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Title: Lord Minto. A Memoir.
Author: Buchan, John (1875-1940)
Illustrator: Lszl, Philip Alexius de (1869-1937)
Photographer: Chancellor (fl. ca. 1890)
Photographer: Topley, William James (1845-1930)
Date of first publication: October 1924
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London, Edinburgh, and New York:
   Thomas Nelson and Sons, October 1924
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 4 April 2011
Date last updated: 4 April 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #764

This ebook was produced by Al Haines






[Frontispiece: GILBERT JOHN, 4TH EARL OF MINTO, K.G., P.C., G.C.S.I.,
ETC.  (_From a sketch by P. A. Laszl, 1912_)]




LORD MINTO


A MEMOIR



BY

JOHN BUCHAN




THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.

LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK




_First published October 1924_



  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT
  THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS




{iii}

PREFACE

In writing this Memoir I have had access to the journal and the private
papers of Lord Minto, as well as to the official records of his
administration in India and Canada, and I have had the further
advantage of talks and consultations with many of his friends.  To
these I would offer my sincere thanks, and I would gratefully
acknowledge the kindness of Lady Hutton, who lent me some of the papers
of her husband, the late Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton, and the
generosity of the executors of the late Lord Morley and Messrs.
Macmillan & Co., who have permitted me to quote extracts from Lord
Morley's letters, both published and unpublished.

The book owes a special debt to two collaborators.  It was undertaken
at the request of Lady Minto, who has given me such constant and
invaluable help that in a real sense the book is her own.  She not only
arranged and analysed for me a formidable mass of documents, but from
her intimate association with her husband's work she was able to cast
light on many obscure matters, and to reproduce for me the atmosphere
of events, which cannot be recovered from the written or printed page.
I have had, too, the use of her delightful Indian diary, which I wish
could be given intact to the world, for in light and colour those words
of an eye-witness are far superior to any chronicle at second hand.

The other is the late Arthur Elliot.  He was my friend for many years,
and only those who had the privilege of knowing that wise and gracious
character can realize how {iv} much better this book would have been if
he had lived to give it his kindly criticism.  Throughout their lives
the two brothers shared each other's full confidence.  Minto's letters
to him are the most revealing in the correspondence, and from him I
received most of the material for the early chapters.  My hope is that
the Memoir in its final form may be such as he would have approved.

J. B.

ELSFIELD MANOR,
  OXON.




{v}

CONTENTS


INTRODUCTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  ix


BOOK I TOC
    I. BOYHOOD: ETON AND CAMBRIDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   II. STRENUOUS IDLENESS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
  III. APPRENTICESHIP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
   IV. CANADA: 1883-85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  71
    V. SOLDIERING AND POLITICS AT HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . .  84
ETOC

BOOK II TOC
   VI. GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 1898-1904 . . . . . . . . . . 117
  VII.     "       "         "         "     (_continued_) . . . 157
 VIII.     "       "         "         "     (_continued_) . . . 180
ETOC

BOOK III TOC
   IX. VICEROY OF INDIA, 1905-6  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
    X.    "         "    1907-8  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
   XI.    "         "    1909-10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
  XII. VICEROY OF INDIA: DEPARTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
 XIII. CONCLUSION  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
ETOC

INDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349




{vii}

ILLUSTRATIONS


Gilbert John, 4th Earl of Minto, K.G., P.C.,
  G.C.S.I., etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     _Frontispiece_
  (_From a sketch by P. A. Laszl_, 1912)

Gilbert John Elliot, at the age of thirteen  . . .  _facing page_   4
  (_From a miniature at Minto House_)

"Mr. Rolly"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "    28

Lord Melgund in the Uniform of the Border
  Mounted Rifles, 1883 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "    52

Lord Melgund in 1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "    94
  (_Photo by Chancellor_)

Lord Minto as Governor-General of Canada, 1899 . .      "     "   144

Lord Minto and "Dandy," 1900 . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "   176
  (_Photo by Topley, Ottawa_)

Lady Minto, 1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "   250

Lord Minto addressing the First Meeting of the
  new Legislative Council, Government House,
  Calcutta, 1910 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      "     "   300




{ix}

INTRODUCTORY

THE BORDER ELLIOTS

Scottish Borderland in its widest sense embraces the country from the
Ken to Berwick, and from the Solway and the Cheviots to the backbone of
mountain which runs from Merrick to the Lammermoors and cradles all the
streams of the Lowlands.  In that broad region the Britons of
Strathclyde, the Northmen from the sea, and the later immigrants have
so mixed their blood as to produce a certain uniformity of type, akin
to and yet something different from other Lowland stocks.  The history
of each valley has been the same tale of poor soil, inclement seasons,
stunted cattle and niggardly crops, a hard life varied by constant
bickering among neighbours and raids into England; these valleys lay,
too, in the track of the marching armies, whenever there was war
between Stuart and Plantagenet and Tudor, and, save for the religious
houses and the stone castles of the nobles, there could be few enduring
marks of human occupation.  It was a gipsy land, where life could not
settle on its lees, since any night the thatch might be flaring to
heaven, and the plenishing of a farm moving southward under the prick
of the raiders' spears.  There the hand must keep the head, and a
tough, watchful race was the consequence, hardy as the black cattle of
their hills, tenacious of a certain rude honour, loyal to their
leaders, staunch friends, and most patient and pestilent foes.  Rough
as the life was, it had its codes and graces.  The Borderer was
quarrelsome, but he was also merciful, and was curiously averse to the
shedding of blood.  He was hospitable to a fault, scrupulously faithful
to his word, and in giving and taking hard knocks preserved a certain
{x} humour and mirthfulness.  "The men are lyght of harte," wrote
Bartholemew the Englishman in the thirteenth century, "fiers and
couragious on theyre enemies."  And Bishop Lesley, writing in the
sixteenth century, noted that they were skilful musicians and "lovers
of eloquence and poetry."  Mr. Andrew Boorde, an English physician, who
visited them about that date, bore witness to the same qualities, and
had little fault to find except with "their develysh dysposicion not to
love nor favour an Englyshman," their extreme clannishness, and their
boastful pride of race.  "Many," he wrote, "wyll make strong lyes."
Among their green glens harpers and violers wove some of the loveliest
of Scottish airs, and the gift of imagination had other issue than mere
vaunting, since it gave birth to the noblest ballads that ever graced a
literature.

Of the Borderland in the wider sense the Marches were the heart and
citadel, and no part was in more constant unsettlement than that
western area from the upper waters of Liddel to the Solway.  There
dwelt the Armstrongs and the Elliots, and lesser septs like the Nixons
and the Croziers.  It is hard to take the view of the old
pedigree-makers that the Elliots as a clan were transplanted bodily
from the village of Alyth, in Forfarshire, by the first Earl of Angus,
when the Douglas interest became powerful on the Border.  For this view
historical and philological proofs are alike wanting, and it is more
probable that the Ellwalds, Elwoods, or Ellets were of the same race as
the other septs of Liddesdale, autochthonous in a true sense, deriving
their descent from some ancient admixture of the blood of Norse rovers
with that of the British of Strathclyde.  The earliest records show
them holding the upper glens of Liddel, as the Armstrongs held its
middle course.

The piety of lettered descendants--for few Scottish family histories
have been so carefully written as that of the Elliots--has preserved
what is known of the rude March life before the Union of the Crowns
took the heart out of Border war.  The Elliots of Liddesdale lived for
three centuries the life of the camp.  Their little massy stone towers
could not be altogether destroyed, but roof-tree and thatch and wooden
outbuildings were perpetually {xi} blazing to heaven.  They had
occasional quarrels with Scots neighbours, and standing feuds with
Musgraves and Fenwicks and Grahams across the English line.  Sometimes
they were bridled by the Scottish Warden of the Marches and their
warlike ardour made to serve the national cause, but more often it was
a war of kites and crows, wild rides on moonlit nights, desperate
affrays in moorland hollows, the "hot-trod" down Tyne or Tees when men
died for a half-dozen lean cattle.  The name of Liddesdale was feared
as far as Yorkshire; it is recorded that in the year 1541 the English
Warden tried to induce reprisals, but Tynedale and Redesdale "refused
to commit slaughter of any of the notable surnames of Liddesdale for
fear of deadly feud," and preferred to harry their less dangerous
neighbours of Teviotside.  Sometimes the Church took a hand, and the
Archbishop of Glasgow was prompted by Cardinal Wolsey to lay on the
Borderers a most terrible curse, concluding with "I condemn them
perpetually to the deep pit of hell to remain with Lucifer and all his
fellows, and their bodies to the gallows on the Burrow Mure, first to
be hangit, syne revin and ruggit with dogs, swine, and other wild
beasts abominable to all the world."  But to hang an Elliot you had
first to catch him--no easy matter, and for the empty thunder of the
Church he and his kind cared not a straw.  As for the Douglas lords of
Liddesdale, they could threaten, and occasionally hang, but they could
not restrain.  "Dark Elliot's Border spear" might be kept at home for a
little by burdensome bonds and hostages, but presently would come a
harvest moon and it would be taken down again from the thatch.
Hangings and hornings availed little, and it was to do justice on the
Elliots that Bothwell marched into Liddesdale in 1556, whereby he
nearly lost his life and brought Queen Mary galloping through the
mosses from Jedburgh to Hermitage.  Let it be said to their credit that
they were stubbornly national, and rarely paltered with the English
enemy.  Hence their long friendship with the "rough clan" of Buccleuch,
who were of the same way of thinking.

This wild life of the Marches ended early in the seventeenth century,
when the governments of Scotland and England combined to crush the
lawless clans.  The process {xii} which James V. had begun with the
hanging of Johnnie Armstrong was carried to an effective conclusion.
In Stevenson's words "the rusty blunderbuss of Scots criminal justice,
which usually hurt nobody but jurymen, became a weapon of precision for
the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Croziers."[1]  The lairds were
compelled to give security for good behaviour, the old merry days of
hunting in the Cheviots and raiding Northumberland were over, and,
since their occupation was gone, poverty closed in on them.  Men
drifted to other parts of Scotland or went abroad to the wars; in the
sixteenth century the Elliots had been able to muster 450 mounted men,
which meant a clan numbering at least 1500; by the middle of the
eighteenth century the latter figure represented the total population
of Liddesdale.  Soon, as Nicol Burne the Violer sang, "many a place
stood in hard case where blithe folk kent nae sorrow," and Scot of
Satchels in the seventeenth century thus deplored in his rough doggerel
the Elliot fortunes:--

  "For the Elliots, brave and worthy men,
  Have been as much oppressed as any name I ken,
  For in my own time I have known so much odds,
  No Elliot enjoyed any heritage but Dunlibyre, Fanash, and Stobs."


It is with the last-named remaining heritage that we are now concerned.
As Mangerton had the headship of the Armstrongs, so the chief of the
Elliots was the laird of Redheugh, which stood near the foot of the
Hermitage Water.  But as time went on the Redheugh family became more
identified with the peel of Lariston, higher up the Liddel valley.
Stobs, across the hills on the Slitrig Water, a tributary of Teviot,
became an Elliot property in 1580, and in the second decade of the
seventeenth century passed into the hands of one Gilbert Elliot, a
cadet of Lariston, whose mother was a Scott of Buccleuch.  This
Gilbert, known as "Gibbie wi' the Gowden Garters," married another
Scott, the "Flower of Yarrow," a daughter of "Auld Wat of Harden," and,
judging from his place in ballad literature, must have been of a
character to impress the imagination of the countryside.  Of the Stobs
family several represented the county of Roxburgh in {xiii} Parliament,
both before and after the Union, and from it sprung the famous soldier,
Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar; but we must turn aside from
its main line and follow that of Gilbert's fourth son, Gavin of Midlem
Mill who by his marriage with Margaret Hay of the ancient Tweeddale
house of Haystoun was the father of two sons, Robert and Gilbert.  This
latter was the first Elliot of Minto.

Born the younger son of a younger son, Gilbert had to carve out his own
career.  Though barely three generations removed from the
moss-troopers, he possessed that compound of worldly sagacity and
religion, that ability both to watch and to pray, which is
characteristic of one Scottish type.  He began as a writer (_Anglice_
solicitor) in Edinburgh, and in the strife of Covenant and Crown took
the side of the former.  A mission to London to save the life of the
well-known minister, William Veitch, brought him under the notice of
the leaders of the Opposition, and presently he was mixed up in the
affairs of Argyll, and joined the group which included Baillie of
Jerviswood, Hume of Polwarth, and William Carstares.  In January 1685
he was compelled to fly the land, and returned from Holland in May with
Argyll and his friends to start the futile rising which brought its
leader's head to the block.  There was some of the old riding blood
left in the Whig lawyer, for Gilbert Elliot was with Sir John Cochran
in the skirmish at Muirdykes, and gave a good account of himself.
Thereafter he led a hunted life, though by some accident his name was
omitted from the Government proclamation.  Presently he left the
country, and in his absence was sentenced to death and forfeiture,
which sentence was remitted in 1687 in consideration of the earlier
services of his father to the Royalist cause.  He returned to
Edinburgh, was admitted as an advocate to the higher branch of his
profession, and when the Revolution brought his friends into power
advanced swiftly at the Bar.  Knighted in 1692, a baronet in 1700, and
member of Parliament for the county of Roxburgh in 1703, he was now of
a fortune to entitle him to purchase an estate, and in this last year
he bought the lands of Minto.  Two years later he went to the bench
under the title of Lord Minto, becoming a judge of the very court {xiv}
which twenty years before had condemned him to death.  He died in 1718
at the age of sixty-seven, having won out of the disorders of the
Revolution a modest fortune and estate.  His portrait shows a long,
heavy-jowled, mellow face, with humorous and sagacious eyes.  He was
the essential moderate, who managed to steer a middle course even in
the stormy waters of the Union controversy, but who, when occasion
required, could show himself a devoted friend and imperil his career in
a doomed cause.  Wodrow describes him as a man of "unshaken probity,
integrity, and boldness against all unrighteousness and vice"--a
tribute which showed how far the race had advanced in decorum since the
ancient days of Lariston.

His eldest son, Gilbert, the second baronet, sat like his father for
Roxburgh, like him and under the same title became a Lord of Session,
and for forty years adorned the Scots bench, becoming eventually Lord
Justice Clerk in succession to Erskine of Tinewald.  There is scarcely
an incident which stands out in his placid life except that he was
visited by Prince Charlie's army on its march to Derby, and had to take
refuge in Minto Craigs.  But he created the bones of the house as we
know it to-day, laid the foundations of the fine library, planted the
avenues, made the pond, and turned the glen from a wilderness into a
pleasaunce.  With his son, the third Sir Gilbert, the family embarked
on the tides of British politics.  Brought up at the colleges of
Edinburgh and Leyden, he married the heiress of the Melgund lands in
Forfar and the Kynnynmond property in Fife, and, partly owing to his
friendship with Charles Townshend (who had married Lady Dalkeith),
abandoned a promising career at the Scots Bar for London and
Parliament.  In him the astuteness of his grandfather and his power of
steering a middle course were abnormally developed.  He held various
Government posts--Lordships of the Admiralty and Treasury and
such-like--and would have undoubtedly gone farther but for his
nationality, for he was a good man of business and a brilliant debater.
But he managed to remain in office, like a permanent civil servant,
when Ministers fell, for he conciliated antagonisms and united
oppositions; a close friend of Bute, he was also a follower of the
elder Pitt; professing himself a consistent Whig, he became one {xv} of
the most noted of the "King's Friends," and was a vigorous opponent of
the Americans.  A temper so supple and accommodating is not the soil in
which to look for a sturdy growth of principles; but his friends, who
were numerous and devoted, believed that he was always prepared "to
take a stand on the supreme authority of Parliament."

His eldest son, Gilbert the fourth, was destined during the sixty-three
years of his life to convert the title of the old "paper-lords" of
Minto into a lordship of Parliament and an earldom.  In his generation
of Elliots there was not only a high level of talent, but a strain of
something fantastic and adventurous.  The third son, Alexander, was the
friend and agent in India of Warren Hastings, who erected a monument to
him on his early death.  The second, Hugh, was one of the most
brilliant of British diplomatists in a brilliant age; a creature of
strange moods and impulses, who as a boy fought with the Russians
against the Turks, called out his man in a duel, held his own with
Frederick the Great, and was the author of _bons mots_ at which all
Europe laughed.  It was he who, when the King of Prussia commented
tartly on the expression of gratitude to God which accompanied the
official account of Sir Eyre Coote's victory over Hyder Ali, "_Je ne
savais pas que la Providence ft de vos allis,_" replied "_Le seul,
Sire, que nous ne payons pas._"  Gilbert, the eldest son, began life
with a resounding success at the English Bar, but presently entered
Parliament, and, as the friend of Burke and Fox and Windham, rose high
in the favour of the Whigs.  He was one of the managers of the Warren
Hastings trial, and took his part in that debauch of frigid rhetoric.
When the Revolution broke out in France he inclined to the views of
Burke, and presently was sent on various continental missions, in
returning from one of which he had the good fortune to be an
eye-witness of the battle of Cape St. Vincent.  At forty-six he was
made a peer on his return from the viceroyalty of Corsica; then
followed the embassy at Vienna; and then in 1806, after having been
President of the Board of Control in the "Ministry of all the Talents,"
the Governor-Generalship of India.  There he had the difficult task of
foreseeing and providing against Napoleon's Asiatic {xvi} ambitions,
and his chief problems were those of external policy, the relations
with Persia and Afghanistan and the great Sikh Power at Lahore.  In the
space of his vice-royalty he saw the menace of France disappear, and
largely by his own exertions Java and the Moluccas added to the
possessions of Britain.  An attractive figure he seems to us, who could
win and retain the affection of men so different as Burke and Nelson,
and who in all the whirl of public duties found his chief refreshment
in the letters of his family, in the recollection of "home-felt
pleasures and gentle scenes," and in plans for beautifying his Border
home.  He was not fated to see Minto again, for when he returned after
seven years' rule in India with an earldom and a great name, he died on
the first stage of that happy northward journey of which for seven
years he had dreamed.

With the second Earl and fifth Baronet the house of Minto had become
established in that character which attaches as clearly to families as
to individuals, though it is slower to develop.  The descendants of the
riding Elliots were now decorous and public-spirited citizens, Whigs
who cherished a belief in the People combined with a strong conviction
that only a few families were fit to govern.  The old devil-may-care
spirit of Lariston had revived for a moment in Hugh the ambassador, but
in the first half of the nineteenth century it slumbered.  The second
Earl was successively ambassador to Berlin, First Lord of the Admiralty
and Lord Privy Seal, and by the marriage of his daughter, Frances, to
Lord John Russell, was connected with the inner counsels of his party.
In the days of the Lords of Session Minto had been a plain Scots
country house, and the company that visited it an occasional judge on
circuit, or a vacation party of Edinburgh lawyers, with a stray
historian or philosopher from the university.  But the last Sir Gilbert
and first Earl had widened the bounds, great men like Burke journeyed
thither, and soon the house, enlarged and adorned, was one of the chain
of lodgings by means of which the leaders of politics and society made
their northern tours--a stage between Dalkeith and Alnwick.  As in duty
bound its dwellers kept touch with the latest books, music, gossip, and
learned speculation; but, having {xvii} that union of far-wandering
impulses with the love of some which characterizes their countrymen,
they were never mere Londoners taking the rural air, but country folk,
thirled to the soil, and loving every rood of it.  He who would seek an
account of the full and vigorous life of Border gentlefolk a hundred
years ago will find it portrayed for all time in the pages of Lockhart.

The third Earl--a William and not a Gilbert--chose the _fallentis
semita vit_.  He sat for many years in Parliament, but never held
office, and much of his time was given to the management of his estate,
county business, country sports, and long periods of foreign travel.
His wife's father was Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Hislop, and her
mother a daughter of Hugh Elliot, so she was a distant cousin of her
husband's.  Never strong in body, she had the spirit of a soldier, and
wherever she went radiated an atmosphere of gentleness and mirth and
courage.  Like many who are not robust in health, she had an insatiable
zest for life, and had, perhaps from her sufferings, keener perceptions
than other people, and a quicker sense of joy.  Each new experience and
interest was adopted with gusto, and few quiet lives have been more
fully lived.  The list of the books she was reading at the age of
twenty-three might shame many professed scholars; but she had nothing
of the blue-stocking in her, and her learning was a small thing
compared to her wit, her sense of fun, her startling acumen, and her
broad tolerant wisdom.  She is a figure that may be commended to the
acquaintance of those who, in Lady Louisa Stuart's phrase, have "an
old-fashioned partiality for a gentlewoman," and one could wish that
Mr. Arthur Elliot's privately printed volume of extracts from her
letters and journals could be made accessible to the world.  For as a
letter writer she ranks with Lady Louisa.  She was also an accomplished
historian and biographer, as her memoir of Hugh Elliot and her four
volumes on the first Lord Minto prove, and her Border Sketches show how
deep she had drunk of the traditions of her ancestral countryside.  But
it is in her diaries and letters that she most reveals herself; and
whether she is trying to probe the secret of some rare landscape, or
discoursing gravely on politics and metaphysics--till she breaks off
with a laugh, or gossiping {xviii} about manners and people, or
formulating from a rich experience a mellow philosophy of life, she
leaves on the reader an impression of a soul rich in the best
endowments of humanity, a spirit at once sane and adventurous, securely
anchored and yet reaching out delightedly to the cyclic changes of the
world.  If there were two strains in the Elliot blood--the
venturesomeness and speed of Liddesdale, and the sagacious centrality
of the Whig lairds--in her they were mixed in right proportion, and she
bequeathed something of this just equipoise to her sons.



[1] _Weir of Hermiston_.




{3}

BOOK I



LORD MINTO

CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD: ETON AND CAMBRIDGE

I

The subject of this Memoir was born in London on July 9, 1845, at 36
Wilton Crescent, the house of his grandmother, Lady Hislop.  He was
given the family name of Gilbert, and the second name of John after his
uncle and godfather, Lord John Russell.  Two months later his father,
Lord Melgund, who was then out of Parliament, carried off his wife and
child on one of those protracted continental visits which were the
fashion in that generation.  The Melgunds took with them their
carriage--in which a shelf had been fitted to serve as the baby's
crib--a courier, a nurse, and a lady's maid, and made a leisurely
progress up the Rhine to Switzerland, and then over the St. Gothard
into Italy.  The winter was spent chiefly in Rome and Turin with the
British Minister, Sir Ralph Abercromby,[1] who had married Lady Mary
Elliot.  Country house visits filled the rest of that year, and at
Cambridge Gilbert John took his first wavering steps on the lawn in
front of the lodge at Trinity.  It was not until the early spring of
1847 that the Melgunds returned to Scotland and the child saw the home
of his ancestors.

[Sidenote: A border childhood]

Most of Gilbert John's boyhood was spent at Minto, and it would be hard
to find a happier environment for a child than the roomy old Border
house set among its lawns and glens and woodlands.  All accounts agree
on {4} the sunniness of his temper, the vigour of his body, and his
uncommon good looks.  He had his mother's deep blue eyes, which Mrs.
Norton praised in the style of the period.[2]  Presently brothers came
to keep him company: Arthur, born in 1846; Hugh in 1848; Fitzwilliam in
1849; and the four little boys formed a stalwart clan, sufficiently
near in age to be true playmates.

[Sidenote: 1847-53]

The love of horses was Gilbert's absorbing passion, and during his
continental visits at the age of one he was reported by his father to
have shown a precocious knowledge of horseflesh at the various
posting-houses.  Before he was four he rode a bay Shetland pony,
"Mazeppa," under the tuition of the old groom, Robert Donald, and
barely a year later commenced his hunting career with the Duke of
Buccleuch's hounds, of which hunt he was one day to become a noted
figure.  It was a recognized practice on the days he was going to hunt
not to send up his porridge, as he was far too excited to eat any
breakfast.

[Illustration: GILBERT JOHN ELLIOT AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN (From a
miniature at Minto House)]

Few children can have had more engaging ways.  The love of his home was
deep in him, and before he was five, when driving with his mother to
inspect the havoc caused among the Minto trees by a gale, he revealed
his anxious affection.  She writes: "Berty invariably shuts his eyes
not to see the injured silver.  'No, I can't bear to look at it, it
makes my heart too sad,' and occasionally he sighs out a most mournful
'Alas' when we pass any grievous wrecks.  His sentiment about
everything surpasses anything I ever heard, and in some things he
certainly shows considerateness beyond his years; he always offers to
go out with me, and often insists on doing so, {5} though I know he
would rather have his pony.  Once he said to the nurse, 'Well, I would
rather ride, but I promised Papa to take care of Mama, and so I had
better go with her;' and it is perfectly true that William did tell him
so, but I was not at all aware how seriously he was impressed with the
charge.  However, he certainly keeps his promises, for he watches me as
a cat does a mouse."

Lady Minto often breaks off her letters to chronicle the return of the
boys and dogs, far too dirty to be allowed to come beyond the door.
There were many sports in that happy place: rabbit-hunting in the
Lamblairs, fishing in the Teviot and the hill burns, house-building
with fir branches on the side of the Big Glen below the Green Walk,
tree-climbing in the great beeches and sycamores whence the upper
windows of the house could be spied on, walking--in emulation of
certain feats of a previous generation--along the stone ledge which
runs round the top of the house, skating and glissading in the bitter
winters which now seem to be unknown in the land.  They were even
allowed to keep a lamb under the turret stairs, which their
long-suffering mother did not evict until it became a sheep.

Usually Minto was filled with a big family party, but there came times
when Lord Melgund was attending the House of Commons, and mother and
children were left in comparative solitude.  Such seasons were devoted
by her to the beginning of their education.  The family did not believe
in private schools, and certainly with such a mother no seminary for
youth could compare with home.  Her strong good sense on these matters
is witnessed by a hundred passages in her letters: "Minds, like bodies,
should have good solid meals, and leisure for digestion, and time to
stretch!  Beef makes bone, and _les tudes fortes_ nourish the mind;
but it will not do to let it gnaw every merry-thought, nor refine
itself into spun sugar."  In her room the boys read poetry and history
and fairy tales, and we hear of Gilbert declaiming with passion Pope's
version of Diomede's speech in the 9th Iliad.  But the chief formative
influence was the atmosphere of good talk in which they lived, talk
about books and politics, the events of a larger world, which
stimulates a child's {6} interest.  Gilbert was, in his mother's view,
a little slower to quicken than the others, for he had a certain
placidity and contentment which lived happily in the day and might
foretell a lack of mental enterprise.  On his seventh birthday she
writes in her journal:--


    "He is not as advanced in learning as many of his contemporaries,
    but he learns easily and bids fair to possess more than average
    intelligence.  He has a good memory, is very observing, and
    extremely obedient and docile.  He has a natural turn for poetry,
    and certainly admires the beauty of numbers even when he can scarce
    understand the words.  He is very fond of fairy tales, and indeed
    of any description of story I will read to him, unless it is very
    dry or he suspects me of an intention to instruct him....  I don't
    think he has as much curiosity to learn about the things round him
    as his brothers have."  (Those earnest inquirers, be it remembered,
    were of ages varying from two to five.)  "He has a most amiable
    disposition, and not a spark of malice, sulkiness, or envy in his
    character.  He is very sweet-tempered and yielding, always gay,
    never put out....  I don't think him a child gifted with deep
    sensibilities or enthusiastic feelings of any kind, neither has he
    the perseverance or love of overcoming obstacles of some children,
    but he is sensitive to blame, and has little sentimentalities about
    localities and past days, is very open to impressions of fine
    weather, scenery, and pleasant ideas of all kinds.  He is very
    courageous and high-spirited."


And the candid mother concludes that "energy and perseverance" are the
qualities at present most to seek, qualities which were assuredly not
absent in his subsequent career.

In 1853 the children joined their grandparents at Nervi, on the
Riviera, returning by the Lake of Geneva, where Gilbert had his first
sight of the snow mountains which later were to throw their glamour
over his fancy.  His military instincts were early apparent, and the
Crimean War gave him something to talk about; he used to present
himself daily at the luncheon table after the {7} newspapers had
arrived with the breathless question, "Does Silistria still hold out?"

[Sidenote: 1859]

It is a delightful group of boys that is portrayed in Lady Minto's
letters, portrayed by one who understood all the subtleties of
childhood.  "The people who really enjoy life in this house are the
boys," she writes; "nevertheless, I suppose they have their grievances,
for Fitz told me one day he could never remember the time when he had
been happy!  Hughie, on being asked what he thought of things in
general, answered, 'Oh, weary! weary! no change, the same thing every
day; I think we must go to Africa.'  And the next day he repeated his
African intentions to me, adding, 'And if we did go I suppose they
would put taxes on everything directly--tax the date trees.'  I made
out afterwards that his horror of taxation arose from a difficulty
about keeping another dog which he had been wanting to have."[3]


II

[Sidenote: Eton]

Gilbert went to Eton in the summer half of 1859, to Mr. Balstone's
house, which next year became Mr. Warre's.  In July his grandfather
died, and by his father's accession to the earldom he became Lord
Melgund.  He was no classical scholar, though, like Kinglake, he had
"learned the Iliad through Pope in his mother's dressing-room," and the
Eton of his day did not offer much in the way of a general education.
His mother writes: "Berty has already taken his first flight from home.
He left us for Eton last May, and has now returned to spend his second
holiday with us.  Gentle, gentlemanlike and loving, manly, intelligent
and sincere, his character promises well for future goodness.  His
learning will never be deep nor his energy great, nor is he remarkable
either for originality or quickness, but he is sensible, easily
interested, likes history, poetry, and drawing, and will, I think, as
have always thought, learn more when his learning is of a kind more to
his mind....  He is impressible, and not {8} without a desire of doing
well.  His chief characteristic has ever been his strong moral sense."

Melgund speedily found his feet at Eton: he was supremely happy, and
flung the full vigour of his strong young body into every form of
sport.  His mother records his cheery letters: during the first summer
half he wrote that he had started in the school tub race and had come
in seventy-second, which, he adds, was not so bad for a first attempt.
His optimism was fully justified, as before leaving Eton he had pulled
up seventy-one places, finishing second in the School Sculling.  He
also made a name for himself in the running field, was just beaten in
the mile race, and ran the "Long Walk" (three miles) in fifteen and a
half minutes.

The journal which he began to keep in 1861 is as scrappy as other
schoolboy chronicles.  It records famous days with the beagles,
steeplechases, and games of football in which he was a demon at
shinning, but the river was his chief joy.  He rowed in the _Defiance_
and the _Victory_, and in his last summer half was first choice out of
the Eight, winning the Silver Sculls.  Corkran (Captain of the Boats)
and he were both hoisted after the race.  The determination to keep fit
prevented any indulgence at the sock shop.  The Elliots were a hardy
race, and Melgund remembered his indignation at being given a greatcoat
when he first went to Eton, driving from Hawick to Carlisle, a distance
of nearly fifty miles, on the top of the stage coach.

[Sidenote: Eton escapades]

A few characteristic entries may be quoted from the journal.  He writes
on February 1863:--


    "The Prince of Wales came through here to-day: he had been out with
    the harriers.  I thought he looked a very decent sort of chap, but
    I didn't see what sort of a horse he had."


The marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in March gave the Eton
boys a holiday.


    "At 10.30 the whole school assembled in the School Yard and walked
    up arm-in-arm to the Castle.  We had a very good place inside the
    upper gates of the Castle.  There was an awful crowd, which I got
    {9} jolly well into once and had roaring fun.  We went down to the
    College for dinner, and went up to the Castle again afterwards to
    see the Prince and Princess of Wales depart for Osborne.  Directly
    their carriage had passed all the Eton fellows rushed through the
    crowd and regularly forced their way down to the corner of the
    street near Layton's, where a body of police were drawn up, but
    they were quickly dispersed, and we rushed down to the station,
    broke through the barrier, and got on to the platform and squealed
    like mad.  I had a better view of the Princess than I ever had
    before, as she stood bolt upright in the railway carriage as it
    went slowly out of the station.  It was about the greatest lark I
    ever had, bowling over the crowd, which was a thundering tight one,
    and smashing through the police!"


[Sidenote: 1863]

In the summer half of 1863 Melgund was elected to "Pop," and made his
maiden speech in favour of "instantaneously going to war with America."
Under 2nd June the journal has this entry:--


    "Jersey,[4] Hope major,[5] Phipps, and I made up a nice little
    party to go to Ascot.  We all of us wore whiskers except Jersey,
    who wore a loose overcoat and a blue veil.  I wore a flexible
    moabite sort of hat, and my great-coat.  Hope looked about the
    handsomest fellow I ever saw: he had on a light-coloured overcoat
    and black whiskers.  We all had light ties.  We went to Bachelor's
    Acre, where we got into an open fly which we had ordered beforehand
    and drove in it.  We got to Ascot about twenty minutes past four.
    When we got to the course we all took off our false whiskers except
    Phipps, but he got so bothered by the Gypsies, who asked him whose
    hair he had got on, etc., that he had at last to follow our
    example.  Hope and I somehow or other got separated from Jersey and
    Phipps; we caught sight of Parker and a lot of fellows who had a
    drag; they gave us some champagne and let us stand on the top of
    the drag.  {10} Phipps and Jersey walked right up to 'Farva
    Dies'[6] and were nailed.  We saw one race--the Prince of Wales'
    Stakes: 'Avenger' won.  I thought the race itself an awfully pretty
    sight and very exciting.  We started from Ascot about five, and got
    back in loads of time.  We got out of our fly at the foot-barracks,
    where 'Sambo' (the raft man) met us and took our clothes.  Day
    complained of Jersey and Phipps, and they were both swished.  There
    was great excitement about it, and the space round the
    swishing-room door was crowded."


After this performance the quartette had the effrontery to be
photographed in their costumes at Hills and Saunders'.

[Sidenote: Henley]

There was a later escapade:--


    "_June_ 25_th._--Went up town to make purchases in the shape of a
    disguise to go to Henley.  After dinner I stayed out and started
    for Henley by a train which leaves Windsor at about 3.30.  We drove
    from Twyford to Henley, a distance of about five miles.  I had a
    round hat on and a thin overcoat, a moustache, no whiskers, and a
    couple of bits of sticking plaster on my face.  Sherbrooke had
    nothing but a thin overcoat and a pair of blue spectacles.  Very
    few fellows knew us.  Snowe (a master) went and came back with us
    in the same train, and I think if it had not been for Hubbard's and
    Freeling's good nature (they had left school) we should have been
    nailed.

    "Hope lent me a key which would open all the doors of the carriages
    on the Great Western Line, which proved very useful.  I was in a
    horrid funk when I first saw Snowe on the platform at Slough.  I
    met him again at Henley once when I was walking on the bank, on
    which occasion we took advantage of our acquaintance with Heave,
    who is rowing for Trinity Hall, and hung on to him and passed Snowe
    all right.  The next time I met him was on the Bridge, and I
    lounged by him without taking any notice.  I met the Eight coming
    over the Bridge, just before {11} they got into their boat.
    Sheepwood was one of the few fellows who recognized us: he set up a
    howl in the middle of the Bridge and swore he would have known us
    anywhere: he was very nearly getting us nailed, for Warre was close
    behind him, but luckily stopped just at the moment to say
    how-d'ye-do to Freeling.

    "Snowe was on the station at Henley, but Hubbard and Freeling kept
    a lookout for us.  We came back second class, and at Slough got out
    on the wrong side of the carriage.  We got into a fly and drove up
    to Serle's, where we were the first to publish the news of the
    race.  It was Eton 1st, Trinity Hall 2nd, and Radley 3rd.  It is
    glorious our licking a Cambridge crew which is second boat on the
    river at Cambridge!  We won by about a length and a half.

    "When we came back I found that I had not been nailed, and Snowe
    called Sherbrooke in the evening and told him about the race.  I
    felt rather guilty when my tutor came to tell me about it.  He told
    the fellows in the Eight that he knew I should be as anxious to
    hear about it as any one.

    "_June_ 27_th._--After lock-up my tutor sent for me and told me
    that my name was mixed up in the row about Henley, and after
    Prayers he came up to my room and began again.  He was just going
    out of the room when he said, 'Then I am to understand that you
    were in the house?'  I said, 'No, Sir, I was not in the house.'  He
    said, 'Where were you?' to which I answered, 'I was at Henley,
    Sir.'  He stood for some time without saying anything; at last he
    said that of course he would say nothing as I had told him in
    confidence, but that the thing was not yet finished.  He was in an
    awful way about it, and declared that he would never go to Henley
    again as he had found out that he could not trust his fellows.  The
    worst of him is that he expects you to treat him exactly as any of
    your friends, but I don't think tutor and pupil ought to be on the
    same footing.

    "_June_ 30_th._--Yesterday my tutor sent for me and said that I had
    escaped out of the Henley row; that I was the luckiest fellow in
    creation; that I had been {12} within an ace of being nailed; that
    inquiries had been made at the house, and that owing to some
    mistake of Mrs. Digby's (the matron) I had got off.  He said there
    was only one link wanting in the evidence against me.  This evening
    he came up to my room again and told me that there was a report
    that I had gone to Henley disguised as a Methodist Parson.  At this
    I nearly had a fit of hysterics: of course the Methodist Parson was
    Lamb, who has been swished and turned down.  My tutor says that the
    worst of this row is that if it happened again next year it might
    put a stop to our Eight going to Henley altogether.  The only thing
    I care particularly about is that my tutor has taken it to heart."


On 17th July he writes in his journal:--


    "Upper Eights were rowed to-day.  I suppose this is the last long
    boat race I shall ever row in, and I am sorry for it.  I do not
    believe there can be anything much jollier than rowing a good race:
    it is awfully stunning to come up with a boat and then go by and
    row past the Brocas in triumph.  Even though you don't win the
    race, yet you know that you have done your best, and after all
    perhaps there is more honour in rowing a good stern race than in
    winning an easy one....  Sam Corkran wanted me to start with him in
    the pulling.  I would have given worlds to start with Sam, but I
    did not see how I could get off Pope."


To refuse to row with the Captain of the Boats because he was pledged
to another boy was proof of a stiff sense of honour.  He stuck to Pope,
and Corkran and Richards won the pulling.

Melgund was automatically moving up in the school; but his parents,
fearing that sport was occupying the major part of his time, decided to
take him away from these alluring surroundings and send him to a tutor.
He regretfully bade farewell to Eton at the end of the summer half of
1863, just after his eighteenth birthday.  He had become one of the
most popular and distinguished figures in the school, and carried away
with him sixty-four leaving {13} books.  Although he had frequently
transgressed the rules from sheer devilry and love of excitement there
had been no shadow of meanness or untruth on his career.  With his
tutor, Mr. Warre, he had formed a close friendship, for the latter, in
spite of his strict standards of conduct, had much tolerance for
youthful extravagances so long as they were honest and clean and did
not offend against the canons of sportsmanship.  To Lady Minto he wrote
that "Melgund was unspoilt and unspoilable," while the journal records
that "Warre certainly is a very jolly fellow, not the least like a
master when he is not acting as one."

