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one vote one value, which a fair system of redistribution would involve, they will not hear a word. So, too, with regard to the new Imperialist idea; for, while some clamour for foreign intervention, a remnant still keep the ancient faith; but whether the former are prepared to find the necessary means by increased armament is not so very certain. This is not statesmanship, but what Junius would have called "the ominous oscillation of a pendulum.'

Substantially the programme of the old Radicals has been very largely accomplished, and many of the principles which distinguished them from other political parties have now become common ground. The present condition of the Radical party is one of transition, or perhaps it would be more true to say that the condition of political parties generally is one of transition; for the dividing lines which separate Unionists from Home Rulers, and Conservatives from Liberals and Radicals, are singularly ill defined. Liberals hardly any longer profess a desire to establish a National Parliament and Executive in Ireland; and it is not on such lines as these that the leading men amongst them hope to reconstruct the party. Mr. Kent's book is however mainly concerned with the history of the Radicals, not with an attempt to examine the condition of existing party divisions. Perhaps one of the most striking facts in the history of our parliamentary institutions is the fidelity with which, on the whole, Parliament has always represented the national feeling. However imperfect the machinery, even with a system of representation that seemed to make a mockery of popular election, a strong wave of national feeling always and quickly made itself felt in the House of Commons. The admission from time to time of new classes to the franchise, and the widest measures of redistribution, have never brought about any breach of continuity in our history. The reforms have never happily so operated as to confirm the fears of those who opposed them, whilst, on the other hand, beneficial though they have been they hardly realised the sanguine expectations of reformers who dreamed that at last Utopia was at hand.

Mr. Kent's volume is full of interest. He has given us a valuable sketch of the remarkable personalities who in thought or in action have led the democratic advances of our age. He has undoubtedly his partialities; but he has endeavoured to discuss his subject apart from prejudice, and the result is a book from which readers cannot fail to acquire a better understanding of the causes which have brought about our present constitutional system.

VOL. CXCI. NO. CCCXCI.

ART. XI.-1. The History of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, 1876 to 1880. Compiled from Letters and Official Papers. By Lady BETTY BALFOUR. London: 1899.

2. The Making of a Frontier.

By Colonel ALGERNON

DURAND, C.B., C.I.E. London: 1899.

3. Life of Sir George Pomeroy Colley, 1835-1881. By Lieut.-General Sir WILLIAM BUTLER, K.C.B.

1899.

London:

4. The Second Afghan War, 1878-79-80. By Colonel H. B. HANNA. Vol. I. London: 1899.

5. Indian Problems: 1. Can Russia Invade India? 2. India's Scientific Frontier. 3. Backwards or Forwards. By Colonel H. B. HANNA. London.

WHATEVER may be the ultimate verdict of history upon

Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, there can be no doubt as to the charm and grace of the volume in which Lady Betty Balfour has laid before the world the vindication from his own papers, practically by himself, of her father's much-assailed government of India. For our own part we are altogether of opinion that, at least from a military point of view, and probably from a political, Colonel Hanna is right when he says

'No! there is only one way of helping Afghanistan without arousing her jealousy, and probably in the end justifying her suspicions, and that is to tell Russia that we intend to regard any act of aggression committed against the territory of our ally as an act of hostility directed against ourselves, and to avenge it by attacking her in her only vulnerable points-her sea-board, her commerce, and her fleet.' ('Backwards or Forwards,' p. 119.)

We agree with Colonel Durand when he says

Every point of possible attack gained is to her (Russia's) advantage, and every man of ours who can be kept locked up in India, or guarding its frontier, when the battle of Armageddon does come, must be withdrawn from the real chessboard, wherever that may be. That to my mind is the crucial point' (p. 3).

Since Colonel Hanna wrote Russia has in various ways exposed herself to our attacks at new points. The present war in South Africa, despite many of the checks which have attended it, is a demonstration greater than we have ever made before, and far greater than any other country has ever made of power for acting by virtue of navy and mercantile marine with a large army at an immense distance

from home. When it is remembered that Russia, though her land frontier actually marches with that of China for more than two thousand miles, and though she would have met with no resistance had she chosen to move her garrison and her guns by land to Port Arthur, was yet obliged, by the inexorable conditions involved in the difficulties of land transport, to send to that distant shore every man and every gun that she required by sea under the guns of our fleet, her sea-board' is an expression that requires considerable expansion in order that its importance may be realised. The 'battle of Armageddon' can only in our judgement be fought with advantage to Great Britain in places where, as Mr. Kinglake used to put it, land and sea do much intertwine.' Therefore our positive conviction is, like that of Colonel Durand, that all Indian frontier policy must be judged from the point of view which he has so well expressed. It cannot be a question of the facilities which it presents to us for aggressive action against Russia, but only of the defensive security of our own frontier, of the smallest number of men that can be used for that defensive purpose, and of economy for the finances of India. By those standards, and by those alone, these questions can be safely judged, and that being our own point of view, it is only fair that we should state it at the outset, in order that we may not pretend to be impartial judges of the chief incidents of Lord Lytton's frontier administration.

