ART. 1.-1. The Punjab Annual Report.
2. The Punjab Judicial and Revenue Reports.
N intelligent study of the history of the British rule in India for the last fifty years would lead to the discovery of practical truths of the highest political importance. To such as are willing to believe in the progress of political science, it would be evident that government cannot long exercise its high functions to the benefit of society, unless it is able to provide for such necessities as are incident on social progress; and that wherever it has dispensed with its provident character, it has rendered the interest of the public subservient to its own. Let the advocates of uncompromising conservatism bear in mind, that no government has any higher claims to public support, than such as may be founded on its actual utility. On the score of past merits it may be borne in the grateful recollection of distant posterity; but its claim to perpetuation must rest on more reasonable grounds than the mere fact of its antiquity. Government and society enter into a compact of mutual obligation; society is willing to bear certain restraints as long as government is able to guard and conserve its interests; and when government has ceased to exercise its powers to the benefit of society, society is justified in dispensing with its protection. VOL. XXXVII.-No. 73.