The insurrection amongst the Santals of Bengal is a warning
upon many points in Indian administration. The district inha- lnted by this people is one of those central wilds which still exist in India. Lying among the hills, not farther from Calcutta than Manchester from London, and on the Calcutta side of the Ganges, but inhabited by one of the primitive races whose occupation pro- bably dates before that of the Hindus, the wilds have been parti- ally reclaimed and settled ; but the Europeans are very scattered, and the collection of rent is evidently regarded as a species of in- vasion. The old religion still smoulders, and engenders new forms of superstition, giving opportunities for fresh enterprises in the prophet line. These unreolaimed or half-reclaimed regions are a weak point in British India, where Nepaulese, or Russians, or any enemies of British rule, may work up an irritation. The collisions that are said to have taken place between the natives of the Eaj- mahal Hills and the railway labourers will have been but the proxi- mate IMMO to bring out a long-existing disease. At all events, the fact tells us that a thorough reform of the land-tenure ought not to be unduly delayed ; that everything sh,ould be expedited in Indian administration which promotes civilizing interoourse ; arid above all, that it will net be safe greatly to diminish that milita7 force which gives so much " moral support" to the civil Govern- ment.
