we are discussing have arisen and exactly how unreasonable they are.
The first of two excellent examples is the story of _Tods' Amendment_.
_Tods' Amendment_ is the story of a Bill brought in by the Supreme
Legislative Council of India. Tods was an English baby of six, and he
mixed on friendly terms with Indians in the bazaar and with members of
the Supreme Legislative Council. The Council was at this time devising
a new scheme of land tenure which aimed at "safeguarding the interests"
of a few hundred thousand cultivators of the Punjab. The Bill was
beautiful on paper; and the Legal Member, who knew Tods, was settling
the "minor details." The weak part of the business was that European
legislators, dealing with natives, are often puzzled to know which
details are the major and which the minor. Also the Native Member was
from Calcutta, and knew nothing about the Punjab. Nevertheless, the
Bill was known to be a beautiful Bill till Tods happened one evening to
be sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention
_The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment_. Tods had heard the
bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when
there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the
Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only
one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was
altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so
clearly "safeguarded the interests of the tenant." It therefore came
about that the rough draft of the Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised
Enactment was put away in the Legal Member's private paper-box--"and,
opposite the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed
by the Legal Member, are the words, 'Tods' Amendment.'"

The moral of the tale is not obscure. A baby who runs in the bazaar is
better able to legislate for India than a Supreme Legislative Council.
India, in short, is a vast and uncertain land, whose ways are not