HOW INDIA IS GOVERNED

The present form of government in India was adopted in 1858, after the terrible Sepoy mutiny had demonstrated the inability of the East India Company to control affairs. By an act of parliament all territory, revenues, tributes and property of that great corporation, which had a monopoly of the Indian trade, and, next to the Hanseatic League of Germany, was the greatest Trust ever formed, were vested in the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, who in 1876 assumed the additional title of Empress of India. The title and authority were inherited by Edward VII. He governs through the Secretary of State for India, who is a Cabinet minister, and a Council of not less than ten members, nine of whom must have the practical knowledge and experience gained by a residence of at least ten years in India and not more than ten years previous to the date of their appointment. This Council is more of an advisory than an executive body. It has no initiative or authority, but is expected to confer with and review the acts of the Secretary of State for India, who can make no grants or appropriations from the revenues or decide any questions of importance without the concurrence of a majority of its members. The Council meets every week in London, receives reports and communications and acts upon them.

The supreme authority in India is the Viceroy, the direct personal representative of the emperor in all his relations with his 300,000,000 Indian subjects; but, as a matter of convenience, he makes his reports to and receives his instructions from the Secretary of State for India, who represents that part of the empire both in the ministry and in parliament. The present viceroy is the Right Honorable George Nathaniel Curzon, who was raised to the peerage in October, 1898, as Baron Curzon of Kedleston. He is the eldest son of Lord Scarsdale, was born Jan. 11, 1859, was educated at Eton and Oxford; selected journalism as his profession; became correspondent of the London Times in China, India and Persia; was elected to parliament from Lancashire in 1886, and served until 1898; was private secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury, and under-secretary of state for India in 1891-92; under-secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1895-98; married Mary Leiter, daughter of Mr. L. Z. Leiter of Washington and Chicago, in 1895, and was appointed viceroy of India to succeed the Earl of Elgin, September, 1898.

There have been twenty-five viceroys or governors general of India since Warren Hastings in 1774, and the list includes some of the ablest statesmen in English history, but Lord Curzon is the only man in the list who has ever been his own successor. When his first term expired in September, 1903, he was immediately reappointed for another five years. Whether he continues through the second term depends upon certain contingencies, but it is entirely probable that he will remain, because he has undertaken certain reforms and enterprises that he desires to complete. His administration has been not only a conspicuous but a remarkable success. Although he has been severely criticised for his administrative policy and many of his official acts have been opposed and condemned, the sources from which the criticisms have come often corroborate the wisdom and confirm the success of the acts complained of. Lord Cornwallis was twice Governor General of India, but there was a long interval between his terms, the first beginning in 1786 and the second in 1805. He is the only man except Lord Curzon who has been twice honored by appointment to the highest office and the greatest responsibility under the British crown except that of the prime minister.

The Viceroy is assisted in the administration of the government by a cabinet or council of five members, selected by himself, subject to the approval of the king. Each member is assigned to the supervision of one of the executive departments,--finance, military, public works, revenue, agriculture and legislative. The viceroy himself takes personal charge of foreign affairs. The commander in chief of the army in India, at present Lord Kitchener, is ex-officio member of the council.

For legislative purposes the council is expanded by the addition of ten members, appointed by the Viceroy from among the most competent British and native residents of India upon the recommendation of provincial, industrial and commercial bodies. The remaining members are the heads of the various executive departments of the government. By these men, who serve for a period of five years, and whose proceedings are open to the public and are reported and printed verbatim, like the proceedings of Congress, the laws governing India are made, subject to the approval of the Viceroy, who retains the right of veto, and in turn is responsible to the British parliament and to the king.

Thus it will be seen that the system of government in India is simple and liberal. The various industries and financial interests, and all of the great provinces which make up the empire, have a voice in framing the laws that apply to the people at large; but for convenience the territory is divided into nine great provinces, as follows:

Madras, with a governor whose salary is $40,000 a year.

Bombay, whose governor receives the same salary.

Bengal, with a lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

United Provinces, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Punjab, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Burma, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Assam, chief commissioner; salary, $16,500.

Central Provinces, chief commissioner, $16,500.

Northwestern Frontier Province, governed by an agent to the governor general, whose salary is $16,500.

