root of our difficulties still lies mainly in 'the defects of our own instruments and in our confined intercourse with the people.' The powerful landlord, the illegal cess, the venal police Inspector, are still at their work in India. Thick-headed magistrates exist. Blundering legislators are not unknown. Wild schemes are daily hatched below the surface. Forces generate in the calm atmosphere of British rule of which the authorities are absolutely unconscious. The East has an abundant storehouse of her own. West and East, coupled, not united, breed fresh forces. What direction all these will take, what is their volume or their vitality, none possibly may divine. Rash men unloose these elements; leaving it to those whose business it may be, to take the risk and the discredit of explosion.
As regards intercourse with the people we are not one whit more advanced, if indeed we are so far advanced as in 1831. Growing distrust on the one side is met by growing dislike on the other. But the corrupt character of the people and the defects of our own instruments may be corrected by a better system of education, by improved administration, by creating an adequately paid native Civil Service. Throughout the remainder of his career Mr. Colvin worked uniformly in this belief. From the hour when he left Bárásat he turned his attention unceasingly to the direction in which administrative remedies might be found for the evils of which he had witnessed the effects. He threw himself into
