced the longest and weightiest debate I ever listened to. It was a battle of giants. The ablest men in the kingdom threw their whole strength into it. It ranged over the constitutional history of the British Empire; over the historical precedents of foreign countries; over the entire field of jurisprudence and economics. As the debate went on the cleavage between Mr. Gladstone and several of his old colleagues became more marked. Lord Hartington, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Henry James and Sir George Trevelyan took the lead in repudiating his schemes. It became increasingly evident that a break-up of the Liberal Party was at hand, and I had to settle whether to follow Mr. Gladstone and the main current, or to join the Liberal Unionists. I