The governors of Bombay and Madras are appointed by the king; the lieutenant governors and commissioners by the Viceroy. All of them have legislative councils and complete executive organizations similar to that of the general government at Calcutta. Each makes its own local laws and enjoys administrative independence similar to that of the states of the American Union, and is seldom interfered with by the Viceroy or the authorities in London, the purpose being to encourage home rule as far as possible. The provinces are divided into districts, which are the units of administration, and each district is under the control of an executive officer, who is responsible to the governor of the province.

Exclusive of the great provinces named are eighty-two of the ancient principalities, most of them retaining their original boundaries, governed by native chiefs, who are allowed more or less independence, according to their ability, wisdom and zeal. The control exercised by the central government varies in the different states, but there are certain general rules which are applied to all. The native princes have no right to make war or peace, or communicate officially with each other or with foreign governments except through the Viceroy. They are permitted to maintain a limited independent military force; they are allowed to impose a certain amount of taxes; no European is allowed to reside at their courts without their consent, but commerce, trade, industry, education, religious worship, the press and other rights and privileges are free to all just as much as in England or the United States. The native chiefs are not permitted to interfere with the judiciary, which has a separate and independent organization, as in Great Britain, with the Viceroy and the council of state corresponding to the House of Lords, as the highest court of appeal. Each native chief is "assisted" in his government by a "Resident," who is appointed by and reports to the Viceroy, and is expected to guide the policy and official acts of the native ruler with tact and delicacy. He remains in the background as much as possible, assumes no authority and exercises no prerogatives, but serves as a sort of ambassador from the Viceroy and friendly adviser to the native prince.

The following is a list of the ruling native princes in the order of their rank as recognized by the British government, and the salutes to which they are entitled:

Salute of twenty-one guns--

Salute of nineteen guns--

Salute of seventeen guns--

Salute of fifteen guns--

Salute of thirteen guns--

Salute of eleven guns--

The Viceroy has a veto over the acts of the native princes as he has over those of the provincial governors, and can depose them at will, but such heroic measures are not adopted except in extreme cases of bad behavior or misgovernment. Lord Curzon has deposed two rajahs during the five years he has been Viceroy, but his general policy has been to stimulate their ambitions, to induce them to adopt modern ideas and methods and to educate their people.

Within the districts are municipalities which have local magistrates and councils, commissioners, district and local boards and other bodies for various purposes similar to those of our county and city organizations. The elective franchise is being extended in more or less degree, according to circumstances, all over India, suffrage being conferred upon taxpayers only. The municipal boards have care of the roads, water supply, sewerage, sanitation, public lighting, markets, schools, hospitals and other institutions and enterprises of public utility. They impose taxes, collect revenues and expend them subject to the approval of the provincial governments. In all of the large cities a number of Englishmen and other foreigners are members of boards and committees and take an active part in local administration, but in the smaller towns and villages the government is left entirely to natives, who often show conspicuous capacity.

The policy of Lord Curzon has been to extend home rule and self-government as rapidly and as far as circumstances will justify. The population of India is a dense, inert, ignorant, depraved and superstitious mass of beings whose actions are almost entirely controlled by signs and omens, and by the dictation of the Brahmin priests. They are therefore not to be trusted with the control of their own affairs, but there is a gradual and perceptible improvement in their condition, which is encouraged by the authorities in every possible way. And as fast as they show themselves competent they are trusted with the responsibility of the welfare of themselves and their neighbors. The habitual attitude of the Hindu is crouching upon the ground. The British government is trying to raise him to a standing posture, to make him a man instead of the slave of his superstitions.

