more than almost anything else to force the provinces into an attitude of hostility to the central government. It will be a running sore, a cause of constantly recurring irritation, and every mistake made by an individual will be magnified out of all proportion, and added to the accumulating pile of grievances. Things will go on getting worse, and when other sources of friction are taken into account, the risks of a constitutional deadlock become too serious to be incurred.

Two independent lines of argument thus lead to the conclusion that it would be unwise to maintain the existing organization of the Indian Civil Service. In the first place, it may fail to provide the minimum supply of British officials which is regarded as essential to the success of the new constitution; in the second place, it is incompatible with the provincial autonomy at which the constitution aims. Let us then discard once for all the late Prime Minister's unfortunate metaphor of the steel frame, and if we must draw an illustration from the constructor's art, recognise that the Service is the scaffolding of the new edifice, a temporary inconvenience perhaps, but indispensable to the undertaking in hand. The institution was designed to serve as the agent of a foreign despotism, and hitherto it has fulfilled that purpose. It is now engaged in the task of facilitating the transition from despotism to democratic self-government. In the earlier stages of the process it could not possibly be replaced, but it will be needed less and less as time goes on; and, having regard to the duration of an official's active life, the abdicating despot should now make arrangements to bring to an end the organization on which he has hitherto relied, but which is bound to prove an obstacle to the successors he has chosen. The only possible future of the Service is extinction, and the practical questions which have now to be considered relate to the time and the method of the operation.

In approaching these questions, the first relevant consideration is the maintenance of the minimum supply of British officials required for the establishment of the new constitution. Here it is impossible to speak with precision, because the minimum requirements have never been laid down by authority; but, whatever apprehensions may have been expressed for the future, it has not been seriously contended that the process of 'Indianizing'

the Service has already gone too far, and the supply of British officials available at the moment may be taken as adequate, or possibly somewhat in excess of the minimum, whatever it may be. Some of these Civil Servants are approaching the close of official life, others can look forward for something like thirty years, and while the proportion of Indians will increase as the recent changes begin to tell, the Service as it now stands will contribute a substantial number of Englishmen as far ahead as it is desirable to calculate, provided always that its members are not driven into premature retirement.

In these circumstances, immediate closure of the Service to new recruits, of whatever nationality, would not result in any violent dislocation of the administrative business of the country, or in any sudden break with the traditions of the past; the only change would be that the recruits coming forward for practical training would be subject to different terms of service from those which are applicable to their seniors. On the other hand, the considerations which have been stated above point to immediate closure as the best possible course. The stream of provincial feeling in India is certainly rising, and there are no data to indicate its limits, whether of volume or velocity: if it can be kept within reasonable bounds it will probably be beneficial, while it may conceivably sweep everything away. If there be any truth in the contention that the provinces resent more than anything else the prospect of being staffed from outside for a period of indefinite duration, then the most statesmanlike course is to announce the definite termination of that period on the earliest practicable date, to replace doubt by certainty, and to make it clear that the promised advance to autonomy is not a sham. Each separate administration would then be able to make its plans for the future with the knowledge that after a given date it would be free to arrange its own terms with such Indians as it might desire to employ.

Coincidently with the closure of recruitment for the existing Service, steps should be taken to determine the minimum number of British officials required in the administration of each province during the years of transition; and, after taking account of the supply now available in the Civil Service, to fix the numbers to be recruited in the course of, let us say, the next ten years, or until the first statutory commission shall have had time to report on the

desirability of further constitutional changes. The determination must be done neither in Delhi nor in the provinces, but under the authority of Parliament, and it will be an excellent thing for India if the opportunity is taken to sweep away once for all the clouds of ambiguity in which the whole subject has been enveloped. The constitution contemplates the employment of British administrators, in numbers not yet determined, who are regarded as necessary by the sovereign power; that power is entitled, or indeed bound, to fix the numbers, the qualifications, and the conditions of service applicable in their case; and, while it may reasonably ascertain and consider the wishes of the subordinate Indian legislatures, it will save endless trouble in the future by refusing to allow them to usurp any of its functions in this respect.

