acquiescing in the Trans-Persian railway as conceived by the Russian Government. But if the Indo-Persian enterprise receives the approval of the Indian and British Governments, then surely it was superlatively unwise to sacrifice Ispahan and much else in order to secure imaginary advantages, the renunciation of which is contemplated to-day.

Underlying the whole Persian question is one of the largest foreign interests of the British Empire. Whether the problem be scrutinised in its political, military or economic aspect, it is fraught with potential consequences, the magnitude of some of which it would not be easy to exaggerate. Those among them which might be deemed conducive to the welfare of the Empire have diminished at any rate in number, since the ratification of the AngloRussian agreements. The extent of our sphere of influence is circumscribed, and the only way in which it is now possible to extend it is by offering to Russia a full equivalent elsewhere.

This neutral zone of which it has been question, is an odd creation, as indeed is the division of the remainder of the independent Persian realm into spheres of foreign influence. It may not be generally known that the proposal to set apart a stretch of territory dividing the two domains and belonging to neither, emanated from the British Foreign Office, where the 'buffer system' had long been regarded as the pattern for all kindred territorial compromises. This sort of political vacuum has always been abhorred by the Tsar's Government. Juxtaposition for themselves and their rivals is their ideal. The marking off of the middle belt as a political Tom Tiddler's land was therefore a concession to British fears which also had to be duly paid for. And lately a suggestion was hinted at, rather than set out in clear language, to the effect that this neutral zone had better be divided like the rest of the country. One of the most salient practical consequences of this innovation would be the setting apart of a larger area over which British railways might be built and British influence wielded. On the other side of the account one might write many drawbacks, not the least of which is the painful impression which such a measure would produce on the natives at the present conjuncture, when Persia's authorised spokesmen are Vol. 219.-No. 436

laboriously endeavouring to carry out the recommendations of the two protecting Powers.

Throughout all this Persian tangle British people have but one aim, and are ready to make sacrifices to attain it: the setting of the Persian nation on its feet. If the Shah's unhappy people could once be rendered as independent as, say, Bulgaria or Roumania, able to transact their own home and foreign business without help from outside, the British nation would be satisfied. So long as Russian troops-however beneficial their presence may now be-continue indispensable to the maintenance of order in the country, Persia cannot be deemed a sovereign State, nor will its people feel that self-respect and self-assurance whence the most efficacious stimulus to healthy endeavour is derived. And at the present moment the outlook is exceptionally dismal.

There is still one hope for this unhappy nation-the infusion into its veins of fresh vital forces through the inflow of foreign capital. And this may be effected by means of railways. The first Russian line to be built is purely local, and will connect Djulfa with Tabriz and run on to the fertile district of Urmia. It will cost no more than 1,300,000l. The next undertaking will perhaps be a line from Astara to Resht, which will be regarded as a section of the great Trans-Persian trunk railway. All the surveys for this railway have already been completed. In September the Persian Government will be asked by the Russian, French and British Ministers to grant an option for this through-connexion from frontier to frontier, and there is no doubt it will be accorded. The Regent himself favours the scheme and will see it through. Whether the British Government accepts or rejects the international project-and there is little doubt it will co-operate-Russia will construct that portion of it which is to traverse her own sphere of influence with a terminus at Yezd, and wait until the Indian and British Governments have reconsidered their recent decision. In the civilising effect of these coming railways lies the last hope of the Persian people.

Art. 15.-GEORGE WYNDHAM: SOME IMPRESSIONS BY A FRIEND.*

MUCH has been written of Mr George Wyndham in a generous and ungrudging spirit since his death. His charm, his grace, both physical and mental, his versatility as soldier, man of letters and statesman have all been commemorated; his great Land Act in Ireland has received the fullest acknowledgment. People were really moved at his death, and with a few exceptions the chief organs of public opinion for a brief space gave wholehearted acknowledgment to what public opinion held that he had done well. Then the world went on its way and resumed the absorbing interests from which it had turned aside for a moment to bestow attention on the sudden extinction of a brilliant light.

Yet most of the kind things that were said might have been true of one whose gifts were immeasurably inferior to George Wyndham's. Many of us feel, as Mr Balfour said in the House of Commons, that Mr Wyndham's gifts have not received their full meed of praise, partly because they never found the theatre whence they could be so exhibited as to be unmistakable to the world at large.

