22nd September.
Irany: proof were wanted that Mr. Brodrick is as great a-failure at the India Office as he was at the War Office, it would be found in the resignation of Lord Curzon of the brill lant post of Viceroy of India. Iv is a post that has been held by many great statesmen, who have given lustre to the post and received lustre from it, but there are few men who on the whole have been more successful in filling it conscientiously and energetically, than Lord Curzon. One of the very cleverest of Jowett's young men at Billiol, he was "always a little too conscious of his own sup-priority to be. popular, but his abilities and his: love of hard work were never disputed, and in India he thas dedicated his whole powers, mental and physical, to doing whut he believed was the best.for India. But his superior in, London, Mr. Brodrick, is a. second-rate, well-meaning, plodding politician who, on his own showing, could not understand the situation in India, and the Viceroy's career in India has accordingly come suddenly to a close. The "Times of India" begins its article on'"the Viceroy's resignation by saying: " Whatever view may be taken of Lord Curzon and his work in India, there will, we are assured, be almost complete unanimity among all classes of the community upon one point, namely, that-{the. present ending of so distinguished a viceroyalty is little less than a tragedy. Lord Curzon has aroused not criticism only, but furious opposition and impassioned resentment. His general policy during the past three years has! seemed to: many the embodiment of a hard and illiberal creed, the almost Te) fanatical "expression of a complete distrust of the people and their institutions, Yet all men have seen in him, and have acknowledged with admiration and astonishment, e grasp of administration, a power of labour, and a devotion to an ideal of duty which have very rarely been combined in so signal a degree in the person of a single public man, In regard to the reorganisation -of the Indian Army, the: differences between Lord Curzon and the Home Government have all along been fundamental and irreconcilable and the telegrams that have passed between Mr. Brodrick and the Viceroy " indicate, more clearly than has yet been done, the extent of Lord, Kitchener's triumph, and the imdensity of the power which has been given into the hands of the Commander-in-Chief by the new system, So far as Lord Curzon himself is concerned, they present him as the champion of a losing cause, striving, in the face of personal weariness and deep disappointment, to effect a modification of the scheme which he had condemned while undertaking 10 put it, into force, and, incidentally, they illustrate once more his unsurpassed faculty of giving vigorous and Incisive expression to his own view of 'a situation and a policy. They furnish a further example of Mr. Brodrick's official untruthfulness. Lord Curzon refers in the. plainest terms to his having resigned last June, adding: 'The main conditions which caused me to fes.gu on that occasion have again been called into being' Ib is bardly necessary to recall the-answers which Mr. Brodrick gave at the time to repeated questions. in the House of Commous—answers which make it more impossible than ever to regard the present Secretary of State asa fit person to sit among his Majesty's advisers."
Viceroys of India have hitherto bad on their Councils a Military Member of high rank in the army, who has acted as a check on the Commander-in-Chief, and has thus! maintained thecoustitutional arrangement that administrative control and executive command shall not be in the hands of one mau. Lord Kitchener is a very masterful person, and he went out to India not only to command the army there, but to rgunise it entirely. That. the, Viceroy should have another military adviser at his side to criticise, and possibly disapprove of, his plans, was extremely irksome to Lord Kitchener, and, having the backing of Mr, Brodrick, he succeeded enforcing.the resignation of the military member of the Council, Major-General Sir E.R. Elles, K. ©. B, by threatening to resign himself if the system which imposed any check on him were retained. The YViceroy's -Council has been relieved of -its Military Member, in his place a Supply Member being appointed, ostensibly as a concession to the Government-of India; he "is to be a mere storekeeper without any real functions that justify: the seat upon the Council which-he is to occupy. 'The pretence that -be is to be a real second adviser to the Viceroy, upon military. matters. hasbeen' dropped." Now, the public confidence in Lord Kitchener as an organiser is '60 absolutely unlimited, that Mr, Brodrick felt sure that, public opinion at home would support him in agreeing to this-change, strongly opposed as-it was by Lord Curzon. The change might be a good one if we could always be sure of having a Lord Kitchener as Oom-mander-in-Chief in India, but it is almost always-disastrous to do away with a long-standing and satisfactory system to meet an exceptional case. 'This was the question.on which Lord Curzon felt so strongly that he resigned..in' June; but Mr.' Balfour virtually implored him.not to give his tottering cabinet such a serious blow, while Parliament was sitting, and he withdrew his resiguation, When it came to appointing the new Supply Member, the Viceroy nominated Sir Edmund Barrow, in recommending whom "Lord Curzon had two things in view. He wished to emphasise the claim that the Viceroy is' the proper person to advise the Secretary of State with re-pech to appointments falling within the province of the latter; and he wished to ensure the appointment of u Supply Member who would be acceptable to himself as a military adviser, and at the same time an efficient' "check on the power of the Commander-in-Chief." 'Chis was exactly what Lord Kitchener did nob want, and accordingly Mr. Brodrick was made to reply that ib was his prerogative, not the Viceruy's,. to appoint the Supply Member, that the post' was not responsible enough for General, and that a'Colonel would fill it sufficiently. This was too much for Lord Curzon, Again it is seen that when a man resigns on a question of principle, and. yielding to pressure withdraws "his resignation, he: is almost sure to have to resign later on some question of detail. As the "Tithes of India" concludes "The result in avy case is such as to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.