[Sidenote: Holiday sports]

But the most delightful days in the retrospect of all the brothers were
those spent at Minto, hunting and shooting, curling and skating in the
winters, fishing and swimming in the long summer days.  Hunting was the
serious family pursuit--"A' Elliots can ride," said the old Buccleuch
huntsman at a time when the two families were in opposite political
camps and he was not prepared to allow them any other virtue.  It was a
Spartan business in those days, and we have a picture of the boys on
bleak mornings shivering at covert side, in everyday little short
jackets and waistcoats, a linen shirt (no under-flannels or drawers),
trousers and riding-straps, no overcoats and no gloves.  There was
rarely a meet nearer than six or seven miles; ten miles was not
considered distant, and fifteen nothing to complain of.  The party
would leave the house long before it was light, and hack the long roads
in any weather on the off-chance of hunting.  In summer there was
fishing in the Teviot, standing in the river all day up to their waists
without waders; but the chief game was navigating a boat called a
"trows," used for "burning the water," and consisting of two troughs
joined together at an angle.  In this venerable craft the boys shot the
rapids of the Teviot, but the end came when Melgund and his brother
Hugh embarked in it in a high spate, barely escaped shipwreck at
Rulefoot, and in the end scrambled perilously ashore, while their Argo
was whirled down towards Tweed.  We hear of them in winter daring each
other to swim the river in spate, and finishing stark naked in the open
haugh with the sleet whipping their small bodies.  There were days with
the otter hounds, too, on Ale and Teviot, beginning long before
sunrise; and there {14} was shooting with old Stoddart, the head
keeper, shooting with muzzle-loaders and later with pin-fire
breech-loaders, pottering in the woods and boggy pastures, and long
autumn days after grouse on the Langhope moors.  There was no desire at
Minto for record bags, and shooting always played second fiddle to
hunting; but it was an enchanted country for boys to wander over with a
gun.

School is a chief formative element, no doubt, in every life, but at
that period still more depends upon the background of holidays, when
young thoughts range adventurously before they find their inevitable
grooves; and Eton in Melgund's case was only an interlude in the full
and happy course of a Border boyhood.  The hereditary feeling for his
home, found in every Elliot, was strengthened by his mother's deep
passion.  She could write thus of the Craigs:--


    "The White Rock this afternoon was much more like a holy place to
    me.  Nothing could be more peaceful, and we all sat there for some
    time listening to the wood pigeons, and watching some boys wading
    in the river, probably following a salmon.  I think sometimes if we
    would let God draw us to Him by means of the natural agencies with
    which He has surrounded us, instead of insisting upon it that we
    can only get at Him by violent and distasteful efforts of our own,
    by singing without voices and preaching without brains, we should
    be more religious people.  And certainly no sermon I ever heard can
    speak to one's heart so forcibly as do the scenes and associations
    of an old family house like this, where tender memories are in
    every room, like dried flowers between the leaves of a book."



III

The autumn and winter of 1863 was spent by Melgund with a tutor in
Dresden, and part of the summer of 1864 with a coach in the Isle of
Wight.  In February 1864 he went to hear the Queen's Speech in the
House of Lords.  The Elliot clan had for generations produced diplomats
{15} and lawgivers, but Melgund had scant respect for politicians,
whose ways, he considered, lacked candour.  While still at Eton his
father had taken him to hear a debate in the House of Commons, and in
the journal he describes the legislators as "about the noisiest set of
old coves I have ever seen."  It was an aversion of temperament which
to some degree remained with him through life.

[Sidenote: 1864-66.  Cambridge]

In October 1864 he and his brother Arthur went up to Cambridge together
as fellow commoners of Trinity.[7]  As a peer's son, according to the
rule of those days, he had the privilege of taking his degree in seven
terms instead of nine.  The journal of his undergraduate life does not
reflect any great desire for learning, but it reveals untiring
enthusiasm for every form of sport.  He naturally became a member of
the Third Trinity Boat Club, and, though other arenas soon proved more
attractive than the river, we find him a competitor for the Colquhoun
Sculls.  He was distinguished on the running track, winning the Third
Trinity Mile though heavily handicapped by having his arm strapped to
his side owing to a fall with the Drag, and he came in second at the
London Amateur Athletic Club.  He was earnestly exhorted to continue
that career by his friend, Dick Webster, the future Lord Chief Justice
of England, who wrote him disconsolate letters from London complaining
of the utter boredom of the study of law.  The journal records "a match
with Trickett for two miles, giving him a hundred yards start, and I
backed myself 5 to a postage stamp to beat him.  At first I thought I
should hardly catch him, but very soon got up to him, and he shut up
almost directly after I passed him."  But soon all other sports gave
way to his passion for riding and horses, not as an idle spectator but
for the physical accomplishment of horsemanship.  He never missed a
good race meeting, if within reasonable distance, or a chance of riding
in it.  He hunted with the true Elliot industry, as witness this entry:
"I went out with the Fitzwilliam to-day.  They met at Ashton Wold.  I
had about 32 miles to ride to cover ... we had a pretty good day, and I
had about 32 miles to ride home, as we left off very {16} near where we
began."  He had the good fortune to be out with the Pytchley the day of
the famous "Waterloo Run."  Captain Anstruther Thomson, the Master, was
on his fifth horse, and Melgund on his hireling saw about a third of
it.  He was constantly at Newmarket, and rode frequently in local
steeplechases, but he had then, as he always had, a dislike of the
gambling fashion which tends to degrade a famous sport, and he never
betted.  In the jottings in his journal, and the correspondence which
remains from those days, there is none of that dreary chatter about
cash lost and won which makes the conversation of some honest sportsmen
like the gossip of a bucket shop.

There are records in the journal of balls and amateur theatricals and
undergraduate high jinks which do not differ greatly from the
undergraduate doings of to-day.  He lived at the start with his brother
Arthur in Rose Crescent, but when the latter went into college he
migrated to a famous set of apartments called "French's," a resort of
riding men, which remained his headquarters, except when he was
careering about the country to race meetings, and contenting himself,
if no better accommodation could be found, with a shake-down in a brush
shop or the back room of a wine merchant.

There was little time left for study during those strenuous days.  That
the pace must have been furious is evident from the entries in his
journal recording wonderful gallops, serious falls, and hairbreadth
escapes.  In reading old letters of this period from Queensberry,
Aberdour,[8] Jersey, Horace Seymour, "Cat" Richardson, and others, one
is struck by the deep affection in which Melgund was held by his
friends.  He brought from Eton the nickname of "Rolly" (apparently from
his slightly rolling gait), and there must have been something
curiously engaging in his manner, a kind of serious jollity, without a
trace of the arrogant or the selfish or the peevish.  But he did not
win his popularity by any slackness of standards, for he had a very
strict notion of what he considered right and wrong.  He burned out a
gambling set at French's with hot cayenne pepper, and when he first
came up took a strong line about the snobbishness of some of the clubs.
{17} Snobbery, indeed, and all the minor vices which attend society, he
cordially disliked.  At the time his mother wrote of him: "Don't be
alarmed about Berty; the ballroom will have no chance in his affection
for many a day against the hunting field and the river: but his Dresden
life has done him good by making him more ready to talk, and more
anxious to understand what people are talking about.  I must say,
though I perhaps ought not, that he is a very satisfactory chip of a
very good old block (I don't speak of his father only, but of his
race); perfectly natural and unassuming, and as spirited and energetic
as a boy can be."  And again: "The boys' Cambridge talk is very amusing
and thoroughly satisfactory--I mean as to the moral effect of their
residence there.  I can't say I see any evidence of intellectual
training whatever; but it is impossible to listen to Berty's frank and
full revelations of himself and his habits and companions without
feeling thoroughly happy about him; he is not intellectual, but he has
plenty of good sense, a singularly fair and candid mind, and a will
strong enough to be unconscious of itself, by which I mean that there
is no effort in his independence of mind.  He sees what seems to him to
be right, and as a matter of course does it."

[Sidenote: Studies]

Of his studies there are few records.  The journal contains occasional
entries such as:--


    "Had a trigonometry paper this morning, which, of course, I did not
    attempt to do a word of.  In the afternoon we had a Livy
    translation paper.  I think I could have managed most of it with
    the help of the man next me, but unluckily I got throwing pens
    about, one of which cut over one of the examiners....  Hudson, the
    other examiner, got in a great rage: he found out that Montgomerie,
    among others, had been throwing pens about, and has gated him at 8
    o'clock for the rest of the term.  Luckily the term is just at an
    end....  Before I left Cambridge to-day I wrote a note to Hudson to
    tell him that it was I who had hit the examiner with the pen during
    the examination and not Montgomerie."


It may be mentioned that in spite of a notable economy {18} of effort
Melgund never failed to pass the requisite examinations either at Eton
or Cambridge.

His Cambridge vacations, like his Eton holidays, were pleasantly
varied.  Christmas of 1864 was spent with his family in Rome, as we
learn from his mother's letters:--


    "Berty, with all his spirits and idleness (which perhaps I
    exaggerate) is as good as it is possible to be.  He has really not
    a wish or a taste or a habit which we would rather see away.  He
    leads a very lively life, hunting twice a week, and going out
    constantly in the evenings to dinners, operas, balls, parties, and
    private theatricals.  His dinners are frequently to meet Lord and
    Lady Grey, or some Monsignori, or some other persons equally old
    and dignified; but he always finds them 'awfully jolly,' is quite
    without shyness, and among foreigners or English has always the
    same perfectly easy well-bred manner."


Elsewhere she writes:--


    "Berty, I fear, has no honourable intentions towards any of the
    many young ladies to whom he offers his hand in the cotillon.  He
    dances six times in one evening with the prettiest, and blushes
    about her next day; and he dances most nights, and therefore
    blushes most mornings; but the first of pleasures to him is a good
    gallop across country, and no young lady would have the slightest
    chance of attracting his attention on hunting days....  His Sunday
    best costume includes a waistcoat with the buttons of a Cambridge
    Club--the 'Quare Haec'--and a breast-pin in his cravat with a note
    of interrogation in dark blue enamel on a gold ground!  I say that
    no one but Socrates has the right to go about in the guise of a
    perpetual question."


[Sidenote: Mountaineering]

There were seasons at Minto when balls and race meetings were
attractions which now took the place of the old voyaging in the
"trows," and parties of Cambridge and Eton companions were added to the
clan of relations.  During two summer vacations Melgund went to
Switzerland, once with his friend Maclean,[9] with whom he made {19}
the third ascent of the Schreckhorn; the journal records sleeping out
on a ledge of rock in the snow from which the top was reached in seven
and a half hours.  They also climbed the Wetterhorn and Monte Rosa, and
traversed the Jungfrau with the famous mountaineer, Mr. Horace Walker,
and his daughter, leaving Zermatt just before Mr. Whymper's first
ascent of the Matterhorn, when Queensberry's brother was killed.  High
mountains were with the Elliots a hereditary passion, and as an Eton
boy Melgund had begun his mountaineering career by ascending the
Breithorn, the peak which his father had, thirty years earlier as an
Eton boy, ascended with his father long before there was an inn at
Zermatt, or the Alpine Club had been dreamed of.  He came of age on
July 9, 1866, on the top of the Lyskamm.  It is significant that the
only extracts copied into his early journals are a poem by the Rev.
Arthur G. Butler defending the assault on the Matterhorn when Lord
Francis Douglas was killed:--

        "We were not what we are
  Without that other fiery element--
  The love, the thirst for venture, and the scorn
  That aught should be too great for mortal powers";

and the great speech of Claverhouse to Morton in _Old Mortality_:--


    "When I think of death as a thing worth thinking of, it is in the
    hope of pressing one day some well-fought and hard-won field of
    battle, and dying with the shout of victory in my ear--_that_ would
    be worth dying for; and more, it would be worth having lived for!"


His love of mountains never left him, and his last climbing adventure
was in 1900, when he delayed his journey through the Rockies at Glacier
in order to ascend Mount Avalanche--to the amazement of the imported
Swiss guides, who could not believe that the Governor-General would get
out of his train after a prolonged official tour and spend eleven
arduous hours climbing a mountain.  He wrote in his journal: "Ascended
Mount Avalanche: two guides.  Started 6.30 a.m., reached the summit
12.30.  Left again 1.30 p.m. and arrived Glacier House 4.40.  {20} Very
hard climb.  We came down roped together, and glissading down a severe
slope came to grief and finished the glissade on our backs, but no
damage done."  He had taken the precaution of inscribing his name on a
card which was placed inside a bottle and laid in the snow on the
summit, on the chance of its coming to light as "the last message of
the Governor-General" should anything untoward happen.

In November 1866 Melgund passed the final examination at Cambridge, and
on 13th December took his degree and bade farewell to the University in
characteristic fashion.  Steeplechasing had been forbidden by the
authorities till the men had gone down, so it happened that the race
for the Fitzwilliam Whip and the bestowal of degrees took place on the
same day.  "The Whip" had been twice won by Cecil Legard, who expected
to carry it off for the third time and therefore retain possession of
the trophy.  Melgund determined to bring off the double event.  He duly
appeared in cap and gown, but under his academical dress he wore boots
and breeches, and his spurs were in his pocket.  A cob was waiting
outside the hall, and as soon as the ceremony was over he was in the
saddle and galloping for Cottenham.  He reached the course not a moment
too soon; rushed to the weighing room as the bell for the race was
ringing and the horses were leaving the paddock; mounted his horse
"Rival" and galloped to the starting-post, getting into line just as
the flag fell.  It was a desperate race, neck and neck the whole way; a
breathless second of silence; then shouts of excitement from Melgund's
backers--Legard had been beaten by a head.

Melgund's next appearance in the Cambridge Senate House was forty-four
years later, when he was given an honorary doctor's degree.



[1] Afterwards Lord Dunfermline.

[2] The following verses were written as a postscript to a letter from
"Miss Letitia Bellamy" in London to Miss Fanny Law of Clare,
Northumberland, describing Lady Melgund's children among others at a
children's party given by the Duchess of Argyll.  They were published
in Fisher's _Drawing Room Scrap Book_, edited by Mrs. Norton:--

  "The prizes have been given--but no time can be lost,
  I must hurry lightly through them if I wish to save the post:
  For the loveliest sleeping infant, to the Duchess of Argyll
  (It was like a little rosebud, if a rosebud could but smile),
  The prettiest two-year-old who walked the distance from the door
  Being carried in his nurse's arms and set down on the floor,
  And the loveliest little three-year-old that ever yet was seen,
  In a glittering ducal palace or a daisied village green,
  With eyelashes like shadows and eyes like summer stars,
  A little stately, graceful thing no imperfection mars:
  Both were won by Lady Melgund, I don't know who had gained
  The ones before I entered, these were all that then remained."

[3] There is a story of one of the little boys who bore with difficulty
the visit several girl cousins.  On their departure he was heard
condoling with his dog: "Poor old man, poor old fellow, did those
horrid little girls give you fleas?"

[4] The seventh Earl of Jersey.

[5] The late Sir Edward Hope, K.C.B., Registrar of the Privy Council;
known among his friends as "Blackie" Hope.

[6] Mr. Day, one of the masters.

[7] Dr. Montagu Butler, Master of Trinity, wrote in 1914: "My memory
goes back to 1865, when Melgund had but lately left Eton as confessedly
one of the best loved boys that even that great school of friendship
had produced."

[8] Afterwards twentieth Earl of Morton.

[9] Later Chief Justice of Calcutta, when Minto was Viceroy of India.




{21}

CHAPTER II

STRENUOUS IDLENESS

I

Having done with tutors and preceptors, Melgund had the world before
him, but to one in his position the exact road to travel was not
immediately clear.  He was destined for the Army, but the Army in the
late 'Sixties was not a profession to absorb all the energies of a
young man gifted with perfect health, untiring vitality, and a
desperate love of enterprise.  His education had been drawn less from
books than from life, and his taste was more for action than for
argument, for adventure of the body rather than of the mind.  He could
concentrate fiercely on what had captured his interest, and he was
prepared to run any risk; indeed, the greater the risk in any business
the more ardently he followed it.  Supremely honest with himself and
with all men, he had the courage which is a matter of instinct and
inclination rather than of duty, and he pursued the "bright eyes of
danger" for their own sake.  Such a one must make a cast in many
directions before he finds his true line.  Life seems very good to him,
and he warms both hands joyfully at its fire.  It was this abounding
appetite and unquenchable high spirits that marked him out from the
other young men of his year who came down from Cambridge.  He had no
trace of laziness or indifference in his composition, but time must
elapse before the flow of energy could be effectively canalized.

In the spring of 1867 he was gazetted to the Scots Guards (then called
the Scots Fusilier Guards).  It was rather a dead time in the Army,
those years between the {22} Crimean War and the Cardwell reforms, and
it was hard for Melgund to acquire much interest in home soldiering in
London, or at Aldershot or Windsor, though many of his Eton and
Cambridge friends were in the Guards or the Household Cavalry.  But
there were interesting links with the past.  He notes in his journal in
July 1868 that he dined with the old Field-Marshal, Sir Alexander
Woodford: "He is really a wonderful old man: he told me all about the
ball at the Duchess of Richmond's at Brussels, just before Waterloo,
and says he remembers four Highlanders of the 42nd being brought into
the ballroom and dancing a reel, and that three of them were killed
next day at Quatre Bras.  Sir Alexander himself left the Duchess's ball
post-haste for the field, and remained four days campaigning in his
dancing pumps.  He commanded a battalion of the Coldstream at Waterloo,
and he looks as fit as a fiddle now."

[Sidenote: The diversions of a Guardsman]

Melgund found the routine of duty with his regiment at the Tower,
Chelsea, or Wellington Barracks too monotonous for an active man, and
the journal contains few professional incidents beyond the "review"
held in Windsor Park in June 1869 for the Khedive of Egypt.  He had
never in his life a taste for gambling, and play in the Guards in those
days was high, for he records that a poverty-stricken friend of his
lost 3000 in one night, and that bets of 5000 and 7000 would be laid
on a rubber of whist.  Nor did orgies of meat and drink amuse him, as
when sixty gentlemen in barracks consumed at dinner one hundred bottles
of champagne in addition to other wine.  He tells his mother darkly
that the woods at Minto will have to be cut down to pay his mess bills.

The boredom of his profession did not prevent him from enjoying a
variety of social life.  Old letters which have been preserved are full
of chaff and gossip--stories of boxing and fencing at Angelo's,
boisterous evenings at "Billy Shaw's" or "Evans'," and now and then a
stately function such as the Queen's Ball on July 2, 1868, after which,
in company with Lord Lansdowne and Lord Charles Beresford, and with the
help of the Fitzwilliams' terriers he indulged in a cat hunt--a picture
for the historical artist of three future most eminent servants of the
Crown, all in gala clothes, whooping and {23} careering among the sober
shades of Berkeley Square.  He describes a breakfast at the Palace in
the following year, to which he went in "a blue evening coat and brass
buttons with a thistle on them, light trousers and a white waistcoat,
being the costume the Prince of Wales wished people to wear."  In his
letters to his mother, delightful letters full of badinage and
affection, he tells of the pretty girls he met, and the races he rode,
and the utter ennui of the hours spent on duty.  Here is an extract: "I
was driven over (to Ascot) every day on some kind friend's drag, which,
as I daresay you know, is a vehicle drawn by four horses, which
generally have never been together before, and driven by an individual
who considers himself a coachman, but is without any idea of holding
horses together.  The smashes in the first day's racing were really
without end--my coachman drove me over an iron railing, luckily without
upsetting me, and on the way home, though quite unable to drive myself,
I had to take the reins and stop the horses by main force ... One coach
which left barracks arrived on the course with no leaders, and another
with its roof bathed in blood, which, the driver said, was owing to the
horses having been all over the top of the coach."  Those were
light-hearted days, as witness the bitter complaint of his brother
Hugh: "The Oxford and Cambridge match commenced yesterday at Lord's.  I
met Berty in the Pavilion of the M.C.C., a place set apart specially
for members, neither of us being members.  The brute had the impudence
to try and have me turned out as a non-member! ... I must say Berty is
devoid of all principle."

The serious business of those years was horses.  Melgund kept up his
rowing and running for some time after leaving Cambridge, but it was in
riding that he found his true interest.  Whenever he could get leave
from his regiment he was off hunting or steeplechasing.  In 1868 we
find him riding "The Begum" second in the race for the Household
Brigade Cup, and winning the Hunters' Handicap at Aylesbury on
"Darkness."  In October of that year he paid his first visit to Limber
Magna, the home of his friend Mr. John Maunsell Richardson, and so
began that association with Lincolnshire which was to be one of the
happiest episodes of his life.  "Cat" {24} Richardson had been one of
the old group at French's, and the friendship which Melgund began at
Cambridge ended only with his death.  No greater gentleman-rider lived
during the last half-century than the man who won the Grand National on
"Disturbance" in 1873, and on "Reugny" in 1874.  A visitor to his
Cambridge rooms once asked for a book to pass the time of waiting, and
was told by his servant that Mr. Richardson did not possess a book of
any sort; but so strong was the "Cat's" character that he could shut
himself up and read for a solid year in order to pass his examinations.

[Sidenote: Life at Limber]

At first Melgund went to Limber principally for the hunting, which to
him and the "Cat" meant conjugating all the moods and tenses of that
verb.  On off days there was racing, which consisted in riding one of
the Limber stable chasers, or getting a mount wherever one was
available, no matter whether bad or good, for the possibility of broken
bones was not considered.  The fascination of the Limber life decided
Melgund to send in his papers.  Brother officers like "Bar" Campbell
and Lord Abinger begged him not to "make a damned fool of himself," and
assumed that there was some woman at the bottom of it, and that he
wanted to get married.  Nothing was further from his mind.  Melgund was
very susceptible to a pretty face if possessed by what he termed "a
good sort"; and he would spend a whole evening in the society of a
favourite partner.  In those stiff days of etiquette his behaviour
horrified the chaperones; when taken to task for his conduct in making
a lady conspicuous he would laughingly declare that he was "a friend of
the family"; and next day she would be forgotten in the excitement of
those breathless matches round the Limber race-course, schooling the
best blood on the turf over hurdles.  He sought a life which would give
outlet to his restless energies, and he believed he had found it in
that career of peripatetic jockeydom of which Richardson was already a
brilliant exponent.  Throughout that spring he was posting about to
race meetings all over the country, having adopted the serious business
of a gentleman jockey.


{25}

II

[Sidenote: 1870-76]

Melgund's racing life began when he settled at Limber with the
Richardsons in 1870, and practically closed in '76 with his mishap at
the Grand National, though he continued to ride occasionally for some
time.  The four years in the Lincolnshire country house form a curious
and strenuous interlude in a life which never lacked variety.  To begin
with, when the "Cat" was still at the height of his racing success,
Melgund toured the land, riding whenever he could get a mount, but
chiefly at north-country meetings, so that Mr. John Corlett, of pious
memory, was moved to observe in the _Sporting Times_ that "Mr. Rolly
has taken to riding like the devil."  After the "Cat" gave up riding in
1874 Melgund rode almost entirely for the Limber stables, Lord Downe,
Captain Machell, and Sir J. Astley being among the owners who had their
horses trained there.  The whole episode was characteristic of his
serious simplicity in the pursuits which attracted him.  Whatever he
did he was determined to do in a workmanlike way: he hated the slipshod
amateur, and had no love for half-heartedness in any walk of life,
since it seemed to him that if a thing was worth doing at all it was
worth doing well.  It may be hard to explain why an education in horses
is also an education in human nature, but it is the truth; and those
years of mixing with all classes on a common ground were for him an
invaluable training in the understanding and management of men.  He was
quite aware that many people looked askance at the jockey, but he was
never prepared to accept conventional views for which he saw no valid
defence.  He writes to his mother: "I could not help smiling at your
remarks on my 'jockeyship.'  I believe the word 'jockey' conveys some
horrible meaning to non-racing people.  As long as one rides badly and
sticks to country races I suppose it does not matter how much one
rides; but directly one rides in the great races one is considered a
jockey, which is a dreadful thing!  My reasons _against_ riding are
that it takes too much time and is certainly not a thing to make a
career of.  Otherwise it is the finest game I know, requiring more head
and more {26} energy than other games.  No doubt there is much
blackguardism connected with it, but I should like to know one single
profession in which there is not blackguardism.  Certainly politics
will not bear looking into."  This was written when he had turned his
back upon steeple-chasing, but there were still longing looks behind,
and years after, when Viceroy of India, he told Francis Grenfell with a
sigh that he wished he had been a trainer.

[Sidenote: "Mr. Rolly"]

But the Limber days were marred by no looking before or after.  He had
found a task which absorbed all his energies, and he was supremely
happy.  The four years were spent in a discipline almost as rigid as
that of a religious order.  Old Mrs. Maunsell, Mr. Richardson's
grandmother, used to say, "I pity the girls when he looks at them with
those beautiful eyes of his."  But the handsome young man cared only
for horses.  There were neighbours of the hard-riding persuasion, like
the Yarboroughs and the Listowels, and the Rev. H. G. Southwell, who
was Mr. Richardson's stepfather, and with whom Melgund formed an
enduring friendship.  On Sundays church was attended with exemplary
regularity.  Visitors came occasionally, famous racing men like Captain
Machell and Captain "Bay" Middleton, and old Cambridge friends like
Cecil Legard, now a sporting parson, and Aberdour and Wodehouse.  But
the party as a rule consisted of Melgund, the "Cat," his brother and
sister, a very happy and well-agreed quartette.  Miss Richardson in her
biography of her brother has drawn a charming picture of the life: the
long days in the open, the hungry party at dinner living over again the
day's run, the sleepy evenings thereafter, each nodding in his chair.
Nobody played cards or gambled; "drinks would come in, but they would
go out again untasted night after night, for there were no drinkers."
The "Cat" and Melgund did not smoke: never was seen a more blameless
and healthy existence.  But high spirits and hard conditions were
sometimes too much for decorum, and there would be bear fights, when
the panes in the bookcases would be shattered and good dress-coats rent
from collar to tail.

One episode deserves recording.  Melgund and Richardson had a friend, a
lady, whom they used alternately to {27} pilot out hunting.  They each
urged her to buy a favourite hunter.  One evening a demand was received
for the horse to be sent on trial, and an argument arose as to which
horse should be sent.  So serious became the dispute that their friends
declared that the only way to settle the business was to fight it out.
"Accordingly the combatants stripped to the waist and in a neighbouring
wood had six rounds of the best.  Both were severely punished; but
Richardson, who was the bigger man of the two, remained the victor.
Peter Flower was Melgund's second, Hugh Lowther[1] acted for the 'Cat,'
and Colonel Machell witnessed this desperate and absurd encounter.  An
hour later the combatants, with their wounds bandaged, met at dinner on
the best of terms, drank each other's health, and spent a merry
evening."

A chronicle of old races is apt to make dull reading for the
uninitiated, but some of Melgund's performances must be noted.  In
1874, when Richardson won the Grand National for the second time,
Melgund was fourth on "Defence."  The same year he won the French Grand
National at Auteuil on his own Limber mare "Miss Hungerford," being the
only gentleman rider in the race with seventeen professional starters.
Melgund rode the Liverpool course altogether nine times, and competed
four times in the Grand National.  The Limber stable began the year
1875 very well at the Lincoln Spring Meeting: the five horses competing
all won in the hands of "Mr. Rolly."  He rode "Miss Hungerford" in the
Grand National: "I always think she would have won," he wrote
afterwards to Finch Mason, "if I had not been knocked over the second
time round.  I was quite by myself on the left-hand side of the course
to keep out of the crowd, and an Irish jockey on 'Sailor' deliberately
jumped into my quarters."

In the Grand National of 1876 he very nearly came by his end.  He was
riding "Zero," a Limber bay with magnificent shoulders, much fancied by
the public.  Here is his own account: "The horse was going splendidly,
and coming to Valentine's Brook I got a real good steadier at
him--'Shifnal' and 'Jackal' were leading, and I was next to them.
'Zero' got the fence exactly in his {28} stride and never touched it,
and, as far as I know, tumbled head over heels on landing.[2]  I jumped
the fence almost touching the left-hand flag.  I got up directly and
found Tom Cannon standing by me, who walked back to the weighing room
with me.  On our way we heard that Joe Cannon had won on 'Royal,' at
which I was very pleased, for besides his fine horsemanship he was an
excellent fellow."  Melgund thought he had only lacerated internally a
large muscle, but Sir James Paget, who was telegraphed for, confirmed
the view of the other doctors that he had literally broken his neck.
"You are one of those extraordinary people," said the great surgeon
afterwards, "who have broken their necks and recovered.  Your backbone
should be very valuable."  Melgund offered to leave it to him in his
will.  "Oh," said Sir James, "I shall be dead long before you, but the
College of Surgeons will be very glad to have it."  After being
practically a cripple for months Melgund consulted Mr. Wharton Hood,
the bone-setter, who advised exercise, and his own will power and the
coming of the hunting season revived him.  "I rode 'Weathercock' at
Sandown Park in November, which I ought never to have done as I was
still weak and ill and in pain from the fall in March, and tumbled head
over heels at the fence going down the hill, 'Zero,' strange to say,
falling by my side with Marcus Beresford on him."  It was a crazy
escapade, but a miraculous proof of nerve.

Though this incident may be said to have ended Melgund's career as a
jockey his interest in sport and horses never abated.  At the farewell
banquet given in his honour by the Turf Club at Calcutta at the close
of his term of office as Viceroy he breathed again the atmosphere of
comradeship among racing men, and in returning thanks for the toast of
his health he said:--


    'I cannot tell you how touched I am--I can find no other
    expression--by your invitation to this great gathering.  I cannot
    but feel that it is your welcome and your farewell to a
    fellow-sportsman--that I am not here to-night as Viceroy, soldier,
    or statesman, {29} but--may I say so?--as the 'Mr. Rolly' of old
    days.  I do not regret my racing days, gentlemen; very far from it.
    I learned a great deal from them which has been useful to me in
    later life.  I mixed with all classes of men, I believe I got much
    insight into human character.  You may think it strange, but I
    never used to bet, though I was on intimate terms with the
    ring--and as far as riding went I became absolutely callous as to
    public opinion.  If I won, there was often no name good enough for
    me, and when I got beaten on the favourite it was Mr. Rolly, of
    course, who threw the race away.

    [Illustration: "MR. ROLLY]

    "But talking of a jockey's popularity I must tell you a story which
    I am sure will appeal to the heart of gentlemen riders, and teach
    them not to be over sanguine even on the best of mounts.  I was
    once riding in the big steeplechase at Croydon, which in those days
    was second only to the Grand National in importance.  I had won
    several races on the horse I was riding, and we thought if he did
    well at Croydon he ought to have a chance for the Liverpool.  He
    was very heavily backed, but he was an uncertain horse; one could
    never quite depend on his trying.  However, the money was piled on,
    and it was considered that, if he was going well at the brook,
    opposite the Stand, the second time round, he could be relied upon,
    and if I thought it all right I was to make a signal on jumping the
    water and further sums were to be dashed down in the ring.  When we
    got to the brook the horse was going splendidly, raced up to it,
    jumped it magnificently, couldn't have been running better.  I made
    the signal and on went the money.  But after the brook we had to
    turn away from the crowd, and he put his ears back and never tried
    another yard--never went into his bridle again.  I was not popular
    that time when I rode back to weigh in!...

    "And so, in the ups and downs of racing, I learned to keep my head,
    to sit still, to watch what other jockeys were doing, and to be a
    good judge of pace.  The orders I liked best were 'Get off well'
    and 'Wait in front.'

    "I suppose no one here is old enough to remember {30} poor George
    Ede, who rode under the name of Mr. Edwards, one of the finest
    horsemen the world has ever seen.  He won the Grand National on
    'The Lamb,' and was afterwards killed, riding a horse called
    'Chippenham,' in the Sefton Handicap at Liverpool, and a poem
    dedicated to him was published in _Bailey's Magazine_.  If you will
    allow me I will quote two verses.  To my mind they are very fine
    lines, expressive of what a really good rider should be:--

  "'A horseman's gifts: the perfect hand
    And graceful seat of confidence;
  The head to reckon and command
    When danger stills the coward's sense;

  "'The nerve unshaken by mischance,
    The care unlessened by success,
  And modest bearing to enhance
    The natural charm of manliness.'


    "You have surrounded me with the old atmosphere again and have got
    me to talk racing.  You have brought back to me happy old memories
    and stories which I could go on telling by the hour.  Seriously,
    the lessons of the turf need not be thrown away in after life.  The
    lines to George Ede, and the old racing instruction 'Wait in
    front,' mean much in this world's struggles.  Don't force the pace,
    lie up with your field, keep a winning place, watch your
    opportunity, and when the moment comes go in and win."



III

[Sidenote: Foreign adventures]

Had young officers in those days been encouraged to see something of
foreign wars, as they were under a later rgime, it is likely that
Melgund would not have left the Guards, and that there would have been
no turf career for Mr. Rolly.  That he was still eager for service of a
more active kind than Windsor and Aldershot afforded, and that he was
not wholly content with a life of hunting and racing is shown by two
wild adventures abroad which he managed to interpolate between his
riding engagements.  The first was his visit to Paris during the
Commune.  When {31} the Franco-German War broke out in 1870 he was
shooting grouse at Minto.  A month later his journal records the death
of his friend Colonel Pemberton, who, while acting as _Times_
correspondent with the Prussians, fell at Sedan.  "I am awfully sorry.
I saw him just before he started, and afterwards laughed at his being
cut up when he wished us good-bye, as I thought he had no chance of
being shot.  I had wanted to go with him, and he had promised to do all
he could for me, but I gave it up for many reasons--chiefly from being
hard-up, and also from not being able to speak German.  He was a very
clever fellow, and the news of his death has made me melancholy."  But
next year his chance came.  In January 1871 Paris surrendered after a
four months' siege, but the treaty of peace which followed did not end
the war, and for months France was torn with internal strife.  The
Communists took possession of the capital, and it was only after a nine
weeks' siege and much bitter fighting that the French National Army
forced an entry and suppressed the revolt.  It was known in London on
22nd May that French troops from Versailles had broken through the
defences on the St. Cloud side, but that the Communists were still
resisting fiercely at many points inside the city.  That evening
Melgund, with his brothers Hugh and Fitzwilliam, and his friend Captain
Hartopp, left England to endeavour to make their way into Paris.

The adventure is described in Melgund's journal, and more fully in a
letter which Hugh Elliot published in the _Scotsman_ on 1st June of
that year.  The party arrived at St. Denis on the morning of 23rd May,
where they found that all communications with Paris were cut.  They
took a cab to St. Germains, which was under French control, where they
hoped to find General Galliffet, as they had a letter of introduction
to an officer on his staff.  But Galliffet had left, so they decided to
go on to Versailles.  Before they left St. Germains they had seen that
firing continued at Montmartre and in the neighbourhood of the Arc de
Triomphe, and next morning they heard that Paris was in flames.  At
Versailles they called on the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, who
discouraged their project, but ultimately gave them a letter to the
Prefect of Paris, asking for a _laissez passer_ into the city.  Thus
equipped, {32} they drove without difficulty through the gate at
Svres, though the sentry warned them that it would be hard to get out
again.  They found rooms in an hotel in the Faubourg St. Honor, almost
opposite the British Embassy, where a barricade had been erected which
was defended by a band of Communists headed by a woman.  Having
deposited their luggage and ordered dinner for seven o'clock, the four
sallied forth to see the sights.

For what followed I quote from Hugh's letter:--


    "After passing a very large barricade at the entrance to the Rue de
    Rivoli we made our way into the Gardens of the Tuileries.  The
    whole of the street seemed to be on fire: as far as we could see it
    was a continuous mass of smoke and flames.  Almost immediately we
    were impressed to work at the pumps, which we did very readily, not
    knowing what was to come.  Partly by cajoling, partly by arguing,
    we managed to escape after half an hour's labour, hoping to return
    to our dinner.  As ill-luck would have it, while crossing the Place
    de la Concorde on the way home, we were seized by another large
    guard of soldiers, and in spite of all our expostulations were
    carried off to quench the same fire, only from a different side.  I
    believe the building burning was that of the Administration de
    Finance, and occupied a large space in the Rue de Rivoli....
    Sentinels were placed at the ends of all the streets so as to
    prevent the possibility of our escape.  We were then ordered to
    pass buckets down the street to fill the pump.  After working hard
    at this for some time our new taskmasters came up to ask for six
    volunteers to man the pump.  One of us volunteered, and as we did
    not wish to separate we all declared our readiness to go to the
    pump in a body.  However, as the wall was beginning to bulge out
    and a certain stack of chimneys to look remarkably off the
    perpendicular, I could not in my heart help thinking that the
    French might have shown some higher spirit of hospitality than to
    permit four out of six of the men sent to the front to be
    foreigners.  Our work now became really very disagreeable.  Our
    pump was placed exactly under the {33} wall, the fall of which
    appeared imminent; the chimney too tottered just over our heads.
    After we had laboured for about half an hour, part of the wall fell
    in with a crash, though not near enough to injure us.

    "From that moment it was almost impossible to get the men to pass
    up buckets to the pump, and I saw one of my brothers carrying the
    empty pails for many yards before he was relieved by the next man
    in the chain, so much they dreaded approaching the fire.  When the
    pumping seemed to be coming to a standstill, as for a few minutes
    we had suspended our efforts, the people commenced to cry out 'Les
    Anglais!  Les Anglais!' so we had to begin again.  We were highly
    consoled, too, by hearing a voice from a safe position behind
    exclaim, 'Courage! c'est pour la France que nous travaillons!'

    "As may be believed, we took the first opportunity of sneaking to
    the rear, as the salvation of France was not of very great
    importance to us.  It was now very late at night, and the sentinels
    having apparently been withdrawn from one of the streets, we crept
    down the side of the houses, and were already congratulating
    ourselves on our luck, when a loud 'Qui vive?' was heard from under
    the shadow of the big barricade in the Rivoli.  The answer not
    being satisfactory, the sentinel advanced upon us at the double,
    and looked as if he were going to demolish us on the spot.  He
    threatened to shoot us if we did not retire, which accordingly we
    did, feeling very uncomfortable till we had got round the first
    corner.

    "Tired as we were, there was nothing for it but to return to the
    pumps; and certainly the sight of the great conflagration was not a
    thing to be lost.  For some distance the street looked like a
    furnace, the flames leaping high above the houses; occasionally
    there was a crash as some chimney or roof fell to the ground; and
    in the distance we heard the perpetual banging of cannon as the
    troops advanced upon the retreating Communists.  A sight not to be
    missed, and, I hope, never to be repeated.  Looking about me I
    noticed one of the soldiers bandaging up a poor {34} cat that had
    been injured by the fire, and it appeared strange to me at the time
    that men who were acting hourly with such marvellous brutality to
    their fellow-men should thus occupy themselves about an animal.  We
    were now entirely in the clutches of the Pompiers, who each had a
    very tall brass helmet and wore a loose pair of brown holland
    trousers.  These men stood over us, did no work, and whilst we were
    streaming with perspiration, contented themselves with shouting at
    intervals, 'Pompez donc, Messieurs!  Pompez donc!'"


Their release came about 3 a.m.  "We should never have got back at
all," writes Melgund, "had it not been for a good-natured Breton
soldier who talked a little English, despised the French, and managed
to get us past all the sentries."  After eight hours' work at the pumps
the party of four regained their hotel in safety.  They found that the
front of the house opposite had been shot away by a shell, and the
gutters were full of blood, but the hotel was not damaged.

[Sidenote: 1874]

They spent the next three days in Paris, for it was hopeless to think
of getting out.  "Paris," says the journal, "is quite the most insecure
place I ever was in.  The shells are not at all the most dangerous part
of it; the soldiers and people are so excited that they don't care whom
they arrest, or what they do."  On the Saturday they secured a pass
from the Embassy, and, carrying a dummy dispatch to Lord Granville,
they finally, and none too easily, managed to depart by the Clichy
gate.  Although armed with their pass, they were held up for some time
at the gate: Melgund at length produced his visiting card, which so
impressed the sentry that he exclaimed, "Ah!  Monsieur est Vicomte!
Passez donc."  At St. Denis the Germans were very civil to them, and
their passes from Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in London,
enabled them to go wherever they liked.  They finally arrived home on
Sunday, 28th May, after a remarkable five days' interlude in a London
season.

