or play bridge with their English fellow-members into the
small hours of the morning, but who consider themselves bound in
conscience not to sit down to dinner with them; whilst some will
doubtless feel obliged to perform ceremonial ablutions when they go
home. Others again, for similar reasons, would decline to join any
European club. They are no more to be blamed than Englishmen who prefer
to reserve membership of their clubs to Europeans, but the fact remains
and has to be reckoned with.

The best and most satisfactory relations are those maintained between
Englishmen and Indians who understand and respect each other's
peculiarities. No class of Englishman in India fulfils those conditions
more fully than the Indian Civil Service. It is, I know, the _bete
noire_ of the Indian politician, and even Englishmen who ought to know
better seem to think that, once they have labelled it a "bureaucracy,"
that barbarous name is enough to hang it--or enough, at least, to lend
plausibility to the charge that Anglo-Indian administrators are arrogant
and harsh in their personal dealings with Indians and ignorant and
unsympathetic in their methods of government.

That the English civilian goes out to India with a tolerably high
intellectual and moral equipment can hardly be disputed, for he
represents the pick of the young men who qualify for our Civil Service
at home as well as abroad, and in respect of character, integrity, and
intelligence the British Civil Service can challenge comparison with
that of any other country in the world. Why should he suddenly change
into a narrow-minded, petty tyrant as soon as he sets foot in India? A
great part at least of his career is spent in the very closest contact
with the people, for he often lives for years together in remote
districts where he has practically no other society than that of
natives. He generally knows and speaks fluently more than one
vernacular, though, owing to the multiplicity of Indian languages--there
are five, for instance, in the Bombay Presidency alone--- he may find
himself suddenly transferred to a district in which the vernaculars he
has learnt are of no use to him. Part of his time is always spent "in
camp"--_i.e._ moving about from village to village, receiving petitions,
investigating cases, listening to complaints. Perhaps none of the
ordinary duties of administration bring him so closely into touch with
the people as the collection of land revenue, for it