PAPERS RELATING TO THE DURBAR CHANGES.

Considerable progress has been made by research and by the study of local conditions as to the cause of these scourges, but much remains to be done above all in the education of the masses; teaching them to under-stand and adopt precautions dictated by elementary hygienic and domestic sanitation for their protection and welfare.

We have looked forward with keen pleasure to the prospects of revisiting your ancient and famous city which your address reminds us has been the scene of events memorable in the history of this country and some of them intimately associated with my house and throne. In the future it will be bound to us by yet closer ties. The traditions of your city invest it with a peculiar charm. The relics of bygone ages that meet the eye on every side, the splendid places and temples which have resisted the destroying hand of time, all these witness to a great and illustrious past.

In seeking a more central spot for the seat of the Government of India, these traditions and characteristics conduced in no small degree to the decision which I have so recently announced that from this time forward Delhi shall be the capital of our Indian Empire. At the same time, I wish to bear testimony to the care with which the Government of the Punjab during the fifty years since Delhi was incorporated in that Province have developed this beautiful city, while doing their utmost to reserve its historic monuments and thus preparing the city of Delhi for its restora-tion to its former proud position of the capital of the Indian Empire.

This change will necessitate considerable administrative re-arrangements. but I am assured that the Imperial City may anticipate from the Imperial Government a care for its ancient monuments and a solicitude for its material development by no means less than the Provincial city of Delhi has in the past received frolIl the Provincial Government. I pray that this Empire, of which Delhi is now the capital, may ever stand for peace and progress, justice and prosperity and that it may add to the traditions of your city still brighter chapters of greatness and glory.

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