[Sidenote: The Carlist army]

The second adventure began in the August of 1874, when Melgund went out
to the headquarters of the Carlist Army in North Spain.  Fred Burnaby,
who had been there {35} as a special correspondent, had drawn glowing
pictures of the Carlist spirit, and when Sir Algernon Borthwick asked
Melgund to act as correspondent to the _Morning Post_ he determined to
try his luck.  He left London on the 8th August, the farewells of his
friends being coupled with "What a fool you are; you're sure to be
shot."  Of his experiences in Spain Melgund wrote a long and
fascinating account which can only be briefly summarized here.  He went
first to Bayonne, where he fell in with a young French soldier, the
Vicomte de Baume, and with him crossed the frontier and adopted the
_boina_, a cap like a Kilmarnock bonnet, which was the Carlist
headgear.  They made their way to Tolosa, visited the Carlist arms
factory, and then proceeded to the Quartier Royal, where they had an
interview with Don Carlos, with whom they were not greatly impressed.
Their next stage was General Dorregarray's headquarters at Estella,
which was within reasonable distance of the front line.  Melgund liked
the Carlist officers, some of whom wore swords which came from Nathan,
the London _costumier_.  He has left an amusing description of his stay
there, his earnest and fruitless efforts to see a battle, and the
extreme boredom of the life in a baking little Spanish town where food
and drink were vile, and the only relaxation was a bathe in the river
or a game of billiards.  On 30th August the journal records the
movement of troops, and constant rumours that an attack was about to
take place.  The night was made hideous by artillery rattling over the
street, every bugler was blowing his heart out, the dogs were howling,
and sleep was impossible.  The ritual of the extreme Catholic
legitimists seemed strange to his Scottish soul.  "I got up and went on
to the balcony and saw the Host carried past, a ceremony which, when it
takes place in the middle of the night, has to me something uncanny
about it.  I do not know why.  In the daytime it may seem an absurd
performance, but at night, when one hears the tinkling of the little
bell and notes the superstitious awe which surrounds the procession,
and remembers that it may mean a battle in the morning, it is apt to
impress one more than at other times."  No battle, however, came his
way, and he returned home in September much struck by the {36}
enthusiasm which had produced 80,000 men for the Carlist Army in two
years, but seeing very little future for the cause.  He records his
gratitude to the officers for their courtesy and hospitality, and
considers that their treatment of prisoners was exceptionally humane--a
tribute which assuredly could not be paid to their opponents.


IV

[Sidenote: The Border Mounted Rifles]

The engagements of "Mr. Rolly" and the escapades abroad did not fill up
the whole of those years, for there were many weeks in London, and long
visits to his Border home.  We hear of him in the summer of 1871, when
he had just returned from the Commune, borrowing his brother Arthur's
wig and gown and going to hear the Tichborne trial, feeling very
nervous lest he should be offered a brief.  One of his main
interests--for though he had left the Guards he had not ceased to be a
soldier--was the formation of a Border Mounted Volunteer Corps.  The
subject seems to have been first raised at the Caledonian Hunt Dinner
in October 1871, and presently an offer to raise such a corps was made
to the Secretary of State for War signed by most of the Roxburghshire
gentry.  Such was the origin of the Border Mounted Rifles, into which
Melgund flung all his energies.  It was recruited from the lairds and
farmers, most of them zealous followers of the Duke of Buccleuch's
hounds, and Melgund was given the first command, which he held for
nearly twenty years.  The history of its honourable existence, till it
was killed by agricultural depression, may be read in General Sir James
Grierson's _Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force, 1859-1908_.[3]  It
began in February 1872 as the "1st Roxburgh Mounted Rifles," and in
January 1880 became the "Border Mounted Rifles," with a uniform of
slate grey, grey helmets with silver star, and the Elliot motto: "Wha
daur meddle wi' me?"  It speedily won fame in marksmanship, and in 1884
its team was first and fifth, and in 1885 first and second in the
Loyd-Lindsay competition at Wimbledon.  Melgund was very proud of his
corps, and a firm believer in mounted infantry, the {37} value of which
he expounded later in speeches and review articles.  He was somewhat of
a pioneer in his views, which did not become accepted doctrine till the
end of the century and the South African War.

The work with the Border Mounted Rifles satisfied one side of Melgund's
mind, but he was always on the lookout for other interests, and
especially for that disciplined and continuous work which is involved
in the term "service."  In November 1873 he had a chance of standing
for Parliament for North Lincolnshire in the Liberal interest, and at
first, under Lord Yarborough's persuasion, he agreed.  But presently,
after reflection, he withdrew, having come to the conclusion that the
House of Commons would not suit either his tastes or his talents.
There is a small bundle of political notes extant, which he had
prepared for his guidance in the event of a contest--modest little
proposals on such matters as land, tenant right, education, and the
suffrage, which enable one to realize that sober and conservative creed
which was the elder Liberalism.  The journal is full of entries which
show how much his mind was beginning to hanker for full occupation.
Opinions on war and foreign affairs gathered from any one in authority
are carefully set down.  In the autumn of 1876 Sir Garnet Wolseley
stayed at Minto, and showed a flattering interest in the Border Rifles.
"He said one thing which seems to me very evident," the journal
records, "but which a great many honest people would not admit, viz.,
that the press (speaking of correspondents with an army) has become a
power which a man should try to manage for himself; that it is an
influence which one cannot deny, and therefore should try to make one's
own."

[Sidenote: 1877]

This question of the press was one which touched Melgund closely, for
at the moment it was only as a correspondent that he had a chance of
seeing something of war.  When the Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1877
he was permitted to go to Turkey as a representative of the _Morning
Post_.  He set forth in April, speeded by a letter from his old
Lincolnshire friend, the Rev. H. G. Southwell, who kept for his use a
fund of bracing wisdom and a special bin of champagne.  "I am really
pleased," he wrote, "to near you are going to do something worthy of a
man at {38} last.  I cannot but think it is a pitiful ambition to have
no higher aspiration than to win a steeplechase....  I hope you will
take the Bible, Robertson's (of Brighton) _Sermons_, and Gibbon's
_Rome_ with you.  The first contains the truest account of life; the
second does one good, as you know; and the third will show you the
origin of the Turkish Empire, and prepare the way for all its modern
history."

[Sidenote: The Russo-Turkish War]

Whether or not he was accompanied by these aids to reflection, Melgund
had a strenuous and varied summer.  "You may or may not be surprised to
hear," he writes to his mother, "that I am on the point of leaving my
native country.  I shall probably start for Constantinople at the
beginning of the week after next, viz., about the 1st May.  I am by way
of going as correspondent to the _Morning Post_ with the Turkish Army,
but by the present understanding I am only making use of the _Post_ in
order to give me a position of some sort, and can please myself about
writing to them.  Besides this there is a chance of my getting
something to do which will suit me much better--something for the
Intelligence Department.  I went to-day to see Colonel Home, the head
of the Department.  He seems a capital fellow, and he wants me to go to
a place on the Black Sea a little north of Varna to find out all I can
about the country there and to let him know about it, which he says
would be most useful to them, as they are thoroughly acquainted with
all the country that lies directly between the Danube and
Constantinople, whereas the piece of country they want me to go to they
know nothing of.  I shall probably do this, but I should think it would
be in the shape of a separate expedition, and that after that I should
be attached to some staff.  Uncle Henry[4] seems to think I shall go
with every advantage, and that I am sure to get on like a house on
fire; in fact, I am delighted with it all."

The journal describes the itinerary.  On 2nd May he wrote:--


    "Arrived in Venice about 8 p.m. this evening.  Lovely view of the
    Alps this morning after leaving {39} Turin: made out Monte Rosa and
    the Lyskamm distinctly and got a glimpse of the Matterhorn.  I love
    the mountains, and this morning, when I first found myself among
    them before arriving at Turin, it gave me an indescribable feeling
    of excitement.  I suppose it is the recollection of the adventures
    I have had amongst them, and when I look back now I look upon them
    and the guides as old friends.  There is no better man than a good
    Swiss guide, and Peter Bohren and Melchior Anderegg and the
    Lancriers keep jumping up in my memory.

    "I am delighted with the first appearance of Venice; it seems to me
    enchanting, and makes me wish to live here, and, like all places of
    the sort, makes one wish for some one else to see it with.
    However, that is all the twaddle of one's existence--the realities
    are the thing after all."


Melgund was in close touch with the Intelligence Department at the War
Office, and was associated with Colonel Lennox, the British Military
Attach at Cairo.  In Constantinople he was impressed, like other
people, by the scandals of the Turkish Government.  Thence he went to
Adrianople, Rustchuk, and Turtukai, meeting Osman Pasha.  He then
joined Lennox at Shumla, where he had a chance of studying Turkish
military arrangements.

The following are extracts from his letters to his mother:--


    "_May_ 28_th._--Got back here (Shumla) this morning after a most
    interesting expedition to Rustchuk and Turtukai.  We spent the
    whole of Friday going over the forts there: pretty strong!  The
    bombardment of the town was expected to begin at any moment, and we
    could see the Russian batteries on the opposite side from the
    Turkish forts above the town.  We spent the evening at Mr. Reid's
    (the English Consul) house, where all the consuls were gathered
    together in a tolerable state of excitement.  The extraordinary
    thing is that the Turks should have allowed the Russians to throw
    up these batteries under their very noses, occupying, as they do,
    much the stronger {40} position.  But they have done nothing to
    annoy them, and not a Turk dare show his face, and there were we,
    the General, the Chief of the Staff, and myself, all hiding behind
    trees, when really, looking at the positions of the two combatants,
    it is the Russians who should have been afraid of showing
    themselves!

    [Sidenote: Rustchuk]

    "_June_ 30_th._--(Varna.) Lennox, Chermside, and I came on here
    from Rustchuk yesterday.  I have seen an immense lot, and come in
    for all the fighting--but before writing more I send you a copy of
    a letter which I got this morning from Sir Collingwood Dickson
    which I think will please you.  Perhaps it is lucky that I should
    have had to report on the very line of road on which the Russians
    have since landed.

    "THERAPIA, June 28, 1877.

    "'DEAR LORD MELGUND,--Mr. Layard is so very busy that he has not
    time to write to you himself, but he has requested me to thank you
    for your kind contributions to the public service in your reports
    on the Turkish Cavalry and Horse Artillery at Shumla, and in that
    lately received upon the road travelled by you between Rustchuk,
    Sistova, and Nicopoli.  Both these reports were perused with much
    interest by the Ambassador and myself, and the latter I think so
    highly of that I requested Mr. Layard in sending it to mark that it
    should be forwarded to the Intelligence Department as an itinerary
    well worthy their attention.'

      *      *      *      *      *

    "On 26th June Lennox woke me up by telling me that the game had
    begun.  I went out to the ridge of hills facing the Danube close to
    the Turkish batteries and stayed there till the firing was nearly
    over.  The Russian practice was very good, shells pitching
    constantly on top of batteries and on the edge of infantry trenches.

    "That evening I shall never forget.  We went out to a cliff close
    to the town: the town itself is in a valley between a clock tower
    and the Fortress.  All the Russian batteries were firing.  I
    watched the flash from the Russian guns and took the time.  While
    all this was going on there was the most magnificent sunset you
    ever saw!  Try and imagine a dark stormy {41} evening with a
    brilliant red sky, distant lightning, and the smoke from the guns
    rolling over the valley.  It was a wonderful sight, and then,
    suddenly, a Russian signal blazed up, and another, and another;
    probably they had something to do with the crossing that took place
    early next morning.

    "On the 27th we left Nicopoli for Sistova, and, on getting near,
    found that the Russians had crossed about 1 a.m. and were still
    crossing.  Six battalions of Turks were entirely defeated this
    side.  I could not, owing to the lie of the ground, see the exact
    spot where the Russians were crossing, but I saw their troops on
    this side, and the Turks in retreat.  It was a beautiful moonlight
    night, and the roads were crowded with people flying from the
    enemy--Turkish troops straggling for miles.

    "The next day Lennox sent Chermside and me to Rustchuk to try to
    get some letters which were supposed to be lying at the Consulate.
    Rustchuk was terribly knocked about, and the Kanak, which had been
    turned into a hospital, was almost entirely burned out.  How on
    earth they got any one out alive I can't make out.  As it was, they
    got all their sick away, none being killed, though I believe
    seventeen were wounded, and the two men on duty at the door were
    killed.

    "When Chermside and I arrived at the Consulate we naturally found
    it locked up, Mr. Reid (the Consul) having left when that part of
    the town became impossible to stay in: we went all round the house
    but failed to find any way into it.  At last, by the help of a
    Turkish officer, I got over the garden wall and in at a back window
    into Mr. Reid's study, and from there into the room where the
    letters were supposed to be.  At first I found nothing but a few
    old newspapers, and was going to give it up as a bad job when I
    happened to look into a cupboard full of all sorts of rubbish, and
    there, to my delight, I found all the letters.  One of them,
    addressed to Lennox, was open, and Mr. Reid had written on the back
    of it "Torn open by a Russian shell."  I believe the letters had
    rather a narrow squeak of being demolished.  I got {42} back again
    over the garden wall with my spoil, and we returned to Rustchuk.

      *      *      *      *      *

    I have just come back from an evening visit to Mrs. Nejib Pasha.
    She has nearly smoked and drunk me under the table.  Before dinner
    she dosed me with vermouth, she sitting cross-legged on her divan,
    and after dinner primed me with bitters.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "_July_ 17_th._--I arrived at Osmanbazar on the 13th.  The town,
    being chiefly Bulgarian, was nearly deserted by the Turkish
    inhabitants, who had fled for fear of the Bulgarians, while the
    Bulgarians themselves were very much frightened of the few Turks
    who remained in the town, as they were armed to the teeth.  Said
    Pasha was there, though he was to leave at once for Shumla.  He
    appeared very nervous about the state of affairs, and much incensed
    at reports of atrocities by Bulgarians.

    "I am afraid I shall not come home a great Turk!  Unless Suliman's
    lately arrived force wins a great battle in front of Adrianople
    there is nothing on earth to prevent the Russians going to
    Constantinople, and it seems to me only natural that a victorious
    army, such as they are, will expect to enter the capital.  I doubt
    the Czar, should he wish to do so, having the power to stop such an
    entrance, and still more doubt the wish or the power he may have,
    if once there, of ordering the army out again.  We are too late to
    stop it now."


[Sidenote: The quest for a profession]

In July Melgund, whose health was suffering from the effects of the
climate, was compelled to return home.  With his Turkish journey closed
the stage of his life when he was content to seize the interest of the
flying hour, whether it came in the shape of sport or adventure.  He
had long been far from contentment, and Mr. Southwell, from his country
rectory, made it his business to fan the dissatisfaction and urged a
political career.  "I do not see," he wrote in September 1877, "why you
should hold, so to speak, an amphibious position.  You say you cannot
go in for politics, but can find work if {43} the war continues.  Now
if you were a younger son I could understand your embracing war, but
being the elder, and likely to be a permanent fixture, surely you must
want work that does not depend on an 'if.'  You have industry and
pluck.  Industry may not make you an orator, but it can make you a very
tolerable speaker, and pluck will give you cheek in time.  Life is
short, and you will fritter it away, and will have nothing to do as you
grow older but eat and sleep and be weary of life."  The writer
returned to the charge a month later, and besought his friend to "set
his head for Parliament."  "I hope to hear from henceforth that you are
a changed man; that hunting, steeplechasing, and horses generally are
regarded by you as instruments of recreation after severe work; in
short, that you have woken from sleep and have put away childish
things."

But the matter was more complex than the honest hunting parson
realized.  "You have a noble soul," he told Melgund, "one of the
noblest, but a short-sighted, material-interest mind."  In this last
phrase Mr. Southwell's acumen failed him.  It was precisely because he
cared so little for worldly wisdom that Melgund's problem was hard.  A
man more worldly-wise would have used the advantages given him by his
birth, connections, and wide popularity to build up one of those
undistinguished parliamentary careers which are possible even for the
dullest, and which lead so many mediocrities to high office.  Being
singularly honest with himself, he believed that he had no real talent
for political life, and if he could not make a true success, he would
not be content with a sham one.  In life, as in sport, he insisted upon
the first-rate.  He believed--with justice--that he had a gift for
soldiering, but he had dropped out of the running, and it was hard for
one who was now half an amateur to make his way back to a professional
career.  The kind of work, such as imperial administration, which was
to draw out all his qualities and combine the interests of both
politics and the Army, was still only dimly realized.  Honestly and
rightly he sought at this stage the sphere in which he believed he
could best be used--the business of war.  By the close of 1877 his mind
was set upon this path, and the "childish things" of Mr. Southwell's
letter had been relegated to {44} their proper place.  But the decade
of strenuous idleness had not been wasted.  He had behind him a youth
active and honourable, which is the best foundation for the structure
of maturer years.  In body he was hard-trained and untiring; his mind
was fresh and vigorous, if still not fully developed; no cynicism or
satiety weakened his ardour for life.  He had made in his sporting
career those close and enduring friendships which belong to no other
human pursuit in the same degree.[5]  From sport, too, he brought
standards of a strict faithfulness and a scrupulous truth, and in
mixing with men of all classes and types he had acquired a broad and
genial humanity.



[1] Now Earl of Lonsdale.

[2] Mr. John Osborne maintained that the horse put his foot, on landing
into an under-drain, winch for some obscure reason had been overlooked
by the authorities of the course.

[3] Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1909.

[4] Sir Henry Elliot, P.O., K.C.B., Ambassador at Constantinople.

[5] We need not accept the explanation of this fact given by Harriet
Lady Ashburnham to Lord Houghton: "If I were to begin life again," she
said, "I should go on the Turf merely to get friends.  They seem to me
the only people who really hold together.  I do not know why.  It may
be that each man knows something that would hang the other, but the
effect is delightful and most peculiar."




{45}

CHAPTER III

APPRENTICESHIP

The close of the 'seventies was for Britain an era of little wars.
There was trouble brewing in South Africa, but the main anxiety lay on
the northwest frontier of India, since the check to Russia at
Constantinople had turned her thoughts to Central Asian expansion, and
the uneasy politics of Afghanistan had begun to reflect her ambitions.
The Second Afghan War began in November 1878, when Shere Ali, having
received a Russian envoy at Kabul, had declined to receive a British.
Sir Donald Stewart marched from Baluchistan through the Bolan Pass and
occupied Kandahar, another force went through the Khyber to Jalalabad,
and Sir Frederick Roberts moved from the Kurrum valley through the high
passes, defeated the Amir at Peiwar Kotal, and occupied the
Shutargardan Pass, which gave direct access to Kabul.  Shere Ali fled
northwards and presently died, and for six months it seemed hard to
know how to bring the campaign to an end.  A successor to Shere Ali
must be found with whom Britain could treat, for it was idle to push
British armies farther into a difficult and dangerous country with no
strategic objective at the end of the advance.

While the war was thus stagnant on the frontier, Melgund set off from
England to take his chance of seeing something of the campaign.  He had
no official position, or promise of one, but he had many friends at the
front, and he trusted to the luck which had never deserted him on his
expeditions.  He arrived in Bombay in January 1879, and went on to
Calcutta, to stay with the Lyttons at Government House.  There he saw
and admired the {46} portrait of his great-grandfather, the first Earl
of Minto, in the Council Room.

[Sidenote: 1879]

Though anxious to hurry on to the front, Melgund was delayed some days
in Calcutta making the necessary preparations.  "I am still here," he
writes, "and have been enjoying myself very much.  This is a very fine
town, and Government House is quite magnificent.  Altogether I am
enchanted with what I have seen--everything beautiful, luxurious, and
warm: every one is more than civil to me, and Bill Beresford, who is
away steeple-chasing somewhere, has left word that I am to ride his
horses, and am also to have two which are already at Kohat.  Last
Sunday I went to Barrackpore with Colonel Baker, one of the Viceroy's
military advisers, and a first-rate fellow.  It is about twelve miles
up the river from here, and is a country place of the Viceroy's.  I
think it is the prettiest place I ever saw anywhere.  It is a large
house in the middle of what might be a beautiful English park, with
magnificent trees.  The Staff have bungalows of their own which are
dotted about in the park, and one breakfasts and lunches under an
enormous banyan tree which is a small wood in itself."

[Sidenote: With Roberts's column]

Then he started for the Punjab to join General Roberts's column, seeing
as much as he could of the sights on the way.  The romance of the
frontier caught his imagination as soon as he began to talk to frontier
officers, and he was struck with a type of public servant very
different from that which he had met at home.  He sketched it for the
benefit of Lady Minto, whom he suspected of being whiggishly inclined:--


    "I assure you the stories one might tell of these frontier wars are
    without end, and the Englishmen we have on the frontier are a race
    to be very proud of.  I believe there are dozens of men who have
    scarcely been heard of in England, but who have shown out here that
    they were first-rate leaders, first-rate soldiers, and excellent
    all round, and who have died like heroes one after another in these
    frontier fights.  The churchyard here[1] and the church itself are
    both worth going to see as a history of frontier {47} life.  I
    counted in the church the names of about fifty officers who have
    died or been killed about here since the force was started, some
    thirty years ago.  By the Frontier Force I mean the force which is
    separate from the rest of the army, and directly under the command
    of the Punjab Government....  Then, again, commissioners of
    districts must of necessity be rulers, and on the frontier at any
    rate the stronger they are the better.  The goody-goody benevolent
    people could be of no use here except to get their own throats cut:
    the men who do rule are not of the English politician style,
    pasty-faced wretches who do nothing but talk; in fact, not at all
    the type of the young M.P. of the present day, but a hard-riding,
    steeplechasing, sporting lot of fellows.  They are the sort of men
    that I hope we shall always have lots of, but they are not the type
    that a well-informed village meeting at home would choose to occupy
    the important positions they do."


He went to Kohat, Peshawar, and Jalalabad, and formed the worst
impressions of the playful homicidal habits of the border tribes.  He
was for a time with Sir Sam Browne's force, where he met Sir Louis
Cavagnari, but he hankered after Roberts's column, which he believed
was destined to advance to Kabul.  This column he succeeded in joining
in March.  The staff comprised many congenial companions--Pretyman,
Neville Chamberlain, George Villiers, Brabazon, and Padre Adams.  The
future still hung in the balance.  He saw that the new scientific
frontier, if it came into being, would have to be seriously held, and
he doubted the ability of the British Government--for which at this
time he professed small respect--to carry out such a policy.


    "I do not think the people in England at all realize the state of
    this frontier, or the extreme danger of an insecure frontier line,
    that is, of one whose chief strength depends upon the goodwill of
    the Amir, or of the frontier tribes.  Of course, have as many
    friends as you can, but be perfectly independent of them, and feel
    that the strength of your frontier does not rest on their goodwill
    alone.  Neither do I {48} think people understand the great danger
    of giving up an inch of ground.  All retreat is looked upon as
    weakness by those frontier tribes, and directly you retire you will
    have them all about your ears.  The only thing they respect is
    power: kindness I don't believe they care tuppence for.  Unless you
    had been here you could not imagine the state of the country.  One
    thinks very little of a few shots at night.  I have seen a good
    deal myself.  The other day I rode with one of the political
    officers almost fifteen miles down the road to Banu, most of which
    runs through the Waziri country, which does not belong to us.  We
    found that fourteen camels had been looted out of a convoy of two
    hundred, and that only one had been recovered.  We went through a
    very wild country, some of it simply a collection of conical hills.
    We met a native escort with a camel caravan armed to the teeth and
    carrying shields, the first I have seen carried.  The people in
    this valley are very friendly, but I think the best definition of a
    friendly native is a man who only shoots you at night, whereas a
    hostile one shoots in the daytime as well."


When not employed in reconnoitring the country his time was passed in
organizing sports, paper-chases, horse shows, and speculating on the
probable news from Kabul.  Melgund was keenly alive to beautiful
scenery and his letters are full of vivid pictures.  Nestling in a
valley between Kurrum and Haleb Ketla, below the long range of the
snow-covered Safed Koh, lies Shalozan, a village famed for the beauty
of its women: Melgund describes the chenab trees, a ruined tomb, and
the picturesque appearance of a troop of native cavalry, with their red
puggarees, halting on the village green.  Thirty years later, when
Viceroy of India, he visited Peiwar Kotal, motoring sixty miles from
Kohat over a specially prepared road to revive the memories of his
campaigning days.  From his camp at Parachinar he rode to Shalozan, the
beauty of which, amid its desolate environment, had never faded from
his memory.  While riding through the village he met a tall bearded
Pathan about whose appearance there was something familiar, and he {49}
observed to Mr. Merk, the Commissioner, that this man reminded him of
the boy who had run messages for Sir Frederick Roberts in 1879, and
who, as he ran, had a trick of brushing his ankles together till they
bled.  The man was stopped and questioned, his sandals were instantly
flung off to disclose the old scars, and in wild excitement he
prostrated himself at the feet of the great Lat Sahib who deigned to
remember his unworthy errand boy.

[Sidenote: Frontier problems]

In his long delightful letters to his mother, which for this year took
the place of his journal, Melgund gives the gossip of the camp, vivid
little sketches of places and personages, and much half-chaffing abuse
of the follies of the stay-at-home politicians.  "I long to encamp the
British public in a place like Ali Kheyl for one night, with Gladstone,
Chamberlain, Dilke, and a few others on outpost duty.  I would join the
Mongols for the night, and I think there would be some fun!  I dare say
it wouldn't do old Peter (his brother Arthur) any harm to do sentry-go
for the public for an hour or two.  I expect he's got a few 'humane'
ideas in his head too!"

He expounds at length his views on the frontier question, which are
interesting in the light of his later problems as Viceroy:--


    "The more I see of this country, the more difficult the new
    frontier line appears to organize.  I was always for a new
    frontier, and for occupying advanced posts at the other side of the
    passes leading into India, and I am still sure that this is right,
    though the difficulties in the way are far greater than I supposed.
    The fact is, we want to have a stronger frontier in case of a
    Russian invasion or demonstration against India, such as they
    certainly meant to make if we had fought them in Europe, and it is
    very short-sighted to say that they will not attack us for years.
    Neither do I think it should be allowed to stand over for future
    years, when we might be very hard pressed in Europe and unable to
    alter our frontier even if we wished it.  It is nonsense shutting
    our eyes to the fact that it is Russia that one is afraid of, and
    justly so, though I think the day the Russian and English outposts
    touch the more chance there {50} will be of a permanent peace.  The
    scientific soldiers ought to be able to decide on the frontier
    line, and we ought to take it and have done with it, and not scream
    and howl every time Russia advances in Central Asia.  With the old
    frontier we should have fought an invading army as they debouched
    from the passes, _i.e._, we should have been fighting inside our
    own doors, and on a powder magazine, which the slightest reverse
    would have set in a blaze; besides which we should have been
    fighting with the Indus behind us and a scarcity of bridges over
    which to retreat.  One is bound to consider a retreat as on the
    cards, though when I said this to some one at dinner at Government
    House at Calcutta I was told that we here could never think of a
    retreat.

    "If we are not to advance to strengthen our frontiers we could do
    so by retiring behind the Indus, so as not to massacre armies with
    the river behind us, simply keeping advanced posts to watch the
    mouths of the passes.  This, I think, would be an immensely strong
    frontier, but it would be retiring, and goodness knows what the
    effect would be in India as to loss of prestige.  I have no doubt
    that the right thing to do is to occupy places like Kandahar,
    Kurrum, and Jalalabad.  You then have two lines of defence, and if
    beaten at the first you fall back upon the second--the southern
    mouths of the passes; but your first fight would be outside your
    own door instead of inside, which, in a country like this, must be
    of the greatest importance.

    "There is, however, an immense difficulty regarding these new
    advance posts--their lines of communication, which must run through
    a country inhabited by wild, uncivilized races.  Therefore, to make
    the advance posts really safe, we should have to be able thoroughly
    to depend on the tribes in no case molesting our communications.
    This is the great difficulty I see in the new frontier, and I am
    afraid the English public will not realize until too late its
    value, and will not be willing to supply the men and money that
    would be necessary to secure the roads to the advance posts.  The
    thing will probably be done {51} by halves; we shall occupy the
    places we want, and leave the country behind them altogether
    unreliable, and let the matter drop.  Then some day the attack we
    have always been fearing and preaching about will come, we shall
    fight under frightful disadvantages, lose no end of men and money,
    and when we are utterly at our last gasp pull ourselves together
    and win, as we always have done."


The monotonous waiting came to an end in the latter part of May, when
Yakub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, was recognized as Amir and
concluded the treaty of Gandamak, which conceded the establishment of a
British agent at Kabul and placed the foreign affairs of Afghanistan
under the control of Britain.  Melgund left the frontier and hastened
home to his Border Mounted Rifles: he was anxious to be back in time
for the summer inspection.  His passion for active service, however,
was wholly unsatisfied.  He decided against going to the Zulu War, for
he was weary of scratch campaigns.  "A good European War," he wrote,
"would be the thing, if there was a chance of our army existing over a
fortnight."  But his journey had not been fruitless, he had made many
friendships, and had developed a profound admiration for Sir Frederick
Roberts, from whom he learned much of the detailed business of war; and
though he was for the moment inclined to take the high-handed
Bismarckian view in foreign politics, he had learned invaluable
lessons--the difficulties of the "man on the spot" and the need of
sympathy and imagination in harmonizing his urgent needs with the
preconceptions of the public at home.  He loved to flutter the Whig
dovecotes of his family by talking at random, but his matured opinions
were full of wary good sense.

[Sidenote: Cavagnari]

On his way home he spent a few days at Simla, and there an offer was
made him which caused him acute perturbation.  Cavagnari, the British
envoy-designate to Kabul, asked him to accompany him, and the Viceroy
pressed him to accept.  The proposal was that he should go to Kabul,
and then go on with Yakub Khan to the Uxus; from there he would carry a
dummy dispatch from the Amir to the Russians, and somehow or other get
{52} to Samarkand.  The notion fired his imagination: he liked and
believed in Cavagnari, he wanted to see Kabul, and in journeying thence
to Samarkand through the Russian outposts he would be undertaking not
only a daring exploit but an important piece of public service.  In the
end he declined, principally because there was a chance of the Mission
being shut up in Kabul for some time, and since he would have no
official status he felt that it was too much in the nature of an
escapade, and that duty called him home to his Volunteers.  Cavagnari
acquiesced in this view: probably he felt that the way was very dark
before him and did not want to involve more lives than were necessary
in a desperate venture, for he told Lady Roberts, "I feel I am going
amongst the most treacherous people under the sun, but if anything
happens to me it will make the course the Government ought to pursue
very much easier, and I feel great satisfaction in that."  "When I left
him," Melgund records in his journal, "I said 'good-bye, and good luck
to you,' and it came across my mind at the moment that he thanked me as
if he thought there was need for the good luck."

[Illustration: LORD MELGUND IN THE UNIFORM OF THE BORDER MOUNTED
RIFLES, 1883]

[Sidenote: 1880]

When Melgund was back in Roxburghshire, busy with his Volunteers, there
came the news that the treaty of Gandamak was waste paper, and that
once more the fires of war blazed on the frontier.  In September
Cavagnari and his staff and escort were murdered in Kabul, and it was a
solemn reflection for Melgund that he had come within an ace of sharing
their fate.  It is possible that, even had he gone, he might have
escaped, for the man who carried the message from Yakub to Balkh got
through, and that was to have been his job, though it is questionable
whether a European in the same task would have succeeded.  Reviewing
the incident in his journal he writes: "The chief reason that I settled
not to go with Cavagnari was that it appeared to me that I should be
doing better by going home and looking after my Volunteer corps, which
was a thing I had taken up and wanted to succeed, than by starting on a
mission the success of which seemed doubtful.  I thought that the corps
might deteriorate, and that an expedition through Central Asia might be
looked upon as flighty while the alternative was sticking to business.
I also wanted to get to know more people in {53} England, and to do
some reading.  I have had many doubts about it, but still think that
even if I had succeeded in getting through I did better by giving it
up."  Twenty-seven years later, as Viceroy of India, he visited the
Guides at Mardan, and saw the obelisk erected in memory of the Kabul
victims on which his own name might so easily have been inscribed.

He was very unsettled that autumn and winter, and his letters and
journals contain little beyond speculations on frontier policy and the
Afghanistan campaign.  Sir Frederick Roberts sent him a postcard,
written in the train near Loodiana, inviting him to rejoin his Kabul
column.  "Pretyman and I are now on our way back to Kurrum, accompanied
by Baker, Brab, Hugh Gough, 'Polly' Carew, and a few more of the right
sort."  He could not go, and even if he could it is hard to see how he
would have caught up with the active British commander.  Roberts
entered Kabul in October, and in December came the rising of the
tribes, and he and his force were cut off from the world, till Sir
Donald Stewart arrived from Kandahar.  Next year came the settlement
with Abdur Rahman; but in the summer the battle of Maiwand was lost by
the British, and Roberts had to march in haste the three hundred miles
from Kabul to Kandahar to take order with the pretender Aynb Khan.  Not
till September 1881 was Abdur Rahman able to assert his kingship and
give his country peace, and meantime a new frontier policy had been
adopted by Simla and Whitehall.


[Sidenote: War correspondents]

During the whole of 1880 Melgund was at home, and it is clear from his
journal and his letters that he was restless.  His thoughts were on the
frontiers of India, his reading chiefly in Indian history, his
correspondence mainly with soldiers.  The care of his Border Rifles was
not enough to fill his mind, and his eye was roaming the world in quest
of active service.  One piece of useful work he was able to perform
early in the year.  There had been a good deal of trouble in both the
Afghan and Zulu Wars with press correspondents, for the vicious system
of employing serving soldiers for the purpose had not been abandoned,
and there had been much partisanship shown, newspapers ranging
themselves for or against {54} particular generals.  As a remedy for
such abuses the military authorities framed a set of rules to regulate
the work of the press, and these were strongly criticized in the
January number of the _Nineteenth Century_ by Mr. Archibald Forbes, the
most distinguished living war correspondent.  Melgund replied to him in
the March number of the review in an article which was his first
excursion in literature.  He put the common sense of the matter very
clearly and trenchantly.  He sympathized with both sides, for he had
been himself a war correspondent, and had been invited to write for the
_Times_ and _Daily Telegraph_ while in Afghanistan.  He believed that
the journalist in a campaign was necessary, not only to the public at
home but to the army in the field; but he saw that the delicate mission
of war correspondents, unless it was to become a public danger, must be
under certain reasonable restrictions.  It may fairly be said that
to-day his views would be accepted as they stand by both journalists
and soldiers.  In this, his first literary effort, Melgund revealed not
only a judicial mind, but a real vigour of style:--


    "The next war may not give us quite so much pleasant reading.  We
    may miss a little of the seasoning of bygone days.  We shall not
    suffer by it.  About a year ago a British force was crossing one of
    our Indian rivers on its way to the front.  With it was the usual
    representative of the press, and he had written his usual letter.
    He tells how crocodiles and palm trees people the water and adorn
    the banks, and hands the eloquent production to a prosaic English
    officer, who remarks that neither crocodiles nor palm trees are
    within many miles.  Matter-of-fact man!  The correspondent is
    describing India, and he replies--the best answer ever made, and
    the secret of much of the discussion, the essence of what our
    soldiers have long known to be true--'What does that matter?  The
    British public must have its crocodile, and it must have its palm
    tree.'"


[Sidenote: Politics and society]

The _Nineteenth Century_ article brought him many congratulations--from
Lord Chelmsford, who had suffered from an unfair press; from Admiral
Sir Charles Elliot; and {55} notably from his old Lincolnshire friend,
the hunting parson, Mr. Southwell.  "I suppose I may regard you as lead
to the witcheries of women," added that mentor, "and that the rest of
your mortal life is to be devoted to the interests of your country.
'Sporting with Amaryllis in the shade,' etc., has given place to the
more laudable desire for fame.  Now for Parliament.  Suppress your
thirst for adventure and excitement and go into the House.  You'll soon
be getting old--I mean too old to care about or indeed be capable of
active life, and in Parliament as long as your head is clear it matters
little if your legs are slow."  But Melgund was at the moment very
little in love with Parliament and politics.  His journal of 1880
records, indeed, his pleasure at his brother Arthur's success in
Roxburghshire, where he was returned by the narrow majority of ten; but
his political comments are acrid and he had small regard for the Prime
Minister.  "Arthur arrived to-day, having been sailing about on the
West Coast of Scotland with Gladstone!  Oh dear!  Oh dear!"  Some
months later he and that eminent man met at dinner with the
Fitzwilliams.  "He has a wild look in his eye, and his appearance would
never inspire me with confidence," says the journal.

As for Amaryllis, it would seem that for the moment Mr. Southwell's
guess was right.  "Lots of pretty people, but don't care for balls," is
a common entry.  One name begins to appear occasionally--that of Mary
Grey, whom he was constantly meeting.  But though he hunted and visited
about the land, and took his full share in social life, he was
profoundly dissatisfied.  His note on some famous party is only of a
talk with Sir Garnet Wolseley, who "promised me a knife and fork with
him in the next war....  He thinks we may have a blow-up in Europe any
day, and he says he will take me with him to the German manoeuvres in
September if our authorities will allow me to go."  He is more
interested in discussing Afghanistan with Lady Lawrence than in dancing
with the reigning beauty: the kind of country house he likes is
Crabbett, where he could inspect Wilfred Blunt's Arabs; when he sits up
at night it is to read confidential papers on the Greek frontier lent
him by Sir John Ardagh.  He goes to the most brilliant ball of the
season--"I am almost {56} ashamed to say I never danced once, but met
Knox, the gunner, looked on with him for some time, and then went down
to supper with him instead of a lady, and fought the actions of Ali
Musjid and Peiwar Kotal over again.  I am sure we sat through I don't
know how many dances, and drank I don't know how much champagne, and
agreed we were both longing to be off somewhere, and came away
together.  He has seen more service perhaps than any young soldier:
viz., Abyssinia, Ashanti, Afghanistan, and Zululand, and also seen much
fighting with the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War.  _I do wish I were
off somewhere_!"

