"The Birds of Passage."

COMMENTING on the speech by Mr. Beatson Bell, the Senior Member of the Bengal Council, affirming that Anglo-Indian officials in India are not mere "birds of passage," Capital offers telling arguments to support the Indian view and to disprove that of Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell, says the "Ditcher," is a liberal in politics and is a supporter of the Irish Home Rule. He also loves India passionately. Yet he has adopted the bureaucratic view and says that from father to son, the members of many thousands of British families have served in India and so they cannot be regarded as "birds of passage." We wonder if Mr. Bell would think it possible to establish similar conditions in any other country but India-not to say in his own country-where successive generations will undertake to serve in high offices and retire to their native homes on pension.