WORK OF THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL 221 
Will the uneducated—that is, the vast majority— 
have any voice in the election of representatives on 
the Council ? 
Would they rather be ruled over by their own 
people or by the officers of the British Government, 
and have they even the slightest sympathy with, or 
do they expect any from, the comparatively tiny 
band of Indian educated progressives who have 
succeeded in obtaining a legal outlet for the ex- 
pression of their own opinions ? 
The answers to these questions might go some 
way to furnish a reply as to whether the interests 
of the toiling millions of India have been fully safe- 
guarded by this new scheme. It has been truly 
said that they will be if-the Indian Councillors 
honestly interpret even to the depressed classes the 
aims and objects of British administration; they 
will not be if these Councillors discredit and harass 
it; and in the latter case the masses, who have 
had little voice in the change of system, will be 
much worse off than before: for the British adminis- 
trator formerly stood between them and the 
privileged classes, from whom the Councillors will 
now chiefly be drawn, and if his authority is 
diminished, so also will be his power to protect their 
interests effectively. We must hope for the best 
from an honest attempt towards progress; if it 
tends to withdraw from the British administrator 
the most important and almost the only power left 
to him of initiating improvements and carrying them 
out in detail, the people cannot be held responsible 
for the consequences of transferring authority from 
that class which has in the past ruled with success 
