Doer and Dreamer

Studies of an Imperialist. By Lord Sydenham of Combe. (Chapman and Hall. 18s.) Olives of Endless Age. By H. N. Brailsford. (Harpers. IN. Ild.)

FORTY to forty-five years ago Lord Sydenham was writing to the Times to explain that the bombardment of Alexandria proved that ironclads cannot hope to silence earthworks,

that Gordon must be relieved, that the Nordenfelt submarine introduced a new factor in warfare, that the Germans were likely to invade France through Belgium, and that camouflage was an art worth studying. All these predictions, some thirty years ahead of their time, came true.

It is the fashion in these days to decry those who believe in Imperialism, as diehards incapable of change, yet, compared to the rigidity of Mr. Brailsford's views, Lord Sydenham is

reason and flexibility itself. Socialists would represent him as an unyielding reactionary, yet what man, judged by the provable test of whether or not his early prophecies have come true, has had a more active and discerning mind than the late Governor of Bombay ? Compared to his bulldog grip on facts, Mr. Brailsford's well-turned phrases remind

us of the antics of a poodle.

In this book he recounts the dangers of Socialism, and says that the League of Nations may become a centre of intrigue against the British Empire and that the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms are likely to prove disastrous for India. With these latter propositions we do not agree, yet it is well that —whether mirages or realities—the fears of such an able and disinterested public servant should be described and discussed.

Of Socialism we need say little, for the crude type prevalent in the immediate post-War period when Russia was beginning her experiment has been changed and perhaps sobered of late. The Capital Levy is a dead horse : even the Surtax we may leave Mr. Snowden to flog. Lord Sydenham, in showing the impossibility of the levy, merely anticipated what the saner and safer Socialists came in their turn to see. As to the League, except for the sentence above quoted, the author is very much in agreement with ourselves. We must hasten slowly. We must develop international law. We must explore the possibilities of further arbitration treaties. As to the interests of the British Empire, Sir Austen Chamberlain's recent and weighty words on " that Smaller, but older League " justified the fears which the author expressed in 1920, although happily, we believe, such dangers are of the past and have no substance now.

With regard to India, the late Mr. Montagu's proposal to disturb the " placid, pathetic contentment " of the masses for their own highest good encountered a slashing attack from the author in the House of Lords in 1918. In an article written in 1923 he reviews the first four years of the Reforms, and adds : " Now that the Government of 320

millions of the human race is again to be thrown into the melting-pot,. I venture to think that this article, written in the interests of the vast masses to whom forms of govern- ment convey nothing, is worth consideration." While

disputing the thesis that there is no good in the Government of India Act, we must admit that the time has come to consider it anew, and to consider not only how we may alter it or extend it, but whether an entirely new system would not be better suited to the needs of India..

At the time (1919) something had to be done : some earnest of our good intentions was desirable. We, had to show educated opinion in India (small and unrepresentative as that opinion is) that we were clearing the path to self- icivernMent. Lord Sy- denham underestimates the 'popular feeling which existed at that time against " British bureau- cracy." The whole East was drunken with the heady brew of Nationalism, and there are times when nations, like individuals; cannot be told the bare and bitter truth, which is, of course, that India is not a nation and cannot yet govern herself. Yet we believe, in spite of all the disorders and dis- organization which Lord Sydenham cites, that India has benefited by the measure of self-government she has obtained. It is true that the Princes are dissatisfied, that the Extremists are unappeased, that the Moderates are doubtful, and the masses bewildered. It is true, further, that the tiny electorate which chooses India's rulers could be fairly compared to a British electorate of 28,000 persons literate in French. Incontestable, again, is it that some 220,000,000 people; including some of the most virile elements in the country and nearly all the agriculturists on whom India depends for revenue, are left practically unrepresented. Admitting all this and much more' that Lord Sydenham adduces with equal truth, we do not believe that eight years ago any other scheme but a tentative experiment in liberal democracy would have commanded the assent of sufficient people in England and India to be workable.

Now the situation is different. There has been time to consider the working of the Reforms. Lord Birkenhead's report on them is favourable on the whole. Yet a better system might well be evolved, provided we go definitely forward towards greater responsibility for a greater number of Indians, and not back to bureaucracy or paternalism. It would be interesting in this connexion to read Lord Sydenham's view on the possibility of gradually extending the area of purely native rule, at which he hints in the speech to the Lords already referred to.

" Our responsibility to the Indian peoples remains," says the author, • " while our power to discharge it has been destroyed." An exaggeration perhaps, but not a wild one. The Commission which has sailed for India would do well to remember that among those who agree with Lord Sydenham are many administrators of experience who are well loved in the country they served, as indeed Sir George Clarke was.

" Peace is no longer in the modern world a lofty ideal. It is the condition of our survival "—such is Mr. lirailsford's conclusion, as it is our own, of the present state of Europe. He adds an amusing and characteristic phrase that " the world cannot count on geological ages for the development of its social sense." To-day or to-morrow the will to peace must prevail. But on the methods to be employed to secure that blessing, we part company from the author with no serious expectation of ever meeting him again in mental agreement.

As a doctrinaire, Mr. Brailsford envisages a Great Society, reinforced by " modest police forces, military and naval, to` support the authority of the League against any possible aggressor," and as an ardent democrat he wants an "effective

Legislature " representing the, Parliaments of_ the. world -`,` in Some rough proportion to population;" working by a majority vote to manage our affairs from Geneva. Fortunately, such ideas are as improbable to materialize as they are undesirable. There will be no polyglot police, modest or otherwise, any more than there will be a " smashing of the religions of Islam, and Hinduism," which he quite cheerfully assumes to be necessary to the progresi of India.

The world, let us hope, need not be shattered and rebuilt according to the author's heart's desire. Yet we would commend his excellent and well-deserved tribute to the work Of Dr. Rajchmann of the Health Department of the League, and to Sir Arthur Salter. These two men, each in his sphere, have wrought miracles in the cause of the sanitary and economic rehabilitation of Europe. For the rest, the book is clever, but unsound.