[To um EDITOR or THE " SPBCTATOB."] Sia, — A propos of
your interesting " specific suggestion " in your issue of July 13th that the experiment of representative govern- ment in India should be tried on a small scale in a selected area, you may possibly consider the following extract from a letter of mine which you published on January 5th. 1907, worth reprinting :
" There are more than six hundred feudatory States in India, of which over a hundred have an area exceeding five hundred square miles. Why do not the Congress leaders appeal to the chiefs of a few of these States, and persuade them to introduce a system of representative government into their territories? The problem would surely be much easier to solve on a small scale and in the absence of any disturbing European element. If Mr. Naoroji could point to the successful working of a representative system in the domains of. say, the Nizam, or Sindhia, or the Maharaja of Jaipur, or the Begum of Bhopal, he could with a considerably better face ask the Government of India to resign its functions to elected national representatives controlling services manned exclusively by natives of the country."
—I am, Sir, &c., H. C. hone.
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