distinction, for in governments which are militant as well as military, promotion by merit is essential to the success of the national arms, and the soldier identifies himself with the power he serves even faster than does the civilian. So, long before full citizenship was granted to the whole Roman world (about A. D. 217), it is clear that not only the lower posts in which provincials had always been employed, but the highest also were freely open to all subjects. A Gaul might be sent to govern Cilicia, or a Thracian Britain, because both were now Romans rather than Gauls or Thracians. The fact that Latin and Greek were practically familiar to nearly all highly educated civil servants, because Latin was the language of law as well as the tongue commonly spoken in the West, while Greek was the language of philosophy and (to a great extent) of letters, besides being the spoken tongue of most parts of the East, made a well-educated man fit for public employment everywhere, for he was not (except perhaps in Syria and Egypt and a few odd corners of the Empire) obliged to learn any fresh language. And a provincial was just as likely as an Italian to be highly educated. Thus the officials could easily get into touch with the subjects, and felt hardly more strange if they came from a distance than a Scotchman feels if he is appointed to a professorship in Quebec, or an Irishman if he becomes postmaster in a Norfolk village. Nothing contributed more powerfully to the unity and the strength of the Roman dominion than this sense of an imperial nationality.

The English in India have, as did the Romans, always employed the natives in subordinate posts. The

enormous majority of persons who carry on the civil administration there at this moment are Asiatics. But the English, unlike the Romans, have continued to reserve the higher posts for men of European stock. The contrast in this respect between the Roman and the English policy is instructive, and goes down to the foundation of the differences between English and Roman rule. As we have seen, the City of Rome became the Empire, and the Empire became Rome. National independence was not regretted, for the East had been denationalized before the Italian conqueror appeared, and the tribes of the West, even those who fought best for freedom, had not reached a genuine national life when Spain, Gaul, and Britain were brought under the yoke. In the third century A. D. a Gaul, a Spaniard, a Pannonian, a Bithynian, a Syrian called himself a Roman, and for all practical purposes was a Roman. The interests of the Empire were his interests, its glory his glory, almost as much as if he had been born in the shadow of the Capitol. There was, therefore, no reason why his loyalty should not be trusted, no reason why he should not be chosen to lead in war, or govern in peace, men of Italian birth. So, too, the qualities which make a man capable of leading in war or administering in peace were just as likely to be found in a Gaul, or a Spaniard, or a German from the Rhine frontier as in an Italian. In fact, men of Italian birth play no great part in later imperial history 1.

It is far otherwise in India, though there was among

1 After the fifth century, Armenians, Isaurians, and Northern Macedonians figure more largely in the Eastern Empire than do natives of the provinces round the Aegaean.

the races of India no nation. The Englishman does not become an Indian, nor the Indian an Englishman. The Indian does not as a rule, though of course there have been not a few remarkable exceptions to the rule, possess the qualities which the English deem to be needed for leadership in war or for the higher posts of administration in peace1. For several reasons, reasons to be referred to later, he can seldom be expected to feel like an Englishman, and to have the same devotion to the interests of England which may be counted on in an Englishman. Accordingly the English have made in India arrangements to which there was nothing similar in the Roman Empire. They have two armies, a native and a European, the latter of which is never suffered to fall below a certain ratio to the former. The latter is composed entirely of Englishmen. In the former all military posts in line regiments above that of subahdar (equivalent to captain) are reserved to Englishmen 2. The artillery and engineer services are kept in English hands, i. e. there is hardly any native artillery. It is only, therefore, in the native contingents already referred to that natives are found in the higher grades. These contingents may be compared with the auxiliary barbarian troops under nonRoman commanders whom we find in the later ages of Rome, after Constantine. Such commanders proved sometimes, like the Vandal Stilicho, energetic defenders of the imperial throne, sometimes, like the Suevian

1 Among these exceptions may be mentioned Sir Syed Ahmed of Aligurh, and the late Mr. Justice Trimbak Telang of Bombay, both men of remarkable force and elevation of character.

* The subahdar, however, is rather a non-commissioned than a commissioned officer, and is not a member of the British officers' mess.

Ricimer, formidable menaces to it. But apart from these, the Romans had but one army; and it was an army in which all subjects had an equal chance of rising.

In a civil career, the native of India may go higher under the English than he can in a military one. A few natives, mostly Hindus, and indeed largely Bengali Hindus, have won their way into the civil service by passing the competitive Indian Civil Service examination in England, and some of these have risen to the posts of magistrate and district judge. A fair proportion of the seats on the benches of the Supreme Courts in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad, and Lahore have been allotted to native barristers of eminence, several of whom have shown themselves equal in point of knowledge and capacity, as well as in integrity, to the best judges selected from the European bar in India or sent out from the English bar. No native, however, has ever been thought of for the great places, such as those of Lieutenant-Governor or Chief Commissioner, although all British subjects are legally eligible for any post in the service of the Crown in any part of the British Dominions.

Regarding the policy of this exclusion there has been much difference of opinion. As a rule, Anglo-Indian officials approve the course which I have described as that actually taken. But I know some who think that there are natives of ability and force of character such as to fit them for posts military as well as civil, higher

1 Russia places Musulmans from the Caucasian provinces in high military posts. But she has no army corresponding to the native army in India, and as she has a number of Musulman subjects in European Russia it is all the more natural for her to have a Colonel Temirhan Shipsheff at Aralykh and a General Alikhanoff at Merv.

than any to which a native has yet been advanced, and who see advantages in selecting a few for such posts. They hold, however, that such natives ought to be selected for civil appointments, not by competitive examination in England but in India itself by those who rule there, and in respect of personal merits tested by service. Some opposition to such a method might be expected from members of the regular civil service, who would consider their prospects of promotion to be thereby prejudiced.

Here we touch an extremely interesting point of comparison between the Roman and the English systems. Both nations, when they started on their career of conquest, had already built up at home elaborate constitutional systems in which the rights of citizens, both public and private civil rights, had been carefully settled and determined. What was the working of these rights in the conquered territories? How far were they extended by the conquerors, Roman and English, and with what results?

Rome set out from the usual practice of the city republics of the ancient world. No man enjoyed any rights at all, public or private, except a citizen of the Republic. A stranger coming to reside in the city did not, no matter how long he lived there, nor did his son or grandson, obtain those rights unless he was specially admitted to become a citizen. From this principle Rome, as she grew, presently found herself obliged to deviate. She admitted one set of neighbours after another, sometimes as allies, sometimes in later days, as conquered and incorporated communities, to a citizenship which was sometimes incomplete, including only