owed, therefore, a heavy debt to the natives;
and, instead of paying it, we kept up a cumbrous system of government,
which provided for members of the British upper classes, and failed to
promote the material welfare of our subjects. The special instance
alleged was the want of proper irrigation. To this Fitzjames replied in
his first letter that we had, in fact, done as much as could be done,
and possibly more than was judicious; and he accuses his antagonist of
gross ignorance of the facts. His wrath, however, was really aroused by
the moral assumptions involved. Bright, he thought, represented the view
of the commonplace shopkeeper, intensified by the prejudices of the
Quaker. To him ambition and conquest naturally represented simple
crimes. Ambition, reports Fitzjames, is the incentive to 'all manly
virtues'; and conquest an essential factor in the building up of all
nations. We should be proud, not ashamed, to be the successors of Clive
and Warren Hastings and their like. They and we are joint architects of
the bridge by which India has passed from being a land of cruel wars,
ghastly superstitions, and wasting plague and famine, to be at least a
land of peace, order, and vast possibilities. The supports of the bridge
are force and justice. Force without justice was the old scourge of
India; but justice without force means the pursuit of unattainable
ideals. He speaks 'from the fulness of his heart,' and impressed by the
greatest sight he had ever seen.

Fitzjames kept silence for a time, though it was a grief to him, but he
broke out again in October 1878, during the first advance into
Afghanistan. Party feeling was running high, and Fitzjames had to
encounter Lord Lawrence, Lord Northbrook, Sir W. Harcourt, and other
able antagonists. He mentions that he wrote his first letter, which
fills more than two columns of the 'Times,' four times over. I should
doubt whether he ever wrote any other such paper twice. The sense of
responsibility shown by this excessive care led him also to confine
himself to a single issue, upon which he could speak most effectively,
out of several that might be raised. He will not trespass upon the
ground of military experts, but, upon the grounds of general policy,
supports a thesis which goes to the root of the matter. The advance of
the Russian power in Central Asia makes it desirable for us to secure a
satisfactory frontier. The position of the Russians, he urges, is
analogous to our o