Page:Indian independence.djvu/18

 appears to think, the people of India have so lost the powers of self-government and self-defence, that it would be a crime to leave them to themselves. This standpoint is taken again and again throughout the book; and it cannot be lightly treated as though it was of no historical importance. I will give one other passage:— “India,” says Sir John Seeley, “is, of all countries, that which is least capable of evolving out of itself a stable government. And it is to be feared that the British rule may have diminished whatever little power of this sort India may have originally possessed.”

What a confession is this for an English historian to make! What an impossible prospect for India herself! It seems inevitably to imply perpetual dependence and subjection.

Thus we have come to an impasse, in following out Sir John Seeley’s closely reasoned argument. The situation is as follows: If dependence and subjection to the foreign rule of the British Empire con-