The absurd resolution of the House of Commons, passed on
June 2nd, 1893, directing that the examinations for the Indian Civil Service should be held simultaneously in India and England, has been finally rejected by all the authorities. concerned. The Indian Government, after consulting all its ablest servants, reported that the number of Europeans in the Imperial Service had already reached an irreducible minimum, and that examinations did not introduce the most competent class of Indians. Bengalees, with no fitness- for administration except in Bengal itself, always won them, to the exclusion of Mahommedans, Sikhs, and other- classes with a habitude of rule. Probation by actual employ- ment is in India, where nepotism is impossible, a com- petitive examination, of the best kind, admitting as it does- all who are qualified to rule, even if they are not the highest in literary education. Mr. Fowler, in a despatch dated April 19th, 1894, endorses these views, and sanctions- the existing practice as the wisest that can be adopted. It remains to be seen whether the faddy majority in the House of Commons will give way, or whether by reiterating its- resolution it will make, good government in India impossible. If Indians can govern as well as we, we have no business in India, and should retire, sure only of one fact, that whoever
governs, no native of Bengal will be allowed to hold any -appointment of the slightest value. The Sikh, or the Mahom- enedan, or the Mahratta will put hint to death by torture if he even suggests such a demand. He has the highest brain ; but the world is not governed by ability to learn.
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