The position of the Englishmen to be recruited in future will necessarily be different from that of the existing Civil Servants, and the distinction should be emphasised by treating them as an entirely separate organization. Once allotted to a province, they will be servants of that province and not of India, and it is probable that some at least of them will be recruited for comparatively short periods, so that the future may not be determined too far in advance, and consequently the terms of retirement must differ materially from those which now prevail. The effect of the measures which have been outlined will be that each province will have absolute control of all the Indian officials to be employed in it after a given date, while it will be required to employ a minimum number of Englishmen or Scotchmen, diminishing as time goes on, on terms laid down by the authority of Parliament. In the opinion of the present writer, such an arrangement would suffice to meet all the reasonable wishes of the provinces, and would operate also to reduce to quite small dimensions the existing violent opposition to proposals for redressing the recognised grievances of the officials now employed. The real force behind that opposition is objection to commitments for an indefinite future, and to the fixing of terms for Indian officials on the basis of the special requirements of the English market once the future is defined, and the terms for Indian officials are left for local settlement, this objection will lose its force, and existing claims, limited in extent and in duration, can expect an unprejudiced hearing.

The future of the Indian Civil Service may thus be described

as extinction on the substantial accomplishment of its task. Organized as it was to take over the administrative machinery of an oriental despotism, it has brought a new spirit to India, and, in co-operation with other agencies of more recent origin, it has propagated British ideals of government with so much success that a younger generation of Indians is apt to claim them as indigenous. It is now engaged in the task, naturally congenial to Englishmen, of establishing democratic institutions, which shall render its own existence unnecessary; and with that achievement it may be content to pass into history.

Little need be said regarding the method of introducing the changes which have been indicated as desirable, because the terms of reference to the new Royal Commission, which have just been announced, are sufficiently wide to enable it to cover the whole ground, and Viscount Peel's statement in the House of Lords that a few months would be sufficient for deliberation indicates at least that the authorities are alive to the need for prompt action. The suggestion may, however, be offered that the members of the Commission should concentrate their attention at the outset on the question of closing to future recruitment the Indian Civil Service and other bodies of similar constitution; and that, if closure is found to be desirable, they should deal with the subject in an interim report, so that the ground may be cleared as soon as possible. The questions which remain, the numbers of British recruits, the terms to be offered them, the treatment of the officials now in the Service, and the consequential changes in the staffing of the central administration, would then stand out clearly, and could be handled effectively without the prolonged delays which have marred the work of similar Commissions in the past. So long as the problem of admitting Indians to the existing Services remains, there can be no hope either of speed or of finality, since every Indian organization can fairly claim a hearing, and demands are certain to increase as the months roll on. Once a decision has been announced to leave the future employment of Indians to be settled by the Government of each province, the other issues will be seen to be the concern of the sovereign rather than the subjects, and thus can be disposed of as matters of administrative rather than political import.

THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION

SLOWLY

LOWLY but with increasing sureness the people of Great Britain have been learning to appreciate the qualities of our agricultural system. Ten years ago most reformers pointed to one or more foreign systems as examples for the farmer and the State to follow. The co-operation and dairy farming of Denmark, the intensive cultivation of Holland or Belgium, the educational systems of France and Germany, and their protective tariffs, the systems of land tenure of all these countries, and the application of machinery to farming in the United States and in Canada were all held up as examples for the emulation of the British farmer or the British Government. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with,' and any example was good enough for the benighted agriculturists and politicians of this country.

A large proportion of the public then echoed the cries of these reformers, while the farmers were mostly unmoved. Now the public is inclined to examine critically any foreign examples of agricultural organization which are held up for our emulation; but the agriculturists are willing to consider them with some sympathy, even while becoming themselves more consciously proud of their own system. This is partly due to the growth of economic and political organizations amongst all classes of British agriculturists, but also to the conscious and unconscious education of agriculturists and the public through the varied discussions of agricultural policies which have been carried on, especially during the war.

But the war itself has contributed more than all other factors to this change. The British agricultural system withstood the strains thrown upon it better than that of any other of the great belligerent nations, with the possible exception of France. Either in production and the maintenance of the condition of the land, or in revenue and loss of capital, the farming of the other nations who took part in the war has suffered more than our own. In France the maintenance and prosperity of the agricultural system in the areas into which the enemy did not penetrate are connected with the prevailing economic conditions of the country, and are

VOL. 237. NO. 484.

X