The _cri du coeur_ of the last sentence is the index to his frame of
mind, a frame of mind which made him curiously intolerant of all
sedentary life at home.  At the age of thirty-five he had a violent fit
of that fever which commonly takes a man at an earlier stage, a desire
for a rough life in wild places and an impatience of a cosseted
civilization.  His natural inclination was for the hard-riding,
forthright type of man he had known in his Lincolnshire days, and his
experience on the Indian frontier had taught him that the same
qualities could be conjoined with excellent brains and used for high
public duties.  Hence he moved in London drawing-rooms like Marius
among the ruins of Carthage: vehemently critical, tantalized by
ambitions which seemed infinitely far from realization.  Occasionally
in the journal he permits himself an outburst which the reader must
take as an undress expression of a mood and not as a considered
verdict:--


    "Dined with the Derbys: took in the daughter of the house, a very
    nice girl.  A regular London society dinner: _i.e._, every one on
    their p's and q's.  The politicals seemingly oppressed with their
    own importance; the Duke of ---- trying to wind a fox all the
    evening in the neighbourhood of the ceiling, at least I'll do him
    the credit to hope it was a fox--head up, stern down!  Why is it
    that these sportsmen in London (upon my word the men are almost as
    bad as the women) cannot be natural?  They are never their _bona
    fide_ selves, if they possess such a thing.  From the time you
    enter before dinner till {57} the time you come away it is all
    _manire_.  When you get with first-rate soldiers it is different.
    Sir Garnet Wolseley is natural the instant he speaks to you: the
    men on the turf are natural: men who have gone in for riding, or
    soldiering, or any manly amusement are natural: they talk to the
    point and are unaffected, but I'm damned if these London sportsmen
    are!  And when you see young men reared in London society, when it
    has been their only world, when they haven't been knocked about and
    made to feel what's what, but have been traditionally brought up as
    lawgivers, what can you expect of them except that society manners
    should become their second nature, and that their politics in after
    life will, as a rule, be unpractical?  At least their foreign ones
    are likely to be so, for as regards home politics they will be much
    steered by the common sense of the nation, which is very great, and
    has time to collect itself over any home question of importance.
    But in foreign politics or in military affairs, when we are
    required to act quickly and to show common sense at once, preserve
    me from the politicals!  There is not one of them fit to take a
    horse to a second-class metropolitan meeting and look after him.
    He would do something silly if he mingled on an equality with his
    fellow-men!

      *      *      *      *      *

    "Have been reading this evening the Life of Brigadier-General
    Nicholson.  What a splendid fellow he was!  Yet I believe India
    could produce many such men.  It is our school for great
    administrators, and as such alone is worth millions to this
    country; but many of our home-staying, book-taught, theoretical
    politicians are incapable of realizing this.  I don't suppose they
    would be able to appreciate a good frontier officer."


During the summer he thought he saw a chance of work abroad.  He heard
from Lord Lansdowne that Charles Gordon, afterwards the defender of
Khartum and then private secretary to Lord Ripon, the Viceroy of India,
had resigned, and he was advised to become a {58} candidate for the
post.  Having been a supporter of Lord Lytton's frontier policy, he was
in doubt whether he could work under a successor who was pledged to its
reversal, but his Indian friends were anxious that he should apply, and
he allowed his name to be put forward.  A day or two later he learned
that Mr. Henry Primrose of the Treasury had been chosen.  The comment
in the journal is: "Am sorry I did not get it in some ways; not the
sort of work I should like, but still a first-rate appointment, and
under a good Viceroy a very fine position.  But I doubt this man, and
do not expect anything great of him.  In fact, I think as regards
Afghanistan the first object for the Government at home will be to get
out of anything that costs money, and probably Lord Ripon will work to
orders."  That autumn, too, he received an invitation from Colonel
Chermside to go with him to Central Asia, and by way of Meshed and
Herat to Kandahar.  He put the seductive proposal behind him; he wanted
service and not adventure.

[Sidenote: 1881]

The close of the year saw the end of the Afghanistan operations.
Roberts was welcomed home early in 1881, and Melgund was present when
he was given the freedom of the City of London and at the banquet at
the Mansion House.  "It was a magnificent sight," he wrote.  "At the
close of the dinner the Loving Cup was passed round: an official told
us to 'charge our glasses' as each toast was proposed, and claimed
'silence' in a voice of thunder for whoever was about to speak.  Young
Childers is reported to have said that he appeared to be educated for
the last trump!  Roberts's speech was the best I ever heard, though in
his entire condemnation of Cardwell's system, which has really never
been given a fair chance, I should not agree with him.  Perhaps it is
hardly fair to say he condemned it, as he spoke only of the
short-service system as in existence, which is no doubt very faulty;
but I do not agree with him as an opponent to the theory of short
service.  He spoke without the slightest hesitation, and thoroughly
from his heart, as if he felt he was doing a duty in speaking out: he
has a very taking voice, and from being a little below par it may have
been even more sympathetic than usual.  He was very much cheered.  The
speech has been received with rapture by nearly every soldier."

{59}

[Sidenote: South Africa]

Melgund was hunting a good deal with different packs during the winter
months, but the notes of runs in the journal are scanty, and the
reflections on public affairs voluminous.  For in January 1881 tragic
news had come from South Africa, of Sir George Colley's repulse at
Laing's Nek and the Ingogo River, and then of his death at Majuba Hill.
Melgund had known Colley and believed in him, and the tidings of the
disaster made him move heaven and earth to get out to South Africa.
His chance came unexpectedly.  The entry in the journal for Saturday,
5th March, is written on board the _Balmoral Castle_: "I have never had
such a time of it as the last few days.  I think it was last Monday I
dined with Polly Carew at White's, when we suspected that Bobs would be
ordered to the Transvaal, and next morning Polly came into my room
before I was up with a telegram from the General saying he was
appointed to the Transvaal and wished to see me.  I saw him at the War
Office, and he asked me to come out as his private secretary.  Since
that moment I have been hunted to distraction.  What with 'duns' and
preparations, life has been purgatory!"

He had an interesting voyage, visiting St. Helena on the way, and
struggling to inform his mind by means of blue books on South African
questions.  "My impression," he wrote, "is that the Government at home
will probably square things, though how they can do so with decency I
cannot see."  His journal records the fiasco.


    "31_st March._--We arrived at Capetown at about 8.30 on Monday
    evening: the _Calabria_ with the 7th Hussars cheering us loudly as
    we steamed up the Bay, the men answering from our ship.  A boat,
    however, soon came off from the town, and before she came alongside
    the people in her were shouting 'Peace.'  We soon heard that Peace
    had been proclaimed, and that the General was to return home at
    once.  Every one was disgusted.  We got passages in the _Trojan_
    next morning.  We seem to have made peace with a hostile force
    sitting down in our own territory of Natal, after having given us
    three lickings under poor Colley, besides other reverses....  The
    behaviour of the home Government is impossible to understand.  {60}
    We sailed yesterday afternoon, _i.e._, Wednesday 30th.  As we stood
    on deck the crowd on the quay cheered the General loudly and
    groaned for Gladstone.  One feels ashamed of one's country, or
    rather of the wretched Government at the head of it.  I believe
    thoroughly in England all the same....

    "1_st April._--April Fool's Day!  We really ought to have arrived
    at Capetown to-day to make a proper ending of the farce the
    Government at home have staged!"


[Sidenote: 1882]

There was a proposal that Melgund should remain in South Africa and go
to the Transvaal with the Military Commission as Sir Hercules
Robinson's guest in order to prepare some kind of history of the whole
proceedings.  This he declined for good reasons, and likewise an offer
of service in Basutoland.  He was out of temper with the country and
the policy, for he considered that Roberts had been badly treated, and
that the conduct of the British Government was a mere sowing of
dragons' teeth--a view on which, in the light of after events,
disagreement is unfortunately impossible.  He returned forthwith to
England, very clear that he did right to come home, since if he stayed
out on the chance of picking up odd jobs he "ran the risk of gaining
the character of a loafer and adventurer."  The reason is
characteristic of the man; he did not love the rle of eager amateur,
and longed in everything for professional status.

The winter of 1881-82 was occupied with hunting, and, to judge from the
journal, with anxious reflections and discussions on public affairs, in
which he did not see eye to eye with Her Majesty's Ministers.  Here are
a few extracts:--


    "29_th January._--I used for a long time to keep a journal for
    every day of my life.  After I got that fall at Liverpool in '76 I
    gave it up for a bit, as I was so knocked up I fancied it tried me
    writing it in the evening.  I have been so much behind the scenes
    lately in the two last campaigns, Afghanistan and the Transvaal,
    that I have heard many things which I regret not having written
    down, and I have also been thrown very much with men, particularly
    {61} soldiers, of whom I might have written much.  I therefore mean
    in future to try and put down more of interest than I have hitherto
    done in my journals.  Besides the usefulness of making notes of
    anything worth remembering, a journal gives practice in getting one
    into the habit of writing one's experiences quickly, and if one can
    write them in fairly respectable English, which I shall endeavour
    for the sake of practice to do, it will help one elsewhere."

    [Sidenote: Wolseley]

    "5_th February._--Aston Clinton.  Had a long conversation with Sir
    Garnet this evening on Egyptian affairs.  We agreed that the Power
    who should have befriended us there is Turkey, and that we have
    lost her friendship, though Sir Garnet thinks that she may send a
    force to Egypt for the sake of asserting her suzerainty, which may
    be on the wane.  I don't think so.  We have snubbed Turkey too much
    to expect her to do our dirty work, and she is now friends with
    Bismarck.  If I was a Turk I would be damned if I would send troops
    to Egypt to help Gladstone out of a hole.

    "Sir Garnet very agreeable and talking thoroughly practical sense,
    which so few people do.  I like Lady Wolseley very much too.  She
    is more cautious than he is, but very taking and clever--the sort
    of cleverness which comes from knowledge of the world and other
    people.  I will not call it 'cleverness' as I am beginning to hate
    clever people, they are so damnably silly--I mean unpractical.  The
    more I see the more I look down upon the learning obtained from
    books alone.  The ordinarily accepted clever men and women of the
    world have drawn most of their knowledge from reading.  Goodness
    knows, I know well enough the help, even the necessity, of
    information only to be obtained from books.  At the same time those
    whose character is formed by such means alone can bear no
    comparison to the man who is naturally first-rate, has no book
    learning, but has gained all his experience in the school of a
    world of many sets, societies, and adventures.  Combine the book
    learning and the experience of the world, and you get something
    very rare.  Sir Garnet is {62} the best example I have seen of such
    a man.  The book-taught man or woman is enthusiastic, brilliant,
    unpractical, and perfectly sickening.  Then again there is the
    entirely untaught, uneducated, clever, conversational,
    full-of-repartee creature of London society, generally recognized
    as 'so clever,' but with no experience except that of his own
    society world.  Horrible people!"


Meantime the Egyptian problem was growing more confused, and there were
the first mutterings of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Home Rule.  But towards
the end of March politics were for a moment driven out of his head,
when Lord Manners won the Grand National on his own horse "Seaman" by a
head from Mr. Besley's "Cyrus."  It was the kind of thing to fire
Melgund's imagination.  Here was an amateur who had bought the horse on
purpose to win the great race, who had ridden very little before, who
was by no means fancied by the public, and who won by sheer grit and
skill.  Melgund's feelings were a little like those of Lord George
Bentinck, when, after he had given up racing for the public service, he
saw "Surplice," which had once been his, win the Derby.


[Sidenote: Reflections on the National]


    "It was a very great performance, and he deserves all credit.  I do
    not know Manners at all, and I have never seen the horse either.
    It does seem strange that some of the best men over a country, who
    have been riding all their lives, such as 'Doggy' Smith, E. P.
    Wilson, and Bob L'Anson, should never have won the Liverpool, and
    that Manners, who had no experience and made no reputation in
    first-class company, should come and win a fine race by a head.  I
    would have given anything to have won it at one time, but it is
    plainer than ever that one might toil away all one's life and never
    win that particular race.  Of the steeplechase riders I have seen I
    shall always put 'Pussy' Richardson first either amongst gentlemen
    or professionals; Bob L'Anson _facile princeps_ amongst the latter.
    He is a really fine horseman, which so few of the professionals
    are; at least they don't understand riding over a country; they put
    their hands down and go from end to end, as in a {63} hurdle race;
    but they have no idea of putting a horse properly at a fence, or of
    correcting him if he has got it out of his stride; and then they
    wonder horses fall!  Perfect horsemen are scarce, and in riding,
    and particularly in steeplechase riding, the public are very often
    gulled into thinking certain riders good by their hardness and
    dash, which may probably give them a run of luck for a bit.
    Immense practice is necessary to put a fine horseman at the top of
    the tree in race riding, and when I talk of the top of the tree I
    don't mean the men who have won most races, but the men who combine
    horsemanship, good hands, good seat, knowledge of the right way to
    put a horse at a fence, with the necessary qualities of the jockey;
    first and foremost knowledge of pace, then dash and a cool head,
    and the power of seeing what every other horse in the race is
    doing.  And when one is talking of these really first-rate riders I
    don't admit them as perfectly excellent unless they are also
    first-rate to hounds.  'Pussy' Richardson has all the qualities--as
    good to hounds as he was on a racecourse, and he was a finished
    artist on the flat against the best professionals, and the best
    steeplechase rider of his day.  When one hears society talk of so
    and so, and so and so, and so and so as the best rider in England,
    what bosh it is!  Probably they only know the one trade, viz.,
    hunting, or the other trade, perhaps race riding.  Amongst the best
    men to hounds you find young men who are riding the best horses
    that money can buy--how can they lay claim to the horsemanship of
    men who have passed through every stage of schooling young horses
    of every sort?  Horsemanship is not learned in a day or in a few
    seasons' hunting.  Hard riding is a different thing."


In April of this year Melgund was suddenly summoned to his parents at
Bournemouth, and on 21st April his mother died.  She was fifty-seven
years old, but no shadow of middle age had fallen upon her spirit.  To
the end her letters had the gaiety and the eager interest of youth.
Melgund had not altered since his boyish days when she {64} had
analysed his character and professed her complete trust in it, and no
mother and son were ever in more frank and intimate accord.  He made
fun of her staunch Liberalism and her fidelity to the political
traditions of her youth, and posed now and then as a ruthless
Cromwellian in order to elicit her gentle expostulations.  It is not
easy to overestimate the influence which her gay wisdom and fortitude
exercised over one who was still in process of finding himself.  It
provided a perpetual incentive to honourable ambition, and an
undogmatic and unostentatious idealism.  Such a man as Melgund was too
robust to be dominated by mere emotion, and at the same time too deeply
affectionate and generous to be ruled solely through his reason.  His
mother's combination of a keen critical mind with the happy glow of
romance and the warmth of love made her influence supreme, and her
personality when alive, and after death her memory, were the chief
shaping forces in his life.


[Sidenote: 1882]

During the early summer of 1882 Irish affairs seemed to be marching to
dire confusion, and in May came the tragic news of the murder in
Phoenix Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary for
Ireland, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary.  Melgund at once
wrote to Sir Garnet Wolseley offering himself for service in that
country should the occasion arise.  Talking with old Lord Strathnairn
of this appalling tragedy, the latter said that he could soon put
Ireland to rights: "it only wanted a little determination, and of
course he would avoid unnecessary bloodshed!"  At that time Melgund saw
a good deal of this old warrior, who was renowned for his blunt speech
and his many idiosyncrasies.  Once, arriving for dinner, he found the
table laid for sixteen, but they dined _tte--tte_, all the other
invitations having somehow miscarried!

[Sidenote: The Egyptian war]

In July he celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday amid the stir of
preparation for an Egyptian campaign.  When war was declared Sir Garnet
Wolseley was appointed to the command, and he applied for Melgund as
private secretary, but there was some difficulty about employing an
officer not on the active list.  Wolseley therefore wrote to him
officially regretting that he could not make {65} the appointment, but
at the bottom of the page there was "P.T.O." and on the other side
"Come along, Rolly."  Privately he was advised to procure a couple of
horses and present himself in Egypt.  He left London on 4th August,
travelling from Brindisi in the dispatch boat with Sir John Adye,
Neville Lyttelton, and some of Sir Garnet's staff.  On the 11th he was
reconnoitring Arabi's position with Lord Methuen, and in the next few
days he was feverishly scouring Alexandria for horses.  Then Wolseley
arrived, and on the 17th Melgund was gazetted as captain in the Mounted
Infantry, a force the strength of which was 4 officers and 73 men.
After some delay and much uncertainty they were sent to Ismailia, and
landed on the 22nd August, proceeding to the cavalry lines.  Of the
action on the 24th an account may be transcribed from the journal:--


    "29_th August._--On Wednesday we received orders to parade at 4
    a.m.  Accordingly we fell in on Thursday morning in the dark.  The
    Household Cavalry and some guns were to have come with us, but the
    guns were late and delayed the Cavalry, so we accordingly marched
    off alone: the Cavalry caught us up at daylight, but not the guns.
    About 5.30 we came across some Bedouins on foot who fired at us.
    The Mounted Infantry were ordered to attack them, which we did,
    driving them off and taking eight prisoners.  We galloped a
    considerable distance after them.  The country here was chiefly
    hard sand and very good going, but in some parts there was grazing
    ground, intersected by wet ditches.  During part of our chase I
    galloped towards what I supposed to be a line of men about to fire,
    but on getting close found that they were a line of long-legged
    birds!

    "After chasing the Bedouins and taking prisoners we thought the
    morning's work was over till we saw, rather to the left of the
    point to which we had pursued, some skirmishers on a low ridge of
    hills.  The enemy was now advancing in earnest.  I saw little of
    what went on on our left, we being wholly on the right of our line.
    The action commenced with the Household Cavalry.  The enemy
    advanced with large bodies {66} of troops--infantry, and cavalry
    behind them, who remained on the high ground.  I wondered at the
    time why our guns did not at once begin and play upon the enemy
    masses which offered such a rare mark for artillery.  It turns out
    that the guns were not there: they had got stuck somewhere, and
    though they came up before long, we never got more than two guns in
    action.  The first order given was about 6 a.m. for the Mounted
    Infantry to engage the enemy on our right flank.  As it happened,
    the Corps only mustered forty-three men that morning, and we could
    only dismount half at a time.  Throughout the morning we were
    always under fire, generally from our front, very often from our
    right flank, and sometimes from our right rear.  We were required
    to draw out and keep in check the whole of the enemy's left flank
    with twenty dismounted men.  In front of us the enemy was in
    considerable strength.  I hear now that he had ten battalions of
    infantry on the ground, besides cavalry, and, I think, twelve guns,
    which were employed entirely against our left flank, where our two
    guns were.

    "The enemy was constantly working round the rising ground and
    firing on our right flank, and at one time we were so far separated
    from the cavalry that we were in a fair way to be cut off.  The
    cavalry gave us no support except the moral support of their
    presence in the rear of us.  The enemy advanced in a long line of
    skirmishers dressed in white; they generally fired at about 1,200
    or 1,000 yards, and never came within 700, as at that distance our
    fire began to tell, and they would not come on.  Later the 84th
    Regiment and Marine Artillery came into action; then the guns; then
    a certain space without troops; then the cavalry; then ourselves.
    This was the largest number of troops we had in action.  The
    Mounted Infantry had certainly a warm time under a nasty fire the
    whole morning.  At about 11 a.m. Parr, who was in command, was shot
    through the right leg.  I was standing close to him; we were both
    dismounted at the time and with our firing line.  Piggott then took
    command.  About an hour later {67} I was hit in the hand.  We had
    run very short of ammunition, and I had just been round the troop
    of the 60th to see what remained, and was dismounted, talking to
    Sergeant Riarden on the flank of the Corps, when a shot hit me a
    little below the wrist, in the fleshy part between the thumb and
    forefinger.  It bled a good deal at first, but Sergeant Riarden
    tied it up tightly and more or less stopped it, and I went to the
    rear, where I found the 1st Life Guards, and Hamilton, their
    doctor, tied me up.  I afterwards rode to Ismailia, and went to the
    Khedive's Palace there, which has been turned into a hospital.

    "Sir Garnet, who was out on the morning the engagement started, is
    said to have ordered breakfast at 10 o'clock, and I cannot think
    that at the outside more than a reconnaissance was intended.  As it
    was, we became committed with a very small force against a very
    large one."


[Sidenote: The Mounted Infantry in Cairo]

Melgund was to see no more fighting, but was left to contemplate the
badness of the medical arrangements and listen to a hundred
contradictory rumours, till on 13th September came the news of the
battle of Tel-el-Kebir, followed the next day by the surrender of
Arabi.  On the 15th he was in Cairo hunting up what remained of the
Mounted Infantry, and was much disquieted by the quarters he found them
in.


    "The infernal regions could hardly be worse!  Mosquitoes!  I never
    saw such mosquitoes!  Stinks in abundance, and poor devils of loose
    horses which had been left here by the Egyptian Cavalry running
    about all night screaming!  There have been all sorts of
    excitements: the railway station caught fire full of stored
    ammunition, and I shall never forget seeing Havelock Allan walk
    quietly towards the burning buildings to see if there was a
    possibility of removing the ammunition.  There was a crowd of
    soldiers round the station, all standing back a long way from the
    flames, and no one apparently capable of taking the lead till he
    appeared on the scene.  He is a very gallant fellow.  He joined us
    during the fight at Magfar, borrowed a rifle from one of the
    Mounted {68} Infantry and blazed away at the Egyptians, and amused
    me by shouting out, 'The Elliots will be proud of you to-day!'  I
    assumed command of the Corps on 22nd September.

    "The Khedive entered Cairo on Monday, 25th September; the troops
    lined the streets, the Mounted Infantry taking the Bel-el-Soug.  On
    Saturday, the 30th, the 'march past' took place.  Those who were
    looking on say it was a fine sight.  The following Monday there was
    a grand function in the evening at the Palace given by the Khedive
    to all the officers of the force.  Magnificent illuminations,
    native bands of different sorts, rope dancing, and a splendid
    supper, to which about a thousand must have sat down.  Pope
    congratulated me on being mentioned in General Orders, of which I
    was quite ignorant."


In General Orders issued by Sir Garnet Wolseley at Cairo, October 1882,
the following appeared:--


    "The General Commanding-in-Chief wishes to take this opportunity of
    thanking Captain Lord Melgund and the officers and men of this
    Corps for the admirable services they have rendered during the
    campaign.  On more than one occasion Sir Garnet Wolseley has had
    the pleasure of bringing to notice the gallantry of the Corps and
    of making special mention of its Commanding Officer, its officers,
    and its men."


In the _Gazette_ of 17th November Melgund received the 4th Class of the
Medjidie and promotion to the rank of honorary major.  By the end of
October he was back in England.  In reading the careful summary in his
journal of the campaign it is impossible not to be impressed with his
grasp of the operations and his shrewd judgment of individual
achievement.  The officers whom he commended were without exception
destined to justify his opinion in later and greater wars.

[Sidenote: 1883]

During the winter of 1882-83 Melgund kept horses at Aston Clinton, the
Cyril Flowers' house, and hunted regularly with the Bicester, the
Grafton, and Mr. Selby {69} Lowndes.  He saw Lord Wolseley often and
corresponded with Sir Frederick Roberts in India, but his strenuous
interest in public affairs was a little abated.  For a new factor had
entered his life.  Seven years before, in the library at Minto, his
mother had introduced him to the youngest daughter of General Charles
Grey,[2] who had been private secretary both to the Prince Consort and
to Queen Victoria.  The two families had been friends and political
allies for generations; some wit once called the Elliots "the Scots
Greys," for in the days of political patronage the loaves and the
fishes that were left by the one were snapped up by the other.
Presently Mary Grey makes her appearance in Melgund's journal as a
neighbour at dinner and a partner at balls.  He had a host of women
friends, for his chivalry and high spirits were extraordinarily
attractive, but his mind seemed to be set on other things than
marriage, and his men friends regarded him as the eternal adventurer
who shakes his bridle reins and rides away.  Something of the sort he
believed himself, and was accustomed to scoff at domesticity and lay
heavy odds in favour of consistent bachelordom.  But that spring sealed
his fate.  Melgund and Mary Grey met during Whitsuntide at Panshanger,
the Cowpers' place in Hertfordshire, a paradise of green lawns and
blue-bell woods, and a week later the engagement was announced.
Melgund was fortunate in many things, but his marriage was the crowning
felicity of his life.  He won a wife who was to be a comrade and
helpmate as perfect as ever fell to the lot of man.

[Sidenote: Marriage]

The marriage took place on the 28th July at St. Margaret's,
Westminster, and the honeymoon was spent at Lady Sarah Spencer's house
at Berkhamstead, and at Minto.  The bride's mother, in a letter to
Queen Victoria, has described it:--


    "Mary was deeply touched by your Majesty's telegram, received just
    as we were starting for church.  She really looked her best in
    white satin trimmed with dear Lady Minto's lace and veil.  The
    service was beautifully performed by Canon Farrar.  Six {70} little
    bridesmaids--the eldest was seven--Sybil M'Donnell (Louisa's little
    girl), Albert's Victoria, Beatrix Herbert's child, Lady
    Clarendon's, Lady Zetland's, and Lady Grosvenor's pretty little
    girls; Albert's little Charlie, Victoria's boy, and Louisa's
    Dunluce, as pages.  A large assemblage of mutual friends attended.
    Your Majesty's beautiful shawl and Princess Beatrice's brooch were
    much prized....  On occasions of this kind the loss of their dear
    father's blessing must be deeply felt, but I know he would have
    fully approved of their union.  They have been attracted to one
    another for years.  He is a thorough soldier, devoted to his
    profession, and full of merit."[3]


Of the many letters of congratulation which Melgund received, one may
be quoted from Lord Wolseley which was characteristic of their
friendship:--


    "I am very glad to hear you are about to marry, for I think as an
    eldest son you ought to do so.  I can therefore congratulate you
    with all my heart, and wish you every joy and blessing this world
    can afford.  You may be quite certain that, if ever I again command
    troops in the field, I shall be very glad to have you with me.  I
    wish you could take into the field with you five or six hundred
    mounted riflemen from the Volunteer Forces.  In the event of war,
    you would be just the man to raise such a corps, and with your
    position and the prestige of your having been in the Army and
    wounded when in command of Mounted Infantry, I am sure you would be
    able to pick and choose from all the corps in the Volunteer service
    and the Yeomanry--the term of service to be for the war and two
    months, if necessary, after the declaration of peace.  I wish you
    would think of this and work out the details, especially as to the
    course to be pursued to establish the corps.  This is a ridiculous
    letter to write to a man just about to be married, but you began
    the subject of fighting first, as children say when they are
    quarrelling.  Again I wish you every happiness, and wish it you
    with all my heart."



[1] Kohat.

[2] Second son of the second Earl Grey, who, as Prime Minister,
introduced the Reform Bill of 1832.

[3] This letter was found amongst Queen Victoria's papers and sent to
Lady Minto in 1916 by the desire of King George V.




{71}

CHAPTER IV

CANADA: 1883-85

Shortly before Melgund's marriage Lord Lansdowne was appointed
Governor-General of Canada, and Melgund, an old schoolfellow and
friend, was offered the post of military secretary.  The offer was at
once accepted, for it was a chance of service, and service overseas,
and under conditions where he could be accompanied by his young wife.
In his journal in September 1883 Melgund wrote: "I am at a loss how to
recommence this journal, and am sadly interrupted by Mary.  The world
has altogether changed for me, and my humble establishment, 'Pepper'
(his dog) and Harrington (his valet), has been transformed.  I am very
happy, and with Mary now lying on the sofa before me am vainly
attempting to sum up this journal to the present date."  The revolution
was complete, for the change from bachelordom was to be attended by the
transference of his energies from sport and occasional soldiering to
the grooves of official duties.  The appointment was both military and
civil: it was gazetted through the Colonial Office, accepted by the War
Office, and published in the Army List, so that, as he told his brother
Hugh, he went out as "recognized military secretary, cocked hat and
whole bag of tricks."  The honeymoon ended in a wild bustle of
preparation, and at the end of September 1883 the Melgunds sailed for
Canada.  Family history was repeating itself.  In 1837 Lady Melgund's
father, then Colonel Charles Grey, commanding the 71st Regiment,
embarked at Cork with his bride in a sailing vessel bound for Montreal,
and after a fair weather voyage reached his destination in fourteen
days, making a quicker passage than his brother-in-law, Lord Durham,
the newly {72} appointed Governor-General, who was a passenger in one
of the first steamships to cross the Atlantic.

[Sidenote: 1883]

The change to new scenes came at a fortunate time for Melgund, for not
only did it give his active mind an occupation, but it removed him from
the unwelcome proximity of home politics.  The Gladstone administration
was becoming to him, as to many others of his type, a dark obsession.
His letters to his mother in the year before her death are clouded with
forebodings and solemn with execration.  "The Turf is purest gold
compared with politics, and the extraordinary thing is that gentlemen
with heads on their shoulders should become so utterly warped."
Sometimes he made merry over it: "I write a line in the greatest haste,
but I feel that you should instantly be made aware of the frantic
excitement in political circles occasioned by yesterday's news in the
press--that there is strong reason to suspect that Gladstone and Dizzy
were changed at nurse, and that Dizzy is Gladstone and Gladstone
Dizzy."  But usually he was too depressed to joke.

Before he sailed he stayed at Howick with old Lord Grey.  "He is a
capital old fellow, and it is refreshing to find some one calling
himself a Liberal who is not afraid to own that England has great
imperial interests abroad which she is bound to look after if she wants
to keep up her position.  We literally shrieked over Gladstone." And
from Canada--regarding from a distance the confusion in Ireland and
Egypt--he wrote to Hugh: "I would not have thought any one could have
disgraced his country as Gladstone has done.  I wouldn't be seen
frequenting such an unpatriotic, disreputable coffee-house as the House
of Commons for a fortune.  I suppose when one gets out of England one
is more prone to remember that one is an Englishman."

[Sidenote: Canada in 1883]

To such a mood Canada was a welcome sedative.  It was more; it was an
essential stage in his political education.  Hitherto his political
views had been of the light-horseman type, acquired often second-hand
from the company into which he found himself thrown, not based, as were
his views on military questions, on personal thought and study.  At the
back of them were sound instincts, a generous humanity, and a certain
largeness of vision, {73} but they had not been adjusted to the needs
of common life.  He was to see at closer quarters the business of
government and to learn to make allowance for fallible politicians.
For years the glory of the British Empire and the infinite
possibilities of its future had fired his imagination, but he had
feared that democracy and imperialism might be incompatible.  He was
now, in a strenuous young democracy, to come to some understanding of
the root problems of the Empire, and to learn that upon the vigour and
freedom of the parts depended the organic strength and unity of the
whole.  Above all he was to realize that the problems of statecraft
were not to be solved by summary methods, but only by a slow and
patient adjustment.

He was fortunate in serving under a chief, like Lord Lansdowne, of
notable tact and judgment.  He was fortunate, too, in going to Canada
at a most interesting stage in her history.  Five years before all
British possessions in North America, except Newfoundland, had been
constituted into one Dominion.  In 1878 Sir John Macdonald had entered
upon that long tenure of power which endured till his death in 1891,
and the "national" policy of the Conservatives, based upon the creation
of a high tariff wall against the United States and a bold development
of Canada behind its shelter, had the assent of the great mass of the
people.  The province of Quebec held the balance between the two
parties, and in it the new Governor-General's French connections gave
him a unique popularity.  Meanwhile the Canadian Pacific Railway was
slowly moving to completion through occasional scandals and constant
difficulties.  The final arrangement with the Dominion Government had
been made in 1881, but the undertaking was still on the razor edge of
fortune, and the year after Melgund's arrival saw its most acute
financial crisis.  It was an era of vigorous national life and
far-reaching national ambitions, and it was a time, too, when some of
the greatest men of modern Canadian history were at the height of their
powers.  Sir John Macdonald, in especial, was the type of statesman
whom Melgund could study with sympathy and profit.  He was an
incomparable manager of men, and contrived by his dominating
personality and his keen eye for the essential in every problem to
drive as difficult a team of jealous {74} factions as ever Minister had
in charge.  He had, too, that largeness of outlook which is fitted to
inspire a young man at the threshold of his career.  He had been the
main architect of Canadian union; he had fostered the nationalism of
his country, realizing that without national pride on the part of the
units the Empire would be a feeble thing; it was his vision and faith,
more than the money of the capitalists, that carried the Canadian
Pacific Railway to brilliant success; and he never wavered from the
first days of his political life in insisting on the truth that the
prosperity of Canada depended upon its close and permanent connection
with Britain.  As Lord Rosebery said in unveiling his monument in the
crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, "he grasped the central idea that the
British Empire was the greatest secular agency for good now known to
mankind; he determined to die under it, and strove that Canada should
live under it."

[Sidenote: 1884]

The Melgunds arrived in Canada a week before the Lansdownes, and were
welcomed by Lord Lorne, the retiring Governor-General, and Princess
Louise.  They took up their quarters at Government House, Ottawa, till
Rideau Cottage was made ready for them, and in December were settled in
their own home.  They were received with extraordinary kindness by the
people of Canada, for to their personal charm they added ancestral
credentials.  Lady Melgund's family had many claims on Canada's
gratitude, and among a people where Scottish blood predominated a
Border Elliot bore an honoured name.  It was an ideal way in which to
begin married life, for the honeymoon atmosphere was not marred by the
weight of a too onerous household, and the young people were free to
move about and see the world.  They visited many parts of Eastern
Canada, and in the summer of 1884 a trip to the United States took them
to Albany, Newport, New York, and Boston.  There was endless sport,
too--skating in winter, at which both became experts, and fishing in
those noble Canadian rivers, which had not yet become the preserves of
millionaires.  On the Cascapedia, which flows into the Bay of Chaleur,
three blissful weeks were spent, for Melgund, like his chief, was a
devoted fisherman.  The modest angler of to-day will read with envy the
casual jottings which record their baskets.  In five consecutive June
days, {75} when there was supposed to be no great run of fish, Lord
Lansdowne had twenty-six salmon to his own rod, averaging over 25 lbs.,
including one of 43 lbs.

[Sidenote: The Sudan expedition]

The day-to-day duties of a military secretary are prosaic enough, but
Melgund speedily found tasks more important than the ordering of the
Governor-General's household and the oversight of his stables.  Affairs
in Egypt were marching to calamity.  In January 1884 General Gordon had
proceeded to Khartum at the request of the British Government to carry
out the evacuation.  By March it was clear that there could be no
peaceful withdrawal of the Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan, and by May
Khartum was cut off from the world.  It was not till August that the
British Government decided to send a relief expedition under the
command of Lord Wolseley.  One of Wolseley's first steps was to cable
through the Colonial Secretary to Lord Lansdowne to inquire if Canada
could provided 300 _voyageurs_ (whose value he had learned in the old
Red River campaign) to act as steersmen in the Nile boats.  He also
asked if Melgund could be permitted to go to Egypt in command of the
party.  The Governor-General was willing, but Melgund, after much
searching of heart, felt himself bound to decline; his wife was soon to
be confined, and he dared not leave her.  There was no time to be lost,
so Sir John Macdonald agreed to the request of the British Government,
and Melgund set off for Ottawa to recruit the force, while Lord
Lansdowne remained at Quebec.  It was not an easy task to enlist so
many picked men in a few weeks.  The Militia Department had to be
tactfully handled, and Mr. Caron, the Minister of Militia, co-operated
loyally.  The _voyageur_ class of the Red River days had virtually
disappeared, and the men who had served with that expedition, and whom
Wolseley specially asked for, were now for the most part sedentary folk
and growing old.  Melgund had recourse to the lumbermen, who in the
winter were quartered in shanties, felling timber in the woods, but in
the spring were engaged in rafting logs down the rivers and in working
their "scows" upstream with provisions.  Wolseley stipulated that
Indians should be included, particularly the Iroquois of Caughnawaga.
The War Office required that the party, which was presently {76}
increased to 500, should arrive in European waters by 1st October.

The contingent ultimately numbered 367--collected from Ottawa, Three
Rivers, Caughnawaga, and Manitoba.  The Manitoba draft included thirty
Indians, the Ottawa party was divided equally between Canadians and
French Canadians, and the Three Rivers men were all French Canadians.
Major Frederick Denison, who had been Wolseley's orderly in the Red
River campaign, was appointed to the command.  The Abb Bouchard, a
missionary in Egypt, who had visited Khartum and happened to be home on
leave, went out as chaplain, and Colonel Kennedy was added as an unpaid
foreman, because the Manitoba Indians would not go without him.

[Sidenote: Military duties]

Melgund spent a hectic month, and his task was not facilitated by the
British Government, who, after he had made all arrangements with the
Allan and Dominion lines, suddenly announced that they had chartered a
special ship to take the men straight to Alexandria.  It was not easy
to impress upon the authorities that Canadian boatmen had voracious
appetites, and could not support life on army rations.  But all
difficulties were surmounted, and on Sunday, 14th September, the party
embarked at Montreal on the _Ocean King_.  Next day Lord Lansdowne
inspected them at Quebec, and they began their journey towards that
desert town where Gordon was waiting upon death.  It was Canada's first
participation as a Dominion in an imperial war, and it was Melgund's
first important administrative task performed on his own
responsibility, for Lord Lansdowne left all the details in his hands.
From the correspondence and reports the reader gathers a strong
impression of the good sense, tact, energy, and business capacity of
the military secretary.

Three months later, on 13th December, his daughter Eileen was born at
Ottawa.  Sir John Macdonald happened to be dining that night at
Government House, and proposed the toast of "La Petite Canadienne."

Wolseley, through no fault of his own, was too late; Khartum fell on
January 25, 1885, and Gordon died on the Dervish spears; the British
expedition retraced its steps, and the Sudan was in the Mahdi's hands.
Shame and anxiety were universal throughout the Empire, and {77} from
the black clouds which overhung the Egyptian frontier might at any
moment come the thunderbolt of a barbarian invasion.  The possibility
of military aid from the Dominions was mooted, and the Dominions
themselves began to inquire into their military assets.  As early as
March 1884 Mr. Goldwin Smith had written to Melgund: "It looks almost
as if your military service might be required on the other side of the
water.  A war, though terrible, would not be an unmixed calamity if it
put a stop to the work of those wretched factions in England.  But it
would sadly undeceive the English people as to the armaments and
military disposition of Canada, about which enormous falsehoods have
been told them.  One of our public men[1] did not shrink from assuring
them that we had a force of 400,000 men, organized and ready for the
field.  He meant the 'enrolled Militia,' which can hardly be said to
exist, even on paper."

The dispatch of the _voyageur_ contingent was followed by duties of a
different type which gave Melgund a valuable insight into the problems
of imperial defence.  A committee was appointed in 1884, consisting of
the Minister of Militia, Mr. Caron, the Deputy-Minister, Lieut.-Colonel
Panet, Major-General Middleton commanding the Canadian Militia, and
Melgund himself, with Mr. Colin Campbell as secretary, to go through
the papers in the archives on the subject of Canadian defence, and
report on their use.  The committee confined itself to coast defence,
and considered a vast mass of documents--reports of royal commissions,
dispatches from Secretaries of State and Governor-Generals, official
and private letters of admirals and generals, memoranda by all sorts
and conditions of experts.  In the voluminous correspondence on the
subject we find Melgund sorting and arranging documents with the
industry of a Record Office official.  He had also an immediate and
practical defence problem to face.  In the spring of 1885 there were
rumours of a Fenian raid from the United States across the Manitoba
frontier to be directed against Winnipeg.  The Clan-na-Gael saw in the
troubles then threatening in the Canadian North-West a chance for their
peculiar brand of patriotism, and the Canadian Government had before
them the _dossiers_ of the various {78} firebrands who were believed to
be implicated.  Nothing came of the enterprise, but Canada was well
prepared, and had the raiders marched they would have found a stern
reception.  Melgund's memorandum on the subject works out in minute
detail the nature of the welcome which awaited the invasion.

