“_27th Feb._--There is an article in the ‘Bombay Gazette’ this morning about the university, well and courteously written, and which I am told is probably by a Mr. West of the High School. It is, of course, against it, but will attract attention, which is what we most want, and cannot by any possibility do harm. At breakfast I told Sir James Fergusson that I was going to a meeting of Hindus and Parsis, and asked him for a carriage to go in. He told me very frankly he did not like my going from his house, though when I explained that it was not a public meeting, and that it would be held at the house of Kashinath Telang, an honourable member of his own council, he agreed to send me. But he spoke to me very strongly and very earnestly about the danger of my exciting the native mind by appearing to sympathize with their grievances. He could not understand how, as an Englishman, I could reconcile it with my conscience to do this. The Government of India was a despotism of a paternal and beneficent character, which was day and night working for the people’s good, and any agitation would only impede its efforts. There were, of course, ambitious natives who had their own ends to serve by making out a case against the Government, but he could assure me their tales were lies. He knew, of his personal experience, that the Government officials were entirely anxious to do what was right, that the people looked up to them as their protectors from injustice, and that he believed there was no better Government in the world, or one more respected. He asked me what subjects I proposed to discuss with them, and hoped I should eschew politics, and he spoke so earnestly and well that I had not the heart to say how precisely his good faith proved all the native argument. No one can doubt Sir James’s loyalty. But who are his eyes and hands and ears? His chuprassi, who tells him that the Mohammedans despise the Mahdi; Sir Frank Souter, who tells him, on his experience as a police officer and a friend of the natives, to trust no native’s word; Mr. L., who would like to extend his High Court jurisdiction to Afghanistan, and the old Commander-in-Chief. I said, however, that I could not promise not to talk about politics, but I would say nothing inflammatory, and I felt quite certain that no sympathy I could show them or suggestions that I could offer, would make them more dissatisfied, or make them any clearer-headed about a remedy than they were already. He asked me what they complained of, and I instanced the absence of any real Court of Appeal for grievances. At this he broke out and protested that nothing could be less true, that every day appeals were made to him, and the decisions of lower officials reversed by their superiors or himself. All were anxious to do justice to the poor, sometimes only too anxious. Only the other day he had had to censure an officer for making too strong a complaint as to the oppression of the people. He had written that the people were being ruined by the Government. There was no want of sympathy for them anywhere. I said: ‘Yet you censured him.’ He said: ‘Yes, because he spoke too strongly.’ I like Sir James, because he is quite honest and plainspoken. But were not the Austrian officials in Lombardy equally sure that their Government was the best in the world, and did not Lombardy rise and cast them out? Ignorance is a greater danger than ill-will.