PREFACE. THE announcement of contemplated changes in the Government of India, has naturally given rise to various suggestions as to the policy to be adopted in the future Administration of that portion of the British Empire. The object of the following pages is not to multiply these suggestions, or to scrutinize the causes of those calamitous events, which have riveted the interest of all classes of the community in England, on India and its destinies. Valuable as are the speculations of thoughtful and earnest men, on a question so momentous as that which affects the loss, or the maintenance of British authority in India, it is yet too evident that those speculations have in the present case often rested on a basis of actual knowledge of the past and present circumstances of our Eastern Empire, too slender for the superstructure of theories which it has been called upon to bear. If Indian taxation, law, and judicial procedure are to become the battle-field of English Parliamentary 446859 |