Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/529

Rh high Roman fashion, of an immense polyglot empire, the stability of the structure must depend upon a skilful distribution of weight, because excessive centralization is radically insecure, and supports are useless without some capacity to resist pressure. The solution of these problems requires the sympathetic insight as well as the scientific methods of statesmanship, supplemented by the good will and the growing intelligence of the Indian people.

Education, scientific and literary culture, better acquaintance with public affairs, and an enlarged understanding of the conditions of practical politics, may be expected to produce among the foremost advocates of constitutional reform views and proposals moderated by a clearer appreciation of inherent difficulties. Nor is there, so far as can be discerned, any revolutionary element in the ideas now current among serious thinkers in India, where modern thought seems to be taking a strong utilitarian colour in morals, mundane affairs, and even in religious movements. The two countries, England and India, are at any rate associated in a community of moral and material interests, that has already lasted, throughout most of the dominion, for several generations, has exercised a powerful influence over the history of each people, in Europe and Asia, and must affect, to no small degree, their future destiny. It may be confidently affirmed that this alliance cannot now be impaired or interrupted without incalculable injury to both nations.