The idea proposed by Lord Meath in Londow last year, that an Empire Day should be celebrated each year National Fete, has met with thusiastic response in Li fair, as the scheme enlarges better understood, to be one of the greatest of our holidays. The day selected enough to muke the stoutest spirit quail to think of Central and Southern India being left to depend for protection" on the Police Reserve Force.
Caste riots and religious distur6- ances may blaze up at any moment any part of India, and we can hardly imagine the timid half-tisciptined police, who flinch at the recoil of a riffle, mali if sent into danger, and employ their re hours in extorting bribes and unjust fines from the weak and illiterate, being reliable protectore in times of real trouble over any considerable area. The augmentation and improvement of the Police force, which it is generally acknowledged must be stiffened up with a higher percentage of European officers and improved by the offer of higher pay to induce a better class of native to join the ranks, no doubt forms part of the scheme, and as this must take some years to work out, it is unnecessary to panic at present as to what we shall do when the troops are concentrated near the Frontier. The redistribution scheme takes count not only of the facilities for rapid mobilisation, but also for the maintenance of order in the well-known centres of unrest and in towns which have notoriously a disorderly population. In no case will these be left ungarrisoned, we are informed, which is certainly a most comforting assurance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.