These assurances the people in India now everywhere thoroughly
understand and appreciate. They see in the native states around them
that the lucky accident of an able governor is too rare ever to be
calculated upon; while all that the people have of property, office,
or character, depends not only upon their governor, but upon every
change that he may make in his ministers.
The government of the Muhammadans was always essentially military,
and the aristocracy was always one of military office. There was
nothing else upon which an aristocracy could be formed. All high
civil offices were combined with the military commands. The emperor
was the great proprietor of all the lands, and collected and
distributed their rents through his own servants. Every Musalman with
his Koran in his hand was his own priest and his own lawyer; and the
people were nowhere represented in any municipal or legislative
assembly--there was no bar, bench, senate, corporation, art, science,
or literature by which men could rise to eminence and power. Capital
had nowhere been concentrated upon great commercial or manufacturing
establishments.
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