[Sidenote: 1885]

But the most interesting of the questions which during these months he
had to consider was the possibility of Canada assisting the British
Army in the Egyptian campaign.  The whole earth was full of the rumours
of war, no man knew where the Sudan entanglement might end, and the old
suspicion of Russia on the Indian frontier had grown into active fear.
Australia had sent troops to Egypt, and it was felt that Canada could
not be eclipsed by New South Wales.  The Egyptian campaign came to a
close before active steps were taken, but it was fortunate for Melgund
that he had to look into the matter, since the insight and knowledge
which he thereby acquired were to be of the utmost value to him when
fifteen years later, in a position of greater authority, he had to face
the same question.  On one point he was clear from the start.  Any
Canadian force must be enrolled for Imperial service and not as
Canadian militia, and the selection must lie with the Imperial
authorities.  This was also the view of Sir John Macdonald, and of
Colonel Otter, one of the chief militia officers.  The latter believed
that no militia regiment could take the field as it stood, or indeed
could furnish more than twenty per cent. of its officers and men as fit
for foreign service.  But he also believed that it would be perfectly
easy to recruit a force--say a brigade of three battalions--for a term
of not less than a year's service abroad, from Canadians and from
Britons in the United States, and that such a force could be trained
and got ready in less than a fourth of the time required for ordinary
recruits.  Proposals poured in for the undertaking.  Major-General
Winburn Laurie, an officer still on the British active list but
resident in Nova Scotia, proffered a scheme for a force which he was
willing to command; General Middleton had another; Mr. Goldwin Smith
suggested the sending of a Canadian battery of field artillery, to
which Melgund replied that no single Canadian battery was fit to take
the field and that a composite {79} battery would take too long to
create.  Early in 1885, while the Imperial need still seemed urgent, he
wrote to his brother Fitzwilliam Elliot setting forth his views, and
the letter was shown to Lord Wolseley.  His brother, who had himself
served in Canada, approved, and concluded with some gloomy
prognostications of trouble in the Canadian North-West.  That may have
been done to make sure that the stormy petrel would not grow restless
in a too pacific clime.  "Don't be in an infernal hurry to get out," he
wrote.  "Every man ought to stick to his post now, where he knows the
ropes, and he may be perfectly certain that he will have his work cut
out for him."

[Sidenote: The Riel Rebellion]

The fraternal prophecy was right.  Fifteen years earlier the Red River
rebellion under the half-breed Louis Riel had been broken by Wolseley's
expedition to Fort Garry, and Riel had fled to the United States and
suffered sentence of outlawry.  Since then things had changed; Fort
Garry was now the rising city of Winnipeg, and the three months from
Toronto to the Red River by boat and portage were now five days by the
Canadian Pacific Railway.  But the discontent of the half-breeds and
the Indians remained; only the problem had shifted five hundred miles
into the wilds.  It was the story of the Great Trek in South Africa
repeated; the half-breeds fell back before the advance of officialdom
and discovered grievances when officialdom overtook them--land laws
which offended their notion of justice, new regulations which they did
not understand.  It may fairly be said that there was nothing in the
policy of the Canadian Government to give them ground for complaint,
but they did not easily appreciate the complexities or the delays of
the administrative machine, and they had the old dislike of a
conservative people to any novelty.  Moreover, there were white
settlers to fan the discontent, men who had taken up land in the
Edmonton, Battleford, and Prince Albert districts in the expectation
that the new railway would follow them, and who, when the route chosen
lay far to the south, found themselves _en l'air_.  Also the
Indians--the Cree nation--were out of temper.  They had seen their
hunting grounds broken up, and the buffalo, which was the backbone of
their livelihood, exterminated.  In 1883, 150,000 buffalo robes were
sold in St. Paul, and next year only 300.  The wonder {80} is not that
trouble broke out, but that, with so much inflammable material to hand,
it proved such a flash in the pan.

The outbreak began in the fork of the North and South Saskatchewan
Rivers, where lay a Cree reserve, nearly three hundred miles from the
nearest point on the Canadian Pacific Railway.  On March 22, 1885, news
reached Ottawa that Riel, who had long ago been free to return to
Canada, had seized the mail bags and cut the telegraph wires at a place
called Duck Lake in the fork.  General Middleton, commanding the
Canadian Militia, left at once for Winnipeg in the hope that the rising
might be quelled without bloodshed.  The situation was sufficiently
grave, for in that spacious North-West there were white women and
children in the farms along the river banks dispersed among 30,000
Indians, with no protection except the scattered posts of the 500
Mounted Police.  On the 28th came news of a fight between a detachment
of Police and Riel's rebels, in which the Police had over a dozen
killed and were forced to retire to Fort Carlton on the North
Saskatchewan.  There they were joined next day by Colonel Irvine,
commanding the Police, and after burning the fort they retired
downstream to Prince Albert.  This meant that all the white settlements
were directly threatened, and the Militia were at once put in motion
and a call sent out for volunteers.  The 90th battalion at Winnipeg
were the nearest troops; the rest must travel the better part of two
thousand miles from Eastern Canada.

Melgund left Ottawa on the 26th, and was in Winnipeg on the 30th.
Middleton had asked for him, and the Governor-General assented, with
many injunctions to remember that he was a married man and not to run
into needless danger.  They left Qu'appelle station, the nearest on the
Canadian Pacific line to the scene of hostilities, on 2nd April, having
only between 300 and 400 men, mostly from the 90th regiment.  On the
6th Melgund was appointed Chief of the Staff and the march began in
earnest.  It was the worst season of the year for campaigning, for the
winter was breaking up, the snow was turning into slush, and the trails
were quagmires.  Rain, blizzards, and a perpetual high wind attended
them, and {81} their boots froze to the stirrup irons; yet the force
did its twenty miles a day, and the Hudson Bay Company laboured
manfully at transport and supplies.

On the 13th they were at Humboldt, and the next step was to secure
Clarke's Crossing on the Saskatchewan.  This was done on the 17th, and
the force, now increased to some 800, began its descent of the river,
moving on both banks.  News had come of Riel, who was at Batoche,
thirty-three miles away, with one Gabriel Dumont, a famous rifle shot
and buffalo-hunter, directing operations.  On the 24th they came in
touch with the enemy, who was strongly posted in a ravine called Fish
Creek on the right bank of the stream.  Melgund, who was on the left
bank at the time, brought the troops across, and all day long the
half-breeds in their rifle pits hung up the advance.  The force engaged
was barely 1,000 strong, and the losses that day amounted to 10 killed
and 45 wounded.  Middleton himself had a narrow escape with a bullet
through his cap, while both his aides-de-camp were wounded.  The
position was grave, and he decided not to expose his small volunteer
force to needless losses.  In pouring rain camp was made, and there the
troops waited till 7th May, when considerable reinforcements arrived.
Meantime the enemy had fallen back from Fish Creek to Batoche.
Suspense prevailed at Ottawa as to the fate of that small force,
composed as it was mainly of volunteers.  To Melgund fell the duty of
selecting each camping ground, of posting the sentries, and riding
round the patrols, while the Indians from their rifle pits and
hiding-places showed discrimination in trying to pick off the officers.
A rumour which circulated in Ottawa that Melgund had been shot did not
tend to allay the anxiety.

[Sidenote: The advance on Batoche]

The advance on Batoche began very early on 9th May, with the steamer
_Northcote_ in attendance.  By 8 a.m. it had reached the township, and
found the rebels strongly ensconced in rifle pits and a thick belt of
bush.  Middleton, personally most gallant but very careful of his men,
hesitated to rush the place, and all day futile skirmishing continued.
In the afternoon, Melgund to his disgust was sent off to the telegraph
station at Humboldt with dispatches, and so missed the last stage of
the campaign.  {82} For on the morning of the 11th the General was
persuaded by his officers to allow them to carry the position by storm,
and in an hour or two the rebellion was over.  Dumont escaped across
the frontier, and Riel was captured four days later, and was eventually
tried and hanged.

It was a curious little war, one of the smallest in recent history, for
there were never as much as 2,000 men in action on both sides.  But its
importance was not to be measured by its size.  It was the first
campaign in which a purely civilian and volunteer force was in action,
and so must be read as the opening page of a famous chapter.  The
transport difficulties, which were the core of the problem, were
brilliantly surmounted.  All the troops, except the 90th battalion and
some of the mounted scouts, were brought from Lower Canada, and the
feat was a commentary upon the progress of Canadian communications.  To
quote Melgund: "From Ottawa to Qu'appelle is 1,685 miles.  From
Qu'appelle to Batoche is a march of 243 miles.  Wolseley left Toronto
on the 21st May 1870, and arrived at Fort Garry on the 24th
August--three months.  In 1885 the last troops ordered out left
Montreal for the front on the 11th of May, and arrived at Winnipeg on
the 20th of May--nine days.  So much had fifteen years of civilization
and a railway done for Canada."  The expedition was a first-rate
advertisement to the world of the agricultural riches of the
North-West, and, by making immigrants safe, it hastened its settlement.
Also it compelled an inquiry into the grievances of the Indians and the
half-breeds, and the whole system of administering the new provinces.
The rebels were in revolt against the Dominion Government but not
against Britain, and at their feasts drank the health of Queen Victoria
before that of Riel.

One part of the system which needed overhauling was the Mounted Police.
Lord Lansdowne, in a letter to Melgund during the expedition, stated
some of the reforms which he thought essential: an increase in numbers,
and a first-class man in command who could himself undertake the
direction of a "little war."  The Government of Canada was of the same
opinion, and in the summer the post of commandant of the North-West
Police was offered by Sir John Macdonald to Melgund.  It was a {83}
high compliment, as was shown by the later refusal of Canada to
consider a British officer for the post, and it proved that Melgund had
the confidence of the Dominion.  It offered him the active open-air
life which he loved, and a problem of first-rate military importance to
solve, and he was sorely tempted to accept.  In the end he declined,
and one of his chief reasons was his wife.  He would have been
compelled to leave her for weeks at a time alone in the prairie at
Regina while he visited his outland stations.

General Middleton returned home to be officially thanked for his work,
and to receive the K.C.B. which he well deserved, and in his report he
laid stress upon Melgund's services and asked that they should be
recognized.  In the following year Queen Victoria invited Melgund to
Windsor, and proposed to decorate him with the C.B. for his work in the
North-West.  The recommendation had, however, to go through the
Colonial Office, and, since the Dominion authorities considered that
jealousy might be created by the special honouring of a British officer
in a campaign which Canada regarded as peculiarly her own, the matter
was dropped.

[Sidenote: Return to England]

By the autumn of 1885 Melgund had resolved to return to England,
several private reasons contributing to his decision; so early in
January 1886 he was home again with his small household, taking with
him the memory of many friendships and a warm interest in Canada's
future.  How keen was this interest may be seen from his correspondence
after his return with Lord Lansdowne and many Canadian friends, and his
efforts to induce the _Times_ to give more attention to Canadian news.
What Canada thought of him may be gathered from Sir John Macdonald's
farewell.  "I shall not live to see it," said the Prime Minister; "but
some day Canada will welcome you back as Governor-General."



[1] Apparently Sir John Macdonald.




{84}

CHAPTER V

SOLDIERING AND POLITICS AT HOME

[Sidenote: 1886]

For twelve years after his return from Canada Melgund was content to
cease from foreign wanderings.  His whole attitude of mind had changed;
he was no longer restless, but eager to fling his whole energies into
the task which came first to his hand.  Canada had accustomed him to
service, and he was now in the mood to forgo glittering and adventurous
enterprises and work hard and soberly at what appeared to be his
immediate vocation.  He found that vocation awaiting him.  Having long
been an enthusiast for the Volunteer auxiliary forces, he had now an
opportunity of pushing their cause and perfecting their organization.
Those twelve years were strictly a period of professional soldiering.
He toiled at the work of his command, he preached the gospel of the
Volunteer with voice and pen, and his laborious activities brought him
no reward except the approval of other soldiers and the satisfaction of
his own mind.  He had reached that stage when the ambitions of youth
are not forgotten, but the impatience of youth is curbed, and a man
schools himself to tasks which may not kindle the fancy but approve
themselves to the reason.

[Sidenote: Stands for Parliament]

He arrived in England to find the country in a political turmoil.  In
June 1885 the Liberal Ministry had been beaten on the Budget, and the
general election in November had put Lord Salisbury in power with a
precarious majority of Parnellites and Tories.  While Melgund was
crossing the Atlantic Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion to
Irish Home Rule, and early in 1886 the provisional Government was
defeated and the {85} Liberals were again in power.  Then began the
break up of the Liberal party, a Liberal-Unionist group came into
being, and Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule bill was, on its second reading,
defeated by thirty votes.  The general election which followed was one
of the most famous in recent history, and Melgund, feeling that it was
the duty of every man in such a crisis to play a part, appeared, very
much to his own surprise, as a candidate for that institution which he
had aforetime described as a "disreputable coffee-house."  He was
invited to stand for Peebles and Selkirk against Sir Charles Tennant,
and for Berwickshire against Edward Marjoribanks (the late Lord
Tweedmouth), but he chose the Hexham division of Northumberland,
chiefly on the advice of his brother-in-law Albert Grey, who was
himself standing against Mr. Wentworth Beaumont in the Tyneside
division.  Melgund stood as a Liberal-Unionist, and in his election
address dealt only with the Irish question, "the surrender to an
organized rebellion repeatedly denounced by your present Ministers."
The constituency was one of the largest in the kingdom, and, as he
started late, he had only a fortnight for his campaign.  He put every
ounce of weight into the contest, and might well have beaten the Home
Rule candidate, who was something of a trimmer, but for the abstention
of Tory voters.  The alliance between Tory and Unionist was still a
loose one, and stalwart Conservatives objected to vote for a man who
called himself any sort of a Liberal.  The result was that he polled
440 votes less than the Conservative at the election in the year
before, and, though the Liberal poll fell by over a thousand, it was
enough to give the Home Ruler a majority of 967.  Melgund heartily
enjoyed the fight, and was not greatly depressed by the result.  In
seconding the vote of thanks to the sheriff after the declaration of
the poll at Hexham, he said "that the Unionists could at any rate
congratulate themselves that their army was winning from one end of
England to the other, and that though they had lost in the Hexham
division they must recollect that no great battle was ever won without
a few losses."

Albert Grey was defeated at Tyneside, but Arthur Miot held
Roxburghshire, and Sir Charles Tennant went down at Peebles.  Had
Melgund chosen to take this last {86} constituency when the offer was
made to him his whole career might have shaped itself on different
lines.

He was happier about public affairs, "Now that Mr. Gladstone is finally
disposed of," he wrote to Lord Wolseley in July of that year, "we may
start on new lines in Ireland, and I can't help thinking that possibly
some opportunity may crop up of getting something to do."  But that
something did not turn up, so he flung himself into his Volunteer work.
The Border Mounted Rifles were that year at the height of their
strength, with two troops, one at Hawick and one at Kelso, and their
commanding officer was busy throughout the summer and autumn with
shooting competitions, summer camps, and manoeuvres.  Parliament was
suggested again in 1887 by his brother Arthur--a division of
Edinburgh--and was categorically declined.  He had made up his mind for
good and all upon that point.  "The slavery to a constituency and the
unhealthy life of an M.P. are not enticing, and to assume a profession
one ought to foresee success, which I should not.  In any case it would
be accepting a line of life which would be peculiarly uncongenial, and
not in itself likely to be very beneficial from either a patriotic or
selfish view.  Opportunity is the thing to wish for, and I doubt a seat
in Parliament being an opportunity to me."  So he stuck to his military
work and began seriously to study the literature of his subject.  His
journal records his admiration for Napier's _Peninsular War_--


    "A delightful book, the very essence of soldiering--only wish I had
    been up in it before.  While going into details, every line he
    writes brings out clearly the incalculable value of individual
    character, the power to take a correct view in an emergency and act
    on it.  The Duke of Wellington is the personification of common
    sense, possessing the qualities of certain success--courage,
    prudence, determination, patience, the gift of acting at once, and
    with them all--though not necessary to success--honesty.  I have
    been reading some of his dispatches to-night, clear and straight to
    the point, and bringing in small details in a way which a less
    experienced man would almost certainly have thought unnecessary."


{87}

[Sidenote: 1887-1888]

In July 1887 he stayed at the Staff College for the Aldershot Review,
when the 2nd Army Corps was entirely composed of Volunteer battalions.
He was enthusiastic at the performance of the Volunteers: "the finest
sight I ever saw ... and of immense significance."  In June of the
following year the scheme of brigading the Volunteers took effect, and
Melgund was offered and accepted the command of the Scottish Lowland
Brigade with the rank of brigadier-general.  It was an infantry brigade
of six battalions, with one regiment of Yeomanry attached.  The journal
records: "Though I always believed that by sticking to soldiering one
might, with the way the Auxiliary Forces are coming to the front, make
something of it, I did not expect to be promoted so soon; and now,
looking ahead with one's position recognized, there is room to
rise--with the opportunity."

The journal throughout 1888 is full of speculations on military and
foreign affairs, in which the name of Kitchener begins to appear.  The
following is a typical entry:--


    "2_nd December._--Have just finished _A Nation in Arms_ by von der
    Goltz, a bad translation from the German.  Purely a professional
    book, but the best handbook to _bona fide_ soldiering that I know:
    goes much into the moral qualities required of officers and men,
    and the qualities required of chiefs.  A knowledge of these things
    is what makes a good soldier and a good leader, far more than any
    learning acquired from books alone.  It is rare to get book
    learning combined with the greater qualities--insight into
    character, ability to lead, and the instinct as to what other men
    may do in certain circumstances.  This last is, I think, only
    acquired by experience.  If these greater qualities are combined
    with actual learning the result is a very first-rate man, but the
    combination must be rare, and I believe our greatest leaders have,
    as a rule, perfected themselves more by experience of life and
    close observation of other men than by study and research.  I
    expect it is in their leisure hours--which in an active man's life
    must largely be in the autumn of his career--that they have had
    time to reap much knowledge from books."


{88} It was his favourite doctrine that knowledge of human nature
ranked first, second, and third in any human pursuit.  Wolseley was his
constant mentor, and he has a story of him worth repeating.  "When
Sandhurst was at the War Office he wanted to get Wolseley's opinion of
two candidates for official posts to lay before Campbell-Bannerman, so
he asked Wolseley if he could let him have some written opinion which
he could show to the Prime Minister.  Wolseley gave him the following
letter: 'A. is very clever but a damned thief.  B. is very honest but a
damned fool,' and signed it officially as Adjutant-General."

In the summer of 1889 we find the first mention of a figure which was
to play a great part in the next decade.  "Albert Grey came in this
morning wanting to know if I could recommend any man suitable to take
charge of the affairs of a company, on the Zambesi, of which he is a
Director, the idea being to open out Central Africa, working from the
south.  Rhodes seems to be the moving spirit (brother of the man in the
Royals[1]).  I believe he has made a fortune in South Africa."  Melgund
thought the whole affair a very doubtful business, and his opinion was
confirmed when, at the banquet to Mr. Arthur Balfour given in Edinburgh
in December of that year, the chairman, the Duke of Fife, raised the
question again, told him that the new British South Africa Company
meant to send out an expedition next year, and asked Melgund if he
would like to command it.  "In the meantime the Company have sent out
some black bulls, escorted by four Blues.  The object is to propitiate
Lobangula (or whatever he calls himself), the native chief, and it is
said the Blues are to appear before him in full fig, tin bellies and
all, and are to leave their tin bellies as well as the bulls as an
offering.  At any rate bulls and escort have gone, and it sounds to me
one of the strangest performances I ever heard of."  Already Melgund
had his doubts about the "brother of the man in the Royals," doubts
which on a better acquaintance it pleased Providence to increase.

[Sidenote: 1889]

In the autumn of 1889 Melgund was compelled by pressure of work to hand
over the command of the Border Mounted Rifles to Lord Dalkeith.  It was
a hard severance.  On 31st December he wrote in his journal:---


{89}


    "The old year has been a fairly busy one for me on account of
    Brigade work.  I resigned the command of the Border Mounted Rifles
    in the autumn.  Giving them up was a pang, for I had commanded them
    ever since they were raised in '72.  Sir George Douglas asked me if
    I would take command of such a corps if it was raised, and he
    practically secured the names of those first joining.  I took
    command, and retained it till I resigned the other day, as I felt
    it was not satisfactory to attempt to go on with it together with
    the command of the Brigade.  But it is impossible to tell how
    devoted I have been to the corps: it has been such an interest to
    me, and I have been so anxious to make it a _bona fide_ soldiers'
    corps with good discipline, and none of the lax ideas which some
    seem to think are justifiable in a Volunteer corps.  The
    consequence was it became exceptionally smart and workmanlike, and
    has earned a reputation to be proud of.  I have worn its uniform in
    India and in Africa and in the Russo-Turkish campaign, and have had
    letters from New Zealand and Trinidad asking for information as to
    its organization for the guidance of corps there.  Dalkeith has
    succeeded me: he was officially junior to Cunningham, but the
    latter has always behaved most generously, and entirely put himself
    aside in deference to Dalkeith's great local position.  As to
    Charlie Cunningham, I have never anywhere seen a better officer to
    command irregular cavalry in the field, full of leading qualities
    and a great power over men.  I can't help feeling that my
    resignation of the command of the Border Mounted Rifles has
    separated me from what has hitherto been a great part of my life;
    however, they remain in my Brigade.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "I have much to look back upon during the last seven years--the
    Egyptian Campaign, Canada, the Riel Rebellion, and have been
    married, and now I am a Brigadier-General.  It has been a very
    eventful time, and one likes to think of it all.  And now we will
    look ahead for another year and what it brings."


The journal during the late 'eighties records much {90} beside
soldiering--dinners, visits, conversations, days with hounds, and the
thousand and one interests of a full life.  An entry may be quoted:--



      *      *      *      *      *

    "Dined with Jersey at his annual dinner of old Oxford and Cambridge
    men.  Dick Webster (Solicitor-General), 'Bunny' Pelham, 'Friday'
    Thornton, 'The Professor'--Lawes, Spencer Lyttelton, Bob Follett,
    etc., etc.  Webster's has been a remarkable rise.  He was at
    Cambridge with me, though my senior, and was a wonderful runner,
    especially for two miles.  I ran fourth in the University two miles
    when he won.  If I had been third, which I think I ought to have
    been, I should have run for Cambridge against Oxford in the
    inter-University races, and, as I represented the University in the
    steeplechase at Aylesbury, would have been a sort of double blue,
    which at that time I should have greatly valued; but I used to ride
    so much that I was not half trained for running.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "Women's rage for matchmaking is a marvel, and the cold-blooded way
    in which they decide that an idiot or an effeminate ass, or a
    perjured debauchee, 'will do very nicely,' provided, of course, he
    is possessed of means, for some charming girl who is only blinded
    by the flattery of being proposed to, and who ought by her kind
    friends to be enlightened instead of being helped into the pit,
    is--well, I shouldn't like to say what it is!"


Every winter the Melgunds rented a small hunting box in the Grafton,
Bicester, or Pytchley country.  Melgund had never been able to afford
to buy made hunters; he invariably rode young horses, schooled them,
and, if all went well, sold them at a profit.  He was very proud one
year, with six horses in the stable, to find that his hunting expenses
had been 19.


    "Received a cheque this morning for 300 for 'Stockdale.'  Very
    sorry to part with him.  The best-tempered horse I ever had.
    However, it can't be helped, as I can't afford to keep such
    expensive {91} luxuries.  Jumped a highish gate on him in a wire
    fence off the high road the other day.  Sinclair told me that if I
    rode like that I should break my neck!  The greatest compliment I
    have had paid me for some time!"


[Sidenote: 1890]

He had a wealth of hunting stories.  He remembered during a run when
the fox crossed the Ale seeing one of the hounds in hot pursuit emerge
from the water with a salmon in its mouth.  Another day he watched the
fox jump over the White Rock on the Minto Craigs, a drop of a hundred
feet.  There was a moment of anxiety lest the hounds should follow, but
the huntsman succeeded in calling them off in time.  The rest of the
pack were waiting below, and on breaking up the fox one of the hounds
swallowed the brush whole lengthways.  The whip made frantic endeavours
to pull it out, but although his arm was half-way down the hound's
throat he only succeeded in retrieving a few hairs!

[Sidenote: The midnight steeplechase]

While hunting with the Quorn in March 1890 Melgund recorded


    "about the maddest performance I have ever seen--a moonlight
    steeplechase.  I suppose the old prints of such a race started the
    idea; at any rate we were told that competitors would meet at Lady
    Gussy Fane's at 11.30 p.m.  The night was pitch dark, and it seemed
    ridiculous to think of going.  However, my host and hostess were
    bent on it, and off we went, driving to Melton, where another trap
    had been ordered to take us to the course.  We went first to Lady
    Gussy's, and there found most of the competitors assembled,
    beautifully got up in boots and breeches, with their night-shirts
    over all.  The latter were so much frilled that I suspected Lady
    Gussy had issued a supply.

    "We then drove over to the course near Melton Spinney; a dark,
    cloudy night, though there was a moon which made a feeble attempt
    to show itself.  The race was to be run over some small fences
    which I believe are used for a schooling course.  Over the fences
    of the country it would have been an impossibility.  I could only
    just see what the {92} first fence was like by looking close into
    it.  It appeared to be an old fence, cut over and weak, but pretty
    high, quite five feet, with a very small shallow ditch on the far
    side.  A lantern was placed at each end of the fence, and the other
    fences were marked with lanterns, and a lantern in a tree for the
    turning-point.  They were to finish over the first fence, and the
    first over was to be the winner.  There were, I think, ten runners
    there--Burnaby and Wilson (in the Blues), Warner (the Master of the
    Quorn), Zobrowski, M'Neil, a new man to me, a mad Irishman, Gerald
    and Sidney Paget.

    "The performance began by M'Neil taking a preliminary canter over
    the first fence, over which he tumbled head over heels, and then
    they started.  I stood at the first fence, and the crowd of
    nightshirts rushed desperately by me with a crash over, or rather
    through it, and as far as I could see without a fall; the only two
    who went slowly at it being the two Pagets, who walked through the
    hole made by the rest.  So they all disappeared in the darkness
    till one heard them tearing back again to win.  All I could see was
    two night-shirts racing for the last fence, over which one landed
    with a lead of half a length, the other falling.  The winner turned
    out to be Burnaby, the second, who fell, being Zobrowski.  I only
    saw one loose horse come in--Zobrowski had remounted at once.  They
    tell me Zobrowski was leading up to the last fence, and it was very
    confusing owing to the number of lights where it was to be jumped,
    but Burnaby managed to get first run at it.  I do not fancy the
    fences were much, but all the same it was a strange and marvellous
    performance.  What extreme youth and champagne can do!

    "The course was crowded with spectators and foot people.  The
    competitors, I believe, adjourned to Lady Gussy's afterwards for
    supper, where no doubt there was a cheery evening!  We drove home
    to Somerly, the moon coming out so bright that lamps would have
    been unnecessary if the race had been run an hour later."


[Sidenote: 1889-90]

The last time Melgund rode in a point-to-point race was {93} in this
year.  There were twelve competitors, all members of the Buccleuch
Hunt.  They started from Horslihill, and went round the Minto hills to
Teviot Bank, a distance of about seven miles.  Melgund won the race
easily on "Polecat."

Horses did not absorb Melgund's entire affections, for he was never
happy without a dog, always chosen from that sporting breed of Dandy
Dinmonts peculiar to the Borders.  "Pepper," "Dandy," and "Dehra" all
in turn shadowed their master, and each received that measure of
devotion which their adoring fidelity deserved.


    "Poor old 'Pepper' died this morning.  He has been the truest of
    the true, and never cared for any one but me; the hardest and
    gamest I ever saw.  I got him as a puppy from the keeper at
    Branxholm, and he must be over sixteen years old.  He was with me
    through all the most eventful years of my life.  I never took him
    campaigning, but the old dog was always the same to me when I came
    back, however long I was away from him.  My best friend for many
    years is gone, I shall always remember what an honest, thoroughly
    true model of a friend he was.  I miss the old fellow so!"


[Sidenote: Fishing]

Melgund was also an ardent fisherman, putting fishing as a sport next
to hunting.  He was constantly on the Tweed, on the Floors, or
Makerstoun, or Bemerside waters.  He chronicles the talk of George
Wright, the fisherman, who considered that "London maun be a gran'
place for leddies--Hyde Park will be their best cast, and they'll use
verra fine tackle there."

The Melgunds, having both passed their tests, became members of the
London and the Wimbledon Skating Clubs.  Mr. Algy Grosvenor, himself a
finished skater, first instructed Lady Melgund in the art of combined
hand-in-hand figure skating.  A few years later the artificial ice
rink, called "Niagara," at Westminster, organized by Mr. Hwfa Williams,
gave them endless amusement and exercise.  It became the daily resort
of skating friends, while a periodical fancy dress or masked carnival
produced amazing costumes and baffling incognitos.  Melgund was one of
the few hunting men who {94} welcomed an occasional frost, if not too
protracted: it gave his hunters a rest, and he and his wife would skate
all day long as well as by moonlight.  A spectator, after watching Lady
Melgund's rapid and dashing turns, said that he considered her style
was "abandoned," while an old Scots minister, in a subdued religious
voice, spoke of it as "unear-r-thly."

[Sidenote: 1890-91]

The year 1890 was remarkable for its literary activity, and Melgund
wrote several articles and papers dealing with the mounted rifleman, of
whom he had become the chief prophet.  He took part in a symposium in
the _United Service Magazine_, where he championed the cause of mounted
infantry as against cyclists and ordinary yeomanry, and secured
Wolseley's assent to his views.  September was taken up with the Army
Manoeuvres, on which he wrote a detailed report, full of shrewdness and
good sense:--


    "The regiment leaders in our Brigade were good; French of the 19th
    a first-rate soldier, excellent in all I saw him do, decided and
    full of dash.  Of the commanding officers on the other side I had
    little opportunity of forming an opinion, with the exception of
    Hutton of the Mounted Infantry.  He thoroughly knows his work and
    appreciates the rle of Mounted Infantry, and he placed his men
    capitally.  He is one of those of whom there are not enough, who
    try to see things without prejudice and who take a big view.  Of
    the gunner officers I saw little.  The general result has been to
    show how much we are in want of opportunities for giving officers
    instruction in the leading of anything like large masses of men.
    The scouting was extremely well done--a branch of the work to which
    officers accustomed to hunting will always readily take.  Evelyn
    Wood was the heart and soul of the whole thing.  The manoeuvres are
    entirely due to him, and the cavalry officers I have spoken to as
    to the position he has held during the manoeuvres heartily
    acknowledge the good turn he has done them."


[Illustration: LORD MELGUND IN 1890 (_Photo by Chancellor_)]

On 4th November Mrs. Grey,[2] Lady Melgund's mother, {95} died.  "If
ever any one was perfect she was," her son-in-law wrote, "never
thinking of herself, so good and kind to every one.  It is a great
break-up at St. James's.  She had lived there for forty years, and it
has been a very happy gathering place for all of us.  The old house is
full of associations.  We were married from there, and Ruby and Violet
were both born there."

Queen Victoria gave Lady Melgund permission to stay on at St. James's
Palace in view of her approaching confinement:--


    BALMORAL CASTLE, November 16, 1890.

    "DEAR MARY,--I must write you a line to thank you for your two kind
    letters, and to say how truly pleased I am to feel that my offer to
    you to remain for the expected event at St. James's Palace is a
    convenience and comfort to you.  But what a trying time it will be
    to you without your beloved mother, one of the kindest and most
    unselfish of parents!

    "I hope I may see you soon some morning at Windsor.

    "Ever yours affectionately,
  "VICTORIA, R.I."


On February 12, 1891, a son was born.  The Queen stood godmother, and
one of the godfathers was Lord Wolseley, who wrote that he would be
proud to undertake the duty, and hoped that the boy "may be as good and
as brave a soldier as his father."  The child was christened in the
Chapel Royal on 25th March with the names Victor Gilbert Lariston
Garnet--Lariston after the old Liddesdale home of the Elliots.

[Sidenote: Succeeds to the Earldom]

On the coming of the new generation followed the departure of the old,
for on 17th March Lord Minto died.  While leading a quiet country life,
he had always taken an alert interest in public affairs.  His nature
was rare and fine; his extreme modesty, his complete indifference to
his own advancement, and his dread of ostentation inclined him to
conceal, even from those nearest to him, his public and private
services.  It was only those who actually worked with him who knew his
quality.  One of these was the late Lord Moncreiff, who {96} wrote thus
of him: "His temperament was unassuming, as his manners were courteous
and unobtrusive, but he was eminently and essentially a man having a
pervading interest and influence in public affairs....  There were,
during the many years Lord Minto was a member of the House of Commons,
few public questions affecting Scotland on which he had not left the
mark of his vigorous thought....  He never laid himself out as a
candidate for place or for self-seeking of any kind.  He preferred
independence and unostentatious usefulness.  These he cultivated to the
end in his household and in his circle of friends, as well as in such
more public duties as his position prompted him to discharge."  Like
the rest of his family he was a first-rate rider to hounds; and he
appeared on horseback almost on the eve of his death.


II

On succeeding to the peerage Minto was asked to bring forward in the
House of Lords the grievances of "purchase officers" and press for a
Royal Commission on the subject, but he was too busy with his Volunteer
work to take his seat yet awhile.  To his deep regret it was found
necessary to disband the Border Rifles, but his own Brigade was
increased by two battalions.  In his journal at this time he tells a
story which proves that the discipline of these Borderers was not
equally good off and on parade: "Met a volunteer sauntering in the
plantation with his arm round the neck of a very pretty girl, which he
never attempted to remove, but saluted gravely with the other hand,
both looking me full in the face and neither seeing anything in the
least odd in it.  I felt it would have been brutal to interfere, the
thing was so gravely ridiculous."

In August 1892 Minto, with Colonel Wardrop of the 12th Lancers,
attended the French Cavalry Manoeuvres at Tarbes and filled a note-book
with comments, which show how acute and ardent was his study of his
profession.  He was especially interested in the details of equipment,
the distribution of weight on the saddle, and the handling of the
horses.  He thought the horses good and the men a fine, sturdy lot, but
the leadership poor.  There seemed {97} to be little speed and
initiative, and the faults were all on the slow side.  One comment has
been fully justified in recent years: "To a great extent I believe we
are wrong in our estimate of the French character.  I think there is
much more moderation and common sense, and far less flightiness than we
are accustomed to give them credit for.  We judge too much by Paris,
and Paris probably does take the lead, but the average Frenchman is no
scatter-brain."

[Sidenote: 1893]

Early in 1893 Lord Roberts returned from India.  The journal comments:--

[Sidenote: Roberts and Wolseley]


    "A large gathering to receive him, nearly all Indian soldiers, and
    a great many old friends were there, amongst them Sir Hugh Gough,
    whom I don't think I have met since Afghanistan in 1879.  Seeing
    them all reminded me of a party at the India Office in the summer
    of '80.  I had just taken off my coat when I met one of the
    Plowdens.  It was before Roberts's march to Kandahar, and Donald
    Stewart had just got the chief command at Kabul, going over
    Roberts's head.  Plowden said to me, 'I am so glad to see Stewart
    has the command at Kabul; people have found out now what Roberts
    is--we never thought much of him in India.'  I rather shut him up
    and went upstairs.  The first person I met was Wolseley.  He said,
    'I am so sorry to see Donald Stewart has gone over Roberts's head
    at Kabul.'  I answered, 'But I suppose, Sir, he is his senior
    officer.'  'I don't care about senior officer,' said Wolseley, 'I
    have watched Roberts's career now for a long time, and I'll tell
    you what it is, he is a very fine fellow.'

    "Roberts has, I believe, expressed a wish to make Wolseley's
    acquaintance, as apparently they don't know each other.  I am, I
    suppose, among the very few who are friends with both.  It will do
    much good if they show that there is room in the world for two
    great men, and that though they may differ in opinion they are at
    any rate above petty jealousies.

    "Both men are very much to be admired: Wolseley, I should say, the
    better read of the two, {98} very agreeable and the best of
    friends; but with all his good fellowship I never think he inspires
    the individual love of every one as Roberts does.  Charming man as
    he is, he has not the same personal influence.  The men worship
    Roberts.  I doubt if they care much for Wolseley personally, though
    they know he is a leader they can rely on.  Myself, I was
    surprised, when reading his _Life of Marlborough_, at his power of
    description and the poetry and romance of his nature.  I should not
    have given him credit for appreciating the picturesque side of life
    as much as he evidently does.  He sets great value upon the
    sympathetic nature so important for a great leader, and this is
    always the quality I have doubted his possessing.  He has it very
    markedly as regards his friends, for no one has drawn more sincere
    admirers towards him than he has, but I have always thought him
    lacking in the magnetism which captivates the masses.  It is a
    remarkable book, and the country can be proud of the man who wrote
    it, for it is refreshing to see all through it the admiration of
    the writer for patriotism, high spirit and heroism, and his
    contempt for the party politician and the time-server, and for the
    tendency which exists now in certain circles of sneering at the
    Volunteer, who is ready to expose himself more than his duty
    requires.  But indeed I believe that, owing to Wolseley and those
    who think like him, much of this sneering tendency is already dying
    out.  One likes to know that we are at least possessed of one
    distinguished man who has the courage to say what many feel as to
    the pettiness and time-serving of men in high places, and their
    apparent inability to realize that those who form our public life
    can never be deemed great unless they lead, and are not led about
    themselves by every whim of the multitude."


[Sidenote: 1893]

Minto's life in 1893 was a busy one, for, apart from work in connection
with his estate, he had his duties as a Brigadier, and was much in
request to umpire at manoeuvres and attend military discussions, while
he was constantly being asked to write on army subjects.  In June he
made {99} his maiden speech in the House of Lords on the employment of
discharged soldiers, a matter on which he was constantly bombarding the
War Office.  His speech, which was carefully prepared and well
received, urged that "situations in Government Offices should be open
preferentially for the employment of such discharged non-commissioned
officers and soldiers of good character as may be able to pass the
requisite examination."  He pointed out that in an army raised by
voluntary recruiting there must be some inducement to enlist; that it
was impossible to expect from the Treasury a rate of pay high enough to
be an attraction as compared with the rates of pay in civilian life;
but that much might be done in ensuring for a soldier a career after
his discharge, and fitting him for it by education while still serving
in the ranks.

[Sidenote: The Ulster question]

Home Rule was once more the question of the hour, and though Minto was
inclined to leave ordinary politics alone and stick to his own subject,
the journal is full of comments on the events of the moment:--


    "Just back from the House of Commons after hearing the closing
    debate on the Home Rule bill, the remaining clauses of which have
    been passed without discussion according to closure rule.  A most
    disgraceful scene occurred arising out of a speech of
    Chamberlain's, during which one of the Irish members shouted at him
    as 'Judas': a free fight ensued and many blows were struck, the
    Speaker was sent for, and after much heated discussion the matter
    dropped.  I should think at least some forty or fifty members were
    engaged in a violent mle in which it was difficult to say who
    actually took the lead.  One felt utterly ashamed for one's
    country: nothing could have been more disgraceful, and one wonders
    if we shall go on for ever under the rule of such an assembly.  The
    Speaker was very dignified and was listened to with respect....

    "Hartington at his meetings at Dalkeith and Edinburgh a little
    while ago referred most strongly to Ulster's right to resist,
    alluding to our rebellion against James II. and to the possibility
    of civil strife in England as {100} well as in Ireland, and
    instancing the action of our ancestors against James as an example
    to us of what we might be bound to do for the sake of the country.
    Such words from a man certainly not given to romance, and carefully
    weighing what he says, should bring the position of affairs home to
    everybody.  We are, I believe, on the verge of very great danger.
    The leading men on our side consider Ulster justified in armed
    resistance should any attempt be made to enforce Home Rule, and
    such resistance might not be confined to Ireland, for passions
    would be roused in England too which would appeal to force.  I
    cannot believe that the dangers in the air are fully known to the
    Government.  Only the other day Antrim wrote to me for advice as to
    the organization and drilling of men (I sent him the Mounted
    Infantry organization as best suited for hastily raised infantry),
    and Saunderson last year spoke to me more than once as to my
    serving in Ulster should matters come to a climax.

