466 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN

together by common interests and national sentiment. Whereas India has for ages been plagued with inva- sions; its vast territory has been incessantly split up and parcelled out among foreign conquerors and con- tending dynasties; the population is internally sub- divided to a degree unparalleled elsewhere, even in Asia. Yet it has inevitably come to pass that the dif- ferences of wealth and learning, frequent intercourse with Europe, and the saturation of the educated classes with Western ideas and political axioms, have stimu- lated the desire for a larger share in the government of their country among the leaders of native public opin- ion. An efficient administration no longer satisfies them; on the contrary, it has created ulterior hopes and aspirations. We began with great organic reforms, with improving the police and the prisons, with codes of law, a hierarchy of courts of justice, a trained civil service, and all the apparatus of a modern executive. Latterly we have undertaken the gradual introduction of representative institutions, legislative councils in all the important provinces, and municipalities in every substantial town; we are seriously preparing for the slow devolution of self-governing principles. But undoubtedly this is an operation of extraordi- nary difficulty, for we have no precedents to guide us in the experiment. It must certainly be conducted within the limitations necessary to preserve undisturbed and indisputable the fabric of British sovereignty, but some solution of this difficulty is demanded, for now that the English have accomplished the building up, after the