is to think out the plan which is right in itself, to state that plan clearly and boldly, and then guide the community towards it as closely as popular prejudice will allow, not failing to appeal to their innate sense of trusteeship for those who come after them.

§ 6. I propose, therefore, to begin by considering what conditions, apart from popular prejudice, are needed to realize most quickly the scheme of responsible government for India outlined in the pronouncement of August 20. I shall then go on to suggest in what manner the people of India can best be helped to approximate to those conditions for themselves.

§ 7. Now, looking at any great country, it is easy to see that there are certain areas correlative to certain organs of government. At the bottom you find the village, the town, and the district, so called in India, which corresponds to the English and American county or the French department. These areas are the field of what, in technical language, is called local government. In a later page we shall see how sharply the sphere of local government is to be distinguished from that of political government, which belongs to provincial and national authorities. The one deals only with administrative detail, the other includes the settlement of wide political issues.

§ 8. In all great communities the political field is, or ought to be, divided between one central government and a number of provincial governments. There are various reasons for this, which can best be explained by keeping in mind the United States. Congress at Washington could not pass all the measures required by the different parts of that vast and varied community. It would break down for want of time, and its measures would not be sufficiently adapted to the needs of the various local communities. We cannot imagine one law and system of education for the whole of America. And, if we could, its administration from one centre would be too rigid. Areas so far removed as California and New York need different systems, adapted to their local conditions and administered in response to the feelings of each community. Apart from this, an educational system, administered from Washington for all America, would be too vast for any one authority to control.

§ 9. These reasons for provincial governments and areas are sufficient; but they could be multipled indefinitely. It is for want of such institutions that social reform is paralysed in the British Isles, France, and Italy. One central govern

ment is unable to cope with the needs of thirty or forty millions. Effective social reform will never be attained, unless or until they develop self-governing provinces commensurate with those of Switzerland, the Dominions, or the United States. The first problem before India is to get areas in which provincial self-government can be made effective.

§ 10. At present the major self-governing provinces of India are as large as, or larger than, the three nations referred to above. How comes it that India is divided into units so vast?

Some light will be thrown on the question by a glance at the map of North America as it existed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Its soil was then divided between three Great Empires, which all centred in Europe. Spain claimed to administer, as one huge province, all the territories now covered by Mexico, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, and Florida. Similarly France claimed a vast triangular territory, of which the north-eastern angle was opposite Newfoundland, the north-western angle near Winnipeg, and the southern angle at the mouth of the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. England claimed a much smaller area, the coast strip extending from the boundary which now divides New Brunswick and Maine to the northern boundary of Florida.

§ 11. The vast territories of Spain and France were each governed as one great province from Mexico City and Quebec respectively. The much smaller British strip was already, by the middle of the eighteenth century, partitioned into no less than thirteen self-governing colonies. This partition was the natural and necessary result of self-government. Now that the Spanish and French territories have all been brought under electoral government, they have all had to be subdivided in the same way. The lesson, which can be freely illustrated from Asia, is that centralized autocracies develop satrapies which are far too large for the purposes of provincial self-government. The old Chinese provinces are on far too large a scale for this purpose. Aggregates so vast include communities so various as to need different laws and institutions to suit their peculiarities. Provincial self-government has been evolved to meet this need. Quebec and Ontario were once placed under a single government, which suited them ill; for one was Catholic, the other Protestant; one French, the other British. Roman law prevailed in one province, and English common

law in the other. The creation of a federal government enabled them to develop as sub-nationalities of one great nation, like the English and Scots, and yet to be separated as self-governing provinces able to develop their respective institutions in harmony with their different conditions.

§ 12. In Australia there were no such social, religious, and legal distinctions. The eastern coast-belt was first organized as one Province of New South Wales, the whole of which was subject to the jurisdiction of the governor at Sydney. But the moment popular institutions were introduced the settlers in the territories now known as Victoria and Queensland found themselves out in the cold, as compared with the central districts adjacent to Sydney. The community was too large for effective control under popular institutions. The result was that the electorates of Victoria and Queensland were both detached, and placed under separate provincial governments of their own.

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§ 13. If the areas of provincial self-government are too large, an artificial and irksome unity is imposed upon the too widely different elements embraced, which presently demand to be sub-divided into smaller self-governing areas. vinces, moreover, planned on the scale of nations tend to fall apart as separate national units. And besides all this. self-government, always a difficult business in its beginnings, is much more difficult, if first applied to a community so great that the various representatives know little of parts other than their own. To attempt self-government on too wide a scale is to prejudice its success at the outset.

