Nowhere in India has British rule done so much to bring peace and security and to induce prosperity.

The alluvial lands are rich but thirsty, and irrigation works on a scale of unparalleled magnitude were required to compel the soil to yield beneficent harvests.

At the most critical moment in the history of British India it was against the steadfastness of the Punjab, then under the firm but patriarchal sway of Sir John Lawrence, that the Mutiny spent itself, and until a few years ago there seemed to be no reason whatever for questioning the loyalty of a province which the forethought of Government and the skill of Anglo-Indian engineers were gradually transforming into a land of plenty.

Least of all did any one question the loyalty of the Sikhs.

Many of them believed that British rule was the fulfilment of a prophecy of one of their martyred _gurus_, and the Sikh regiments were regarded as the flower of the Native Army.
Yet it was in the Punjab, at Lahore and at Rawal Pindi, that the first serious disturbances occurred in 1907 which aroused public opinion at home to the reality of Indian unrest, and stirred the Government of India to such strong repressive measures as the deportation of two prominent agitators under an ancient Ordinance of 1818 never before applied in such connexion.