one, that this process will not be marred by forcing upon her the sale or alienation, in any form, of the slice of Bessarabia, which Russia gave up at the close of the Crimean war. Roumania was to Russia eminently that friend in need, who is the friend indeed. But with the wrong to her there would be joined an offence to Europe. Nor can anything be less consonant with the conditions of a sound political order than that, by an artificial arrangement, a country, which has not a natural connection with a great river-outlet, should take formal rank among the états riverains of the Danube by holding a morsel of territory on one side of the mouth. The cession made in 1856 was not a mere submission to force majeure; it was an improvement in the distribution of territory, and a guarantee for peace; and the tie, which it

2; broke, was one that had not been consecrated or confirmed by time. True, it is the affair of the River States of the Danube, and not ours, to deal with this question ; but it may be allowable, especially considering the large share we had in the Treaty of Paris, even for an Englishman quietly to point out the right and reason of the case.

There remains the question of opening the Bosporos to ships of war: of course to the ships of war of all countries, and of course under such regulations respecting passage, as the safety of Turkey, or of Constantinople however governed, may require. These two points taken for granted, there remains the question, stripped of real or fictitious accessories, whether the sea passage from the Mediterranean to the Euxine is to remain closed, by the law of Europe, against ships of war, or not. I do not attempt to enter into the argument: one point only I press, that it is an European, not an English question; that Europe, not England, must decide it; and that to set up a separate title for England to decide it against Europe is to lead England into the position of a public offender; of what Earl Russell in 1854 truly declared the Emperor Nicholas to be, a wanton disturber of the peace.

If this is understood and allowed, then, and then only, all the parties to the discussion will fall into their proper places, and play their natural parts. The distinction and the burden of the first among those parts will rest where it ought to rest, upon the River States of the Danube; which, together with the Power in territorial possession, have the nearest interest in the matter. If we have a separate interest in the present arrangement, plainly we must provide for that interest in some mode other than that of claiming to legislate for Europe by our own sole authority. But the first question will then be, to determine among ourselves whether we have a separate interest or not, and which way it lies: a question not Decessary to be examined at the present moment.

To some it may seem strange to touch these questions when we do not know that the Porte bas yet ceased to dream of its integrity and independence, like some Lear contemplating the recovery of his kingVOL III.-No. 12.

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dom. But the process of awakening, when it comes, may be a rapid

It can only now be delayed by some frantic effort in this country yet further to injure Turkey under the name of helping her. But until we know that our Bottoms are past all roaring, whether as lion, as nightingale, or as sucking dove, 13 our confidence cannot be complete that the work of blood is at an end. The Russians may be forced upon further advances, and until all necessity for these shall have closed, the self-command of the British nation, hitherto so admirably maintained, will continue to be upon its trial.'

Let me, in conclusion, endeavour to exhibit the disorderly method which too many of us pursue when we bring India into the discussion of this and other kindred matters. We speak of India, and of defending our interests in India, as if we were some Eastern Sultan guarding a favourite Sultana of the Harem ; who has to think only of himself and of his enemies without, and not at all of the sentiments of the Sultana herself within. Our ideas on this head require a clarifying operation, and it may be a little enlargement. There are in this matter, if it is to be raised, not two parties, but three. Besides the three or four and thirty millions of the United Kingdom, and the seventy or eighty millions of Russians, there are the two hundred and forty millions of inhabitants of India, who already have something to say to the great issue, and who, from year to year, will infallibly have more. There are two ways of vitiating a case : one is by constructing it out of bad material, the other is by the illadjusted use of material that is good ; by placing the stress upon the weakest, not the strongest, parts. No extraneous duty can be more imperative for us than the defence of India. But the first element of that defence is the establishment of the best relations with its people, and the conveyance to their minds of the conviction that our first object in holding it is their welfare. If this is not our first object, we have no business there at all; and we shall some day have to pay the accumulated cost of a great transgression. If it is our first object, we may still fall short of bringing India to recognise an ideal excellence, or even a ne plus ultra of practical good and satisfaction, in the dominion of the stranger. But in the choice between one stranger and another, we shall have India on our side. Horse, foot, and artillery are all very well, and are in their place essential. But this is the cardinal consideration. If this be made good, the use of force will be sustained by a law higher than the law of force, and will effect its work. And if it be not, then our horse, foot, and artillery in India will have to go the way of the horse, foot, and artillery of Austria in Italy, of Turkey in Bulgaria, and of England herself in the thirteen colonies of America.

VALUE OF INDIA TO ENGLAND.

In the Fortnightly Review for last November Mr. Lowe propounds the thesis that the foreign dominions of the Crown are more of a burden to Great Britain than a blessing. Putting aside the Crown colonies which are held as military posts, Mr. Lowe divides our colonies into three categories—those which are fitted for the residence of English labour; the tropical colonies, in which the European cannot work out of doors; and India ; and he states the case against each separately. As regards the colonies in the first class, of which Australia and the Dominion of Canada are the most important, inasmuch as it seems to be generally agreed that England will retain her connection with them only for so long as the colonies may themselves desire its continuance, and that under no conceivable circumstances would the use of force be resorted to, to keep them if they wanted to leave us, the question has at most but a speculative value, while it may certainly be difficult to discover a better reason for retaining the West Indies than the one suggested by Mr. Lowe, that it would be disgraceful to allow these beautiful islands to relapse into barbarism. Passing by these two cases, it will be the object of this paper to examine how far the argument is a valid one which seeks to establish that England loses more than she gains by the possession of India.

