ubject of the king, whether of Indian
or British or mixed descent, shall be excluded either from the posts
usually conferred on our uncovenanted servants in India, or from
the covenanted service itself, provided he be otherwise eligible
consistently with the rules and agreeably to the conditions observed
and exacted in the one case and in the other.

106. In the application of this principle, that which will chiefly
fall to your share will be the employment of natives, whether of the
whole or the mixed blood, in official situations. So far as respects
the former class--we mean natives of the whole blood--it is hardly
necessary to say that the purposes of the legislature have in a
considerable degree been anticipated; you well know, and indeed have
in some important respects carried into effect, our desire that
natives should be admitted to places of trust as freely and
extensively as a regard for the due discharge of the functions
attached to such places will permit. Even judicial duties of magnitude
and importance are now confided to their hands, partly no doubt from
considerations of economy, but partly also on the principles of a
liberal and comprehensive policy; still a line of demarcation, to some
extent in favour of the natives, to some extent in exclusion of them,
has been maintained; certain offices are appropriated to them, from
certain others they are debarred--not because these latter belong
to the covenanted service, and the former do not belong to it,
but professedly on the ground that the average amount of native
qualifications can be presumed only to rise to a certain limit. It is
this line of demarcation which the present enactment obliterates, or
rather for which it substitutes another, wholly irrespective of the
distinction of races. Fitness is henceforth to be the criterion of
eligibility.

107. To this altered rule it will be necessary that you should, both
in your acts and your language, conform; practically, perhaps, no
very marked difference of results will be occasioned. The distinction
between situations allotted to the covenanted service and all other
situations of an official or public nature will remain generally as at
present.

108. Into a more particular consideration of the effects that may
result from the great principle which the legislature has now for the
first time recognised and established we do not enter, because we
would avoid disquisition of a speculative nature. But there is