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 public utility have been constructed, the accounts, the forests and some other departments of the State have been officered by reliable men, and, on the whole, the machinery of administration has been adjusted in the way desired by the British Government. There are, I submit, no reasons now, for withholding from the Maharaja his just rights and his privileges any longer.

I do not mean to contend that the administration of Cashmere is not capable of such further improvement as may be effected only by properly balanced and duly centralised authority. The system now in force in Cashmere is that of double government which has always proved a failure. There is the Council on the one side with the Maharaja at its head, and there is the Resident on the other; and all measures passed by the Council is subject to the Resident's veto. Though the Resident, therefore, really governs in the name of the Council, the Council is not devoid of responsibility, and has