tician and a preacher, and if he has nothing much to say about any future policy, that is because he sees only too plainly that the future is far beyond the control of British politicians, beyond the criticism of British moralists.

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Many are the lost possessions of England," says the author of 'The Lost Dominion.' 'From some she has been driven in battle: others she has abandoned through negligence: others she has surrendered as useless and noxious: some have been bartered. The case of India is up to the present the first and only example of the abandonment of a valuable possession on moral grounds." But was India abandoned on moral grounds? Before we assented to any such statement as that, we should want a very strict definition of "moral grounds." Until cowardice, falsehood, and sentimentality are deemed to be virtues, we refuse to admit any touch of "morals in the policy with which our Members of Parliament have afflicted India. Are there any moral grounds for Burke's unsupported lies, for Ripon's folly, for Пlbert's sentimentality, for Morley's pedantry, and Montagu's cowardice! Every one of these demagogues was influenced by personal prejudice. They may have made pretentious claims to "morality." We still remember Mr Montagu's hysterical claim, in the moment of surrender, that he wished to rule by "love."

But no sane man who followed their arguments could believe that they were swayed by any higher motive than the desire to do what was popular, and what, with good fortune, might hurt the other side.

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However, Mr Al. Carthill's subtle irony will not hide his views from one sympathetic reader. And it is not only of India that he discourses. He finds occasion by the way to sketch many a portrait in such colours as convince us of his antipathy. It is thus, for instance, that the mugwump appears to him. The mugwump," he writes, "is a superior person-a great man. He is superior to the vulgar prejudices of his race and age, particularly to those prejudices which, being based on instinct and not on reason, are probably deeply rooted, and, on the whole, presumably salutary. An instinct is a hereditary racememory, and was acquired by the race through the method of survival. At one time, therefore, it was essential to the security of the individual, and therefore of his community, and the burden of proof that such a race-memory now indicated the road not of safety but of destruction is always on the assertor." Having sketched the mugwump, he proceeds to extract from an imaginary book, which he entitles theMugwump's Manual,' or 'Defeatist's Dictionary,' the pernicious doctrines of the school. Here are some of the doctrines, whose relevance to the problem of

Indian government no mugwump will dispute: (1) "There is no such thing as race. An An Englishman is a man living in England; a Frenchman is a man living in France; an Andamanese is a man living in the Andamans. If you took a family of Andamanese and settled them in Glasgow, then, even in the absence of interbreeding, the descendants of that family would become Scots." As a first article in the creed, that is well enough. Still better is the next: (2) "Every race is entitled to selfdetermination. It is entitled to retain its ancestral territories, whatever may be the use to which it puts them. For any foreign power to interfere is an act of tyranny. It is particularly wrong for Britain to interfere." And so we arrive easily at (3): "Democracy is not merely a form of government. Belief in democracy is a religion. Just as to the Christian the teachings of Christianity are always and universally true, so the democratic formula is always and universally true. Wisdom is from below." When we add to these, as corollaries, that the people is always right, except the people of Great Britain, that war is always wrong, that it is always England's duty to sacrifice her friends to her enemies, we have a body of doctrine which is warranted to secure, everywhere and at all times, the just humiliation of Great Britain.

With these doctrines in his

mind, Mr Al. Carthill sketches the rise and fall of the British power in India. power in India. It began in trade, and in trade it flourished. There was no home Government to interfere, by telegraph, with the action of those who accepted the full responsibility of its rule. The native Indians, torn by racial and religious feuds, rejoiced to find that the last word was spoken by an Englishman, who was impartial or indifferent. At any rate, he exercised a virtue which was beyond the reach of the Indian, who, as Mr Al. Carthill says,

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I will never believe that any fellow-countryman of his can be so lost to all decent feeling as to sacrifice at the shrine of an abstract virtue like impartiality the interest of those who should be most dear to him." Thus it was until the time of the Mutiny, and the English had every reason to be satisfied with what they had done. Truly, they were not to blame for setting up the Indian Empire. As our author says, "It was no discreditable thing for the British to have constructed from the shattered fragments of the old Imperial organisation a safe abidingplace for so large a section of the human race." Though it was not discreditable, it was not popular, and it evoked no gratitude. It did not allay the struggle between East and West.

