insolvency, as to his aversion to touch his hoarded treasure for the annual expenses of his army.
But the Marathas have a historic advantage of unique importance in the India of to-day. Their near ancestors had faced death in a hundred battle- fields, had led armies and debated in the chamber of diplomacy, had managed the finances of kingdoms and grappled with the problems of empire; they had helped to make Indian history in the immediate and not yet forgotten past. The memory of these things is a priceless asset to their race. In the combination of intellectual keenness, patient industry, simplicity of life, devotion to the nobler ideals of man, in the courage necessary for translating thought into deed, in the spirit of sacrifice, grit of character, and a diffused sense of democratic equality, the vast middle class of modern Maharashtra have no superior and hardly any equal among the other races of India. Would that they also possessed the organising skill, the power of co-operation, the tact in the management of instruments and colleagues, the foresight, and the saving common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race !
