the less advanced among the Hindu communities became manifest. Old-established traditions, the position of the Brahmins as the highest and the most sacred of the Hindu castes, the nature of their ancient calling and their consequent freedom from manual toil-all these helped them to adapt themselves easily to the new conditions under British rule, as under previous epochs, in larger numbers and far more successfully than the other castes and communities. The skill to pass examinations, especially after Sir Henry Hardinge's educational order of 1844, gave the Brahmins a decided advantage in securing a disproportionately large number of appointments in the public services in India, and they have not been slow in utilizing for the interests of their own community the political power necessarily attending this preponderance.

With the commencement of political movements in India the educated Indians, among whom Brahmins preponderate, helped by the inability of the other classes in India to play a prominent part, have assumed the position of leaders. It will be evident from what I have said above that such assumption of leadership under these conditions will not constitute them the democratic leaders of a united Indian community. The non-Brahmin movement which gave expression to the nonBrahmin feelings, long smouldering, is a protest against this Brahmin leadership. Most non-Brahmins feel that their interests cannot be safely entrusted to the hands of their hereditary oppressors. Under existing conditions Home Rule for India would mean Brahmin rule. Till the spirit of social exclusiveness and the rigidity of class and caste have disappeared, in the best interests of India the government of that country ought to be conducted on true British principles of justice and equality of opportunity to all.

The attainment of responsible government for India is an ideal towards which India ought to be helped to travel by gradual stages and steady steps. The practical politician has for the present to concern himself with what lies immediately in front of him in the first stage of his journey. Disregard of the obstacles immediately in front of a pedestrian in his earnestness to concentrate his gaze on a distant objective will inevitably lead to a nasty fall. The task of building a 'nation' out of the heroneous *ents that constitute the

Indian population is a laborious one. In that slow process of evolution each element that is finally to unite to form the homogeneous nation has to be trained to take its place in co-operation with the other component parts, not as a dependent and helpless unit, but as a self-respecting and highlydeveloped social organization, offering its willing co-operation for the promotion of common objects on terms of perfect equality.

Such a desirable end cannot be achieved by placing the heterogeneous elements in India into one ballot box and shaking it vigorously in the hope of taking out of it an Indian nation. I will not blame any Englishman for his supreme faith in the efficacy of the ballot box, for it has done much for England. But the experience of Austria-Hungary and other countries stretching eastwards has been different. A time may come when we of the East may also be able to bless the common ballot box as the most valuable instrument for expressing the will of a united nation. That time is not yet. 'East is East ' and West is West.' I will not go so far as to say that East and West shall never meet, but if Western institutions are to be grafted on to an Eastern people the process can only be successfully accomplished after preparing the Eastern people by Eastern methods. A recognition of this elementary fact will make all the difference between success and failure for such proposals for political reconstruction as the MontaguChelmsford scheme embodies.

To study the Indian method of self-government one must go back to the village Panchayats of the Hindus. A Panchayat is a council of five, and, according to the ancient Hindu system, every village had its council of five to settle disputes between the villagers and generally to look after purely village affairs. This was an admirable beginning for local self-government, and the ancient Hindus, unlike the modern British government in India, began the development of self-government at the bottom and not at the top. But unfortunately they did not proceed far. The Hindu system of self-government began and ended with the Panchayats. These rudimentary local bodies, which in a way may be said to correspond to the English vestries, remained isolated units, probably on account of the want of proper means of communication between villages in those days.

But the most interesting point about the village Panchayats, at all events so far as southern India is concerned, is that, whatever the basis may have been upon which they were originally created, they very soon assumed a character dependent upon the distinctions of caste. This was inevitable, for institutions established for each village to look after purely village concerns would necessarily reflect the nature of the composition of the village population. In southern India the Brahmin villages, called Agraharams, were sharply demarcated from those occupied by other Hindus, and the low-caste villages generally known as Paracherries were at a distance from the villages of high-caste Hindus. Thus village Panchayats in their composition naturally exhibited a distinctly caste basis. Indeed, the only Panchayats that have survived the turmoil of foreign conquests are the caste Panchayats. In southern India eighty-six per cent. of the population live in rural districts, scattered about in something like sixty thousand villages. The condition of these villagers has been aptly described in the Montagu-Chelmsford report thus :

'On the other hand is an enormous country population, for the most part poor, ignorant, non-politically minded, and unused to any system of elections-immersed indeed in the struggle for existence. The rural classes have the greatest stake in the country because they contribute most to its revenues; but they are poorly equipped for politics and do not at present wish to take part in them.'