§ 14. All this has an obvious bearing on the existing provinces of India. They are for the most part the artificial creations of a paternal and highly centralized Government which has its mainspring in England. They were designed as the satrapies of a vast oriental dependency. The United Provinces, for instance, contains 48,000,000, and is larger than any European State but the Russian and German Empires. It contains a large variety of languages, races, and levels of society. To attempt the first essay in responsible government, by applying it to so vast and varied an aggregate, is to prejudice the whole experiment. It is also to court failure in the last stages of this great project of creating a united and self-governing India. These vast satrapies, conceived on the scale of considerable nations, will learn, under the influence of electoral government, to think as such, and so tend to fall apart, like the overgrown

provinces of China. If India is to be taken as the true national unit, as it must be, it is of vital importance to consider now what the proper provincial units are to be out of which the whole national fabric can be built. The moment you begin to establish electoral governments, the boundaries of their jurisdictions, lightly sketched by the pencils of officials and diplomats, begin to bite into the political map like acids. The boundaries of artificial areas like those of Roumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, carved out of the Turkish Empire, have within a few decades become lines over which their respective inhabitants have fought and bled. The internal peace of India generations hence will depend upon the wisdom and foresight with which the areas of provincial self-government are planned in the initial stages of the new departure.

§ 15. Once again we may refer for guidance in solving this problem to the example of the United States of America. That Republic is divided into forty-eight States, with an average population of 2,000,000 souls. Of these the most. closely settled is New York, with a population of 10,000,000. Thus, if we take the largest State of the United States of America as our standard, British India, with its population of 240,000,000, might appropriately be divided into some twenty-four larger and smaller States. The termStates' was suggested to me as having two merits. In the first place it helps to suggest the model of the United States, and to keep it in mind. In the second place it gives a description nicely parallel to that of the Native States which might, I suggest, be conveniently described as 'Principalities'. This change of title will enable us to adopt the American term State in describing the provincial areas, which, as I think, India must have in a federal system based upon popular government. And in this connexion let me add that the division of India into some twenty-four States would give areas far more comparable to the major Principalities, the largest of which, Hyderabad, contains 13,000,000 inhabitants. It is natural to suppose that the Princes of India will come to play a part in the life of the great nation to be called into being. If they follow the example set by several of the leading Princes, who have laid the foundations of a representative system, they will develop in the direction of constitutional monarchies, in sympathy with movements inaugurated in British India. The Princes themselves should be gathered in the Upper Chamber of a great Indian legislature, so that the Indian

nation of the future will not lack the leadership for which it will naturally look to its hereditary statesmen.

§ 16. In suggesting the most populous State of the American Union, with its population of 10,000,000, as the standard to be used for States in India, no suggestion is made that these States should be constituted on any mechanical principle. The defect of the present areas is that they are too mechanical. The Province of Bihar and Orissa, for instance, combines communities with an almost cynical disregard of the differences between them. The plan suggested will remedy these unnatural unions. This particular province would fall naturally into three Provincial States-Bihar, with its population of 24,000,000, and Orissa and Chota Nagpur, with 5,000,000 apiece. But Orissa itself ought to be increased by the inclusion of those people of the same language and race who inhabit the northern extremity of Madras and the Central Province. The disparity in size between these areas is no greater than that which exists in the United States, and in all the other federal Unions. Bihar is, of course, a dangerously large unit upon which to begin an experiment in provincial self-government, and might have to be subdivided, as Virginia has been. The first consideration is to get communities which, as contrasted with those of the British Isles, France, and Italy, are not too large for effective self-government on really provincial lines. Where possible, historic areas like Sind should be taken. But unity of language, race, and religion are also important factors, and language is the most important of all. The greatest obstacle to a real extension of popular government in India is the practice of conducting public business in the English tongue. By all means let English occupy the same position as Hindustani has in Northern India since the time of the Mughal Empire. In English lies the hope of national unity and of knowledge from the outside world. Let the public records be kept in English; extend knowledge of that language in every possible direction. But if all discussion of public affairs is conducted in English, then public life is going to be confined for many generations to come to a narrowly restricted class. How can electorates ever be brought to grasp the questions submitted to their judgement, if all public discussion is to be conducted. in a foreign tongue? The use of the vernaculars in politics. is essential if India is to advance towards responsible government at any but the slowest pace. The areas of provincial self-government must be designed largely with