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INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

ence to Parliament, its deliberate and well-considered judgments.

Nor need such a result be viewed with apprehension. The greater her independence, the more she will be able and willing to do for the Empire at large. Her fighting men will be at the disposal of the Crown, and I am certain that we could always raise a considerable force of the best military races for service abroad. Our Indian troops were eager to take part in the Boer War, and they would readily go to China, or Egypt, or Africa if they were called upon. It is for us to see that the rightful position of India is recognised, and frankly accorded to her. Let her grow on her. own lines. Decentralize the Government as much as possible, looking forward to the time when each of the great Provinces will be more and more independent—governed and directed, indeed, by the Viceroy, but freed from interference in all matters not of great importance in principle or policy. An India thus constituted will be divided, as it were, into water-tight compartments, and will form in the future one of the strongest links in the great British Empire.