be sure that they will be splendid and suited
to modern tastes, while they still preserve the characteristic features
of Indian architecture.

By making this new Delhi the British capital of India, it is sought to
impress the Oriental mind with Britain's claims to be supreme, while at
the same time the old traditional prediction is evaded. Let us hope that
the device will accomplish its purpose. The prosperity of India is bound
up with the recognition by all races and parties of England's right to
rule. I would not justify all the steps by which Britain has gained her
power, nor would I ignore certain defects of her later administration.
But there is no question as to the general justice of British rule, nor
as to the fact that, without it, India's warring races and religions
would now be the ruin of all peace and progress. When we remember that
in this land of former famines the population has increased since 1858
by one hundred millions; that forty-six thousand miles of canals have
been dug for irrigation, and more than twenty-two million acres have
thereby been reclaimed; that trade has increased in the last
half-century from three hundred millions to fourteen hundred millions;
that the value of land is now larger by fifteen hundred millions than
it was fifty years ago; that there are now thirty-two thousand miles
of railway in operation and seventy-six thousand miles of telegraph;
that the Indian Post Office now handles nine hundred millions of
letters, newspapers, and other matter every year; we may well doubt
whether any conquest of history has brought about so great or so
beneficent results as have followed what we must regard as England's
commercial absorption of India.

There are doubtless seditious and anarchistic elements in the Indian
populations which need to be kept under and subdued. Let us remember
that only one-tenth part of the men, and only one-hundredth part of the
women, know how to read. There is a vast proletarian mass, ignorant and
inflammable, ready to follow leaders of better education, but less
principle, than themselves. This mass the British Government has failed
to educate, so that, while ninety per cent of the people in Japan can
read, in India only one-tenth as many can read. One of the greatest
mistakes of English administration has been its beginning of education
at the top, instead of at the bottom. It has established universities,
but not elementary schools. The excuse, of course, ha