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The Review of Reviews. 



ill Ikuoda were regarded as loo "Id or loo discre- 

 dited to succeed. The Cioveriiment, therefore, 

 hunted_ up three boys, Gopal, Dada, and Sampat, 

 twelve" ten, and nine years old respectively, who 

 were a branch of the Gaekwars living at the time in 

 a small village of Kavlana, in the Bombay Presi- 

 dency. The (iovernment brought the three boys to 

 Baroda, and gave the Dowager Maharani liberty to 

 select one of them to be the Gaekwar. ^Vhen the 

 three boys came before the Maharani she asked them 

 why they had come to Baroda. The eldest one 

 did not answer at all ; the second one said he 

 came because his relatives had brought him 

 there ; the third one, who was only nine years of 

 age, replied, " I have come to be the Maharaja of 

 15aroda." The answer impressed the old lady, and 

 he was accordingly proclaimed as Maharaja by the 

 Indian Government. Up to that time he had been 

 a village boy of Bombay, living with illiterate parents 

 in a mud hut. The (Government then set to work to 

 educate him. A school was built in the garden 

 outside the city wall, and the poor boy was .set to 

 work to learn four languages — English, Marathi, 

 Gujarati, and Urdu, as well as history, geography, 

 arithmetic, chemistry, physics, and political economy. 

 He had not learnt his native alphabet until he was 

 nearly thirteen and after he had become crowned, 

 but he had a good tutor and he made rapid progress. 

 He applied himself in the most conscientious and 

 painstaking manner to learn the business of govern- 

 ment in its minutest details. His first wife died in 

 1885, and within a year he married again. When he 

 married the present Maharani he was much more of a 

 ruler than a family man, and devoted himself sedu- 

 lously to master all the afiairs of Baroda, and also to 

 improve his education by travelling far and wide both 

 in Europe and .Vmerica. Mr. Singh says : — 



To-d.iy he unquestionably knows far more of statecraft than 

 any of his officials,, and it is no exaggeration to say that, if he 

 wished to do so, he could conduct his administration without 

 the le.xst disadvantage. 



He is an autocrat, but has encouraged decentrali- 

 sation and local self-^;ovcrnment. He has made 



primary education for males and females free and 

 compulsory throughout the Principality. Compulsion 

 has been applied cautiously without creating any 

 antagonism on the part of the people. He is 

 endeavouring to make Gujarati, the predominating 

 dialect of his State, the medium of education. Among 

 other reforms which he has carried out Mr. Singh 

 mentions that — 



lie has abolished numerous unjust taxes and cesses, carried 

 through surveys of land revenue calculated to be more ethical 

 both for the subjects and the State, and compelled the feudal 

 barons to let go their merciless grip on the Baroda exchequer. 

 He has built a system o»" canals and reservoirs, materially 

 increased the number and capacity of the irrigating wells, in 

 order to insure his subjects — mostly agriculturists — against the 

 loss of their crops through drought, and enable them to bring 

 the fallow land under cultivation, thus making the old farms 

 yield larger crops. He has spent enormous sums of money in 

 opening up new roads and keeping the old ones in good repair, 

 increasing the facilities of communication throughout his 

 domains, and erecting public buildings. 



The Gaekwar has separated the judicial and 

 executive functions exercised by his officials, founded 

 libraries, erected waterworks, established experi- 

 mental farms, employed agricultural experts to 

 encourage the use of improved methods of scientific 

 agriculture, has established a State Bank, a model 

 lunatic asylum, built hospitals, and promoted 

 industries by liberal subsidies. He has raised the 

 age of consent and marriage, and enacted a great 

 deal of social legislation. " His chief fault," says 

 Mr. Singh, " is that he spends one-seventh of the total 

 income of his State in maintaining a small family, 

 which consists of his wife, a grandson, and two 

 granddaughters, three sons, and one daughter, and in 

 keeping u]) the pomp of his Court. The Gaekwar 

 has .scandalised Hindu opinion by allowing his only 

 daughter to be engaged to the Maharaja of Gwalioi, 

 who has already one wife living." Mr. Singh con- 

 cludes by saying : — 



Apologists for the Gaekwar offer elaborate explanations to 

 counteract these charges. But, leaving aside all aspersions and 

 apologies, his Highness .S.ayaji Kao HI. ranks in the forefront 

 of modern administrators, and unquestionably is one of the 

 greatest Indians of his lime. 



The Gaekwar before the Emperor— as recorded by the Cinematograph. 



I 



