NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE event of the week has been the resignation of the Viceroy of India, which is explained in a White-book. This collection of despatches carries on the history of the struggle between Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India and Lord Kitchener as Commander-in-Chief over the proper relation between the Army and the civil Government. Lord Curzon has always maintained that the civil authority in India must be supreme, and to be supreme must have in the Council a Military Member upon whose advice the Viceroy can rely. Lord Kitchener, on the contrary, declines to be virtually over- ruled by that Member. Lord Curzon, it appears, when at home last year, discussed the new proposals, and agreed to them only on the assurance that certain safeguards would be provided. In June last he tendered his resignation; but, on certain modifications being allowed, he consented to withdraw it. Last month, however, in order to test the reality of these modifications, he suggested the name of a prominent officer as the new Military Member with limited powers, but was informed by the Cabinet that the appointment belonged exclu- sively to the home Government. Lord Curzon, whose health is much broken, thereupon resigned for the second time, and the Government at once accepted the resignation, and appointed Lord Minto to the vacant post. The choice is probably the best in the circumstances ; but though Lord Minto made an excellent Governor-General of Canada, the two posts require entirely different kinds of ability, and it is unusual to choose a man already sixty for such an exhausting office.
