Lord Salisbury on Tuesday made a most able speech in
the Lords against an abuse which is gradually creeping into the working of the Constitution. Taking as his text the snap- vote which Mr. Paull recently obtained in favour of holding examinations for the India Civil Service in India itself, he pointed out that each votes were now frequent. They were carried on Friday evenings in thin Houses, usually by fanatics, and in no way reflected the deliberate opinion of the House of Commons. The executive Government ought as depositaries and guardians of the authority of the Crown to refuse to act upon them, and might be sure, if it did so, of the support of both Houses. With regard to the special vote on Indian examinations, he doubted whether it was our duty to hand over the administration of India to persons born in India ; but if it were, the worst way of doing it would be to select them by a literary examination. That system worked well here under peculiar circumstances, but to apply it in Asia would be madness. Lord Salisbury did not explain why ; but every one who knows India knows that throughout the Peninsula the power of governing is almost exactly in inverse proportion to the power of learning literature. To take one broad illustration, all Bengalees would in examina- tion defeat all Mussulmans, yet ten thousand Mussulmans would conquer twenty million Bengalees.
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