    "Within the last few days Lewis Dawnay has issued a circular in
    Yorkshire (backed by a letter of Saunderson's) asking for names of
    those willing to enroll themselves in a corps of gentlemen, should
    occasion arise to assist the people of Ulster.  Though I think this
    ill-judged and premature, it shows the way the wind blows and the
    feeling that is already stirring, and as such may perhaps do good."


[Sidenote: 1894]

In the beginning of 1894 we find Minto re-reading his old journal of
the Turkish War and reflecting on the changes of time.  "I couldn't be
happier than I am now, and there is much to do here to occupy me--but
still the active life and the insight into great events have as much
charm as ever, and I hope they always will have."  He lamented that as
a country gentleman he had no leisure for reading, the days being
filled with an endless routine of small duties.  "I don't waste time,
but looking into everything myself really fills most of the day.  I
suppose it is good work--in fact it is a profession, and, with Brigade
work, gives me plenty to do, but it leads nowhere, and, well--right or
wrong, I long to be in the stream of {101} the world of history again."
He adds loyally, "All the same home here is perfection."

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone]

It was a year full of great interest:--


"_March_ 6_th._--Gladstone has resigned, and yesterday it was announced
that Rosebery had accepted the Premiership.  I hope now we may consider
that Gladstone has finally given up the reins of Government.  He has
done his country an immensity of harm at home and abroad, and I hope
his countrymen will never be tempted by the recollection of his
brilliant oratory to forget this.  Certainly the power he wielded at
one time was enormous, not only at home but amongst many European
races.  I always remember, when crossing the Balkans and sleeping in a
small place called Kasan at the summit of the pass, a deputation of
Bulgarians coming to see me to talk over Mr. Gladstone's speeches, he
having then taken up the cause of Bulgaria.  As I had not seen the
papers for weeks I could say little, but the Bulgarian villagers seemed
well up in them.  Rosebery, who succeeds him, I used to know well in
old racing days; he was very amusing and sarcastic, but I never see him
now.  He has always impressed me as very ambitious, very able, and
capable of playing a game he does not quite believe in himself."


During the summer came an unexpected chance of service abroad:--


    "_June_ 5_th._--The last few days have been very interesting and
    puzzling ones for me.  Last Wednesday we dined at the old Duchess
    of Marlborough's.  I took Lady Loch in to dinner.  I had not known
    her or him before, but after the ladies left the room he said to
    me, 'Will you come with me to South Africa on Saturday?'  I said I
    could certainly not come as a loafer, in no position, to which he
    answered he would take me as military secretary.  He spoke to me
    again about it before we left and asked me to think it over.  I
    thought the matter well over, and wrote to him next day that I had
    been a great deal {102} away from home in connection with different
    expeditions and campaigns, and now that I had succeeded my father I
    felt rather a fear of getting too much of a roving reputation, and
    believed that possibly, though it was very humdrum here, I might
    perhaps eventually be the better for remaining in England, for a
    time at any rate.  But I must say I am just as eager to be off as
    ever I was....

    "On Thursday evening I met him again at a party at the Fifes', and
    he pressed me very strongly to come and to send him a telegram next
    morning.  I, however, determined not to go, and on Saturday morning
    wrote to thank him before he started.  It has been a most difficult
    question to decide for many reasons, but the chief ones I
    considered for and against going were those I have named, and every
    time I thought it over I came to the conclusion that so far as
    ambition was concerned it was better not to go; but the temptation
    to be employed again, and in the sort of work I like, was great.
    Of course, leaving home, and the bitter break it must be, was a
    heavy consideration, the pain one may give, the home duties one
    must leave: it is bound always to be a difficult question which way
    real duty leads, but no great country was ever made by those who
    feared sacrifice.  It has all rather put me in mind of Cavagnari
    asking me to go with him to Kabul in 1879."


Only for a moment had he hesitated.  Had he gone he might, like his
brother-in-law Albert Grey, have fallen under the spell of the
Rhodesian dream.

In October, at the age of ninety-two, old Lord Grey died.  He had been
Lord John Russell's Colonial Secretary.  "There is an excellent account
of Lord Grey's career in the _Times_" the journal notes, "the last
words of which aptly sum up what he was: 'Men more brilliant and more
original our days have seen.  They have seen none more steadfast or
more honourable.'  The Greys are a wonderfully hard, long-lived race.
John, a brother and a parson, is 82, wiry, and with an eye like a hawk.
The other day, to amuse himself, he came down a canvas fire-escape from
the top window, and, as he forgot to stick out his elbows to moderate
{103} the pace of his descent, he came down like a catapult, and nearly
demolished the butler and servants waiting his arrival below!"

[Sidenote: 1895]

When the general election in June 1895 restored the Conservatives to
power there was a chance of Minto becoming Under-Secretary for War, but
it was necessary that the occupant of the post should be in the
Commons, so Mr. St. John Brodrick was appointed.

[Sidenote: His fiftieth birthday]

Minto had now passed his fiftieth birthday, a solemn moment, or, as he
put it, "a nasty fence with a big ditch on both sides.  Except for the
sake of those one leaves behind the best death for a soldier is to be
killed in action before he gets too old.  Evelyn Wood told me the other
day that Wolseley wants to be killed this year.  He (Evelyn Wood)
thinks he had better see his term of office out."

That year ended with many dark clouds on the horizon of public
affairs--the difficulties with America over Venezuela, the eternal
trouble with Turkey, and the threatening situation in the Transvaal.
"I do hope," Minto wrote, "that we shall at any rate go on the lines of
honour as regards the country, and have no mean trimming for the sake
of peace, notwithstanding the awful horrors of a great war."  The
following are notes in the journal:--


    "_May_ 11_th._--I have not followed closely the campaign (the war
    between China and Japan).  I believe the result of it to be one of
    the greatest revolutions in history that has occurred for
    centuries.  It is the ratification of the rise of another Power in
    the East, and that an Eastern Power which has shown itself capable,
    not, I think, of superficially skimming the products of European
    civilization, but of solidly grasping and understanding the spirit
    of that civilization.  The intervention of Russia, France, and
    Germany in the peace negotiations was on the part of the first
    Power very natural, for she has great interests in the Far East.
    France, too, restless, and with advisedly Russian sympathies, one
    can also understand; but the intervention of Germany is, to my
    mind, simply another ill-judged performance of the autocratic
    lunatic who rules that country.  {104} The Japanese have acted with
    much self-restraint, probably after their great successes the
    strongest card they could play.  I am very glad we have kept clear
    of official intervention in the peace negotiations."

    "_October_ 12_th._--In the East the Armenian atrocities are the
    centre of all interest.  It looks very critical for the peace of
    Europe.  We have mismanaged the Turks, the finest fighting material
    in the world, when with common sense and a little friendliness we
    could have greatly benefited them and their subjects and have had
    an immensely strong ally in the East.  I can't help thinking that
    much of the Armenian discontent is organized in London.  Things
    look bad, and I keep on wondering what it may mean, not only for
    Europe, _but perhaps for me_."


One other entry is worth quoting, for it chronicles a dinner of a
delectable club, now, alas! no more:--


    "To Edinburgh and dined at the 'In Loco Club,'[3] a creation of
    Rosebery's....  Thirteen at dinner--Rosebery, Robertson (the Lord
    President), Balfour (ex-Lord Advocate), Darling, George Baird,
    Ronald Ferguson, Sir H. Dalrymple, Andy Wauchope, Professor
    Butcher, Lamington, Donald Crawford, Sinclair (I think the Radical
    brother of Sinclair of Grahamslaw), and myself.  A pleasant dinner.
    As honorary members several defunct historical personages were
    proposed, amongst them John Knox.  I voted against him, but he was
    elected."


III

[Sidenote: 1896]

The year 1896 opened with the astounding news of the Jameson Raid.  At
first Minto sympathized with it, and disapproved of Mr. Chamberlain's
repudiation.  "I must say it delights me to see the red tape of home
officials utterly ignored by a good man on the spot."  He was furious,
too, at the German Emperor's telegram to President Kruger.  Then he
began to wonder, as many others did.  He could not believe that Dr.
Jameson had acted {105} independently of Mr. Rhodes: he was soon
inclined to think that Mr. Chamberlain was right, and his military soul
was shocked by the muddle of the whole business.  His brother-in-law,
Albert Grey, was appointed in Jameson's place as administrator of
Rhodesia, and in February the Raid prisoners arrived, to be received
with, as he thought, unseemly ovations.  He considered their
performance "a muddle from the first, an unjustifiable raid and bad
soldiering, though the participants are no doubt a first-rate lot of
fellows."  A little later he met Dr. Jameson at dinner and liked
him--"sensible and modest, but nothing has altered my opinion that it
has all been simply a plot to upset the Transvaal Government, money
playing a very large part in the game."  The journal has an interesting
record of soldiers' views: Wolseley thought the invasion well
organized, Redvers Buller that it had been both badly conceived and
badly executed.  "Personally," Minto wrote, "the iniquity of the
expedition is patent, but any good young fellow would have gone with
it, and those who went are worth a hundred of those who hung back....
All the same I would lock up the whole blooming lot!"

[Sidenote: The Jameson raid]

Later events increased his distaste.  He thought that President Kruger
was being unfairly hustled by Mr. Chamberlain, and he in no way shared
Albert Grey's admiration for Mr. Rhodes.  He could not see behind the
scenes to the strange strife of racial destinies, and it seemed to him
that the Chartered Company, led by "the brother of the man in the
Royals," was engaged in a disreputable attempt to lay hands on the
wealth of the Rand under the pretence of patriotism, and he was
inclined to subscribe to Buller's opinion that "Rhodes was a damned
blackguard."  "To my mind the recent South African story, with all its
dirty speculation, is abominable, and one which the Government of our
country should have disowned with scorn, which they have not done."  He
thoroughly approved of the verdict on the raiders, and even of the
sentence on the Johannesburg Reformers, and he longed to see Mr. Rhodes
laid by the heels.

The episode sheds a light on Minto's solid independence of mind.  He
may have judged wrongly in the light of history, but he judged honestly
on the data he possessed.  {106} He was himself an imperialist of an
advanced type, and no lover of official pedantries, but he refused to
believe that an ideal could be furthered by dubious methods, and
romance and enterprise could not atone in his eyes for a lack of common
sense.

[Sidenote: 1896-97]

In March 1897 came the official inquiry, as to which his comments in
the journal reveal his stiff sense of equity.


    "An undignified performance.  He (Rhodes) with a very strong face,
    but peevish, and yet sometimes a bullying manner....  Strongly
    opposed as I have always been to Rhodes's South African recent
    policy, one could not help feeling that a strong man was being
    bully-ragged by a collection of professional politicians, which, in
    my opinion, is about the worst class of animal that exists....

    "Met Rhodes at dinner the other night at Ferdy Rothschild's: was
    not introduced to him and did not want to be: Mary introduced
    herself to him on the grounds of being Albert's sister.  "C"[4]
    told me after dinner that Rhodes certainly ought to have five
    years, in which I thoroughly agree.  The idea seems to be gaining
    ground that, in connection with the recent Raid, he was not
    influenced by money motives, but had in view imperial objects only.
    It may be so, but the fact cannot be got over that he deceived the
    High Commissioner and his colleagues in the Cape Government, that
    he falsified the date of a telegram, and that he drew upon, or
    allowed to be drawn upon, the funds of a Company in which he was
    largely interested in order to assist a revolution in a friendly
    neighbouring state.  If this sort of thing is winked at, all I can
    say is that the standard of political morality is even lower than I
    thought it was....  The worst feature of the whole thing to my mind
    is the very lukewarm condemnation of Rhodes in high places, the
    evident wish to palliate what he has done, and the one-sidedness of
    the press on his behalf.  No doubt in London society money
    interests in South Africa have much influenced public opinion, and
    money, one must suspect, has done the same thing with the {107}
    press.  But we might have expected some display of common decency
    from the British public."


In November of 1896 Minto had had a bad smash out hunting which laid
him up for most of the winter.  His horse hit a stiff rail and fell on
the top of him, breaking a rib and severely lacerating the muscles of
his back and thighs.  At the end of the year a characteristic entry in
the journal mentions the incident.  "Seven weeks yesterday since my
fall.  Quite unjustifiable of a rail in this country not to break.
Every one has been so kind it is almost worth tumbling for."

Throughout these years he had been indefatigable in working for the
efficiency of his Brigade, and the entries in his journal are in the
main details of training and military gossip.  Commenting on the bad
feeling and behaviour of the Guards on their being sent abroad he
writes:--


    "It is not soldiering for a number of officers to go about talking
    in the way the Guards officers have been doing as to the iniquity
    of sending them abroad.  It may be a mistake on the part of the
    authorities, but the first duty of a soldier is to do his best
    without cavil, and I must say the Guards, in my opinion, in this
    matter have displayed a regrettable strain of 'chalk' in their
    constitution."


Again:--


    "Meeting of Volunteer officers at the Institute, and in the evening
    the annual dinner at the Grand Hotel.  Lord Wolseley in the chair,
    self on his left.  I proposed his health, and in returning
    thanks--well--all I can say is that he referred to me as a good
    comrade and a good soldier."


[Sidenote: The Diamond Jubilee]

At the Diamond Jubilee Minto was appointed to command all the Scottish
Volunteer troops assembled in London for the occasion, when
twenty-seven detachments, 700 of all ranks, lined both sides of the
Mall.  Minto was proud of the command and of the important position
allotted to the Volunteers.


{108}


    "On thinking it over it seems to me wonderfully creditable that
    Volunteer troops that had never been together before should have
    assembled from all parts of Scotland punctually at their
    rendezvous, more especially as we did not get our orders from the
    officer commanding the Auxiliary Troops till Monday at 12 noon,
    therefore I could not issue my final orders till Monday evening"
    (the day before the Jubilee).

      *      *      *      *      *

    "In May a Galloway team from my Brigade won the Cycling Cup at
    Bisley.  There were four teams of eight men and an officer and
    N.C.O.: they cycled some 45 miles, firing 20 rounds at 500 and 600
    yards.  And in July the Border Team won the Lucas Cup for Volunteer
    Brigades.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "Shooting for my Cup at Melrose.  Jack Napier and I walked the
    whole way with the teams.  The starting-point was about two miles
    this side of Stow, and from there to the ranges I made it 10-
    miles.  My object in presenting the Cup is to establish a practical
    kind of competition and to enable Volunteers and Regulars to see
    something of each other.  In Scotland they are not nearly so much
    thrown together as in England.  The conditions of the competition
    are the same as at Bisley.

    "The Galloway Team won, followed by Hawick, Galashiels, and
    Jedburgh, then the Gordons and the Black Watch.  It was a great
    triumph for my Brigade beating the Regulars: I believe it is the
    first time the Regulars have been beaten by Volunteers in this sort
    of competition, the average shooting of the Regulars being far
    above that of the Volunteers.  The winning score was 161.  The
    umpires deducted points for bad volleys, and though the volleys of
    the Regulars seemed quite excellent, they each lost points for
    them; the extraordinary thing being that the Hawick Team, which was
    second, did not lose a single point for volleys.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "I think the competition will do a great deal of {109} good.
    General Chapman gave a Cup for beaten competitors which was won by
    a Hawick man!"[5]


[Sidenote: 1896-97]

The alarums and excursions of politics did not interfere with crowded
seasons.  There were visits to Taplow, Panshanger, Castle Ashby,
Waddesdon, and elsewhere, and Minto was not insensible of the delights
of London in an age when standards of wit and beauty were at their
highest.  He summarized the charms of a season thus: "A great deal of
rot, a great deal one likes, and a great deal to learn: interesting
people to meet, and the centre of everything, charity and devilry,
soldiering and politics."  During a week-end with the Harry Whites
Minto met the Chamberlains, by whom he was greatly impressed:--


    "_He_ interested in all foreign questions, and very sound on them:
    _she_ full of information, ready to talk about anything, and
    delightfully free from the usual talk and jargon....  The social
    events lately have been a large and delightful dinner and dance at
    the Londonderrys' and the masked ball at Holland House, which was
    most amusing.  Mary and Lady de Trafford went in similar dominoes.
    I danced with Mary, not quite certain of her identity."


[Sidenote: Guests at Minto]

Throughout the autumns the Mintos kept open house.  The visitors' book
records amongst their friends many notable names--Sir William Harcourt,
George Curzon, Alfred Lyttelton, the Devonshires, Portlands, Brodricks,
Poynders, Grenfells, Granbys; and in October 1896 Mr. Asquith stayed at
Minto.  "I like him very much," writes Minto in his journal; "he gives
one the idea of a strong man, and I should say a fair-minded one too."
Now and then he felt that the part of playing host was too much of a
tax on his time:--


    "We are now alone: a relief after the constant coming and going of
    visitors.  They come with a rush on their way north, then there is
    a lull while {110} they are gadding this side of the Border, and
    then another rush when they go south.  They are by way of shooting
    deer and catching salmon, but shooting has become so much more
    luxurious nowadays: they want all the game to play round them, and
    my own idea is that few of them would do a good day's walking, and
    certainly would not remain in the river all day without waders, as
    I used to do."


[Sidenote: 1896-97]

No picture of Minto would be complete without a glimpse of his domestic
life.  The atmosphere of his home radiated happiness.  The family now
consisted of three girls, Eileen, Ruby, and Violet, and two boys, Larry
and Esmond.  They all inherited the love of horses of their father, who
with the utmost care taught in turn each child to ride.  Together they
shared all pursuits, and the younger generation learned from him to
appreciate the tales of Border chivalry.  Love of home was a tradition
in the family, and the affection of past generations still seemed to
cling like an atmosphere to the old house.

[Sidenote: Life at Minto]

On succeeding his father Minto set himself, with the assistance of his
wife, to beautify the house and gardens.  The entrance hall was
enlarged and panelled with oak that had adorned the walls of the old
Law Courts in London.  Terraces and balustrades were built: a rose
garden was planned: an addition was made to the Church Garden, which
was encircled with yew hedges in a battlement design.  Minto was an
expert landscape gardener; he and his wife would spend hours in marking
out the ground, adjusting the curve of a path, and removing offending
railings "to enable the eye to roam."  The old castle, situated on the
summit of the Craigs, described in Sir Walter Scott's _Lay of the Last
Minstrel_, was restored, and turned into a museum for objects of
historical interest brought from foreign parts by the different
generations.  To Minto's love of order is due the present systematic
arrangement of the Paper Room and the cataloguing of the family
archives.  "It has been a very long and tiresome job," he mentions in
the journal, "and sometimes I have wondered if I was justified in
giving so much time to it, but I think I was.  There is a great deal
that is interesting, and will grow more so as years {111} go on."
Historical documents were sorted out from among old estate papers and
accounts; a Spanish flag was brought to light which had been taken from
the captain of the _St. Josef_ by Nelson at the battle of St. Vincent
in 1775 and given to Sir Gilbert Elliot, who was present at the
engagement, and which had been lost sight of for a hundred and twenty
years.

When bicycling first came into vogue, the family took to it with
enthusiasm.  Immense expeditions were undertaken, and Minto once cycled
over the Border to Newcastle, sixty-four miles, before luncheon.
Forty-two miles with his wife in pouring rain along the Caledonian
Canal to Inverness was not considered excessive, and the Mintos even
took their bicycles abroad, going by train to the summit of the St.
Gothard, and bicycling down the pass and along the Italian Lakes to
Baveno and Orta.  Every spring they had a month's holiday on the
Continent.  One year they went to Florence and Venice, first driving by
way of the Upper Corniche road to Portofino: another year they went to
Spain, saw the pictures of the Prado, and stayed during the Easter
revels of bull-fights and fairs in the beautiful palaces of the Due
d'Alba in Madrid and Seville.  Generations of Elliots had been nurtured
in the Presbyterian faith, and the family invariably attended the kirk
at Minto.  Fifty years ago two sermons were preached at the morning
service, each lasting for about fifty minutes; but times were changing,
and one sermon of thirty minutes was now considered adequate.  The
harmonium had taken the place of the tuning fork, and in later days
this had been superseded by an organ--a prelatic innovation--and the
younger generation were gradually abandoning the old Presbyterian
austerity.  But the stiffness of the ancient rgime was not wholly
gone.  At one of the farm dances Minto noticed that the oldest employee
of the estate, the shepherd Aitchison (with a game leg and seventy-five
years of age) was not, as usual, opening the ball with Lady Minto.  On
making inquiries he was reassured as to Aitchison's health; "but,"
added one of the farm hands, "has your Lordship no' heard?  Aitchison
is an elder, and he was had up afore the kirk session and tell't that
he must either gie up dancin' with her leddyship, or stop bein' an
elder of the Kirk!"


{112}

The following are extracts from the journal:--


    "I was asked the other day by a lady to sign a petition protesting
    against the cruel prosecution of the Bishop of ---- for certain
    malpractices in forms of worship, as to which I knew nothing.  I
    noticed that there were only three signatures to the document, one
    being that of a well-known drunkard.  I was at my wits' end how to
    get out of it when it flashed across me that, of course, I am a
    Presbyterian! and as I had been brought up as such I could have
    nothing to say to Bishops!

      *      *      *      *      *

    "Went to church alone last week.  It was Communion Sunday.  Old
    Watson (a farmer), who was taking the collection at the door,
    earnestly pressed me to stay with the congregation: 'They're a'
    wrang, thae sections in the Kirk: we're a' gaun to one place.'  I
    said I hoped we were, but I did not stay, much as I felt inclined
    to do so; I hadn't strength of mind enough, I suppose, to break
    through the old custom, for I never recollect any of my people
    doing so.  I remained for the service, however, until just before
    the giving of the sacrament.  There is much that is to me more
    solemn and impressive about the Scots ceremony in a village church
    than about the ordinary English celebration.  Old Watson and
    Ainslie (who used to be the smith) are the elders, and to see these
    handsome old men standing at the Communion Table waiting for the
    commencement of the ceremony had a reality and sternness about it
    that made me think of the old Covenanters, and brought home to me
    the honest true religion which plays such a deep part in Scots
    character.

      *      *      *      *      *

    "The other day the Duke of Argyll, speaking in the House of Lords
    on religious teaching in the schools, said, 'There is a God, there
    has been a Christ, and there will be a future state.'  In this age
    of scepticism it is refreshing to hear words of simple faith and
    strong belief from a learned and brilliant man, when philosophers
    are inclined to believe in nothing, and the {113} pigmies of the
    world follow suit for the want of a logical proof to which they
    consider their Lilliputian brains entitled."


IV

[Sidenote: 1898]

Minto thought 1897 "a very happy year"; it was to be the last year of
his peaceful life as a private gentleman.  In March 1898, while he was
busy working at Army Estimates, came the news of Mahmud's advance to
the Atbara, the prelude to Kitchener's triumphant campaign, and once
more Minto's thoughts began to turn towards what he had once called
"the way of ambition."  The Governor-Generalship of Canada would be
vacant that autumn; Wolseley had always urged that he was well suited
for the office, and he now told Wolseley privately how greatly the post
appealed to him.  Nothing, however, happened for several months.  He
had no claim on the politicians, for, while he liked and admired Mr.
Chamberlain, he had not hesitated to criticize him, and he had never
held even the humblest office in the political hierarchy.  His work had
been military, and his friends, who trusted and admired him, were
soldiers.  However, forces were at work on his behalf, and in his
journal he writes: "My Canadian negotiations are still proceeding.  I
have done nothing directly myself; friends, however, have done a great
deal: Lord Salisbury, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Chamberlain, Arthur
Balfour, have all been approached, and whether I go or not it is
pleasant to think one has so many warm supporters."

[Sidenote: The Governor-Generalship of Canada]

The likelihood of his appointment was talked of that summer, though
Lord Lansdowne warned him privately that there were strong candidates
against him.  India was also vacant, and his soldier friends had
visions of sending Minto there, so the time passed in a maze of rumours
and hopes.  Then on the 21st July he received a letter from Mr.
Chamberlain informing him that he proposed to submit his name to the
Queen as the successor to Lord Aberdeen in Canada, and five days later
the papers announced the appointment.

In such fashion did one who had small political purchase, who had never
canvassed or schemed for preferment, and {114} who had been content to
perform his duties far from the limelight, attain one of the highest
posts in the gift of the British Crown.  Minto's nature was too sanely
balanced to be upset by either success or failure; in the hunting
phrase he could "take his corn," and the journal to which he confided
his thoughts sets out very modestly what he considered to be his
qualifications, and descants on the loyalty of his friends:--


    "I am pleased, and so is Mary--and--well--I suppose, writing in the
    privacy of one's own journal, I may say that I feel proud.  Anyhow
    it is a position to be proud of.  I can't help looking back over my
    past career and feeling that it has not been the path that usually
    leads to great appointments.  With me it has been as a boy
    athletics, then steeplechase riding, then soldiering, till the love
    of a military career became all-absorbing.  But through it all I
    have gathered a good deal of experience of other men in many
    countries, and the older I grow the stiffer has become my rule of
    doing what I thought right in the line I had taken up as soldier
    and country gentleman.  This, with a certain amount of reading, a
    little writing occasionally for reviews, and a good deal of
    intercourse with those people who are helping to make, or are
    interested in, the world's history, both men and women, has helped
    me to where I am.  It does not seem much, and yet it has often
    meant hard work, and the sacrifice of many social engagements and
    other things which to the society world may often have seemed
    inexplicable, as there was little to show for it.  I am thinking
    chiefly of my Volunteer commands: the work they have given me has
    frequently been very heavy, and always very thankless, the military
    authorities alone knowing the value of what I was doing....  My
    present appointment I know I owe largely to the firm support of
    friends, and the furtherance of my career to Lord Wolseley more
    than any one else: on service and at home he has helped me more
    than I can say....  I have had shoals of telegrams of
    congratulation all day.  Certainly till the last few months I never
    knew I had so many friends."



[1] Frankie Rhodes.

[2] Daughter of Sir Thomas Farquhar, Bart.

[3] "Dulce est desipere in loco."

[4] The late Marquis of Londonderry.

[5] The following year the Border Volunteer Teams specially
distinguished themselves, again beating the Regulars.  Fourteen of the
nineteen teams competing were from Minto's Brigade.  The Border Rifles
won, followed by Galashiels, Galloway, and Jedburgh.




{115}

BOOK II



{117}

CHAPTER VI

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 1898-1904

_The Problem of Defence_

[Sidenote: 1898]

The hot summer of 1898 was filled with great events; death removed two
men of the first rank from the arena of politics--Gladstone and
Bismarck; in the first week of September the battle of Omdurman gave
the Sudan to our hands; and presently came the difficulties with France
over Fashoda.  Minto spent his time in a whirl of interviews with
Cabinet Ministers and with men like Lord Strathcona, who could talk to
him of Canada.  Then he repaired to the Borders to bid good-bye to his
old friends and to receive the freedom of the town of Hawick.


    "Kissed hands at Balmoral....  The Queen, as she always seems to
    be, quite charming, full of conversation and in good spirits.  On
    my alluding to the appearance of a _rapprochement_ between the
    United States and ourselves, she said she could see none....  Mary
    was then sent for.  The Queen told her she felt sure she would
    uphold the position, and above all she must never give her name to
    any scheme that might be criticized, but only to those above
    suspicion, adding: 'Your father advised me to make this rule nearly
    forty years ago, and I have never deviated from it.'"


In the series of farewell dinners in October one stood out especially,
that given by Etonians to Minto, Mr. George Curzon, and the Reverend J.
E. C. Welldon, who were leaving for the Governor-Generalship of Canada,
the Vice-royalty of India, and the Bishopric of Calcutta.  Lord
Rosebery was in the chair, and made one of his happiest speeches.  He
pointed out that of the last six {118} Governor-Generals of Canada all
but one had been Etonians, and he spoke thus about his old school
contemporary:--


    "To most of us he is better known as 'Melgund,' to some of us as
    'Rolly.'  Lord Minto's position raises in my mind a controversy
    which has never ceased to rage in it since I was thirteen years
    old.  I have never been able to make out which has the greater
    share in the government of this Empire--Scotland or Eton.  I am
    quite prepared to give up our fighting powers to Ireland, because
    when we have from Ireland Wolseley and Kitchener and Roberts I am
    sure that Scotland cannot claim to compete.  But when, as in Lord
    Minto's case, Scotland and Eton are combined, you have something so
    irresistible that it hardly is within the powers of human eloquence
    to describe it.  Lord Minto comes of a governing family--indeed at
    one time it was thought to be too governing a family.  Under former
    auspices it was felt that the Elliots perhaps bulked too largely in
    the administration of the nation.  At any rate, whether it was so
    or not, it was achieved by their merits, and there has been a
    Viceroy Lord Minto already.  There have been innumerable
    distinguished members of the family in the last century, and there
    has also been a person, I think, distinguished above all
    others--that Hugh Elliot who defeated Frederick the Great in
    repartee at the very summit of his reputation, and went through
    every adventure that a diplomatist can experience.  And now Lord
    Minto goes to Canada.  I am quite certain, from his experience,
    from his character and knowledge, from his popularity, that he is
    destined to make an abiding mark."


Attended by felicitations and goodwill in which there was no note of
dissent, Minto, accompanied by his wife and children, left England on
3rd November, and on Saturday, 12th November, arrived at Quebec, where
he was met by the outgoing Governor-General, Lord Aberdeen, and sworn
in.  The Mayor of Quebec presented an address, in which there were
graceful references to Lady Minto's family connections with Canada and
to Lady Eileen as Canadian-born.


{119}

[Sidenote: Canada in 1898]

I

A word must be said on the position of Canadian affairs at the moment
when Minto assumed office.  Sir John Macdonald's great public career of
over forty years had ended only with his death in 1891.  Thereafter
followed dissensions and difficulties for the Conservatives,
culminating in their defeat at the polls in 1896, when the Liberal
party under Sir Wilfrid Laurier entered upon a term of power which was
to endure for thirteen years.  The change of party did not involve a
change of policy, for the old Liberal free-trade dogmatism was dropped,
and Sir Wilfrid Laurier carried on the protective system of his
predecessor, which by fostering her native industries aimed at making
Canada economically independent of the United States.  He maintained
the close connection with Britain, indeed he drew it tighter, for it
was under his auspices that a preference was granted to the products of
the mother-country.  There was thus no violent divergence of political
views within the country, and the old racial difficulties between
French and British were quiescent under a Prime Minister of
French-Canadian blood.  There were many questions outstanding with the
United States, chiefly with regard to the coast fisheries, questions
which were to give trouble in the future, but at the moment none were
urgent.  It was a season of political inertia.

But with the ordinary life of the citizen it was otherwise.  There was
a stirring on the face of the waters, the beginnings of an immense
change in economic conditions and in the outlook of the Canadian
people.  In 1870 the development of Canada appeared to have come to a
standstill, and it seemed as if all that was worth reclaiming from the
wilds had been reclaimed.  In the 'eighties, in spite of a protective
tariff, the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a modest
boom in the North-West, the country still halted.  But about 1896 the
veil began to lift.  The settlement of America's virgin lands was
almost complete, and the American pioneer began to turn his attention
to Canada's hinterland.  The minerals of the East and the corn-lands of
the West were developed more swiftly, and lumbering, which had been a
decaying trade, {120} was revived in the form of the wood-pulp industry
in paper-making.  A new activity in railroad building began, and the
revenues of the Canadian Pacific rose by leaps and bounds.  Little
townships in the prairies suddenly expanded into cities, and towns
appeared where before there had been only a shanty.  Both Federal and
Provincial Governments instituted a vigorous immigration policy, and
the proportion of the immigrants which came from the British Isles
largely increased.  A wave of hope and confidence passed over the land,
and men looked with a correcter judgment at the immense assets which
before they had forgotten or undervalued.

Joined with this pride in their own possessions was another kind of
pride, which marked a further stage in Canada's progress to
self-conscious nationhood.  The advent of Mr. Chamberlain at the
Colonial Office had wrought a miracle in imperial administration.  He
had determined to understand for himself the mind of the overseas
dominions, and make it understood by every home official.  The vision
of imperial development, to which Cecil Rhodes had given a captivating
power, was being changed into a reasoned policy, which yet did not lack
the glamour of a dream.  The effect was remarkable in Britain, where
the colonies became a fashionable interest, and lost that atmosphere of
dreariness which had repelled earlier generations.  It was still more
notable in the Dominions themselves, where politics suddenly ceased to
be parochial, and the imperial tie was transformed from a platitude
into an inspiration.  The Canadian, proud of his own land and newly
awake to its possibilities, found his efforts stimulated by the
consciousness that that land was a part of the greatest confederation
known to history, which too, like Canada, was but at the outset of its
triumphant journey.  To an economic revival was added a spiritual
enlargement.

[Sidenote: Functions of Governor-General]

Minto thus entered upon office at a most critical and fascinating epoch
in Canadian life.  The Prime Minister with whom he had to work was the
most notable figure in Canadian politics since Sir John Macdonald.  Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, now fifty-seven years of age, had already won a
reputation which might well be called international.  He had visited
England the year before during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and had
attended the first Imperial {121} Conference ever held, and by his
eloquence and breadth of vision had impressed both the British and the
French peoples.  He seemed to combine what was best in both cultures,
and to understand both traditions; his devotion to his own race and
Church was free from particularism and clericalism, and he could mellow
the bustling matter-of-factness of British Canada with sympathy and
imagination.  Though the Liberal leader in his own country, his
temperament was naturally conservative--cautious, loving precedents,
sensitive to tradition, strongly rooted in the past.  In such a man
Minto had a like-minded and sympathetic colleague, whom he could regard
with both admiration and affection.  But it was a colleague and not a
dictator.  In the nature of things, with imperial and Canadian affairs
closely interwoven, and with Mr. Chamberlain at the Colonial Office, it
was impossible for the new Governor-General to be merely a spectacular
figure, opening and dissolving parliaments and giving automatic assent
to ordinances.  He was a representative of a new school of imperial
thought which Canada could not ignore; and with this new spirit abroad
his office took on a greater significance.  While he must rely often on
Laurier, he brought much to the partnership.  Sir Wilfrid was a
statesman, but he was above all things a consummate politician, whose
first business it was to harmonize conflicting races and parties and
interests.  It is a primary duty and a necessary task, but in it a man
is apt to lose simplicity.  The devotion and integrity of the Prime
Minister were beyond question, but in the honourable opportunism which
his work required there might sometimes be a lack of perspective and a
want of vigour.  To the manipulator of a political machine a risk may
seem greater, a set-back more final, than is the fact.  It was Minto's
supreme merit that he saw things clearly and simply, without the
irrelevant subtleties with which the practice of law or politics clogs
the most honest minds, and that his broad humanity enabled him
sometimes to read more correctly the heart of the plain man than the
plain man's official exponents.

A Governor-General in an autonomous Dominion walks inevitably on a
razor edge.  His powers are like those of a constitutional monarch,
brittle if too heavily pressed, a shadow if tactlessly advertised,
substantial only when {122} exercised discreetly in the background.
Once in conversation Sir Wilfrid Laurier gave his view of the position:
"The Canadian Governor-General," he said, "long ago ceased to determine
policy, but he is by no means, or need not be, the mere figurehead the
public imagine.  He has the privilege of advising his advisers, and, if
he is a man of sense and experience, his advice is often taken.  Much
of his time may be consumed in laying corner-stones and listening to
boring addresses, but corner-stones must be laid, and people like a
touch of colour and ceremony in life."  Sir Wilfrid Laurier was too
shrewd a man to underrate the ceremonial side of the duties of His
Majesty's representatives ("Let not Ambition mock their useful toil");
and he put his finger on one vital function, that of advising their
official advisers, the custody of the custodians.  But a second
function, not less vital, he omitted--their task of interpreting to
Britain the ideals and aims of the Dominion, and, conversely, of
expounding to the Dominion the intricate problems of the
mother-country.  These two functions--often obscured for the ordinary
citizen by the fog of ceremonial--are of the first importance in our
imperial system, and of a high degree of delicacy and difficulty.
Advice to Ministers in their administrative work, and a constant effort
to make sure that Britain and the Dominion see with the same eyes and
speak the same language--these are duties which make far greater
demands upon character and brain than the easy work of a dictator.
There have been many failures among those sent abroad to represent the
British Crown, due largely to the narrowly circumscribed area from
which they are chosen; but that does not derogate from the tremendous
importance of the office or belittle the success of the rare few who
have succeeded.

For the first task--advice--the main qualification is experience and
native shrewdness; for the second--interpretation--an alert sympathy
and an open mind.  In the conversation which has been quoted Sir
Wilfrid had something to say of the Governor-Generals he had known.
Minto he held remarkable for his sound sense and "a stronger man than
was thought"--a high compliment, for no Governor-General should have a
popular repute for strength: it breeds suspicion in a young nation.
"When he came to Canada first, he was absolutely {123} untrained in
constitutional practice ... but he took his duties to heart, and became
an effective Governor, if sometimes very stiff."[1]  The first sentence
is the truth; Minto had no training in methods of government, and had
all his experience to acquire.  In his function of adviser,
consequently, he had to bide his time till he learned his business.
But on one subject, that of armed defence, he was already an expert,
and, as it chanced, this subject came to the forefront in the earliest
months of his term of office, and he played a part in advising,
controlling, and stimulating his Ministers which was new in the annals
of the Dominion.  It was in this connection, no doubt, that he earned
with them the reputation of being "very stiff."  In considering Minto's
Canadian record it will be well to deal first with this group of
military questions; they were the subjects of all others to which his
interest was pledged, and in which he could speak from the first with
clearness and authority.


II

[Sidenote: Canada's defence]

Under the Act which brought the Dominion of Canada into being the
British Government had assumed full responsibility for the defence of
the Canadian frontier.  The old Canadian levy, including a large
proportion of men of French blood, had distinguished itself in the war
of 1812 with the United States, and Lord Wolseley, when on the staff in
Canada in the early 'sixties, had prepared an admirable framework of a
militia system which had been bequeathed to Canada with the grant of
self-government.  In 1872 the British troops, approximately 10,000 in
number, had been withdrawn with the exception of the garrison at
Halifax, and when Minto came into office there remained of British
Regulars only the small detachments at Halifax and Esquimault under a
British Lieutenant-General, while the main defence was in the hands of
the Canadian Militia.  This Militia was a purely Canadian force, under
the charge of the Minister of Militia and Defence, but commanded by a
British officer, who was paid from Canadian funds.  It consisted of a
small permanent nucleus, which in 1898 was only 850 strong, quartered
in various schools, and used {124} chiefly for the training of the
volunteer Militia, which mustered in the same year about 35,000.  Its
efficiency had been allowed to decline, for the Government of the
Dominion, with Britain to lean on, was not inclined to interest itself
unduly in what seemed the academic question of defence.  This was true
of whatever party was in power; Sir John Macdonald and Sir Charles
Tupper had been no less supine than Sir Wilfrid Laurier.  The business
of the Militia was left in the hands of a few enthusiasts, who were
regarded by the politicians at the best with a good-natured toleration,
as strange people who wanted to play at soldiers; and Parliament,
whether Liberal or Conservative, voted supplies from year to year with
scarcely disguised reluctance.  A sum of 300,000 was considered enough
for the purpose, the equivalent of one shilling and fourpence per head
of the population, by far the smallest contribution in the British
Empire.  Under such circumstances it would have been a miracle if the
Militia had preserved any high standard of competence.  Its training
was poor, its administrative services were rudimentary, it had nothing
of what the Germans call the _intendantur_ side.  It was the Cinderella
of the public services, a concession to the fussiness of Britain, and
useful chiefly to provide a modest patronage for politicians.

