while the American-Indians or the Maoris remained, he was determined to
secure justice for them; and he incurred angry criticism for outspoken
condemnation of English dealing with the natives in Tasmania. But a great
part of his book is devoted to discussion of questions which must be of
constant recurrence, affecting the relations of Englishmen to natives in
lands where the English are only a governing handful. These matters
received special comment in a letter from John Stuart Mill at Avignon on
February 9th, 1869. Mill, although a stranger to Dilke, was moved to write
his commendation in the most ungrudging terms:

"It is long" (he said) "since any book connected with practical
politics has been published on which I build such high hopes of the
future usefulness and distinction of the writer, showing, as it does,
that he not only possesses a most unusual amount of real knowledge on
many of the principal questions of the future, but a mind strongly
predisposed to what are (at least in my opinion) the most advanced and
enlightened views of them.

"There are so few opinions expressed in any part of your book with
which I do not, so far as my knowledge extends, fully and heartily
coincide, that I feel impelled to take the liberty of noting the small
number of points of any consequence on which I differ from you. These
relate chiefly to India; though on that subject also I agree with you
to a much greater extent than I differ. Not only do I most cordially
sympathize with all you say about the insolence of the English even in
India to the native population, which has now become not only a
disgrace, but, as you have so usefully shown, a danger to our dominion
there; but I have been much struck by the sagacity which, in so short
a stay as yours must have been, has enabled you to detect facts which
are as yet obvious to very few: as, for instance, the immense increase