Far more strongly, nevertheless, do we share Colonel Durand's feelings when he writes

'I am no believer in catchwords, though they are useful as terms of abuse. The "Forward Policy" and that of "Masterly Inactivity' have been wrangled over quite sufficiently. No sensible man nails either colour to his mast. Circumstances, and the races you have to deal with, decide cases.' [For instance,] Successive Cabinets in England, Conservative and Radical, agreed with the Government of India, that in the case of the Gilgit frontier certain steps were necessary, and the steps were taken.' ('The Making of a Frontier,' p. 3.)

There is a well-known story of a man and his wife who had had a quarrel about some question connected with a pair of scissors. It had reached a point of savagery at which he threw her into the water and threatened to drown her if she did not cease to throw at him the word 'scissors.' As fast as she came up to the surface she repeated the word, and he thereupon pushed her under. At last, when she was dying and could not speak, she put up the fingers of her right hand in the shape of a pair of scissors and sank

clipping them. There seems to us to be a large element of 'scissors' in much of the discussion between the two great schools of Indian policy. It does not appear nearly so often in the admirable and powerful papers that have been left by the great statesmen and soldiers who on both sides have contributed their share to the discussion of a singularly difficult and complex problem. It is rampant so far as we have observed equally rampant on both sides among the followers. None of them seem to be able to imagine that to be possible which Mr. Chamberlain recently asked his Dublin audience to believe, that a man should differ from them in opinion and yet be neither a knave nor a fool. Yet it seems to us that there never was a controversy in which the mere names of those who took part in it would give pause in his abuse to any man who did not look upon himself as infallible, no matter how strong might be his personal convictions. On the one side we have, in different degrees perhaps, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Charles Napier, Lord Lawrence, Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir Richard Temple, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Lepel Griffin, Lord Sandhurst, Sir Henry Durand, Sir West Ridgeway, Sir Edward Hamley, Lord Northbrook, Lord Cromer; on the other side Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Bartle Frere, Jacob and Green, Lord Salisbury, Lord Beaconsfield, not to mention Lord Lytton himself, as being in some sort under accusation-though we are much mistaken if this volume does not, as an able administrator and a writer of statesmanlike papers, raise him much higher in the estimate of his countrymen than he has hitherto stood -and Sir George Colley, whose memory, despite the disasters which attended his gallant end, has by the care of his recent biographer been placed on a pedestal of honour such as all those who really knew him have always erected for it, and certainly raised above the sneers of those who judged him only on imperfect information. Among these we regret to observe that Colonel Hanna is to be reckoned.

In both of those lists there are men from whom one would not willingly differ, and some in each of whom, if they were not balanced by the other, we should be almost inclined to say that one would rather be wrong with them than right with most others. We cannot therefore be too grateful to Lady Betty and the able men who have assisted her that they have raised this volume far above the region of vulgar controversy, and by the fairness and impartiality with which they have stated the views of those from whom they differed have set a model which we very much regret to find has been not

always followed by some reviewers of her volume, with whom on the broader lines we are much more inclined to agree than we are with Lord Lytton himself. The following passage will give a fair specimen of what we mean :-

'All schools of Frontier Policy are alike agreed that Russian influence should be excluded from Afghanistan at any cost. Lord Lawrence never doubted this. In a memorandum, dated November 25, 1868, he said: "No one, of course, can deny that the advance of Russia in Central Asia is a matter which may gravely affect the interests of England in India. No person can doubt that the approach of Russia towards our North-West Frontier in India may involve us in great difficulties, and, this being the case, it will be a wise and prudent policy to endeavour to maintain a thoroughly friendly Power between India and the Russian possessions in Central Asia. Nevertheless, it appears to me clear that it is quite out of our power to reckon with any degree of certainty on the attainment of this desirable end." And," he added, "I feel no shadow of a doubt that, if a formidable invasion of India from the West were immineat, the Afghans en masse, from the Amir of the day to the domestic slave of the household, would readily join it.":

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These were the views expressed by Lord Lawrence in '1868, when the only danger apprehended was the establish'ment of Russian influence in Afghanistan by forcible means, ' and when the public presence of the Russian at Kabul, not 'as the foe, but as the avowed friend and ally of the Amir, was a danger wholly unforeseen. Nor did Lord Lawrence 'counsel passive acquiescence in such a situation when it 'actually occurred. What he contended in 1878 was, that 'Russia rather than Sher Ali should have been called by us 'to account. And in this he was consistent; for what he had advised in 1868 was, that Russia should be plainly 'told that an advance towards India beyond a certain point would entail upon her war with England in every ""part of the world."

6.66

That, we submit, is not Masterly Inactivity' in the sense in which it is often attributed to Lord Lawrence both by friends and foes. It is surprising how the use of catchwords and the mental attitude of Scissors!-there!' tends by a gradual but sure process to divert parties using them completely from the ideas and thoughts of the chiefs from whom they originally received them. Meantime whilst they are snapping at one another the question is settled. As it was put in an article in the Edinburgh Review,' January 3, 1898:- For good or for evil we have abandoned the

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*Lord Lytton's Indian Administration,' pp. 8-9.

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