home government, for some mysterious reason,
will not allow it to extend to the whole of India,
but has ordered that it be confined to Bengal.
One would have thought, after the experience
of the mutinies, when the plunder of the
provincial treasuries provided the rebels with the
means of carrying on the war many months after
they must otherwise have collapsed for want of
funds, that no means would have been neglected
to avoid the necessity of sending large quantities
of specie into the provinces; but it seems,
greatly to Mr. Laing's disgust, and that of
every Indian reformer, that the benefits of the
new currency scheme are to stop at the very
point where they are most required.

Among the most important political reforms
which will greet the new comer in India, are
those important measures in connexion with
the sale of waste lands in fee simple; the
permissive redemption of the land-tax, under
certain restrictions, by a capitalised payment;
and the extension of the permanent settlement,
which has worked well in Bengal, to the North-
West Provinces. The effect of these
measures will be to give the British settler desiring
to cultivate the soil, a footing in the country
which he has never before obtained; and to
render to the landowner, native as well as
European, a degree of security calculated to give
an immense stimulus to capital and industry, and
to improve the condition of all classes of the
people. Perhaps, however, I am reckoning
without my host in anticipating these immediate
benefits to India. It is true that Lord Canning
sanctioned the scheme for the sale of waste lands,
and the permissive redemption of the government
demand upon other lauds, and drew up
the conditions upon which those measures were
to be carried out; while he agreed to the
principle of the extended permanent settlement,
leaving only the details of the measure for after
adjustment. Before he was added to the list of
victims to the wear and tear of high office in
India, he firmly believed that he had conferred
these important benefits upon the country, and
the thought, I can well believe, lessened the
bitterness of death. For these services he was
lauded in parliament and the press, as few men
have ever been lauded; and so general was
the concurrence in the wisdom of his later acts,
that the most inveterate of his earlier opponents
were content to forget past differences, and look
to his policy in the future with a gratitude which
none doubted to be deserved.

But scarcely are the earthly remains of the
son of George Canning consigned to rest in
Westminster Abbey, than ruthless hands are
laid on his best works, and the measures which
of all others are especially required at the
present moment for the encouragement of the
cotton cultivation in India—not to speak of the
general benefits which they would confer—are
postponed for an indefinite period by the home
government, on the ground that the conditions
proposed by the late governor-general are all
wrong, and must be revised. This is especially
vexatious in reference to the waste lands
measure, which has been in actual operation for nearly
a year: a number of grants having been made on
Lord Canning's conditions, which were understood
to have been long since approved at
home. The main reasons given for the delay
are, that the lands must be surveyed before they
are sold: which means that they cannot be sold
for years to come, if they are ever sold; and
that whenever they are sold they shall be sold
by public auction:—which means that after a
man has expended time, labour, and money, in
making himself acquainted with the suitableness
of a certain locality, another man may wrest
from him the fruits of his enterprise by out-
bidding him, or running up the purchase-money
to a ruinous amount. Lord Canning proposed
that the lands should be sold at a certain rate
per acre, and under this condition large tracts
have been already allotted—to be resumed, it
seems, until some very doubtful period when the
whole question shall have been reconsidered.
People in India are already very much incensed
at this wanton interference with a measure
which has been lauded by the best authorities as
being everything that it should be, and I suppose
I shall find on my arrival that Calcutta is in a
state of greatly increased heat on the subject.
The great defect complained of in the new
Indian constitution, is, that it gives too great a
power to the Secretary for India and his council
at home, to the great prejudice of the local
authorities, who find their best exertions wasted,
and themselves abased in the eyes of the natives
to a point at which government has become well-
nigh impossible.

In material improvements, immense progress
has been made between yesterday and to-day.
Ten years ago there was no electric telegraph,
and not a mile of railway open in either of the
three presidencies. The post was the only
means of communication, and the traveller who
travelled as quick as the post did not accomplish
much more than a hundred miles a day.
Something under that amount was thought a
very fair rate of proceeding, and a dâk journey
was an exploit not to be lightly undertaken,
even in the later days, when improved roads
have permitted regular horse conveyance. When
palankeens were the ordinary mode of transit, it
would be rash indeed to predict when the
traveller would arrive at his journey's end.
Since the mutinies, when the policy of opening
up the country to British settlement has been
recognised by the government, the railways
have been pushed forward with great vigour;
the great lines in the three presidencies are
rapidly approaching completion; and branches
are also progressing in several directions. The
journey from Calcutta to Delhi, which took
nine or ten days by the dâk, may now be
accomplished in four; and when the line is
completed throughout the distance, in about two.
An equal—or nearly an equal—rate of progress
has been made elsewhere; and in a few years
there will be a network of railway communication
all over the country, connecting all the
important places. Who can estimate the progress