England carrying on a trade that has any value? If the Hindoo is likely to undersell us eventually in his own markets, is not the same thing to be feared of the Americans in regard to most of the commodities in producing which the English have hitherto excelled? Is not Belgium underselling us in the manufacture of iron, and are not Prussian guns more in demand than English? England, in fact, has been for long educating the rest of the world in the art of manufacture, and must expect that some of her pupils will learn in time to do without their teacher. But that is hardly a complete view of our trade relations with India, which considers only the smaller part--our export trade and leaves out of sight the much larger trade in the commodities which we import from that country. Some idea of the magnitude of that trade, and of the interests involved in it, may be gathered from a cursory glance at the daily newspaper, where whole columns of adyertisements appear of steamers and ships sailing to India. Consider, too, the number of mercantile houses and banks engaged in the India trade, and the multitude of people in various capacities who gain their livelihood, indirectly as well as directly, in connection with these fleets and these great establishments. And this, after all, would be a very inadequate view of the matter. For, as the late Mr. Cairnes observed in one of his essays, one might as well measure the advantages of learning by the salaries paid to the teachers, as measure the benefit which foreign trade confers on a country by the profits of the agents who carry it on. The real benefit of foreign trade to a country is surely that it is supplied in this way with things at a cheaper price than that at which they can be produced within the country, or with things which it cannot produce at all. The great difference in the nature of the products of India and England has hitherto constituted the special value of the trade between the two countries. It is unnecessary even to mention the commodities in the production of which India has almost a monopoly, but in addition she is now becoming able to supply various articles of home production on equal terms. This branch of Indian trade, indeed, is advancing with such rapid strides as to even threaten to affect seriously the conditions of English agriculture; and although there may still be some people who regard the competition of the foreign producer as an evil, probably most persons in these days are satisfied that the real interests of the population of this country are best advanced when all their wants are supplied from the cheapest markets. Mr. Lowe says that whereas the Romans would have drawn thirty millions per annum from India, the English Government does not draw a single penny.' The English Government does not, but the English people does, draw a great deal more than thirty millions a year from India, yet this increase to their wealth is not obtained at the expense of India, which is enriched by an intercourse mutually profitable to both sides.

A word must be added about the field of employment offered to Englishmen by the Indian public service. The state of the case in

this respect is familiar to every one. There is hardly a middle-class English family which has not a relative employed in some official capacity in India, which thus comes to our aid in a practical difficulty, by drawing off a portion of that supply of English youth which seems to be always tending to exceed the demand for it. We may, if we please, imagine a different state of things, under which the trade and population of this country should both become stationary, and no more people be born than there are places for them to fill; but so long as the view obtains of our duties and obligations on this point which is commonly held at present, when, so far from it being considered immoral to contribute towards the evils of over-population, even the ministers of religion set the example of bringing more people into the world than they have the means of providing for, so long the outlet afforded by India is a very real benefit to the class in question. In this case at least, India cannot be said to cause any drain on this country; whatever may be the difficulty of getting soldiers, there is certainly none in filling up the gaps occurring in the market for educated labour; and those who get out of the way of their crowded fellow-countrymen at home by taking themselves off to India, not only thus afford direct relief, they also benefit England by spending a large part of their savings here, and for their numbers they are directly and indirectly large employers of English labour. This is one form of the tribute paid by India to England, and when we bear in mind how small is the proportion of Englishmen living in India to the total population of these islands, the amount of business in London alone which meets the eye, arising in this way from the occupation of that country, is surprisingly large.

Considering then the array of interests involved, of the army of officials, of the merchants, distributors, producers, and consumers, who gain a livelihood from, or whose convenience and prosperity are bound up with, our connection with India, it may be said that the effect on them, and by consequence on the people of this country generally of whom they form so considerable a part, of the loss of India, which Mr. Lowe regards as a matter of trifling importance, would really amount to a tremendous calamity affecting every class of English society. For all this trade and all this field of employment would be sacrificed if we surrendered our possession of that country. The loss of India would involve consequences quite different from those likely to result from the loss of any of our colonies. Canada or Australia might separate from us without any change in our commercial relations with them, and still affording the same outlet as before for the energies of our redundant population. But the loss of India means the destruction of our Indian trade, for the maintenance of it is entirely dependent on our occupation of that country. What its fate would be if we were from any cause to withdraw from it no man can indeed foresee. The state of anarchy which followed upon the decay and destruction of the Mogul empire, which explain the

