places in Scotland'; 'The White Pasha' (not quite so good as the 'Burnaby' poetically but only inferior to it)-may sample one or more of the opening classes of theme as the sonnet and the ballades already cited may do others. The seventy pages of 'Books' and 'Friends' will give some of the lightest and most gossipy matter with extra doses of personality, sometimes a little intriguing.' For instance, the present writer finds an Ode to himself, the date, occasion, and meaning whereof are to him an absolute mystery, though the intention is probably skittish.' But wherever you go through the specially headed 'Sonnet' and 'Canto' sections; the 'Games' or the extensive series of ancient and modern translations, you will find the same presence of sad soul and gay mind, separate or together, but showing the command of verse and phrase always, and of poetry all but always save in the merest burlesque, and sometimes even then. In these translations you must indeed never forget the caution given above: or when having 'Les Enfants de la Lune' in your head you come to 'The Moon's Minion,' you may be 'put out.' As for the crowd of new or old collected Miscellanies that nearly fill Vol. III, it is impossible to say anything about them individually. But it has sometimes occurred to us that a beginner might perhaps as well begin with them; for if he will not find any of the very best things there he will find good things of most if not of all the kinds; and will prepare himself for that encyclopædic character of subject poetically treated which is Lang's greatest charm to those who really enjoy him, though curiously enough (or perhaps not so curiously?) it seems to be a hopeless chokepear to those who cannot. Let us in conclusion recommend to persons (they have been known in some numbers) who are shocked by what seems his occasional renegadery from Romanticism to read, in the actual and also the reversed order, two pieces of this batch, Love's Cryptogram' and 'Rococo.' If they are capable of understanding they will then understand. GEORGE SAINTSBURY. But the question which Indians are asking to-day is whether, after all, the Constitution does in fact fulfil this pledge. The Morley-Minto Reforms were frankly a disappointment. The Legislative Councils, though enlarged, retained their character of debating societies, in which resolutions could be passed, to be ignored by the Government if inconvenient. The famous Report spoke of ' the weariness of sterile effort' and again of influence without responsibility.' Forewarned is forearmed. Indians complain that the same thing is happening now. To adapt the Report once more, 'there is no general advance in local bodies; no real setting free of finance.' No part of the business of the Government of India is under the control of ministers elected by the people, and the Viceroy's power of certification is a sword of Damocles held over the heads of the Assembly whose power of controlling policy is strictly and unduly limited in the face of an irremovable Government and an overriding authority. Moreover, even the much advertised permission to 'splash about and make mistakes' has been modified by the present practice of discussing questions in full executive Council. For it is only human nature that the less experienced should lean on the more and, though perhaps the Indian would not admit it, that tendency is a characteristic of the Oriental. Can it then be said with any truth that this new experiment is any real advance towards responsible government? What responsibility resides in a permanent Opposition whose declared wishes can be and are brushed aside by an autocratic authority? Of what value is, the boasted training when it extends only to the microscopic few who can aspire to be Ministers, arbitrarily selected by the Government? That appears to be India's indictment of the Reforms in being. We ought not to dismiss it petulantly, but rather to examine it with sympathy. If we do so, certain lines of criticism at once will suggest themselves. For the full realisation of the democratic idea the term responsible government' has a dual implication. No one pretends that the Assembly is answerable, after the English pattern, to the country so long as the minute electorate is devoid of the political sense. On the other hand, the burden of good government is actually laid upon the Assembly. That it may claim credit and must accept blame for legislation which in nine cases out of ten becomes law, is a distinct step towards the realisation of responsibility in the less technical sense. What the Indian does not see is that this dual implication is inseparable; to admit the Assembly to full responsibility in the present conditions of India is merely to substitute an untried oligarchy for an experienced bureaucracy. The claim is that the working of the Act shows a distinct advance towards the gradual development of which it speaks. The decision must be left to individual judgment, but the jeremiads of reactionaries and the clamour of ultra-Radicals are equally out of place. Whichever view may be taken in England, it is abundantly clear that the principal parties in the Legislative Assembly-including Moderates as well as Nationalists-are not satisfied. They are bent not only on more rapid progress in the substitution of Indians for Englishmen in the administration; but also upon securing full autonomy as soon as possible. The first of these objects is in fact subsidiary to the second, for by securing a political preponderance in the administration they hope to be able to force the pace of the grant of full Dominion status. That, no doubt, is logically the final stage of the declaration of 1917. Otherwise there is no meaning in the policy of the 'gradual development of self-governing institutions' or in the 'progressive realisation of responsible government' if progress is to end half way. Indians, however, persist in the belief that Dominion self-government has already been granted, and that its full realisation is a matter of a few years. Already the conference of the Moderates at Delhi, in February last, has been considering the broad lines of a Constitution, and the recent attempt to curtail the Viceroy's power was evidently inspired by the same ambition and belief. If there be any sincerity in our repeated assurances that we hold India, not from greed of territory or power, but in trust for the welfare of her peoples, it behoves us now dispassionately to inquire: What Dominion self-government means when the last stage of progress has been reached; what is involved in the present Indian demand? Full Dominion self-government has proved an elastic 0 phrase. There was a time when to an Indian it meant autonomy in internal affairs and a government composed of native material, coupled with the sovereignty of Great Britain in the direction of foreign policy and her obligation to assist in, if not to undertake, the defence of the country. The march of events has, however, widened the scope of the formula. It is now contended by Nationalists that already India could defend herself as efficiently and much more cheaply through her own native armies. The Moderates do not go so far as that, but even they contemplate the time, comparatively soon, when India will direct her own foreign policy and provide her own defence. Few Indian politicians have paused to consider the equally vital problem of sea power and the patent fact that her defencelessness upon the water would not merely render her a prey to hostile States, but would in conjunction with land power subject her to an encirclement-an Einkreisung-which would probably drive up prices to famine rates and cause death and distress on a greater scale than she experienced during the Great War. They do not see that if the achievement of autonomy tends to loosen the bonds which bind India to England, it will also weaken the British attachment to India. The argument of the moral duty that we owe to the people will disappear, the sentimental affection of blood for blood has never existed, and the whole question would depend upon commercial advantages and the political situation which might arise upon our departure. For Japan would then be without a rival in Asia and would only be restrained from military aggression by respect for the United States and the fear of lighting a second world conflagration. Nor is it certain that the Army as a whole would be loyal to a régime composed of a heterogeneous association of races, mostly of the bourgeois' class, and drawn from all parts of India. Yet if there is to be a Central Government such a régime is inevitable: not one of the existing divisions of British India which, though based upon administrative convenience, do roughly correspond to race divisions, would agree to the monopoly of the Central Government by any one of them, and without a Central Government there must be disintegration. In spite of |