First admitting that the opinion which he advances on this point is opposed to the convictions of ordinary Englishmen, who are accustomed to attach extreme value to the possession of India, Mr. Lowe proceeds to state the various disadvantages involved in the connection. And last, but not least, among these he places what he calls the drain of men involved in keeping up an army of some 70,000 British troops' in that country. The actual number of these troops, it may be remarked, is barely 60,000; but this correction does not affect the principle contended for, and it will be useful to ascertain clearly what is really involved in the condition. The pay and maintenance of these English troops,' says Mr. Lowe, "are reimbursed to the English Government from Indian funds, but this does not stop the drain to which we are exposed. The money which we spend can be repaid to us, but who shall give us baek our men?' As a matter of fact England does not even advance the money in the first instance, which-or at any rate the greater part of it-is disbursed directly by the Indian Government; but, passing that by, we have still to consider what is meant by a drain of men in such a case, and whether it really

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constitutes an appreciable burden upon England. Now, in the first place, it is plain that the term can only be used at all in a very strained sense. To supply 60,000 men to India does not involve sending 60,000 men every year, nor are they withdrawn permanently; for to Mr. Lowe's question—Who shall give us back our men ?'-.We may reply that India gives them back. The soldiers who go to India are sent out to take the place of others who come back on the expiry of their service, and to replace those who die during their stay in that country. The real drain of men involved, therefore, after the withdrawal of the 60,000 men in the first instance, is limited to the waste involved by reason of the higher rate of mortality of Englishmen living in India. Now the death-rate of the British soldier in India may be taken at twenty per thousand, while that of the adult male in England of the same age is only about ten per thousand, so that the occupation of India involves the permanent reduction of the population of these isles by 60,000 able-bodied men, and that 600 more able-bodied Englishmen die yearly in consequence than would die otherwise. It is only to the replacement of these casualties that the term "a drain of men' can be applied; and when we consider that almost precisely the same number of deaths occurs every year in England of males between the ages of twenty and forty from railway accidents alone, we are in a position to appreciate the extreme insignificance, in its effect on the population of the United Kingdom, of what has had so alarming a name given to it.

It must be obvious, moreover, that so far as our connection with India is an evil by withdrawing a certain part of our manhood, its effect must be perfectly inappreciable compared with the effect of emigration. We may assume that during the last ten years about 6,000 Englishmen have died, who otherwise would many of them be still alive, in consequence of having been sent to India. But during the same time more than 1,000,000 persons have emigrated from these islands (over and above those who have returned to them), and so have become lost to the country for ever, and of these about one-half would appear to have been adult males. In view of these figures the drain involved in garrisoning India becomes practịcally inappreciable. But further it may surely be affirmed that this extra mortality, trifling though it be, and still more this permanent withdrawal of 60,000 working men from the country, so far from being a loss, is, on the contrary, an absolute benefit to all those who stay bebind. I am not of course arguing with those who measure the prosperity of the country by the competition for employment as serving to keep down wages, or who regard a mere increase of the population with complacency, as a matter for satisfaction in itself, without considering whether the field of employment is extending in a corresponding degree. But those who regard high wages, especially among the agricultural working classes, as a thing to be greatly desired; who recognise in the emigration from Ireland the

one effective cause which was able to rescue that country from the depression and poverty into which it had been brought by over-population ; who have noted with satisfaction the gradual improvement in the condition of the peasantry in the west of England, since a part of the surplus population has been taken off by emigration, or by change of residence to other districts—those who take this view of the matter will probably admit that the reduction of the English labour market to the extent of even 60,000 able-bodied men is a distinct, if only a small, benefit to the remainder ; and also that, except in so far as every premature death is an evil by adding to the sum of suffering endured by humanity, the increased rate of mortality due to residence in India affords a relief, although it may be very slight in degree, to the labour market in an over-populated country.

It may be replied, however, that, granting all this, it fails to refute the case put, which is not based on a consideration of the whole population of the country, but that limited section of it which is found in practice to be willing to accept military service, and which alone should be taken into account when estimating the military resources of the country. These particular 60,000 men, it will be argued, form a large deduction from those resources, and the necessity of keeping so large a body of troops in India involves an addition to the strain, already sufficiently severe, of keeping up an army by voluntary enlistment. In peace time, however, this strain does not arise, except in so far as that possibly a higher rate of pay has to be given to the soldier than would be found necessary if the whole establishment were smaller than it is. The strength of the home army is not regulated by the supply of recruits, but by the supposed needs of the country. The required establishment is now quite full, and if the Indian garrison were withdrawn to-morrow, the result would not be to give us an increased army at home, but that 60,000 soldiers would be discharged. Nor is it at all certain that the recruiting for Indian service enters into effective competition with that for the home service. With a large class service in India has special attractions, and they will be ready to go there when they would not care to do soldiering at home. Further, under the new system, by which all soldiers are to be transferred to the army reserve for the latter period of their service, England will get the benefit of the reserves supplied from these 60,000 men, the cost of whose training has been paid for by India. In this sense the European garrison of India, far from being a drain upon them, forms a substantial addition to the military resources of the country.

On the whole, therefore, and as regards peace time, it would appear that the European garrison of India is a burden on England, only in the same sense that emigration is a burden, by tending to keep up prices and to limit the labour market. It probably makes the home army somewhat more costly than it otherwise would be; against this the reserves which it furnishes may be regarded as a set-off. There still remains to consider the effect of this obligation