[Sidenote: The danger from the south]

But the Venezuela difficulty in the winter of 1895-96 had stirred the
better kind of Canadian opinion to a juster view.  War with America,
however much it might be regarded as both a blunder and a crime, was
seen to be within the bounds of possibility.  General Nelson Miles, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States, had declared that
any troops which the British Navy could transport would be wholly
inadequate for the defence of Canada against the force which his
country could put into the field.  "By the time these vessels could go
back for reinforcements and return there would probably be no British
troops in Canada to be reinforced ... Canada would fall into our hands
as a matter of course."[2]  And Mr. Henrichson, President Cleveland's
Secretary of State, had announced that he thought a war with England
would be "a very good thing.  Our country needs a war about once in a
generation.  It serves to keep alive the {125} American spirit; opens
the field for the expenditure of a great deal of superfluous energy,
enthusiasm, and patriotism; gives employment to a large number of
people who would rather fight than work, and deadens the bitterness
between political parties."  These were foolish utterances, but they
came from responsible men, and thinking Canadians could not but regard
with anxiety Canada's land frontier of 3,800 miles, where, in place of
the three routes of attack open from the south in 1812, there were now
at least ten owing to the railway development of her southern
neighbour.  The problem of Canadian defence was not insoluble, but it
demanded an energy and intelligence which had so far been conspicuously
lacking in her Government.

At the same time the question was being raised from the other side of
the Atlantic.  In view of the growing menace of Germany, British
soldiers, and an occasional British statesman, were turning their
thoughts to the matter of Britain's imperial liabilities, and
attempting to work out a system of local defence for each part of the
Empire, and a co-operative scheme for the defence of the Empire as a
whole.  This involved no tampering with colonial autonomy.  Its aim was
by advice and assistance to enable each unit to place its own defence
on a sound basis, and at the same time so to arrange the lines of such
local defence that, in the event of Britain being engaged in war, a
dominion would be able, if it so decided, to render prompt and
effective assistance.  The younger school of soldiers, under the
inspiration of Lord Wolseley, set to work vigorously on the problem.
The Colonial Defence Committee induced the Canadian Government to ask
for a Defence Commission of three eminent soldiers to go to Canada in
July 1898 and report on Canada's problem.  In August Major-General
Edward Hutton (afterwards Lieut.-General Sir Edward Hutton) left
England to take command of the Canadian Militia.  He had already done
good work in New South Wales, where the principle of his "co-operative
defence" had been accepted by the different Australian Governments, he
was one of the best known of Wolseley's younger disciples, and his
appointment seemed to herald an era of reform and construction in
Canada's neglected defences.  Moreover, he had been at Eton with Minto,
had been a brother officer of his in Egypt and a {126} fellow-worker in
the cause of the mounted infantry.  If Canada was in earnest in the
matter, it looked as if she had found the right man to carry out the
work.

[Sidenote: General Hutton]

General Hutton was a soldier of high character, of real military
talent, and of unsparing energy.  He had already had experience of
working with a Dominion government, and he realized that his task must
be a delicate one; he was the servant of Canada, not of Britain; he
could not dictate, but must persuade and advise, and in all things
carry the Ministers with him.  On certain matters like internal
discipline he must clearly be supreme, but in all others he was the
subordinate of the Militia's Cabinet representative.  But he was an
enthusiast, and an enthusiast was the last thing that Sir Wilfrid
Laurier's Cabinet wanted in a domain in which they were something less
than half-hearted.  A Liberal Government is always in a difficult
position as regards questions of armed defence, for the word has an
ugly Conservative sound.  Moreover, the Prime Minister owed much of his
power to the French-Canadians in Quebec, who had shown a marked
hostility to the whole business, and, being a most wary politician, he
was averse to the expenditure of money or time on matters which, though
he was prepared to admit their importance as an abstract proposition,
had small electioneering value.  The Minister of Militia, Dr.
(afterwards Sir) Frederick Borden, was a country banker and physician
from Nova Scotia, who held indeed a surgeon's commission in the
Militia, but had no serious knowledge of military affairs.  He had many
amiable qualities; but he was neither a courageous man nor an able man,
and he conceived his duties chiefly as a balancing of party interests
and a judicious exercise of party patronage.  Among the other members
of the Cabinet one of the strongest, Mr. F. W. Scott, the Secretary of
State, was an irascible Irishman, who had not wholly shaken off the
anti-British prepossessions of his youth; and Mr. Israel Tarte, the
Minister of Public Works, was of so cross-bench a temper that it was
hard to foretell what line he would take on any subject or by what
fantastic reasons he would justify it.  To the Laurier Government the
advent of General Hutton was far from welcome.  This ardent being, with
a clear purpose and boundless vitality, might commit his masters {127}
against their will, and force them into a road where they saw no
profit.  Accordingly their apathy on matters of defence hardened into
distaste, almost into hostility.  The report of the Defence Committee
was pigeon-holed; Minto could only get access to it after repeated
demands, Hutton was never shown it at all.  The new commander of the
Militia was coldly received, and for long was denied an interview with
his official superiors.

_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo_.  A man in such
circumstances might have yielded to a foolish temptation to turn to the
political Opposition; but Hutton was too much in earnest to give way to
pique, so he flung himself without further words into the duties of his
office.  These duties, as he saw them, were fourfold.  As an expert he
must rouse Canadian opinion to the reality of the need of a proper
defence; by awakening the enthusiasm of its members and of young men
throughout the Dominion he must make the Militia a force of the highest
order of competence and discipline, must aggrandize its prestige and
pluck Cinderella from the ashes; he must resist any political
interference with questions of discipline, and so make it a national
army, as clearly outside party influence as the army of Britain; and,
finally, he must endeavour to put the force in such a position that, in
the event of a war in which Canada decided to take part, her assistance
should be prompt and effective.  All of these four purposes lay
strictly within the four corners of his official duties.  He was there
to exalt his office; he was there to secure the efficiency of his
command; political interference had admittedly done mischief in the
past, but it was repudiated as a policy by responsible Ministers.  As
for the question of bringing the Canadian force into line with the
other forces of the Empire, there was sufficient warrant in Sir Wilfrid
Laurier's eloquent speech the year before at the Diamond Jubilee.
"England has proved at all times that she can fight her own battles,
but if a day were ever to come when England was in danger, let the
bugle sound, let the fires be lit on the hills, and in all parts of the
Colonies, though we may not be able to do much, whatever we can do will
be done by the Colonies to help her."[3]  If such a {128} generous
policy was in the Prime Minister's contemplation, it was surely right
to prepare in advance the ways and means.

[Sidenote: 1899]

Accordingly General Hutton set himself with confidence and ardour to
his task.  He got into touch at once with his command.  He inspected
the Militia divisions and visited in turn each military district; he
made the acquaintance of the officers, and had soon won their
confidence and stirred their enthusiasm.  He took an early opportunity,
in a speech on October 14, 1898, at Toronto, of expounding his ideal of
a national army complete in all arms, which was received by the press
and the public with general approval.  His first annual report, in
which he set forth in detail his proposed reforms, was apparently
accepted without demur by the Government and met with no criticism in
Parliament.  Early in 1899 he had, indeed, a brush with his Minister
over a disciplinary question, where party influence was used to prevent
the retirement of an incompetent man, but he gained his point, though
only after considerable opposition in the Cabinet.  Finally, in June, a
general order instituting a Militia Medical Service was accepted by the
Government and published in the Gazette--a most significant step, for
by that order the principle of a national militia army was first
officially recognized.  It may fairly be said that during his first
nine months of office he had won for his scheme a wide popular
acceptance and awakened in Canada a new military fervour.  The trouble
was that he was too successful, and with Ministers his stock sank daily
lower.  He was a propagandist, a missionary fired with an apostolic
zeal, and apostles do not think greatly of tact.  His frequent
speeches, the constant interviews with him published by the newspapers,
the pains he took to manipulate the press--with no other motive than to
get technical matters correctly stated--it all looked to the Government
like the whirlwind campaign of a man who was determined to carry the
ministerial fortress by storm.  No one of his doings was a breach of
official etiquette; cumulatively, they left on Ministers the impression
of a subordinate too masterful for safety.

With Hutton's policy Minto was in full agreement.  It was a matter to
which he brought an expert judgment, {129} and in the multitude of
novel duties he rejoiced to find one that was familiar.  Hutton behaved
as regards the Governor-General with a rare discretion.  He saw that
nothing but mischief would ensue if it appeared that he and His
Majesty's representative were in too close alliance, so he did not
press the claims of an old friendship, and let Minto take the first
steps.  Minto was of the same opinion; "it is better," he wrote, "that
I myself should not appear too military."  But of his own accord he
began to appear at Militia gatherings and in some cases to address
them, and he identified himself whenever occasion offered with the new
Militia policy.  He was not blind to the difficulties of the situation.
The new policy should have originated with and been expounded by the
Minister of Militia; instead, that oracle remained silent, and it was
left for the general-officer-commanding to do not only the spade work
but the exposition.  Yet as both tasks lay within that officer's
duties, and the principles had been publicly blessed by the Prime
Minister and were accepted by the mass of the Canadian people, he could
only hope for the best.  But he saw that in such a matter the
acceptance of a plan was only the first step, and that the result
depended on the spirit with which it was enforced; and between Hutton's
vigour and ministerial apathy a great gulf was fixed.  Moreover, there
were the old difficulties of emphasis and interpretation, which are apt
to mar any formal agreement.

[Sidenote: The future of the militia]

The Governor-General was a profound believer in the future of the
Militia, and inclined to attribute its defects, in part at least, to
the British soldiers who had been sent out to command it.  In a letter
to Wolseley on April 21, 1899, he summarized his views:--


    "These officers have been keen enough as regards soldiering on
    stereotyped lines, but they have not seemed to me capable of making
    sufficient allowance for colonial shortcomings, due very much to
    want of knowledge of military routine (not to any insubordinate
    spirit) and to the criticism and political influences which have
    pervaded military matters....  Hutton has attacked these
    difficulties with a very great deal of tact.  He has spoken out
    very freely as to abuses {130} ... but at the same time he has
    indicated what ought to be done, and has put forward the view that
    it rests with the people of Canada to decide whether they will have
    an efficient force or allow the old evils to continue.  The country
    itself is very military in feeling, and he has struck a right note,
    with the result that the people and the press generally are on his
    side....  He really has put life into everything, is all over the
    place organizing and inquiring, and entertains a great deal,
    feeding military, political, and civilian society with great
    judgment, and evidently excellent effect!"


Minto went on to say that he himself had made a point of magnifying the
social position of officers and inviting them to entertainments "on
account of their military rank."  But he added that there was an
enormous amount to be done.  The Royal Regiment of Canada (the infantry
portion of the permanent Militia) had not gone through a musketry
course for three years, and many of the scattered battalions of the
active Militia had not advanced beyond company drill and had never been
brigaded.  Above all, there was no departmental organization, and
without such machinery it was impossible to progress.  Yet, as he told
Wolseley and other correspondents, he was confident that reform was on
its way, and his one fear was the malignant effect of political
interests.

[Sidenote: Sir Wilfred Laurier's attitude]

Whenever he talked to Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the matter he found him
broad-minded and sympathetic, but even from Sir Wilfrid he could not
get the assurance he wanted about that vital question on which the
discipline and efficiency of a national army must depend.  There is a
note of a conversation[4] four years later in which the Prime Minister
frankly stated a view which was in the warp and woof of Canadian
politics.


    "As regards the existence of political influence Sir Wilfrid took
    up the line that in this country it was advisable to have a fair
    division of political influence in the force; that Sir Frederick
    Borden had done a great deal to eliminate political influence from
    the Militia; that when the Liberal party came into power they found
    the Militia a hotbed of Toryism, {131} and that now, though he
    recognized the desirability of getting rid of politics as much as
    possible, yet as a matter of fact, if in the case of the raising of
    a new regiment the Conservative influence was predominant, Liberals
    would simply refuse to join the corps, and such regiment would
    become, as formerly, a Conservative machine.  I told him that to me
    the recognition of politics in the Militia seemed entirely
    unnecessary, and that it simply rested with the Minister of
    Militia, when recommendations were placed before him, to uphold the
    selection of those men who were the most capable professionally.
    This view, however, I know it is impossible to persuade Sir Wilfrid
    to accept."


That a man of Laurier's quality should have explicitly stated a view so
apparently indefensible pointed to certain intricacies in Canadian
public life of which no newcomers could be wholly cognizant; but they
were clearly difficulties which must stand most formidably in the way
of that national army ideal which Minto and Hutton had set before them.


III

The campaign for Militia reform had already borne fruit in a new
popular interest in defence questions when from South Africa came the
first mutterings of the coming war.  Minto shared to the full the new
faith in the possibilities of an Empire, of which all the parts should
be drawn into an organic union, but, as was his habit, he envisaged
that future soberly, practically, and without rhetoric.  He profoundly
admired the Colonial Secretary, but he was no blind hero-worshipper; he
had not been sent to Canada, as was rumoured in some quarters, to carry
out Mr. Chamberlain's policy, for he had never been closely in touch
with Mr. Chamberlain, and had often criticized him.  On South African
questions he had found himself out of sympathy with Mr. Rhodes and his
followers, and he had vigorously condemned the whitewashing of the
Jameson Raid; his inclination was rather towards the Boers and their
wily President than towards the new-rich of Johannesburg.  But in the
years between 1895 and 1899, {132} while Lord Milner was striving to
clarify the issue, he had come--reluctantly, if we may judge from his
private letters[5]--to the decision that the Government of the Boer
republics was pursuing a course which must be relinquished or end in
war, and that if war came, Britain, in spite of many blunders of
detail, would be justified.  This was also the view of Sir Wilfrid
Laurier and most of his Ministers.  On July 31, 1899, a resolution,
moved by the Prime Minister, was unanimously carried in Parliament,
expressing the sympathy of Canada with the efforts of Britain to obtain
justice for British subjects in the Transvaal.  It was President
Kruger's denial of the franchise which specially influenced Sir
Wilfrid, and his hope was that "this mark of sympathy, of universal
sympathy, extending from continent to continent and encircling the
globe, might cause wiser and more humane counsels to prevail in the
Transvaal, and possibly avert the awful arbitrament of war."  On this
point Canada was nearly unanimous, but Canada was neither well-informed
nor greatly concerned.  The trouble seemed small and remote to a people
very much busied with its own affairs.

In the spring of that year there had begun the intricate negotiations
concerning Canada's share in a possible war which must be carefully
traced.  In March 1899 the War Office and the Admiralty raised the
question of the powers of Britain under the Militia Act to require the
Canadian Militia to serve outside Canada in time of war.  Section 79 of
that Act apparently gave the right to call out the Militia for service
"within or without Canada," but Sir John Macdonald in 1885 had been of
opinion that this referred only to crossing the frontier in the event
of war with the United States, and that there was no power to move
troops outside the North American continent.  This was also Minto's
interpretation; but when he consulted {133} Laurier and his Cabinet he
found that they took a different view.  On the letter of the Act they
held that in time of war the Imperial Government could move Canadian
troops anywhere--a point in which they were probably right; but Sir
Wilfrid added that the decisive question seemed to him to be, not
whether the theatre of war was at home or abroad, but whether the
troops were required for the defence of Canada.  "They no doubt feel
quite safe in this opinion," Minto wrote, "as there is not a single
regiment of the active Militia capable of being sent out as a unit on
foreign service."  In putting the question before the Prime Minister
Minto had added that he was inclined "to draw a distinct line between
an official calling out by the Queen of Canadian troops for foreign
service, and the offering of Canadian troops by the Dominion, which I
feel certain would be enthusiastically made if the Empire were
threatened."  Canada had never shown a lack of fighting spirit.  Her
sons had fought in thousands for the North in the American Civil War;
they had volunteered in the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny; they had
offered themselves in the Sudan War of 1884, but as their Government,
while ready to facilitate the raising of a contingent, had felt itself
unable to pay for it, the offer had not been accepted.  In any war of
Britain's it might be assumed that some kind of Canadian force would be
available; the questions were, whether the British Government could
count, as of right, on any definite numbers, and whether the Canadian
Government could or would offer, as of grace, to equip a contingent.
The first question Sir Wilfrid Laurier answered in the affirmative,
provided the war were for Canada's defence; as to the second he gave no
sign.

[Sidenote: The South African war]

In a letter of 3rd July Mr. Chamberlain forecast the ultimatum to
President Kruger, and asked categorically whether, should this happen,
there would be an offer of Canadian troops to serve with Her Majesty's
forces.  "Such a proof of the unity of the Empire would have a great
moral effect and might go far to secure a pacific settlement.  Is such
an offer probable?  If so, it should be made soon, but I do not desire
that it should be the result of external pressure or suggestion."  What
at this stage was desired was an imperial demonstration _to {134}
prevent war_.  Minto at once communicated with Laurier, to whom he
wrote:--


    "In this particular crisis the demonstration of such strength would
    be invaluable; but its effects would, I think, reach far beyond the
    difficulty of to-day.  It would signify the acceptance of a
    principle which I believe would tend not only to strengthen
    enormously the Empire generally, but which would also consolidate
    the individual strength, credit, and security of each of the
    offspring of the mother-country.  Of course, I am quite aware that
    questions of imperial emergency may arise in which a colony, deeply
    interested in its own development, may very justly not see its way
    to assist; but a proof of a possible imperial unity, once exhibited
    before the eyes of the world, would, I believe, do much for the
    future history of the mother-country and her colonies.  It is a
    principle which appears to be fraught with great possibilities, and
    personally, as an old friend of Canada, nothing would please me
    better than seeing her first in the field in accepting it."


Minto honestly put all his cards on the table.  Any Canadian offer must
be spontaneous; but it was his duty, as a friend of the Prime Minister
and a well-wisher of the country, to put before him the chances and
hopes of the situation as he himself saw them.

[Sidenote: The Government's difficulties]

The immediate result was the resolution of sympathy with British
subjects in the Transvaal moved in Parliament on 31st July--a course
which Sir Wilfrid had refused to follow three months earlier.
"Personally," he had then written to Minto, "I feel very strongly with
them, but it would be more than questionable wisdom to pretend to have
a word to say in such a question.  I told those who approached me very
flatly that we might leave the matter in the hands of Lord Salisbury."
Things had moved since then, a crisis was imminent, the Opposition was
pressing the Government for a declaration, and individual members of
the Opposition were urging an offer of troops, while the British press
kept dropping hints to the same effect.  A few days later Parliament
was prorogued, but before it rose Sir Wilfrid had replied to Minto's
letter.  "I am {135} sorry that my colleagues do not agree to that
proposition, and I must add that I share their views.  The present case
does not seem to be one in which England, if there is war, ought to ask
us, or even to expect us, to take a part; nor do I believe that it
would add to the strength of the imperial sentiment to assert at this
juncture that the colonies should assume the burden of military
expenditure, except--which God forbid!--in the case of pressing danger."

There was reason in these words, for the "principle" to which the
Governor-General had referred was an intricate matter.  He hoped for a
_beau geste_, which would have a direct political importance and a
great indirect sentimental value; but in the armed contribution of a
self-governing colony there were many constitutional ramifications
which the premier of such a colony was bound to consider.  A war was in
prospect which could not be regarded as imperilling the existence of
the Empire, and which by no stretch of imagination could be considered
as one of Canadian defence.  If Canada volunteered to share in it
officially, the step might involve a new doctrine of Canadian
responsibility within the Empire.  No Canadian statesman of any
party--certainly not Sir John Macdonald--had definitely accepted the
principle of Canada's duty to share in imperial defence; and this
appeared to be scarcely even a question of imperial defence, for the
coming campaign was looked on as a simple matter, likely to be soon
finished, and involving only the interests of one locality.  On the
general question of the desirability of closer relationship between all
parts of the Empire there was small difference of view; but this method
of bringing about a closer relationship opened out at once a series of
problems which went to the root of colonial autonomy.  Canada might
well find herself committed to the course of sharing in all British
wars, however remote their interest for her and however little she was
privy to the policy which had led to them; and, as a consequence, of
greatly increasing her military estimates and losing something of her
freedom.

It was a prospect which any responsible colonial statesman must view
with serious anxiety.  Moreover, the Liberal Government had their own
special difficulties.  They depended for their power largely on Quebec,
and {136} French Canada was apathetic or hostile in the face of the new
imperialism.  A rash step might not only involve the Dominion in an
undesirable external policy, but lead to deep racial bitterness within
its borders.  Sir Wilfrid Laurier had every reason for moving
circumspectly, and Minto, in acknowledging the resolution of 31st July,
admitted the grave implications of any step.[6]  A month later the
former, in a speech defending his policy, told his audience: "So long
as I have the honour to occupy my present post you shall never see me
carried away by passion, prejudice, or even enthusiasm.  I have to
think and consider."  Beyond doubt his interpretation of his duty was
just.

[Sidenote: Popular agitation]

Minto had the enthusiasm which the Prime Minister lacked, but on him
also it was incumbent to move warily.  He desired that the conundrums
which so perplexed Sir Wilfrid should be solved by Canada definitely
accepting the policy of sharing in imperial defence; but he recognized
that such a step was a momentous departure, and must be taken on
Canada's own initiative.  On one point he was early satisfied; Hutton's
work had not been in vain, and the new military ardour which he had
kindled would soon reveal itself in an overwhelming popular demand for
Canada's participation in the war.  Throughout August and September
offers of service poured in from commanding officers of battalions of
the active Militia, and these were duly submitted through the Militia
Department and the Governor-General to the Imperial authorities.  Other
colonies offered contingents, but no such offer came from Canada.
Meantime, Hutton, as he was bound to do, had worked out, in
consultation with Minto, a detailed plan for a Canadian contribution,
should the occasion arise.  The first idea was a small brigade of all
arms; but this {137} seemed to be impossible, and an infantry battalion
of eight companies was substituted.  Every arrangement was made for
raising, equipping, and transporting this battalion, and the plan was
duly handed to the Minister of Militia, who was personally favourable
to the policy of contributing troops.  During these months opinion in
the Cabinet, fluid in July, had, under the guidance of Scott and Tarte,
hardened against it, but in Canada generally there was a growing party
in its favour, and Ontario enthusiasts were laying plans to force the
Government's hand.  Hutton, having prepared a scheme in every detail
for a contingent should it be decided to send one, thought it wiser to
vanish for a little from the scene of action, lest he should appear to
be implicated in such coercion, and started for a tour in the West.  He
was less happily inspired in a visit which he paid to Mr. Scott on his
way through Ottawa, when he told him that if war came public opinion in
Canada would force the Government to send troops, a view angrily denied
by that Minister.  The incident gave colour to the notion, now firmly
implanted in the mind of the Cabinet, that Hutton had been offering a
contingent to the War Office behind its back.

On 3rd October the _Canadian Military Gazette_, an unofficial
publication, announced that if war broke out the Canadian Government
would offer a force from the Militia for service in South Africa, and
proceeded to give the details of Hutton's scheme.  With the article
Hutton had nothing to do; it was the work of some one who shared his
views and was familiar with his work, but he would never have assented
to an attempt at the coercion of his superiors, which would have been
in a high degree insubordinate and in flat contradiction of the
principle he had repeatedly announced--"The general-officer-commanding
only carries out the policy indicated to him by the people speaking
through their representatives."  Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in an interview
published in the Toronto _Globe_, denied the rumour.  The Militia Act,
he said, empowered the Canadian Government to send troops to fight
abroad if Canada were menaced, but there was no such menace from the
South African Republics.  Even if the Government desired to do so, they
could not send troops without permission of Parliament.  There had been
no offer of an {138} official contingent to Britain; only individual
offers had been transmitted home.

The announcement opened the flood-gates of the storm.  Sir Wilfrid
departed for Chicago to keep an engagement, and in his absence
controversy raged throughout the land.  It was very plain that a great
majority of the people desired that Canada should do what every other
British colony had already done and offer a contingent, and Sir Charles
Tupper marshalled the forces of the Conservative Opposition to the aid
of the popular clamour.  On 10th October the Boers invaded British
territory and war began.  Sir Wilfrid returned on the 12th to find his
Cabinet divided and the country in an uproar.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's cable]

Meantime, on 3rd October an important cable had been received from Mr.
Chamberlain:--


    "Secretary of State for War and Commander-in-Chief desire to
    express high appreciation of signal exhibition of patriotic spirit
    of people of Canada shown by offers to serve in South Africa, and
    to furnish following information to assist organization of forces
    offered into units suitable for military requirements.  Firstly,
    units should consist of about 125 men; secondly, may be infantry,
    mounted infantry, or cavalry--in view of numbers already available,
    infantry most, cavalry least, serviceable; thirdly, all should be
    armed with .303 rifles or carbines, which can be supplied by
    Imperial Government if necessary; fourthly, all must provide own
    equipment and mounted troops own horses; fifthly, not more than one
    captain and three subalterns each unit.  Whole force may be
    commanded by officer not higher than major.  In considering numbers
    which can be employed, Secretary for War, guided by nature of
    offers, by desire that each colony should be fairly represented,
    and by limits necessary if force is to be fully utilized by
    available staff as integral portion of Imperial forces, would
    gladly accept four units.  Conditions as follows: Troops to be
    disembarked at port of landing South Africa, fully equipped at cost
    of Colonial Government or volunteers.  From date of disembarkation
    Imperial Government will provide pay at Imperial rates, {139}
    supplies and ammunition, and will defray expenses of transport back
    to Canada, and pay wound pensions and compassionate allowances at
    Imperial rates.  Troops to embark not later than 31st October,
    proceeding direct to Cape Town for orders.  Inform accordingly all
    who have offered to raise volunteers."


A needless mystery was made of this telegram, and it was assumed by
some that it was a design on the part of Mr. Chamberlain to commit
Canada by accepting an offer which had not been made.  It was obviously
a circular message sent to all colonies who had offered troops
officially or unofficially, and it might be taken in Canada's case to
refer to the individual offers of service already transmitted home.
Nevertheless, it put the Canadian Government in a quandary.  If the
various battalion commanders and regiments that had volunteered went
abroad for service it must be with the Government's sanction and
assistance.  Having gone thus far, they must perforce go further, in
view of the attitude of other colonies and the growing popular clamour
in Canada.  The alternatives were to equip an official contingent, or
to tell Mr. Chamberlain that he had made a mistake and that the
Government could not agree to the acceptance by Britain of the offers
by individuals which had been transmitted; nay, the practical choice
was narrowed to an official contingent or resignation.

Minto was in New York when Mr. Chamberlain's cable arrived and Hutton
was in the North-West.  The message was at once forwarded to Sir
Wilfrid, and a copy sent to Minto, and it would have remained private
had not the British press published the pith of it, so that its
contents were almost at once accessible to the Canadian people, and
added fuel to the fires of agitation.  At first there was no sign of
yielding on the part of the Cabinet, and on 4th October Mr. Chamberlain
wrote to Minto, in deep disappointment, a letter which seems to
contradict the obvious meaning of his telegram of the previous day.
"We do not intend to accept any offer from volunteers.  We do not want
the men, and the whole point of the offer would be lost unless it was
endorsed by the Government of the Colony."  Till Sir Wilfrid's return
on the 12th, {140} Minto scrupulously refrained from any communication
with the Imperial Government.  After that day the Cabinet sat almost
continuously.  There were three parties--the intransigents from Quebec,
who objected to any contribution; those who sought a half-way house on
the terms of the telegram of 3rd October; and those who wanted a
Canadian contingent, paid for by Canada and preserving its
individuality.  The struggle really lay between the first and third,
between Mr. Tarte, who based his opposition on the ground that if
Canada were to share in Britain's wars she must share in Britain's
councils, and the Ontario leaders, who knew the drift of popular
feeling in their province.  On the 12th Minto cabled home that there
was no hope of a contingent, but next day the pressure of public
opinion convinced the doubters and carried the day.  An
order-in-council was passed, an ingenious document framed to preserve
an air of consistency.  After reciting Mr. Chamberlain's proposals of
3rd October, it went on:--


    "The Prime Minister, in view of the well-known desire of a great
    many Canadians who are ready to take service on such conditions, is
    of opinion that the moderate expenditure which would thus be
    involved for the equipment and transportation of such volunteers
    may readily be undertaken by the Government of Canada without
    summoning Parliament, especially as such an expenditure, under such
    circumstances, cannot be regarded as a departure from the
    well-known principles of constitutional government and colonial
    practice, nor construed as a precedent for future action.  Already,
    under similar conditions, New Zealand has sent two companies,
    Queensland is about to send 250 men, and West Australia and
    Tasmania are sending 125 men each.  The Prime Minister therefore
    recommends that out of the stores now available in the Militia
    Department the Government undertake to equip a certain number of
    volunteers, not to exceed 1,000 men, and to provide for their
    transportation from this country to South Africa, and that the
    Minister of Militia make all necessary arrangements to the above
    effect."


{141}

[Sidenote: Minto's summary of the situation]

In his letter to Mr. Chamberlain of 14th October, Minto describes the
situation as he saw it:--


    "I think it is clear that the troops would not have been offered
    unless the manifestation of public feeling had strengthened the
    hands of the Ontario member of the Cabinet, and this outburst of
    public dissatisfaction was no doubt brought about by the sense of
    the cable of 3rd October becoming known, and by the natural
    irritation caused here by seeing other colonies sending their
    contingents while Canada was left out in the cold....  Sir
    Wilfrid's position has been a peculiar one.  I understood from him
    originally that, as I think I have told you, he personally was
    rather inclined to make the offer; but latterly he seems to have
    changed his ground.  He says now that, though he thoroughly
    approves the action of the Imperial Government in South Africa, and
    admits the undoubted necessity of war, he has not been inclined to
    admit the policy of this colony accepting pecuniary liabilities for
    the old country.  He says that it is contrary to the traditions of
    Canadian history, and that he thinks Canada would render imperial
    service in a better shape by contributing to such works as the
    Canadian Pacific Railway and the defences of Esquimalt, etc.  He
    considers, however, that the acceptance of your offer to contribute
    to pay and transport of troops so minimizes the expense that the
    principle of non-acceptance of pecuniary liability is hardly
    departed from ... He is thoroughly imperialistic, though he may
    have his doubts as to colonial action.  I like him very much.  He
    takes a broad view of things, and has an extremely difficult team
    to drive.  But he is a Frenchman, and in saying that I think one
    covers almost the entire reason for the Quebec opposition.  Quebec
    is perfectly loyal, but you cannot on such an occasion expect
    Frenchmen to possess British enthusiasm or thoroughly to understand
    it....  I have myself carefully avoided any appearance of pressing
    for troops, but I have put what I believe to be the imperial view
    of the question strongly before Sir Wilfrid, and I have pointed out
    to him the danger {142} of a refusal being looked upon in the old
    country as want of sympathy here, particularly at a time when we
    must depend so much upon her good offices _re_ Alaska, and no doubt
    in many other future questions."


[Sidenote: 1899-1900]

The Government had capitulated to popular opinion.  To preserve their
existence they had done reluctantly what they had declared to be
indefensible in principle and beyond their competence.  Such a decision
carried no honour with it, and incontestably they lost in prestige, for
Canada had appeared last in the list of imperial contributaries.  Their
hand had been forced by the logic of events, and not by the Imperial
Government, though Mr. Chamberlain's telegram had played a part for
which it had probably not been designed.  In March 1900 Sir Wilfrid
told Mr. Bourassa in Parliament: "No, we were not forced by England; we
were not forced by Mr. Chamberlain or by Downing Street to do what we
did....  We acted in the full independence of our sovereign power.
What we did we did of our own free will."  In the Cabinet there was
much bitter feeling--against the home authorities who had landed them
in the dilemma;[7] against the Governor-General, who was suspected of
having been in league with these home authorities; above all, against
Hutton, who was credited with every kind of Machiavellian plot.  It is
clear that such suspicions were wholly unjustified; Hutton was indeed
largely responsible for the result, but it was because in carrying out
the strict duties of his office he had educated and stimulated that
Canadian public opinion which carried the day against the inertia of
Ministers.

Minto had played a difficult part with complete correctness, and this
was presently recognized by his critics.  Mr. Scott confessed to him
that the Government had made a blunder, and Mr. Tarte, that pedantic
devotee of imperial federation, accepted the inevitable and promised
the Governor-General to do his best for the success of the contingent.
There was something about Mr. Tarte's fire {143} and gusto which
appealed to Minto.  "It is pleasant," he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, "to
find one man with the courage of his opinions even though he is wrong."
It is difficult for the forthright and simple man to sympathize greatly
with the embarrassments of a party leader, or for one unversed in the
niceties of constitutional law and practice to grasp the importance of
what seems to him a trivial debating point.  In addressing the first
contingent as it was leaving Quebec, Minto declared that "the people of
Canada had shown that they had no inclination to discuss the quibbles
of colonial responsibility."  It was his only unguarded word on the
whole matter, and it was unjust to the genuine constitutional
difficulty which Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to face, and which Minto
himself had repeatedly acknowledged.  It is true that Sir Wilfrid
shirked that difficulty and decided on grounds of party expediency, but
there is no reason to believe that it did not weigh heavily with him in
determining his original policy of refusal.

[Sidenote: The Canadian contingents]

The first contingent crossed the sea,[8] to be followed soon by a
second contingent; the Government raised an infantry battalion to
garrison Halifax and so released the Leinsters for active service; Lord
Strathcona, as a private contribution, furnished three squadrons of
mounted rifles who won fame as Strathcona's Horse.  Canada played an
honourable and distinguished part in the South African War, as
Paardeberg testified, and Hutton, then commanding a mounted brigade in
the field, saw with pride the prowess which he had helped to create.
In everything that concerned the contingents Minto took the keenest
interest, and it was largely due to him that they were kept intact as
separate units, and not split up among British regiments, and that in
the selection of the officers military {144} competence and not
politics prevailed.[9]  The whole incident was an episode--a creditable
and heartening episode, with a good moral effect--but no more.  No
constitutional precedent was created, no political conundrum was
solved, no principle was established.  Statesmen on both sides of the
House agreed to treat it as an isolated and unrelated effort, marking
no advance in imperial theory.  The vital questions--the future
provision of Canada for her own defence and her relation to the
defences of the Empire--were by general consent never raised.  When Mr.
Bourassa in the spring of 1900 asked Parliament to put on record that
the sending of the contingents did not create a precedent, he was
heavily defeated, but his motion represented the facts.  Indeed,
looking back after the lapse of a quarter of a century, it may be
argued that Canada's participation in the South African War was a
movement retrograde in its results.  It tended to increase her
particularism and foster a baseless sense of security.  The praise
justly given to her troops was naturally unqualified by insistence upon
their weak points, and the mistakes made by British generals and the
defeats suffered by British regulars gave her a wrong idea of her own
powers of self-defence, and--combined with the spectacle of Boer
success--made her underestimate the value of regular training.  She was
more inclined than ever to trust to improvization and to cavil at any
attempt to standardize the military system of the Empire.  The South
African War was destined to produce a harvest of false generalizations,
and the vision of a Canadian national army lapsed into forgetfulness.


IV

[Sidenote: The Hutton difficulty]

The Laurier Government, angry at their damaged prestige, and irritated
at being compelled to carry out a policy which had not been theirs,
found a scapegoat in Hutton.  The conduct of the Governor-General had
been too correct for criticism, but that of the General {145}
commanding the Militia gave many chances to his ill-wishers.  Hutton,
instant in season and out of season, was too single-hearted in his
purpose to walk warily.  His ardour had made him many friends, but not
a few implacable enemies.  He had carefully refrained from flirting
with the Opposition, but his constant speeches, tuned to a high pitch
of imperial sentiment, and his frequent direct and indirect
communications to the press were bound to be interpreted as a criticism
of Ministers.  Ill-advised utterances in private conversation, much
magnified by gossip, reached their ears and increased their annoyance.
It is fair to recognize that he was for the Government a most
uncomfortable subordinate, though he cannot be said to have exceeded
the formal limits of his duties; it is not less fair to grant that in
the pursuit of these duties he met with no encouragement from the
Government and every kind of vexatious obstacle.  The Minister of
Militia had, as Lord Rosebery said of Addington, the indescribable air
of a village apothecary inspecting the tongue of the State.  He had
fitful moments of vigour and reforming zeal, but _au fond_ he was a
politician, studying earnestly the political barometer.  Suspicion of
Hutton was soon changed to direct antagonism.  Various disciplinary
questions were settled in the General's favour owing to Sir Wilfrid's
wise habit of consulting Minto; but presently the air became electric,
the General was kept in the dark about vital matters concerning his
command, and had to suffer much incivility.  He kept his temper
surprisingly well, but daily the position became more uneasy.  He
longed to be in the field, but when he asked for leave of absence for
that purpose he was told curtly that he must first resign his post.
The Cabinet would gladly have seen him in South Africa, because they
wished him out of Canada, and they waited anxiously for the chance to
dispense with his services.

[Illustration: LORD MINTO AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL OP CANADA, 1899]

[Sidenote: 1900]

That chance came in January 1900 on the question of buying horses for
the second contingent.  Hutton had appointed, with his Minister's
approval, a committee under Colonel Kitson, the commandant of the Royal
Military College at Kingston, to supervise purchases in the open
market.  It seems to have been suspected that the arrangement would be
favourable to horse-dealers of the {146} Conservative persuasion, so,
without consulting the General, Dr. Borden appointed a Liberal member
of Parliament, connected with the horse trade, to report upon all
purchases.  Hutton took the slight well, but the subsequent letters
from the Minister were so elaborately rude that it seemed as if they
were intended to force his resignation.  He had an interview with the
Prime Minister, who could not be other than courteous, but it was made
plain to him that his whole work and attitude met with the disapproval
of the Government.  "I plead guilty," said Hutton, "only to having
roused the latent military enthusiasm through all ranks of the Militia,
and having strengthened the innate feeling of patriotism towards the
old country and the Empire, which already existed in all parts of the
Dominion."  To this Sir Wilfrid made the significant answer that "he
could see little difference between inculcating patriotism and arousing
military enthusiasm, and party politics."

The next step was an interview between the Prime Minister and the
Governor-General.  Sir Wilfrid did not accuse Hutton of more than want
of tact in dealing with Ministers and injudicious expressions in public
speeches, and admitted that the horse-coping episode might easily have
been smoothed over; but he declared that matters had come to a
deadlock, and that there was no other course left to him but to ask for
Hutton's recall.  Minto replied vigorously that in his view Hutton was
in the right, that the latter had fought against political influence in
Militia administration, and that in this lay the secret of the whole
trouble.  If the Cabinet asked for his recall he would, of course,
transmit the request to the Imperial Government, but he would feel
bound in a covering dispatch to state strongly his own opinion; a
course which Sir Wilfrid said might compel the resignation of his
Government.  The Prime Minister suggested that Hutton might be allowed
to go to South Africa in command, say, of Strathcona's Horse, but Minto
declared that that would be a "palpable makeshift" which he could not
accept.  As he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, he considered that the
question of the G.O.C. in Canada should be put once for all on a proper
basis, and that he ought, if necessary, to accept the Government's
resignation.  "I do not admit any right {147} on the part of any
Government to expect me to refrain from commenting to you adversely on
their action."