No one can visit India, no one can read its history or study its statistics, without admitting the success and recognizing the blessings of British occupation. The government has had its ups and downs. There have been terrible blunders and criminal mistakes, which we are in danger of repeating in the Philippine Islands, but the record of British rule during the last half-century--since the Sepoy mutiny, which taught a valuable lesson at an awful cost--has been an almost uninterrupted and unbroken chapter of peace, progress and good government. Until then the whole of India never submitted to a single ruler. For nearly a thousand years it was a perpetual battlefield, and not since the invasion of Alexander the Great have the people enjoyed such liberty or tranquillity as they do today. Three-eighths of the country still remains under the authority of hereditary native rulers with various degrees of independence. Foreigners have very little conception of the extent and the power of the native government. We have an indefinable impression that the rajah is a sensuous, indolent, extravagant sybarite, given to polo, diamonds and dancing girls, and amputates the heads of his subjects at pleasure; but that is very far from the truth. Many of the princes in the list just given, are men of high character, culture and integrity, who exercise a wise, just and patriarchal authority over their subjects. Seventeen of the rajputs (rashpootes, it is pronounced) represent the purest and bluest Hindu blood, for they are descended from Rama, the hero of the Ramayama, the great Hindu poem, who is generally worshiped as an incarnation of the god Bishnu; and their subjects are all their kinsmen, descended from the same ancestors, members of the same family, and are treated as such. Other rajahs have a relationship even more clannish and close, and most of them are the descendants of long lines of ancestors who have occupied the same throne and exercised the same power over the same people from the beginning of history. None of the royal families of Europe can compare with them in length of pedigree or the dimensions of their family trees, and while there have been bad men as well as good men in the lists of native rulers; while the people have been crushed by tyranny, ruined by extravagance and tortured by the cruelty of their masters, the rajahs of India have averaged quite as high as the feudal lords of Germany or the dukes and earls of England in ability and morality.

It has been the policy of Lord Curzon since he has been Viceroy to extend the power and increase the responsibility of the native princes as much as possible, and to give India the largest measure of home rule that circumstances and conditions will allow. Not long ago, at the investiture of the Nawab of Bahawalpur, who had succeeded to the throne of his father, the Viceroy gave a distinct definition of the relationship between the native princes and the British crown.

"It is scarcely possible," he said, "to imagine circumstances more different than those of the Indian chiefs now and what they were at the time Queen Victoria came to the throne. Now their sympathies have expanded with their knowledge and their sense of responsibility; with the degree of confidence reposed in them. They recognize their obligations to their own states and their duty to the imperial throne. The British crown is no longer an impersonal abstraction, but a concrete and inspiring force. The political system of India is neither feudalism nor federation. It is embodied in no constitution; it does not rest upon treaty, and it bears no resemblance to a league. It represents a series of relationships that have grown up between the crown and Indian princes under widely different historical conditions, but which in process of time have gradually conformed to a single type. The sovereignty of the crown is everywhere unchallenged. Conversely, the duties and the services of the state are implicitly recognized, and, as a rule, faithfully discharged. It is this happy blend of authority with free will, of sentiment with self-interest, of duties with rights, that distinguishes the Indian Empire under the British crown from any other dominion of which we read in history. The princes have gained prestige instead of losing it. Their rank is not diminished, and their privileges have become more secure. They have to do more for the protection they enjoy, but they also derive more from it; for they are no longer detached appendages of empire, but its participators and instruments. They have ceased to be architectural adornments of the imperial edifice, and have become the pillars that help to sustain the main roof."

At the same time Lord Curzon has kept a tight rein upon the rajahs and maharajas lest they forget the authority that stands behind them. He does not allow them to spend the taxes of the people for jewels or waste it in riotous living, and has the right to depose any of them for crime, disloyalty, misgovernment or any other cause he deems sufficient. The supreme authority of the British government has become a fact which no native state or ruler would for a moment think of disputing or doubting. No native chief fails to understand that his conduct is under scrutiny, and that if he committed a crime he would be tried and punished by the courts as promptly and as impartially as the humblest of his subjects. At the same time they feel secure in their authority and in the exercise of their religion, and when a native prince has no direct heir he has the right to select his successor by adoption. He may choose any child or young man among his subjects and if the person selected is of sound mind and respectable character, the choice is promptly ratified by the central government. There is no interference with the exercise of authority or the transaction of business unless the welfare of the people plainly requires it, and in such cases, the intervention has been swift and sure.

During the five years that he has been Viceroy, Lord Curzon has deposed two native rulers. One of them was the Rajah of Bhartpur, a state well-known in the history of India by its long successful resistance of the British treaty. In 1900 the native prince, a man of intemperate habits and violent passions, beat to death one of his personal servants who angered him by failing to obey orders to his satisfaction. It was not the first offense, but it was the most flagrant and the only one that was ever brought officially to the attention of the government. His behavior had been the subject of comment and the cause of scandal for several years, and he had received frequent warnings. Hence, when the brutal murder of his servant was reported at the government house, Lord Curzon immediately ordered his arrest and trial. He was convicted, sentenced to imprisonment for life, deprived of all his titles and authority, and his infant son was selected as his successor. During the minority of the young prince the government will be administered by native regents under British supervision.