'What is truth?' asked Pilate. 'What is fame?' is a question similar in its apparent simplicity and in its real difficulty. A man's greatness is apt to be measured by the test which is most of all affected by the chapter of accidents, namely, visible success. That is the most obvious test, but it is superficial and often wholly inadequate. William Watson has told us in memorable lines that the facile conqueror' may be less great than 'he who, wounded sore, sinks foiled yet fighting evermore.' Failure may be more splendid than success. But in the case before us the large measure of success actually achieved may be a serious obstacle to the general recognition of the splendour of the man's failures. Those who wish to discourse on this latter

The writer has to thank Lady Grosvenor for her kindness in allowing him to print the extracts from Mr Wyndham's letters contained in this article.

aspect of his career have not before them the inspiring task of rescuing from obscurity an unknown genius who was crushed and crowded out in the struggle of life by adverse circumstances. We are dealing on the contrary with one who for years seemed to be fortune's spoilt child; whose circumstances and position were, by comparison with many men of genius, splendid; who was a member of the Government at an age when most men have not yet got into Parliament; who was a Cabinet Minister in the front rank in his thirties. Yet it remains true that George Wyndham's true title to greatness can only be measured by taking into account powers and actual work that gave sure promise of greater public successes than he ever attained, and even by computing the elements of tragedy in his life. The test supplied by tangible success is in his case an eminently inadequate test. If it remains unchallenged he will not be to posterity what he really was in life.

Mr Wyndham went to the War Office as UnderSecretary in 1899. And his work there stood out at once, in the eyes of those who came across it, as something quite on a different plane from that of the ordinary official, even of first-class ability. Helped no doubt by his early soldier life, he studied the requirements of our army with the large outlook of a true statesman. To the end of his life his speeches on this subject were most memorable. The impression he made at the very outset on Lord Lansdowne, his chief at the War Office, is thus recorded by him:

'You ask me to give you in a few sentences my impression of George Wyndham's work at the War Office. It was my good fortune to have him for my colleague during the last two years of my service as Secretary of State. The War Office was not then, and I suppose never has been, exactly a bed of roses. Old problems of army organisation were still unsolved, new problems concerning the arms, ammunition and equipment of the forces were constantly arising, and the machinery of the Office itself, recently reconstructed, was not yet working smoothly. On the top of all this came the South African War, with its new responsibilities, its revelations and its disappointments. The stress was severe, and the representative of the Department in the House of Commons had,

so far as the Parliamentary burden was concerned, to bear by far the heaviest share of the load. George Wyndham bore it with infinite patience and good temper, and with untiring resourcefulness. Inside the Office he was a tower of strength, a keen and thorough worker, always intent upon getting at the root of things. He had a rare power of handling difficult and complicated questions, and although he could grasp details and expound them with unrivalled lucidity, he never lost himself in them, I cannot conceive an abler or a more delightful colleague.'

It was while he was at the War Office that Wyndham made perhaps his greatest speech in the House of Commons, in which to a knowledge of his own subject he added a keen realisation of the situation created by the South African War, which was placing so many English homes in mourning. This combination called out the greatest gifts of an orator. After that speech he was freely spoken of as a future Prime Minister. It was thus at the War Office that he won his spurs. Yet, when, nearly four years later, he was offered the post of Secretary for War, his loyalty to the cause of Ireland, to which he had by then devoted his whole heart, made him decline it. Here, then, was one sphere in which he showed his splendid powers and equipped himself for a great work for which he all but found his opportunity. That he just missed that opportunity was in its circumstances almost tragic. For had he then gone to the War Office, he would have escaped the check in Ireland that threw back his political career, and he would have been supreme in a sphere which he had almost completely mastered.

But the tragedy of adverse circumstance was far greater in Ireland itself. Here he had actually found both his field and the position in which he could control it. After a brief space he had the most influential position which exists in that country-he was Chief Secretary and in the Cabinet. He realised one great scheme in the Land Purchase Act. Those who watched things closely saw the extraordinary gifts which this measure displayed. 'I doubt,' writes Lord Lansdowne, 'whether anyone else could have carried the great Land Act which will always be associated with his name, and which will be a monument to him ære perennius.' The rest of his programme