icious
operation, have come to the conclusion that the good on the whole
preponderates. But that there is no inconsiderable amount of evil to be
set off against the good has never been disputed by the warmest friend
to freedom of discussion.

"In India the Press is comparatively a very feeble engine. It does far
less good and far less harm than in Europe. It sometimes renders
useful services to the public. It sometimes brings to the notice of
the Government evils the existence of which would otherwise have been
unknown. It operates, to some extent, as a salutary check on public
functionaries. It does something towards keeping the administration
pure. On the other hand, by misrepresenting public measures, and by
flattering the prejudices of those who support it, it sometimes produces
a slight degree of excitement in a very small portion of the community.

"How slight that excitement is, even when it reaches its greatest
height, and how little the Government has to fear from it, no person
whose observation has been confined to European societies will readily
believe. In this country the number of English residents is very small,
and, of that small number, a great proportion are engaged in the service
of the State, and are most deeply interested in the maintenance of
existing institutions. Even those English settlers who are not in the
service of the Government have a strong interest in its stability. They
are few; they are thinly scattered among a vast population, with whom
they have neither language, nor religion, nor morals, nor manners, nor
colour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrow
the existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particular
acts of the Government--especially acts which are mortifying to the
pride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India--are often
angrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot,
and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfall
of the Government would be attended with the destruction of his fortune,
and with imminent hazard to his life.

"Thus, among the English inhabitants of India, there are no fit subjects
for that species of excitement which the Press sometimes produces
at home. There is no class among them analogous to that vast body of
English labourers and artisans whose minds are rendered irritable by
frequent distress and privation, and on whom, therefore, the sophistry
and rhetor