In 1901 the uncle of the Maharaja of Panna died under mysterious circumstances. An investigation ordered by Lord Curzon developed unmistakable evidence that he had been deliberately poisoned. The rajah was suspended from power, was tried and convicted of the crime, and in April, 1902, was deposed, deprived of all honors and power and sentenced to imprisonment for life, while one of his subordinates who had actually committed the crime by his orders was condemned to death.

In January, 1903, the Maharaja of Indore, after testifying to his loyalty to the British crown by attending the durbar at Delhi, and after due notice to the viceroy, abdicated power in favor of his son, a boy 12 years old. The step was approved by Lord Curzon for reasons too many and complicated to be repeated here. During the minority of the young man the government will be conducted by native ministers under British supervision, and the boy will be trained and educated with the greatest care.

In 1894 the Maharaja of Mysore died, leaving as his heir an infant son, and it became necessary for the viceroy to appoint a regent to govern the province during his minority. The choice fell upon the boy's mother, a woman of great ability and intelligence, who justified the confidence reposed in her by administering the affairs of the government with great intelligence and dignity. She won the admiration of every person familiar with the facts. She gave her son a careful English education and a few months ago retired in his favor.

In several cases the privilege of adoption has been exercised by the ruling chief, and thus far has been confirmed by the British authority in every case.

There are four colleges in India exclusively for the education of native princes, which are necessary in that country because of the laws of caste. It is considered altogether better for a young prince to be sent to an English school and university, or to one of the continental institutions, where he can learn something of the world and come into direct association with young men of his own age from other countries, but, in many cases, this is impracticable, because the laws of caste will not permit strict Hindus to leave India and forbid their association with strangers, Even where no religious objections have existed, the fear of a loss of social dignity by contamination with ordinary people has prevented many native princes and nobles from sending their sons to ordinary schools. Hence princes, chiefs and members of the noble families in India have seldom been educated and until recently this illiteracy was not considered a discredit, because it was so common. To furnish an opportunity for the education of that class without meeting these objections, Lord Mayo, while viceroy, founded a college at Ajmer, which is called by his name, A similar institution was established at Lahore by Sir Charles Atchison, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab in 1885. The corner stone was laid by the Duke of Connaught, A considerable part of the funds were contributed by the Punjab princes, and the balance necessary was supplied by the imperial government. Similar institutions have since been founded at Indore and Rajkot, and in the four schools about 300 of the future rulers of the native states are now receiving a healthy, liberal, modern education. The course of study has been regulated to meet peculiar requirements. It is not desired to make great scholars out of these young princes to fill their heads with useless learning, but to teach them knowledge that will be of practical usefulness when they assume authority, and to cultivate manly habits and pure tastes. Their physical development is carefully looked after. They play football, cricket and other games that are common at the English universities; they have gymnasiums and prizes for athletic excellence. They are taught English, French and the oriental languages; lower mathematics, geography, history and the applied sciences, particularly chemistry, electricity and engineering.

Lord Curzon has taken a deep interest in these institutions. He usually attends the graduating exercises and makes addresses to the students in presenting prizes or diplomas; and he gives them straight talks about the duties and the privileges of young men of their positions and responsibilities. He tells them that a rajah is worthless unless he is a gentleman, and that power can never safely be intrusted to people of rank unless they are fitted to exercise it. With a view of extending their training and developing their characters he has recently organized what is called the Imperial Cadet Corps, a bodyguard of the Viceroy, which attends him upon occasions of state, and is under his immediate command. He inspects the cadets frequently and takes an active personal interest in their discipline and education. The course of instruction lasts for three years, and is a modification of that given the cadets at West Point. The boys are taught military tactics, riding and the sciences. Very little attention is paid to higher mathematics of other studies except history, law and the modern languages. No one is eligible for admission to this corps except members of the families of the ruling native princes, and they must be graduates of one of the four colleges I have mentioned, under 20 years of age. There is great eagerness on the part of the young princess to join the dashing troop of horsemen. Four of the privates are now actual rulers of states with several millions of subjects and more than thirty are future maharajas. The honorary commander is the Maharaja Sir Pertas Singh, but the actual commander is a British major. It is proposed to offer commissions in the Indian army to the members of this corps at the close of their period of training, but that was not the chief purpose in Lord Curzon's mind when he suggested the organization. He desired to offer the most tempting inducement possible for the young princes to attend college and qualify themselves for their life work.

