Page:How People May Live and not Die in India.pdf/9



of the Social Science Association is surely the place to discuss one of the most important of social questions, viz., how the British race is to hold possession of India; and to bestow upon its vast populations the benefit of a higher civilisation.

The first part of the question is for the present the most important. For, if it be impossible to keep possession of the country, there is an end of the problem.

The Royal Commission on the sanitary state of the army in India, whose two folio volumes of report and appendix constitute a new social starting point for Indian civilisation—has shown that, unless the health of British troops in India can be improved, and the enormous death-rate reduced, this country will never be able to hold India with a British army.