Pessimistic Prognostications.

WHILE regretting the delay that is being made in announcing the reforms, the Indian Social Reformer advises our countrymen not "to anticipate disappointments, as such anticipations sometimes bring about their own fulfillment." We have said ourselves that we hope for the best and shall continue to do so until the hope is falsified by the event. But we do not appreciate the Reformer's reasons for the advice it gives. It can mean only one of two things: either that there is something in the anticipation itself which, in a 'mysterious way, brings about its fulfillment or that the British Government are so thin-skinned that, because some people in India indulge in these gloomy anticipations, they will cast all their love of justice to the winds and proceed to punish the whole body of the people of India by withholding the reforms. The first of these views is quite inconsistent with the sane, positive outlook upon life and its problems which has always characterised the Reformer, while the second is essentially lacking in justice.