American visitors to India are often impressed with the presence of the same problems of government there that perplex our own people in the Philippines, and although England has sent her ablest men and applied her most mature wisdom to their solution, they are just as troublesome and unsettled as they ever were, and we will doubtless have a similar experience among our own colonial or, as they are called, insular possessions. There are striking coincidences. It makes one feel quite at home to hear Lord Curzon accused of the same errors and weaknesses that Judge Taft and Governor Wright have been charged with; and if those worthy gentlemen could get together, they might embrace with sympathetic fervor. One class of people in India declares that Lord Curzon sacrifices everything of value to the welfare of the natives; another class insists that he has his foot upon the neck of the poor Hindu and is grinding his brown face into the dust. In both England and India are organizations of good people who have conceived it to be their mission to defend and protect the natives from real or imaginary wrongs they are suffering, while there are numerous societies and associations whose business is to see that the Englishman gets his rights in India also.

It may console Lord Curzon to know that the criticisms of his policy and administration have been directed at every viceroy and governor general of India since the time of Warren Hastings, and they will probably be repeated in the future as long as there are men of different minds and dispositions and different ideas of what is right and proper.

England has given India a good government. It has accomplished wonders in the way of material improvements and we can say the same of the administration in the Philippine Islands, even for the short period of American occupation. Mistakes have been made in both countries. President Roosevelt, Secretary Taft, Governor General Wright and his associates would find great profit in studying the experience of the British. The same questions and the same difficulties that confront the officials at Manila have occurred again and again in India during the last 200 years, and particularly since 1858, when the authority and rights of the East India Company were transferred to the crown. And the most serious of all those questions is how far the native shall be admitted to share the responsibilities of the government. The situations are similar.

The population of India, like that of the Philippines, consists of a vast mixed multitude in various stages of civilization, in which not one man in fifty and not one woman in 200 can read or write.

Ninety per cent of the people, and the same proportion of the people of the Philippines, do not care a rap about "representative government." They do not know anything about it. They would not understand what the words meant if they ever heard them spoken. The small minority who do care are the "educated natives," who are just as human as the rest of us, and equally anxious to acquire money and power, wear a title, hold a government office and draw a salary from the public funds. There are many most estimable Hindu gentlemen who do not come within this class, but I am speaking generally, and every person of experience in India has expressed the same opinion, when I say that a Hindu immediately becomes a politician as soon as he is educated. It he does not succeed in obtaining an office he becomes an opponent of the government, and more or less of an agitator, according to his ability and ambitions.

The universities of India turn out about five thousand young men every year who have been stuffed with information for the purpose of passing the civil service examinations, and most of them have only one aim in life, which is to secure government employment. As the supply of candidates is always much larger than the demand, the greater number fail, and, in their disappointment, finding no other profitable field nor the exercise of their talents, become demagogues, reformers and critics of the administration. They inspire and maintain agitations for "home rule" and "representative government." They hold conventions, deliver lectures, write for the newspapers, and denounce Lord Curzon and his associates. If they were in the Philippine Islands they would organize revolutions and paper governments from places of concealment in the forests and mountains. They classify their emotions and desire for office under the name of patriotism, and some of them are undoubtedly sincere. If they had a chance they would certainly give their fellow countrymen the best government and the highest degree of happiness within their power. They call themselves "the people." But in no sense are they representatives of the great masses of the inhabitants. They have no influence with them and really care nothing about them. If the English were to withdraw from India to-day there would be perpetual revolution. If the Americans were to withdraw from Manila the result would be the same.

It should be said, however, that, with all their humbug about benevolence, the British have never had the presumption to assert that their occupation of India is exclusively for the benefit of the natives. They are candid enough to admit that their purpose is not entirely unselfish, and that, while they are promoting civilization and uplifting a race, they expect that race to consume a large quantity of British merchandise and pay good prices for it. The sooner such an understanding is reached in the Philippines the better. We are no more unselfish than the British, and to keep up the pretext of pure benevolence while we are in the Philippines for trade and profit also, is folly and fraud. It is neither fair nor just to the Filipinos nor to the people of the United States. At the same time the British authorities in India have given the natives a fair share of the offices and have elevated them to positions of honor, influence and responsibility. But they have discovered, as our people must also discover in the Philippines, that a civil service examination does not disclose all the qualities needed by rulers of men. The Hindu is very similar in character, disposition and talent to the Filipino; he has quick perceptions, is keen-witted, cunning and apt at imitations. He learns with remarkable ease and adapts himself to new conditions with great facility, but no amount of those qualities can make up for the manly courage, the sterling honesty, the unflinching determination and tireless energy of the British character. The same is true in the Philippine Islands.