Nothing save the continuous policy of an amiable despot could have done that. In the policy of our mugwumps there was neither amiability

nor continuity, and it is not strange that trouble arose.

Mr Al. Carthill has a keen sense of drama, and it pleases him to invent certain personages as vehicles of opinions. Of these the most obviously striking is one whom he calls Panditji, a man of the Brahmin caste, who claimed as a birthright a lordship over millions. Now Panditji did not like the intrusion of the Englishman, who had attacked both his pride and his pocket. When he met him he found him a barbarian, and when, in obedience to Macaulay, he had absorbed his culture, he thought less of him than ever. His ambition was to break down the British dominion, and, as he was a man of peace, it was not by force that he could achieve his ambitions. The weapon of cunning came more easily to his hand. "All that was necessary," to quote the words of his creator, was to convince the British people or the British politicians that to continue to rule India through a European agency was unnecessary and indeed noxious. Panditji hoped to convince the West that not only abstract justice, but imperious necessity, rendered the transfer of the administration to indigenous hands a matter of practical politics" And so Panditji began his intrigue, which not only was admirable in itself, but which, if it succeeded, would bring him and his kind all that they desired. It was thus towards England that he

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VOL. CCXV.-NO. MCCCII.

looked.

"The key to India," as Mr Al. Carthill says, "is not in Herat, and not in Delhi or Calcutta, but in Whitehall. It was on the power and resolution of the British people to retain India that the continuance of the Empire depended. As to the physical power of Britain, there was no doubt. Armed rebellion by the Indians was hopeless."

Therefore Panditji resolved to play the Home Government against the Indian Government, and so make some sort of a change imperative. He was not ignorant of English politics, and he knew enough that the English people neither knew nor cared anything about the Empire. What could you expect of an electorate that was flattered and satisfied with the cry of a "free breakfast table"? And Panditji noted the shocks which Gladstone's supine rule administered to Great Britain. Majuba and the Soudan, Home Rule, and the Boer War, were carefully noted by the cunning Brahmin, who did not disdain to profit by England's troubles, and to learn, from Ireland especially, by what sort of agitation he and his countrymen might eventually attain the summit of their hopes. And when, at the death of Queen Victoria, a new era began, there seemed a chance of success for the wily Panditji. At last the eminent Mr Montagu proclaimed aloud and at the top of his voice, "I am proud to call Mr Gandhi my 2 F

But much ground had to be traversed before the surrender was complete. It was traversed easily, and at full speed. The Ilbert Bill, for instance, raised the racial question in such a shape as nobody could misunderstand. The dispute, whether Indians should have the right to try Europeans for the offences which they had committed, compelled the Government to appeal to "enlightened Indian opinion." Of course enlightened Indian opinion supported the Government, and Panditji saw his advantage at once. "The Indians," said Panditji's friends in England, "are now thoroughly convinced that we mean well to them. Being intelligent men, they will, of course, co-operate with us. We shall thus be able to win for our other measures popular support, which will strengthen our hands both in India and at home. The administration will, and must, remain a despotism, but a despotism considerate of the opinion of enlightened public opinion, and therefore supported by it." Alas! enlightened public opinion was convinced that the Home Government was in a panic, and took

So with a perfect sense of logic and a clear determination to pursue the cause of tragedy to its end, the British Government made itself an artist to surrender. Without intermission, it "spanked the baby at one end and fed it at the other!" It faced the growing propaganda without fear, and was far too lofty to make any attempt to counteract it. Above all, it was afraid to check the rebel press. "Although to publish an article in a newspaper," says Mr Al. Carthill, "urging the public to assassinate a particular individual might be punishable, yet praise of assassination in the abstract was hardly a crime." If the editor of the paper or the writer of the article were suspended, it didn't matter much; the journal went on. And suppose a man made a seditious speech at a public meeting, he might be punished, but public meetings would still be held, and the Government was powerless to prevent them. Even the possession of bombs might be legalised. It was no offence," we are told, "to possess a bomb so long as it was not filled, and even the illegal possession of explosives and dangerous arms was not highly penal." It reminds us of Mr Gladstone's attempt to escape from the consequences of libelling Colonel Dopping. The great "statesman "had charged Colonel Dopping with appearing at a window, rifle in