is the most important of the Native States under the charge of the Bombay Government, and its ruler is the only ruling Mahratta chief who can claim direct descent from the great Shivaji, the “Shivaji-Maharaj” whose cult Tilak made one of the central features of his political propaganda.  He is the “Chhatrapati Maharajah,” and is acknowledged to be as such the head of the Mahratta Princes of India.  One would have thought that such a lineage would have sufficed in itself to invest the Maharajah of Kolhapur with a certain measure of sanctity in the eyes of Tilak and his followers.  Far from it.  His Highness is an enlightened ruler and a man of great simplicity of character.  He takes a keen interest in the administration of his State, and has undertaken, at no small cost to his Exchequer, one of the most important irrigation works yet attempted in any Native State.  But he committed what Tilak and his friends regarded as two unforgivable offences:  he fought against the intolerance of the Brahmans and he is a faithful friend end ally of the British Raj.  Hence they set in motion against him, the descendant of Shivaji, in his own State, exactly the same machinery of agitation and conspiracy which they have set in motion against British rule in British India.

It is a curious and most instructive story.  There had been long minorities in Kolhapur, and, especially during the more or less nominal reign of the present Maharajah’s predecessor, Shivaji IV., who ultimately went mad, the Prime Minister, a Chitpavan Brahman of Ratnagiri, acquired almost supreme power in the State, and filled every important post with his fellow caste men, of whom he introduced more than a hundred into the public service.  Under Chitpavan rule the interests of the people of the soil were systematically neglected in Kolhapur, as they had been throughout the Deccan in the later days of the Chitpavan theocracy at Poona, and privileges and possessions were showered upon members of the favoured caste.  On his accession in 1894 the present Maharajah appointed as his Prime Minister, with a view to very necessary reforms in the administration, a Kayastha Prabhu, Rao Bahadur Sabnis, who, though a high-caste Hindu, was not a Brahman.  There has long been great rivalry between the Brahmans and the Prabhus, who belong mostly to the moderate progressive school of Hinduism.  The appointment of Mr. Sabnis, besides portending unpalatable reforms, was therefore in itself very unwelcome to the Kolhapur Brahmans, amongst whom one of the most influential, Mr. B.N.  Joshi, the Chief Judge, was a personal friend of Tilak.  Consternation increased when the young Maharajah announced his intention of promoting to positions of trust such non-Brahmans as should be found capable of filling them and actually started educating non-Brahmans for the purpose.  In order to put pressure upon their ruler, the Brahmans had recourse to one of the most powerful weapons with which the semi-religious, semi-social structure of