Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/486

 men of mature, trained, ability, and of a much higher order of merit than the very fair average of merit we have got, what you want must be paid for, and it is a costly article. These, and a thousand other considerations, which cross each other, and complicate the problem, will have to engage the anxious attention, first of the joint Committee of the Lords and Commons, secondly of the Executive and Legislative authorities in England and in India.

We may assume, however, quite safely that more appointments, and, especially, more of the better appointments will be gradually opened to natives, but, after all, the number of good appointments in this country or continent is, and will continue to be, surprisingly few. The overwhelming majority of appointments under Government is already in the possession of natives, and I do not think the rapid infiltration of natives, even into the Civil Service, has yet attracted sufficiently the attention of the public. If you deduct from the small balance of offices practically closed to natives those which must belong to Europeans, not in virtue of their being the descendants of conquerors, but in virtue of that education of ages, which has made the Aryan of the West what he is, the number of new appointments to be opened will be as nothing to those, who will desire to occupy them. I know there are people who say—"No doubt for the time, every race in India including the Aryans of the East, requires the guidance of the Aryans of the West, but a day will soon come when that will not be so." I think the best answer I ever knew made to that statement, was made by a very remarkable man, himself a native of India, and belonging to one of your most ancient religions, who observed to me: "I often hear talk of that kind among my countrymen, but when I remark how short are the strides in advance, which are made by the East, compared to those which are made simultaneously by the West, I am reminded of the man who said:—'In two years I shall be as old as my elder brother!' "

Even, however, if this were not so, if one could see dimly on the horizon a time when India could obtain almost any of its present advantages, without importing into its administration a large proportion of trained ability from Europe, the numbers of those of you who could find valuable Government situations would be not very enormous.

It will be interesting to observe what proportion of the appointments vacated by the Aryans of the West, passes into the hands of the Aryans of the East, and what proportion falls to the natives of the country properly so-called—men whose