o 



42 



The Review of Reviews. 



SIR BAMPFYLDE FULLER ON INDIA. 



" India Revisited " is the title ol a p.aper by Sir 

 Bampfylde Fuller, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of 

 Eastern Bengal, in the Nineteenth Century and After. 

 He reports that the unrest of the past five years has to 

 all appearances completely subsided. The extremist 

 leaders have grown weary of their protracted struggle 

 with the authorities. On the annulling of the partition 

 of Bengal, the writer says that it involved serious dis- 

 credit to the British officials of the province who had 

 accepted Lord Morley's statement that the partition 

 was to be taken as a settled fact. It also occasioned 

 much irritation to the Jlohammedans. Of Delhi as the 

 seat of the new capital, the writer says that it is 

 e.xceedingly unhealthy, notorious for its fever and the 

 disfiguring complaint known as the Delhi sore. The 

 available sites are either sodden with river inundations 

 or on the stony margin of an arid plain. 



REFORMS WELCOMED. 



The expansion of the Indian Legislative Councils 

 aroused apprehensions which so far have not been justi- 

 fied, " and the reform may be welcomed as exceedingly 

 beneficial." He says the Indian members as a class 

 are alert and often eloquent in debate, in intellect on 

 a par with their British colleagues. But they represent 

 only the educated and the well-to-do, and cannot be 

 expected to welcome protective legislation for their 

 poorer brethren. The high intellectual capacity of 

 Indians is recognised in their appointment to high 

 judicial office. At the same time the writer adds that 

 we must remember that judicial honesty is an exotic, 

 grown under British influence, and requiring an 

 influential body of British judges and magistrates. 



INDIA AWAKING FROM SLEEP. 



India, he declares, is awaking from her sleep. 

 Reform has been chiefly the outcome of residence in 

 the West. Towards the most fruitful reform, which 

 would be the emancipation of their wives and 

 daughters, Indians are making progress, not merely in 

 the P.rahmo .Samaj, but also in the Arya Samaj, in 

 postponing marriage and in allowing an increasing 

 number of women togo about unveiled. Material relaxa- 

 tions can be noticed in the caste rules relating to food 

 and drink. A Hindu gentleman at the Viceroy's Legis- 

 lative Council has advocated a change in the law, 

 enabling Hindus of different castes, and even a Hindu 

 and a Mohammedan, to contract a civil marriage 

 without abjuring their religion. 



INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION. 



The industrial development of India is advancing 

 very slowly. Nor will the manufactures materi- 

 ally increase until the Indians are willing to 

 spend more upon comfort and less upon the sup- 

 port of servants, relations, and dependants. Con- 

 \erts to Christianity, however, follow the habits of 

 the missionaries, whence the remarkably low death- 

 rate of the Indian Christian population. Conversion 



to Christianity no longer arouses the old resentment. 

 Missionaries are exceedingly . popular, both with 

 students and parents. To extend free education, 

 however elementary, to all the boys of the country 

 would, the writer says, entail an additional charge of 

 at least four millions a year, which is about the sum 

 lost by gtving up the opium traffic with Chinii. Vet 

 the education budget has been more than doubled. 



It is pleasant to receive so reassuring a report from 

 one who had much reason to be severely critical. 



NEW RAILROADS NEEDED IN AFRICA 

 AND ASIA. 

 Sir Harry Johnston, in the Nineteenth Centiirv, 

 again gives outlet to his marvellous constructive 

 imagination. Now it is in the development of great 

 systems of railway in Africa and in Asia. . 



T\NGIER to TABLELAND. 



This is Sir Harry's variant on the Cape to Cairo 

 route. He says : — 



The great desire of the traveller would be, not to travel to 

 and from Capetown z'l'a Alexandria, or even Algiers, but by 

 way of Tangier in the north of Morocco, \iithin re.ich, through 

 a steam ferry, of the Spanish railways. Consequently the yreat 

 Trans-African railway must eventually start from Tangier, a 

 place as to the political future of which Britain, France, and 

 Spain are now negotiating. It would by means of a steam 

 ferry be linked up with the Spanish railways and the whole 

 railway system of Europe. 



THE ROUTE TO INDIA. 



Sir Harry deprecates the objections to a direct 

 railway between India and Europe. He does not fear 

 for the obliteration of Persia. Its past histor^■, like the 

 past history of Egypt, will, he thinks, pre\'ent the 

 effacement of its nationality : — 



The railway best suited to considerations of strategy from the 

 British point of view would be one which proceeded from Basra 

 7'i(7 Bushire to Shiraz and Bandar Abbas, and from Bandar 

 Abbas followed closely the coastline of .Southern Persia to 

 Baluchistan until it was linked up with the Indian system at 

 Karachi. This would enable the Trans- Persian railway, fronr 

 the point where it entered the British sjihere in Persia, to be 

 easily reached, supervised, controlled, defended, or attacked 

 from the sea coast of the Persian Gul.^ 



Sir Harry would square Austro-Gcrmany by giving 

 these Powers free expansion in Asia Minor. This would 

 make Teutonia as peace-loving as Great Britain now is. 

 The Baghdad Railway therefore should be welcomed. 

 The best security for Great Britain on the Ganges and 

 the Indus, as on the Nile, would be the growth of 

 German commercial interests and in\estments in the 

 lands watered by Ihc Euphrates and Tigris. 



FROM TANGIER-ISMAILrA TO KOWEIT. 



Sir Harry's fertile mind suggests \-et another route, 

 which, he thinks, will certainly be developed in course 

 of time — that from Spain to 'langier and all along the 

 coast of Africa from Tangier to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli^ 

 Alexandria, and Isniailia. whence a British railway 

 might rtm to join liic Baghdad line at Koweit. and link 

 on to the Trans- P.ersian railwavat Muhamrah. 