At the last census only 864 Englishmen held active civil positions under the imperial government and 3,752 natives. The number of natives employed in the public service has been constantly increasing since 1879, while the number of Englishmen has been gradually growing less. No person other than a native of India can be appointed to certain positions under the government. Native officers manage almost all of the multifarious interests connected with the revenues, the lands, the civil courts and local administration. The duties of the civil courts throughout India, excepting the Court of Appeals, are almost entirely performed by native judges, who exercise jurisdiction in all cases affecting Europeans as well as natives, and the salaries they receive are very liberal. No country in the world pays better salaries than India to its judiciary. In Bengal a high court judge whether English or native, receives $16,000 a year, and the members of the lower courts are paid corresponding amounts.

It is asserted by prominent and unprejudiced members of the bar that nothing in the history of civilization has been more remarkable than the improvement that has taken place in the standard of morality among the higher classes of Indian officials, particularly among the judiciary. This is due in a great measure to the fact that their salaries have been sufficient to remove them from temptation, but a still greater influence has been the example of the irreproachable integrity of the Englishmen who have served with them and have created an atmosphere of honor and morality.

The English officials employed under the government of India belong to what is known as "The Covenanted Civil Service" the term "covenanted" having been inherited from the East India Company, which required its employes to enter into covenants stipulating that they would serve a term of years under certain conditions, including retirement upon half pay when aged, and pensions for their families after their death. Until 1853 all appointments to the covenanted service were made by nomination, but in that year they were thrown open to public competition of all British subjects without distinction of race, including natives of India as well as of England. The conditions are so exacting that few native Hindus are willing to accept them, and of the 1,067 men whose names were on the active and retired lists on the 31st of December, 1902, only forty were natives of India.

Lord Macaulay framed the rules of the competition and the scheme of examination, and his idea was to attract the best and ablest young men in the empire. Candidates who are successful are required to remain one year on probation, with an allowance of $500, for the purpose of preparing themselves for a second examination which is much more severe than the first. Having passed the second examination, they become permanent members of the civil service. They cannot be removed without cause, and are promoted according to length of service and advanced on their merits in a manner very similar to that which prevails in our army and navy. None but members of the covenanted service can become heads of departments, commissioners of revenue, magistrates and collectors, and there is a long list of offices which belong to them exclusively. Their service and assignment to duty is largely governed by their special qualifications and experience. They are encouraged to improve themselves and qualify themselves for special posts. A covenanted official who can speak the native languages, who distinguishes himself in literature or in oratory, who devises plans for public works, or distinguishes himself in other intellectual or official lines of activity is sure to be recognized and receive rapid advancement, while those who prefer to perform only the arduous duties that are required of them will naturally remain in the background. There is, and there always will be, more or less favoritism and partiality as long as human affections and personal regard influence official conduct, and I do not believe we would have it otherwise. We can admire the stern sense of justice which sends a son to the scaffold or denies a brother a favor that he asks, but we do not like to have such men in our families. There is undoubtedly more or less personal and political influence exercised in the Indian service, but I doubt if any other country is more free from those common and natural faults.

In addition to the covenanted service are the imperial service and the provincial service, which are recruited chiefly from the natives, although both are open to any subject of King Edward VII. All these positions are secured by competitive examinations, and, as I have already intimated, the universities of India have arranged their courses of study to prepare native candidates for them. This has been criticised as a false and injurious educational policy. The universities are called nurseries for the unnatural propagation of candidates for the civil service, and almost every young man who enters them expects, or at least aspires, to a government position. There is no complaint of the efficiency of the material they furnish for the public offices. The examinations are usually sufficient to disclose the mental qualifications of the candidates and are conducted with great care and scrupulousness, but they fail to discover the most essential qualifications for official responsibility, and the greater number of native appointees are contented to settle down at a government desk and do as little work as possible.