Note 37 — PART II.—THE BRITISH CROWN.

British territory in India comprises 900,000 square miles, with a population of 200,000,000. Asiatic territory comprises nearly 600,000 square miles, with a population of 52,000,000.

Northern India is fringed on the west by Afghanistan, on the north by Cashmere, Nipal, and Bhotan; on the east by Munipore and Burma.

Central India is traversed from west to east by a belt or zone of states and chiefships—Rajput, Mahratta, and Mohammedan—which extends from the western coast of Gujerat facing the Indian Ocean, and the western desert of Sind facing Rajputana, through the heart of the Indian continent eastward to the Bengal Presidency. This belt includes, amongst a host of minor principalities and chiefships, the three leading Rajput states—Jeypore, Jodhpore, and Oodeypore; the Jhat state of Bhurtpore; the Mahratta territories of the Gaekwar of Baroda in Western India, and those of Sindia and Holkar in Central India; and the Hindu states of Bundelkund, including Rewah, along the eastern hills and jungles to the south of the river Jumna.

The Deccan includes the Mohammedan dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad, to the eastward of the Bombay Presidency.

Southern India includes the Hindu states of Mysore and Travancore to the westward of the Madras Presidency.

The term "foreign" as applied to the Indian Foreign Office is a misnomer, and has led to confusion. The term "political department" would be more correct, as it deals mainly with Asiatic feudatory states which are bound up with the body politic of the Anglo-Indian empire. The relations between the British government and its Asiatic feudatories are not "international" in the European sense of the word, and are not controlled by international law. They are "political" in the imperial sense of the word, and are governed by the treaties, and regulated by the sovereign authority which is exercised by the British government as the paramount power in India. A British officer is placed in charge of every state, or group of states, and is known as "political agent" or "Resident."

Lord Macaulay, versed in European history, but with no special knowledge of Asia, condemns the word "political," which had been used ever since the department was founded by Warren Hastings. He declared that Asiatic feudatories were "foreign states," and that the relations between those feudatories and the paramount power were diplomatic. Lord Macaulay in his time was as great a literary authority as Dr. Samuel Johnson. Lord Ellenborough took the hint when he was Governor-General, and changed the Political Department into the Foreign Office. It would be better to call it "Political and Foreign."