And again, speaking of the Indian ryot, the MontaguChelmsford report says:

He has sat on caste Panchayats; he has signed joint petitions to official authority. But he has never exercised a vote on public questions. His mind has been made up for him by his landlord, or banker, or his priest, or his relatives, or the nearest official. These facts make it an imperative duty to assist and to protect him while he is learning to shoulder political responsibilities.'

That many an elector in southern India has yet to learn to shoulder political responsibility, and that he cannot do so without assistance and protection, has been amply demonstrated by the result of more than one election in that part

of the country. The nature of the assistance and protection that the average Indian elector requires can be summed up in the words' communal representation '-to use the phrase now universally employed in India to denote a system of representation which takes account of distinctions of caste. The majority of electors in India, no matter on what basis the electorate is constituted, will be deficient in education, with imperfectly developed political ideas. It is essential that they should receive some training in the methods of using the franchise that is to be given to them. In the development of a non-political people communal representation is an inevitable stage. The Montagu-Chelmsford report says that:

'Some persons hold that for a people, such as they deem those of India to be, so divided by race, religion, and caste as to be unable to consider the interests of any but their own section, a system of communal and class representation is not merely inevitable but is actually the best. They maintain that it evokes and applies the principle of democracy over the widest range over which it is actually alive at all, by appealing to the instincts which are strongest; and that we must hope to develop the finer, which are also at present the weaker, instincts by using forces that really count.'

Among those who held this view are to be counted the late Lord Dufferin, Lord Lansdowne, and the late Lord Minto. In 1892 Lord Lansdowne's government wrote that the representation of such a community upon such a scale as the Act permits can only be secured by providing that each important class shall have the opportunity of making its views known in Council by the mouth of some member specially acquainted with them.'

Elections, in the real sense of the term, for the Indian Legislative Councils were first introduced under the MintoMorley reforms. Under Lord Cross's Act we had a system which empowered constituencies to 'recommend candidates 'for nomination.' But elections as such were the gift of the Minto-Morley reforms. With elections came the communal electorates. Communal representation, as understood and practised in India, is the election, by such of the members of a 'community' as possess the prescribed electoral qualification, of one of their own number to represent them in the

Legislative Council. By a 'community' is meant a group of persons possessing a common religious allegiance. The peculiar characteristic of the Minto-Morley reforms is that the candidate for election must be an elector in the constituency which he aspires to represent in the Legislative Council. This excellent rule eliminates the carpet-bagger. Political theorists may protest against the interference with the unfettered discretion of the voters to choose whom they like to represent them in the Legislative Council. It may be safe and reasonable to permit educated and experienced electors who at the same time are inheritors of great electoral traditions to choose anyone except a peer, pauper, or lunatic to represent them in parliament, but if unfettered discretion in the choice of a representative is given to people who have their minds made up for them by the nearest official or their lawyer or priest, the legislature will represent more the interests of its members than of their constituents. The opponents of communal representation in India have attempted to modify it in two ways. One is by permitting the communal electorates to elect anyone outside their community to represent them. The danger of this change and the consequent encouragement of the carpet-bagger I have already pointed out. The other modification of the communal electorate which has been suggested in the Montagu-Chelmsford report is that of reserving to a particular community a certain number of 'seats in plural constituencies, but with a general electoral 'roll.' This will open the door for the entrance of that not very desirable system of voting by ticket. If the nonBrahmins, for example, have a certain number of seats reserved for them in plural constituencies with a general electoral roll, the Brahmins will have a ticket consisting of a number of Brahmin candidates and a number of what we call in Madras the Brahmin-non-Brahmin, on whose behalf the whole of the Brahmin organization would canvass the constituency. The result would be that the non-Brahmins who are returned for such constituencies would be barely distinguishable from the Brahmins. These modifications of the communal electorates will defeat the very object of creating such electorates. There is only one way of working communal electorates: it ought to be decided by careful investigation as to which comnities in India require com