Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/196

184 settlement, for instance, it has been seriously at fault. The exhaustive inquiry, made in 1901 into the whole subject of the land revenue administration throughout India, refers with stricture to those measures, the result of which has been "to place the tenant so unreservedly at the mercy of the landlord," besides sacrificing revenue.

Nevertheless, these errors are either being remedied at the present time, or are for the most part reparable, and certainly cannot weigh for a moment in the scale against the corresponding achievements. Therefore, we must look a little deeper into our action at this third stage, in order to understand why it is still so imperfect, and must even eventually be supplemented from elsewhere.

Mr. Chamberlain has said that, as a young man, he ridiculed the saying of Lord Beaconsfield that health is the foundation of policy, but that in his maturity he regretted his levity, having learned that it was true. To apply that proposition to our rule in Asia, we may say that neither to have order, or public works, or justice, or finance, or all together, is so good as to be well. National health is the first postulate of prosperity, and it is prosperity that, at this third stage, we are setting out to supply.

Among the many virtues of the Asiatic, sanitation is not to be reckoned. When, for instance, we came to Rangoon, it is on record that this city of 100,000 inhabitants did not possess a single public lamp, or a drop of wholesome water, or one drain