natures, are essentially a people who may be so regarded. Who that has met that fine old Rajput Chief, Sir Pertab Singh, would ever think of treating him in any other way? Who that has served with Indian troops in time of war would look upon them in any different light? And in working, as we must, towards greater efficiency in our civil and military administration, we must be careful not to blight in the bud this delicate flower now just slowly developing, lest, when the race is run, we find in our hands the mere stalk only, while the fair petals have withered away. Efficiency is most necessary, but it is not an end in itself. It is merely a means, and only one of many, to an end. And if to attain it we sacrifice the feeling of comradship, we shall find India only loosely bound to us in the day of trouble; the zest and spring in the life of the people will be gone, and the fairest blooms of intellectual and spiritual development will never unfold themselves.
The idea, then, which I would venture to suggest as governing all other ideas regarding our management of India is this fundamental idea of treating the relationship between us and the people of India as one of hearty comradeship. And with this idea in our minds, let us realize the grandeur and sublimity of the task which lies before us in India, and when we have devoted a sufficiency of time to considering how best to improve our material position here at home, how to get our food and clothing cheapest and house ourselves most comfortably, and when we have likewise trained our minds sufficiently—then, when we find some leisure to think of what we intend actually to do in the world, what practical contribution we are going to make towards the general welfare of mankind, let us turn our thoughts to India and those three hundred millions of people whose destinies lie in our hands, and let us so act that when, in the dim distant ages, the final history of our race is written we may be known to posterity not merely as the nation which was most clever at buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest markets, nor even as the most