early and easy successes of the English, and to a certain extent excuse their high-handed and often unscrupulous proceedings; the overthrow of ancient dynasties by robber hordes and upstart adventurers, and the substitution of the rule of might and violence for all legal sanctions; the chaotic state of Indian politics with its attendant desolation of the country until succeeded by the strong and equable rule of the British, forbid the framing of sober speculations on the probable condition of India at the present time if the English had not taken possession of it, and equally as to what its condition would become if they were now to leave it. But one thing may be predicted with certainty. In the event of such a catastrophe the rule would not pass into the hands of the class which the English public is accustomed to associate with their notions of the Indian people. The educated Indians, the product of our State schools and Presidency universities, are still an extremely small minority, although their numbers are stimulated by the system of gratuitous education inforce, and they are the very last class likely to succeed to our power. Yet these are the men who make themselves most heard of; who, in default of getting places under government, take to editing seditious newspapers, the existence of which the Government tolerates with scornful yet lazy indifference. Wisely perhaps, for in truth there is no more reality about the treasonable aspirations of the youthful Bengalee than in the education which he has acquired. The invocations to the shades of Brutus and Demosthenes, and appeals to their countrymen to emulate the part of Hampden, which come so glibly from Bengalee pens, are a not unnatural corollary from the system of education which trains lads who have never seen a mound as high as Primrose Hill, or a bigger stone than the broken granite on the Calcutta streets, and who are living in a tropical climate, to write analytic essays on Wordsworth's Ode to Helvellyn, or Cowper's Winter's Walk at Noon, or from their experience of life gained in the cluster of mud hovels which makes up a Bengalee village to paraphrase Johnson's London or Pope's Dunciad. In neither one case nor the other has the essayist any real conception of what he is writing about; the images he uses so glibly convey no sort of notion to his mind. Let us not therefore suppose that we are educating a governing class to take our place; a Government of India, or even of Bengal, by educated Bengalees, is not among the possibilities of the future. What does seem probable, in the event of our withdrawal from the country, is that India would again become a prey, as it has so often been before, to the warlike and barbarous races beyond the frontier. What seems certain in any case is that the rule, if such a name could be given to the state of things resulting, would everywhere fall to the more manly and unsophisticated but unscrupulous classes, whether within or without the frontier, whose impulse would be to protest against the evidence of civilisation in any form, and whose uprising would be followed by the destruction or decay of the roads and railways and

telegraphs, and all marks of English occupation, with the total cessation of foreign trade. But let us charitably hope that before the desolation occurs, which would otherwise follow when the English retire from India, Russia or some other Power may step in to take our place, and avert some part of the consequences which must otherwise fall on the unfortunate people of that country. Yet in pursuing the subject so far we are passing the bounds of sober speculation; for of all wild political fancies, that of the occupation of India by Russia, always supposing she has not the command of the sea, but must approach it through the steppes of Central Asia, is surely among the wildest. It is almost as extravagant as the conception of an independent government of Bengal by Bengalees. And if Russia has the command of the sea England must have lost it, and with it of course the possession of India.

The considerations which have been here put forward will, it may be hoped, assist the reader towards forming a just estimate of the relative advantages and drawbacks involved in our possession of India. I have endeavoured to show that the supposed drain of men which that possession entails is in peace time quite inappreciable as compared with the effect of emigration. In time of war the case is different; the absence from Europe of 60,000 soldiers is an apparent loss, but apparent only, because there is no certainty that, if not wanted for India, they would not have emigrated, while it is small in comparison with the effective power of England if the English choose to make use of it. Admitting however the drawback, and also the contingent responsibility of being called on to defend a distant dependency, the question remains whether the enormous benefit resulting to England from its Indian trade-a trade the existence of which is wholly dependent on our occupation of the country-is worth the contingent risks involved. Considering that peace has happily been for many years our normal condition, and that our Indian trade has, during this long period, added enormously to the wealth and prosperity of the country, and therefore to its capacity for bearing the stress of war whenever it may come upon us :-if we weigh the good against the evil, and bear in mind moreover that this contingent risk is much smaller than that which we actually ran in the great struggle at the beginning of the century, when with less than half our present population we managed to defy Napoleon, and to win a great part of India at the same time; then, apart from all sentiments of pride, or honour, or patriotism, but looking at the matter simply as one of self-interest and prudent investment, there would seem to be no room for reasonable doubt on which side of the account the balance should be struck. To defend India might conceivably demand a great effort; to lose it must involve a shock that would vibrate through every section of English society, and would go far to work a calamitous revolution in the material condition of the English people.

GEORGE CHESNEY.

A ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW OF

RITUALISM.

THERE is much which deserves to attract the regard of contemporary society, and to fix the attention of serious observers, in the singular phenomenon of religious revival which is termed Ritualism. It is, in fact, no ordinary phenomenon which has effected this spiritual regeneration in the heart of English Protestantism, by efforts coming from within, and by the action of Protestantism, reacting on itself. It offers matter for interesting observations of social psychology, and we doubt whether history affords many instances of a similar revival.

Sometimes, indeed, recurring to decadent ages, or to those which are on the eve of dissolution, we encounter peoples which are suddenly restored to life, which lift up their heads once more, recover their strength, and appear to renew their youth; but when we look more closely, instead of pausing on the surface of history, and go on to examine the events themselves, and the causes which produce them, it always appears that the revival asserted to be spontaneous was simply the effect of external causes. God,' says the Scripture, created the generations of the world healthful,' but in order that a people may be healed, a medicine must be found, and this medicine must be sought outside of that people, since there is no instance of a sick man, who has reached a certain stage of prostration, being able to restore himself to life. Lazarus indeed left the grave, but before he issued from the sepulchre and resumed his place in his home at Bethany it was necessary for Christ to come to break open the tomb and release him from his bonds by uttering the words which restored him to life: Lazarus, come forth.' It is without precedent that the dead should restore themselves to life. When a nation is dead, it cannot live again; and when it is dying, it can only be rescued from the grave by a kind of miracle.

Once, undoubtedly, the Roman Empire was seen to die, and then apparently to revive under a new form, in the hundred European nations which have preserved its laws and usages, but this was the case only in appearance: it is not really the social system of Rome whose day was over. That social system gave way to the barbarous era

1 Wisdom, i. 14.