[Sidenote: The Cabinet memorandum]

On 20th January Minto submitted a memorandum setting forth his views;
it was meant to be for the confidential information of the Prime
Minister, but by some mistake it was submitted to the Cabinet.  In it
he pointed out the mischief of political interference with the Militia,
the ineptitude of Dr. Borden's behaviour in the horse-dealing case and
the discourtesy of his whole attitude, and the difficulty of finding a
successor to Hutton, unless the position of the G.O.C. was properly
maintained.  He added the incontrovertible truth that, while by statute
the Minister of Militia was supreme, yet, by accepting the G.O.C. as
his military adviser, he placed matters of military routine and detail
in his hands, and that interference in matters thus delegated would
make the post of G.O.C. untenable by any self-respecting man.  The
Cabinet replied with an immensely long discourse on constitutional law,
drawn up by the Minister of Justice, which Sir Wilfrid handed to Minto
with some amusement.  The reasoning of the discourse was impeccable,
but it was wholly irrelevant to the question at issue.  Minto drily
rejoined that he accepted every word of the document; but that the
dispute was not as to constitutional principles but as to the "best
practical adaptation of them and as to the proper line of demarcation
between civil and military authority in regard to the smooth working of
the mechanism of an army;" and expressed his "surprise at the
suggestion that he could possibly advocate for any military officer a
position independent of responsibility to a Minister of the Crown."

Further discussion with Sir Wilfrid did not alter the position.  Minto
laboured hard to bring about a settlement, for, apart from other
reasons, he saw that Hutton would be hard to replace during the war,
and that, with his military secretary, Laurence Drummond, serving in
South Africa, he would be left alone to grapple with the Militia
Department.  But the Cabinet was adamant, and on 7th February an
order-in-council was passed asking for Hutton's recall.  Minto had
hesitated for a little as to whether he should sign this order, but on
reflection, as he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, the wiser course seemed to
be {148} to sign it, to make his protest to the Council, and to forward
the whole correspondence to the Imperial authorities.  "It would be a
great mistake to push an advocacy of the General's position to
extremes.  Though he has many supporters, anything like an attempt to
over-press the Government to retain him would in all probability be
taken as unjustifiable imperial pressure and be resented accordingly,
so that there seemed to be no doubt as to my signing the request to
H.M.'s Government for the General's recall.  But it also appeared to me
that, considering the manner in which other generals have disappeared
from Canada with no apparent reason placed before the public, it was
right that my Government should accept the official responsibility for
their General's removal."

On 3rd February Minto had submitted to the Council a formal statement
of his views; on 8th February he put them before Mr. Chamberlain in a
dispatch covering the order-in-council and copies of the
correspondence; on 9th February Hutton was informed by Lord Lansdowne
of his selection for active service in South Africa and ordered home.
Next day he sent in his resignation, which was at once accepted, and on
the 13th took a friendly farewell of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.  He left
Canada amid many demonstrations of popular regret, which did much to
salve his wounded pride.  From New York he wrote to Minto: "Personally
I can never forget all your Excellency's kindness and thought.  It has
been your sympathy and constant encouragement which have alone enabled
me to stand the discourtesies and annoyances extending over so many
months."  To complete the tale: Mr. Chamberlain's dispatch of 17th
April recorded his deep disappointment "that Ministers should have
found themselves unable to allow General Hutton to complete the work he
had begun," and expressed the view that "although the responsibility to
Parliament must be maintained, it is desirable that the officer in
command of the defensive forces in Canada should have a freer hand in
matters essential to the discipline and efficiency of the Militia than
would be proper in the case of an ordinary civil servant even of the
highest position."

[Sidenote: Minto criticized]

Minto's action was much criticized, but it is impossible to doubt that
he was right--both in signing the order-in-council {149} and in making
his protest.  The "stiffness" which Sir Wilfrid attributed to him was
in this case clear-sightedness and courage.  He stated the case to Mr.
Chamberlain with complete fairness.  Hutton was undoubtedly difficult;
he might strive to be decorous, but cumulatively by endless little
indiscretions he exceeded decorum.  His fortitude _in re_ was not
combined with suavity _in modo_; he was a gadfly whose business it was
to sting lethargy into action, and there were naturally protests from
those who smarted under the sting.  He was not the best man to work
with the Government of a jealous young democracy.  But the fact
remained that the policy he represented was vital to Canada as a
nation, that it was not questioned by Ministers that he had
substantially kept inside the constitutional limits of his office, that
he had done and was doing much valuable work, and that he fell a victim
less to his defects than to his merits.  He had suffered an
unwarrantable interference in matters which were strictly within his
province, and that interference had been due to the inclination to
"graft" and patronage engrained in Canadian political life.  Unless
this root of evil was extirpated there could be no health in the
Militia, and with Hutton's failure vanished the hope of a national
militia army.

It was for this reason that Minto was compelled to take a stand in
opposition to his Ministers.  Hutton was sacrificed to their
pettiness--not so much Sir Wilfrid's, for he admitted that he could
have worked with him, but that of lesser folk; and in the interests of
his party the Prime Minister not very willingly and rather
shame-facedly took up the quarrel.  In these lesser people two other
motives were no doubt at work.  It was the dark season of the South
African War, and the repute of imperial officers was a little
tarnished, and the ardour of the more recent converts to imperialism
notably abated.  "I ask myself," Dr. Borden had told Hutton after
Colenso, "in face of the reverses which the British army has received,
if it is worth the while of Canada to remain part of the Empire."
Also, Hutton was too popular.  He had behind him a large following of
which he was sometimes injudicious enough to remind Ministers--an
unpalatable thought to those who had come to believe that they were the
sole rightful interpreters of the people's will.

{150}

[Sidenote: 1904]

During his term of office Minto had to face a second dispute over the
personality of the Militia commander, but happily one which raised a
less difficult question.  A temporary successor to Hutton was
appointed, and Mr. Brodrick, when he became Secretary for War, exerted
himself to find a man who would be at once acceptable to the Canadian
Government and would carry out the reforms in the Militia, as to which
he and Minto were in complete accord.  After many failures he persuaded
Lord Dundonald to accept the post.  Lord Dundonald at the time was a
conspicuous figure in the public eye.  He had done good work with the
cavalry in South Africa, and had led the first troops that relieved
Ladysmith; he was a keen professional soldier; he belonged to an
ancient and famous Scottish house, which was in itself a recommendation
to a country so largely peopled from Scotland.  But he had certain
personal characteristics which made friction inevitable.  His candour
had little geniality; he was extremely sensitive, like many shy men,
and had developed a protective armour of stiffness and reserve, which
was not far removed from egotism.  A touch of the theatrical in his
conduct was a further danger; he was very willing to appear to the
world as riding the storm and holding the gate.  At first he was not
unsuccessful.  Much excellent work was done in Militia reorganization
in the light of South African lessons, and the Militia budget was
substantially increased.  But rifts soon opened between him and the
Government.  His pleas for larger estimates and for extensive
fortifications on the United States border were rejected, and in the
discussions on the revision of the Militia Act he was profoundly
irritated by the ignoring of his views on certain clauses.  A multitude
of petty differences of opinion with Sir Frederick Borden exacerbated
his temper, and he gradually slipped in his public utterances into a
tone of sharp criticism of the Government of which he was the servant.

[Sidenote: the Dundonald case]

The crisis came in the summer of 1904.  A new regiment, the 13th
Scottish Dragoons, was being raised in the Eastern Townships, the
constituency of a member of the Cabinet, Mr. Sydney Fisher, who was
temporarily acting as Minister of Militia.  Among the names of officers
submitted to the Governor-General for approval, one, that {151} of a
prominent Tory politician, was scratched out by Mr. Fisher on his own
responsibility.  Minto signed the list, and returned it to Dundonald,
who made no comment.  But on 4th July the latter at Montreal made a
public speech in which he violently attacked the Government for
introducing party politics into the Militia administration.  Such
action was a grave breach of discipline, and Minto saw at once that it
made Dundonald's position impossible, and frankly told him so.  The
General commanding the Militia had been sedulously cultivating the
Opposition and the Opposition press, and he was not displeased to find
himself in the rle of a popular saviour defying the machinations of
the politicians.  Mr. Fisher's action had been no doubt irregular, but
Dundonald's correct views on the evils of political wire-pulling could
not atone for a flagrant breach of discipline and an utter disregard of
the constitutional position of his command.  In a private memorandum
Minto wrote: "I entirely agree with my Government as to the immediate
necessity of Dundonald's dismissal.  As to their support of Fisher I
entirely disagree with them; but surely the question as to whether
public departments are to be run on political lines is not one to be
settled by the Governor-General, but by the Dominion Parliament and the
people of Canada....  I don't care a damn what any one says, and have
not a shadow of doubt this is right."

He was strongly pressed to refuse to sign the order-in-council for
Dundonald's dismissal, and much criticized when he signed it.  But he
had no doubts as to his course.  Dundonald's case was wholly different
from Hutton's; the latter had laboured earnestly to carry Ministers
with him and had never been willingly guilty of insubordination; the
former had chosen the path of flat defiance.  Dundonald's attitude was
revealed by his conduct when the order was passed.  He wanted Minto to
delay it that he might have a chance of starting a political campaign,
and was surprised when Minto told him that he would never be a party to
such a course.  At the same time Minto wished to use the occasion as a
warning against political jobbery in the Militia, and pressed Sir
Wilfrid to ask also for Mr. Fisher's resignation--a course which the
Prime Minister declined to take.  Minto signed the order, {152} and
contented himself with repeating his views on political interference in
a private memorandum to Council, and in endeavouring unsuccessfully to
get from Ministers some recognition of the good work accomplished by
Dundonald in spite of his indiscretions.  A hot controversy followed
the incident, for the Opposition were on the General's side, and
Dundonald, like his famous ancestor, was not without some of the gifts
of the demagogue.  Moreover, he was a Scot, and Canadian Scots were
prompt to resent Sir Wilfrid's description of him as a "foreigner," at
once modified to "stranger"--the consequence, perhaps, of the Prime
Minister's habit of thinking in French.  The mass meetings held in
Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal were nearly as critical of the
Governor-General as of the Government.  Minto's action was a proof of
his full understanding of his constitutional duties, and his
appreciation of those small differences in the facts which may involve
a momentous divergence in principle; the policy which he had vigorously
resisted in the case of Hutton he accepted promptly in the case of
Dundonald.[10]


V

[Sidenote: 1904]

In a conversation with Laurier in June 1904, Minto secured from the
Prime Minister a remarkable condemnation of political influence in
spheres which should be free from politics.  It was, said Sir Wilfrid,
the great evil of democracies, and he deplored the case of Quebec,
"which was full of small political organizations who entirely
controlled numerous public appointments."  His view seems to have been
that the whole business was indefensible, but that while life was lived
_in faece Romuli_ and not in the Platonic state, the evil must be
accepted and the abuses of one party balanced by the abuses of the
other.  It was {153} the view of a practical party leader, not very
heroic, perhaps, but with a certain crude justification.  So long as
the people accepted the system, the system would continue.  Canada
suffered from the misfortunes incident to all young countries, where
the ablest and strongest men are content, as a rule, with private life,
and are too busy in developing the land's resources to have time to
take a share in the land's government.  Such a situation leaves a free
field for the wire-puller.  Moreover, in Canada parties had come to
have a hereditary and sentimental sanction, so that the people were
sharply brigaded between them without much regard to doctrine.  A man
was born a "Grit" or a Conservative, traditions and environment
determined his political allegiance, and party loyalty had come to be
reckoned a moral virtue.  In Lord Bryce's words:[11] "Party seems to
exist for its own sake.  In Canada ideas are not needed to make
parties, for these can live by heredity, and, like the Guelfs and
Ghibellines of mediaeval Italy, by memories of past combats."  In such
conditions the statesmen who tried to exclude party influence and
"graft" from any domain of public life had the hopeless task of
Sisyphus.

[Sidenote: Politics in the Army]

But this maleficent growth was bound to strangle at birth any true
system of national defence.  There was another and a not less grave
obstacle to be faced by the military reformer.  The Canadian people
could not be apprehensive of danger except from the direction of the
south.  The Venezuela crisis and the vapourings of American politicians
alarmed the country from Halifax to Vancouver, and on the basis of this
alarm Hutton began his reforms.  But the fear soon passed, and the
enthusiasm at the start of the South African War was not less
short-lived.  Canada, desperately busy in developing her rich heritage,
lost interest in schemes for her defence, for the imagination of most
people has but a short range, and dangers which are not visible to the
eye are soon dismissed as academic.

Before the end of Minto's term of office certain vital changes were
made in the Militia Department.  In 1904 the Militia Act was revised,
and the Government were permitted to appoint to the command of the
force, if they {154} so desired, a Canadian Militia officer.  A Militia
Council was also created, on the lines of the new Army Council in
Britain, with the Minister as president, and with as its first member a
Chief of Staff, who was destined to take the place of the old G.O.C.
Moreover, the doubt as to the powers of the Imperial authorities to
call out the Militia for service abroad was settled by an explicit
statement that the force in time of war could only be called out by the
Dominion Government, and that its service, whether within or without
Canada, was restricted to the defence of Canada.  In the following year
the fortified harbours of Halifax and Esquimalt, hitherto maintained
and garrisoned by Britain, were taken over by Canada, and the numbers
of the permanent Militia were consequently increased.  The result was
that the defence of the country and the control of the armed forces of
the Dominion were wholly vested in the Canadian Government.

[Sidenote: Minto's policy frustrated]

Minto, as was to be expected, took an eager interest in the changes,
and in many letters to Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Brodrick, Lord Lansdowne,
and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, and in conversations with Sir Wilfrid Laurier
and Sir Frederick Borden he pressed his views.  He was the first to
suggest that Halifax and Esquimalt should be handed over to Canada and
their command amalgamated with that of the Militia, for he thought that
the increased importance of the post would attract the best type of
soldier--"capable," as he told Mr. Chamberlain, "of looking beyond
purely military needs, and of dealing tenderly with political
necessities and the many disagreeable surroundings of official life in
a new country, and at the same time possessing strength of character
enough to wear down abuses by tact and deliberation."  To the Militia
Council he was favourable, but he was resolutely opposed to the
throwing open of the chief command to Canadian officers.  He was most
anxious to open up to keen Militia officers a real career, and laboured
to devise a system by which a certain number of imperial appointments
would be available for them.  But he did not believe that the time was
ripe to hand over the defence of Canada to a Canadian soldier, and his
reasons were threefold.  The first and most important was the matter of
technical competence.  Canada simply did not possess men of the {155}
professional knowledge capable of bringing the Militia to the standard
of training required by modern military standards.  It was no discredit
to Canada, but it was a fact which could not be blinked.  In the second
place, it was unfair to expect a Canadian commander to fight against
the traditions of political interference which were ingrained in public
life, and which at the same time must disappear if true discipline was
to be maintained.  Finally, he dreamed of a Canadian force trained on
the same lines as other forces in the Empire, and so linked with these
forces that in a great war co-operation--should Canada decree it--would
be swift and smooth and irresistible.  For this there must be a _trait
d'union_, and that for the present could only be found in the link
provided by an imperial commanding officer, familiar with imperial
staff work.  Minto laboured in argument, but the home authorities were
apathetic and the Canadian Government resolved.  Slowly the vision of a
Canadian national army, on a plane with other national armies within
the Empire and part of one great system of imperial defence, faded out
of the air.

There are many views on the doctrine of Empire, and a dozen types of
constitution have been canvassed, from the close mechanism of
federation to the loose tie of allied nations.  But, whatever the
doctrine, the one insistent interest which can never be questioned is
that of common defence.  Canada relapsed into a provincial system of a
small permanent Militia, an imperfectly trained active Militia, and a
water-tight staff.  She did not even, like Australia, have any custom
of universal training.  Her statesmen of all parties, however restive
they might normally be under imperial demands, had eloquently
proclaimed that should Britain and the Empire ever be in danger the
country would rise as one man in their defence.  They were justified in
their faith.  When in August 1914 Germany flung down the challenge,
Canada did not waver.  Her response was instant and universal; she put
armies into the field larger than any army of Britain in the old wars,
and at Second Ypres, at Vimy, at Passchendaele, at the Drocourt-Queant
Line won victories which were vital to the Allied triumph.  But
everything had to be improvised, and improvisation takes {156} time.
It was eight months before the first Canadian division could take its
place in the field, and meantime the whole burden of the defence, not
of Britain alone but of Canada, fell on the worn ranks of the British
regulars.  They did not fail in that desperate duty, but most of them
died of it.



[1] _Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier_, by O. D. Skelton, II.,
page 86, note.

[2] _San Francisco Examiner_, December 23, 1895.

[3] June 18, 1897.  See Sandford Evans: _The Canadian Contingents and
Canadian Imperialism_, page 35.

[4] June 14, 1904.

[5] He wrote to his brother Arthur on 28th September: "It will be a
war, if we fight, which, in my opinion, will always be wrapped in
remorse, however well our soldiers come out of it....  I would fight
for the preservation of the paramount Power if it is in danger, but it
is the policy which has led up to it which has been so fatal.  We have
never been courteous to the Boers....  In my opinion the last phase of
South African history began at Majuba Hill, when we chose to let an
ignorant people who had beaten us three times remain with that idea in
their heads; but, having done so, we might have behaved with greater
dignity....  We shall win and get all South Africa; but how shall we
have got it?  And what a mean heritage of bad feeling we shall have!
... I don't yet believe in war, but I can't put half my heart in it if
it does come."

[6] He wrote to Arthur Elliot (28th September): "From the point of view
of a Canadian statesman I don't see why they should commit their
country to the expenditure of lives and money for a quarrel not
threatening imperial safety and directly contrary to the opinion of a
colonial government at the Cape.  They are loyal here to a degree, and
would fight for the old country if in a difficulty to the last man, but
I confess I doubt the advisability of their taking part now, from the
point of view of the Canadian Government.  Sir Wilfrid told me the
other day that if the question was reconsidered he should call a
Cabinet Council and ask me to be present.  I hope he won't, for I
should be in a nice muddle--my chief at home thirsting for blood, all
my friends here ditto, and myself, while recognizing imperial
possibilities, also seeing the iniquity of the war, and that the time
for colonial support has hardly yet arrived."  It needed the offers of
the other colonies to change his view on this last point.

[7] The Canadian Government were entitled to complain of an apparent
lack of candour in Mr. Chamberlain's attitude.  His letter to Minto of
4th October expressly ruled out the kind of contribution accepted
enthusiastically in his telegram of 3rd October, and the fact that the
contents of that telegram were allowed to leak out to the British press
naturally suggested an attempt on the part of an astute man of business
to manoeuvre the Dominion into the decision he desired.

[8] Minto wrote to his wife describing the departure:--"Everything was
a magnificent success; the service in the Cathedral most impressive;
the whole centre full of soldiers in uniform: the singing was splendid,
every one joining in.  About five hundred took the sacrament, the
General and I going up first.  The troops were drawn up on three sides
of a square on the esplanade, just in front of the Garrison Club, with
their backs to the ramparts, close to the St. Louis Gate.  The Stand
faced the Square.  My procession--self in blue uniform, cocked hat,
etc.--was formed at the Club.  We walked on to the ground and I went
straight to the saluting point, and the band played 'God save the
Queen'; then I made my speech, then came Sir Wilfrid, then the Mayor's
address; then Otter replied, and the General said a few words.  At the
close of my speech I told Otter to tell the men to take off their
helmets, and to give three cheers for the Queen, taking the time from
me.  It was a very fine sight."

[9] Wolseley wrote to him: "I wish you were there in command of all our
mounted troops, and, I have no doubt, so do you; but you are too much
needed where you are.  I know how much we have to thank you for the
Canadian contingent.  It is not because it adds to our strength so much
as because it serves to draw the Dominions and the mother country
together, that I value this move."

[10] His action has been curiously misunderstood by certain Canadian
writers.  Professor Skelton in his _Life of Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ says
that "he endeavoured to induce Sir Wilfrid to abandon or postpone the
dismissal" (II., page 201), and Mr. J. W. Dafoe in his brilliant little
sketch of Laurier says that "he resisted signing the order-in-council
until it was made clear to him that the alternative would be a general
election in which the issue would be his refusal" (page 80).  The
writers seem to be confusing the Hutton and Dundonald affairs, for I
can find no evidence from the correspondence and notes of conversations
of any delay in the latter case.  Minto accepted at once the view of
the Cabinet on the necessity of Dundonald's dismissal.

[11] Quoted in Dafoe's _Laurier_, page 176.




{157}

CHAPTER VII

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 1898-1904

(_continued_)

_Imperial and Domestic Problems_

I

When in the mid 'nineties the doctrine of a united Empire, preached by
Sir John Seeley and made romantic by Cecil Rhodes, became in Mr.
Chamberlain's hands an explicit policy, it took for its text Disraeli's
famous declaration in 1872: "Self-government, in my opinion, when it
was conceded, ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of
imperial consolidation.  It ought to have been accompanied by an
imperial tariff ... and by a military code, which should have precisely
defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should
be defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for
aid from the colonies themselves.  It ought, further, to have been
accompanied by the institution of some representative council in the
metropolis, which would have brought the colonies into constant and
continuous relations with the home Government."  Each detail of this
creed--constitutional, military, economic--was emphasized in turn by
the new imperialist school; but naturally the constitutional took
precedence, and its first and obvious form was the scheme of imperial
federation.

[Sidenote: 1900]

Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in 1897 the hope of the federationists.  In his
own words, they looked to him to act as the bell-wether.  The measure
of imperial preference which he had carried in that year as a shrewd
stroke in domestic politics seemed to outsiders a step in a bold
imperial statesmanship.  He told a Liverpool audience in his {158}
eloquent way that the time might come when Macaulay's New Zealander
would "stand at the gate of Westminster Palace asking for admission
into that historic hall which, having been the cradle of Liberty"--the
rest of the sentence was drowned in the plaudits of his hearers.  His
views beyond doubt at this time leaned to a scheme of federation, and
the Conservative Opposition, while in Ontario accusing him of
lukewarmness in the cause of Empire, in Quebec tried to win favour by
attacking his imperialist proclivities.  When in the spring of 1900 he
replied to Mr. Bourassa's criticisms in Parliament, he declared that
Canada's assistance in future wars must be dependent on a new
constitutional arrangement.  "If you want us to help you," he told the
people of Britain, "you must call us to your councils."  It was natural
that Mr. Chamberlain should look on the Canadian Premier as his first
lieutenant.

[Sidenote: Laurier's attitude]

But Sir Wilfrid was not the type of statesman who is deeply concerned
with constitutional theories.  A man who is leader of a party for
thirty-two years and Prime Minister for more than fifteen must be
something of an opportunist, and his theory must be elastic enough to
take its shape from changing facts.  If the principle of federation
seemed to him attractive, he was not prepared to take any step towards
its realization till compelled by an overwhelming pressure of
circumstance, for he was aware how delicate was the imperial organism,
and knew that the imposition of a new and rigid pattern might kill its
growth.  So accomplished a rhetorician could not avoid making play with
the picturesque dream of a united Empire, but it did not lie close to
his heart.  The development of Canadian nationalism appealed more
deeply both to his sentiment and his practical judgment.

Minto also was no lover of theories, and was chary of bold expansive
constitutional novelties.  He felt that the easiest path to Empire
union was through executive co-operation, and that was why he flung
himself into the question of defence.  This identity of instinct made
him read Sir Wilfrid's mind with remarkable acumen, and incidentally
the mind of Canada.  "People at home," he wrote to his brother Arthur,
"do not appreciate the growing aspirations of the young nationalities
we call colonies....  The more I see the more convinced I am {159}
that, whatever they may say, the strongest feeling of Canadians is a
feeling of Canada's national independence.  On the slightest pretext
they resent instantly anything they can twist into meaning imperial
interference."  Of Laurier he was warmly appreciative.  To the same
correspondent he wrote: "Far the biggest man in Canada is Laurier.  He
is quite charming, and if there is a change I shall miss him more than
I can say--and _he is honest_."  But he had no illusions about the
ultimate policy of the Prime Minister or about the inner core of
Canadian feeling, which the Prime Minister was bound to interpret.  Men
like George Parkin, the Principal of Upper Canada College, Toronto,
with whom he maintained an affectionate intimacy, were imperial
enthusiasts after the British type, and others, like Sir William Mulock
and Mr. Israel Tarte, seemed to be convinced federationists; but Sir
Wilfrid's wary, non-committal opportunism was, he knew, in the last
resort Canada's attitude.

When Mr. Chamberlain in March 1900 mooted the idea of an Imperial
Advisory Council Minto discussed the matter with Laurier and found him
shy and unsympathetic.  In a private letter to the Colonial Secretary
in April 1900 he set out the facts as he saw them:--


    "Sir Wilfrid's own inclination towards an imperial federation of
    any sort is, in my opinion, extremely doubtful--in fact, though his
    recent speeches appear to have been taken in England as
    enthusiastically imperialist, I am convinced they guarantee no such
    opinion.  His speech in the House was very eloquent, and the 'call
    us to your councils' phrase appears to have been accepted as
    indicating a wish to be called--the very last thing Sir Wilfrid
    would want, and the speech itself did not justify that
    interpretation of it.  He recognized the strong British devotion to
    the motherland existent here, and the imperial feeling at home
    stronger perhaps than here, and got a chance for his great
    eloquence.  But I should say that seriously he is devoid of the
    British feeling for a united Empire, that it has no sentimental
    attraction for him, and that a closer connection with the old
    country he would consider from a utility point of view {160} and
    nothing more.  He recognizes the fact that his Canadian
    fellow-countrymen must follow the Anglo-Saxon lead, and will do his
    best to educate them up to it; but I believe it to be much more
    with the idea of the welding together of a Canadian nation than of
    forming part of a great Empire ... and though he has never actually
    said so to me, I suspect that he dreams of Canadian independence in
    some future age.  He thinks the arrangement of tariff questions far
    more likely to bring about imperial unity than any joint system of
    imperial defence; the former may be made to appear magnanimous in
    an imperial sense, but it would hardly be advocated by a colonial
    Government except in a belief in some practical gain to the colony
    from it, whilst the latter, upon which the safety of trade must
    depend, probably appears before the public merely as a direct
    increase in military expenditure to meet an obscure danger not
    generally realized."


Minto's reading of Laurier's mind found remarkable vindication at the
post-war Imperial Conference of 1902.  The Dominion representatives one
and all--even the ardent Mr. Seddon--fought shy of Mr. Chamberlain's
Imperial Council, fearing lest it might conflict with their own
parliaments.  The Conference decided that the "present political
relation was generally satisfactory under existing conditions."  The
"bell-wether" declined to lead the way; he had lost his old
federationism and was moving slowly to another view of imperial
relationship.  He wanted to let well alone, for of the two factors in
Empire development, colonial nationalism and the imperial tie, he
believed that the former must for long require the chief emphasis.  His
conception now was of Canada as a "nation within the Empire," and he
left the best machinery of co-operation to reveal itself.  It is
probable that at the back of his head he conceived of an ultimately
independent Canada; Minto always thought so, and Sir Wilfrid's
biographer assents.[1]  But independence at the moment was as futile as
federation, for it did not fit the facts; and we may take his words in
1909 as the confession of faith of a man who {161} was above all things
a realist, and was determined to make dream wait upon fact.  "We are
reaching the day when our Canadian Parliament will claim co-equal
rights with the British Parliament, and when the only ties binding us
together will be a common flag and a common Crown."  This was likewise
Minto's conclusion--also based on observed facts--though he might have
wished it otherwise.  It is no disparagement of the idealists who from
the 'nineties on have preached organic imperial union to say that they
misjudged the course of events, for their ideals, even if unrealized
and unrealizable, have had a potent influence on political thought; but
it was those who, like Minto, looked forward to alliance instead of
federation, to executive co-operation rather than a legislative
partnership, who judged most shrewdly the trend of Empire development.

[Sidenote: The French-Canadian]

A statesman, it has been said, should be subtle enough to deal with
things, and simple enough to deal with men.[2]  Minto had that large
secure judgment of his fellow-creatures, at once shrewd and charitable,
which comes from mixing with every type of humanity.  While
imperialists in Britain and Canada tended to picture the
French-Canadians as a race brooding darkly over ancestral hatreds and
dreaming of separation, he laughed the bogey to scorn.  There were
elements, indeed, of danger, as he saw, in French Canada--the dregs of
an ancient jacobinism and recurrent waves of clericalism--but the
attitude of the vast majority was acquiescent and decorous.  As a mere
matter of self-interest the British Crown was their best protection.
America had nothing to offer; an independent Canada would raise awkward
questions for them; the Crown was the guardian of their Church, their
language, and their peculiar traditions.  They were a social _enclave_
which could only maintain its particularism under the gis of a
tolerant Empire.  Minto had no patience with the nonsense commonly
talked on the subject.  In November 1900 he wrote to Arthur Elliot:
"The writing of the leading Opposition papers in Ontario has been
positively wicked, simply aiming at stirring up hatred of French
Canada.  It is perfectly monstrous ... I believe myself that the
French-Canadians are very much maligned as to {162} their disloyalty.
French Canada does not wish to be mixed up in imperial wars, and is
lukewarm, but at home you do not call a man disloyal if he disapproves
of the War.  Here, if he is only lukewarm, and is a French-Canadian, he
must be a rebel!  That is the British bulldog argument."  And six
months later he wrote: "I think pig-headed British assertiveness is
much more to be feared than French sympathies."  The fault of the
French-Canadian, as he saw it, was not disloyalty but parochialism, and
this parochialism, in view of his past history, was intelligible and
inevitable.  How could men of another blood kindle to the racial
mysticism of the imperial creed.  For, be it remembered, the
imperialism preached by Mr. Chamberlain had a strong racial tinge.  As
early as his visit to Canada in 1887 he had eulogized "that proud,
persistent, self-asserting and resolute stock that no change of climate
or condition can alter, and which is infallibly destined to be the
predominating force in the future history and civilization of the
world"; and he had added, "I am an Englishman.  I refuse to make any
distinction between the interests of Englishmen in England, in Canada,
and in the United States."  The _habitant_ could understand his own
ancient loyalties, he might even be fired by Canadian nationalism, but
it would have been a miracle if he had discovered enthusiasm for a
creed which claimed the earth as an inheritance for men of another
blood.

[Sidenote: 1903]

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's scheme]

Mr. Chamberlain, having failed in his plans of union on the
constitutional and defence sides, turned in the summer of 1903 to the
economic.  Minto had never given much attention to fiscal and tariff
questions, but Mr. Chamberlain's arguments seemed to him to be on the
face of them incontrovertible.  In protection _per se_ he had little
interest, but retaliation appeared to him to be axiomatic, and imperial
preferences looked like the method of executive co-operation, which he
judged to be the right development of imperial relations.  With Arthur
Elliot, who as a free-trade Unionist felt himself obliged to resign his
post in Mr. Balfour's Government, he had lengthy arguments, and his
letters reveal his difficulty in understanding any detail of his
brother's attitude.  Minto hoped for an instant response from Canada,
for Canada was a protectionist land and had already taken a first {163}
step in imperial preference, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier at the Conference
of 1902 had encouraged Mr. Chamberlain to turn to the economic side of
imperial union.  But he realized, too, certain difficulties in the
situation, which he expounded to the Colonial Secretary in a letter of
July 17, 1903:--


    "Canada is in a state of evolution.  At present I see no one in the
    Dominion capable of directing her future.  Everything is in a state
    of drift.  The chief attraction in public life is the so-called
    development of the country, meaning, I am afraid, to a great extent
    financial transactions not creditable to her public men; and
    influences and inclinations are, so to speak, aimlessly floating
    about, waiting for some power which will eventually control them.
    British sentiment is one such influence; it simmers quite honestly
    in the hearts of the English-speaking population, but there is no
    strong man here to put life into it.  It has plenty of enemies,
    and, admitting its genuine existence, one has still to consider the
    mixed social characteristics which surround it, and the effect they
    may eventually have upon it.  I do not doubt the loyalty of Canada,
    but I believe the strongest feeling of her people is that of
    Canadian nationality.  There is no reason why, if Canada and the
    motherland share mutual interests, her national ambitions should be
    anti-imperial; if they do not, the tendency will be towards
    eventual separation.  There is, too, even among the most British
    society of the Dominion, that disagreeable cavilling feeling
    towards the old country ... and the exaggerated suspicion of
    anything that can be twisted into meaning imperial interference."


Minto believed that Mr. Chamberlain's proposals were the turning of the
ways in British history.  He thought that if Britain refused to develop
a line of policy which Canada had herself inaugurated, the tendency
would be for the Dominion to turn her mind to reciprocity with the
United States.  Here, as in the question of defence, he longed for
qualities in the Prime Minister--qualities of dash and daring--which
the Prime Minister did not possess.  The response from the Laurier
Government {164} was polite, but tepid.  On 27th July Mr. Chamberlain
wrote to Minto a letter which frankly set out his policy so far as it
concerned Canada:--


    "I am not by any means entirely satisfied with the action of the
    Canadian Ministers.  Seeing that in all these conversations they
    pressed for the adoption of the policy I am now advocating, I
    certainly hoped for a warmer and more indisputable welcome.  I have
    been ready to sacrifice anything to secure what I believe to be a
    great imperial object.  If I fail, of course my political career
    will be closed, but with proper co-operation I do not think I shall
    fail in the long run, although I may not win _uno saltu_.  Colonial
    politicians, however, are more timid, and they do not seem to me to
    venture to put great questions on the highest level.  They attach
    more importance to a few votes than to great principles, and the
    prospect of an imperial union, which they perhaps do not appreciate
    at its true value, is not sufficiently attractive to them to
    justify any risk of losing political support....  What I have to do
    is to convince my own people first....

    "The change will be carried, if at all, by mixed considerations of
    sentiment and interest.  As to the former, I hope it is strong in
    Canada, and that there is some appreciation of what an Empire
    really means as contrasted with the parochial life and small
    ambitions of little states.  If the Empire breaks up into atoms,
    each one will be comparatively insignificant, powerless, and
    uninteresting.  If it holds together it will be the greatest
    civilizing influence in the world....

    "As regards interest, the colonies will no doubt take steps to
    guard their growing manufactures from extinction.  On the other
    hand, our people will not assent to a tax on corn and meat or other
    articles of primary necessity, unless they are satisfied that they
    will have something substantial in return in the shape of increased
    exports of manufactures.  This cannot be secured entirely by the
    mere increase of differential rates against foreign nations.  The
    business of foreign countries with Canada is either comparatively
    small, {165} or it is in articles which we do not make or produce.
    We must, therefore, look to an expansion due to other causes than a
    mere reduction in the imports of other countries.

    "It seems to me that what we both want is possible.  Canada may
    preserve her present industries, but give us a full share in her
    future expansion.  If she has, for instance, decided to establish,
    or has already established, the great primary industries such as
    iron-making and cotton-spinning, and requires a small protection
    against us to prevent them from being overwhelmed, such a course
    might be taken; while, at the same time, she might leave to us the
    smaller industries not yet established in Canada, in regard to
    which there is no vested interest, and which together will make up
    large sums.  In other words, let Canada continue to protect what
    she has got, and adopt free trade, or nearly free trade, so far as
    we are concerned, in regard to all the industries that up to the
    present time have not been established.

    "I feel strongly with you that we are at a parting of the ways,
    and, although I am not disposed to prophesy anything with
    confidence, I think that unless we succeed in doing something to
    unite our business interests more closely, sentiment alone will not
    keep the Empire together."


[Sidenote: Canada's response]

Mr. Chamberlain resigned the Colonial Secretaryship and devoted himself
to his crusade, but there was no such missionary zeal in the
protectionist Government of Canada.  Sir Wilfrid accepted the scheme in
principle, but would take no overt step to show his approval.  Minto
summed up his attitude thus to Mr. Chamberlain: "Canada does not want
to appear as a beggar, asking a favour of the motherland; she does not
want to interfere in what is becoming a party fight at home; the matter
is one which the old country must first settle for herself, and then
Canada will know what to do.  Canada believes that preferential trade
between the motherland and herself would be advantageous to both
parties, but the former, with whom the decision rests, must not put
herself in the position of making, or appearing to make, sacrifices for
Canada."

{166}

It was a discreet and impregnable attitude, but it was not heroic, and
to Mr. Chamberlain, prepared to hazard everything for what he believed
to be a shining ideal, it seemed shabby and faint-hearted.  Minto could
not understand how those who accepted the end could be unwilling to
urge the means, and Mr. Chamberlain wrote to him, in sadness rather
than in bitterness, that Sir Wilfrid was clearly "not a man with whom
to go out tiger-hunting."  Sir Wilfrid was not; he was little inclined
to court danger, and his courage was reserved for the time when danger
was present and inevitable.  But there was more in the Government's
lukewarmness than the temperament of its leader.  Canadian Liberals
were influenced by the not very honest "dear loaf" campaign of their
British namesakes.  Canadian Conservatives were not enthusiastic about
the free field claimed for British manufactures in Canada, and Canadian
manufacturers were disinclined to admit that there were any articles
which sooner or later somewhere in the country they could not produce.
The British proposals seemed too much like a stereotyping of Canada's
present industrial position, and Canada, intoxicated with dreams of a
vast future, was averse to any economic delimitation.  Moreover, the
imperial preference side began soon to fall into the shade, and Mr.
Chamberlain's campaign, as it developed, became more and more a plan
for the protection of British industries.  Sir Wilfrid judged truly the
feeling of his countrymen.  They were not greatly interested; there was
no force of popular sentiment which would force the Government's hand,
and the Government was without inclination for imperial adventures.
Minto, sharing to the full in Mr. Chamberlain's views, set down
Canadian apathy to Sir Wilfrid's weakness; but it is not weak to refuse
to be drawn into a course for which you have little zest.  The man who
is seeking new worlds to conquer will never see eye to eye with the man
who is engrossed in the development of his township.


II

[Sidenote: 1899]

A Governor-General must play a large part in the foreign relations of
the dominion where he represents the {167} British Crown, since he is
the exponent of the British point of view, which has of necessity to
embrace a wider orbit than that of the local government.  Canadian
foreign policy was at the time confined to her relations with America,
as to which there were many long-standing problems that at any moment
might become acute controversies.  Minto shared the view which Queen
Victoria had expressed to him at Balmoral, that there was a great deal
of cant in the current talk of kinship between the United States and
Britain.  He was of the opinion that Sir Wilfrid Laurier set down in a
letter to him in 1899--"Our American friends have very many qualities,
but what they have they keep, and what they have not they want.
Perhaps," Sir Wilfrid added, "we, too, are built up the same way."  The
influence of the "big interests," which everywhere he detested, seemed
to Minto to have reached in America the dimensions of a scandal, and he
found in her people a lack of that sporting equity which he valued
above all other human qualities.  In any controversy with the United
States he was therefore likely to have a strong _a priori_ leaning to
Canada's side.

[Sidenote: The Alaskan question]

The Washington Treaty of 1871, which dealt largely with fisheries and
trade, was abrogated in 1885, and the fishing question was governed by
the old treaty of 1818.  This was manifestly an out-of-date machine, so
a special commission, of which Mr. Chamberlain was a member, was
appointed in 1887, and the Chamberlain-Bryan Treaty was produced,
which, however, the United States Senate declined to ratify.  The
consequence was an annual _modus vivendi_, till in 1897 the Governments
of Britain and America agreed to a joint High Commission, which should
settle all outstanding differences, such as the matter of trade
reciprocity, the Alaskan boundary, the Atlantic fisheries, and the seal
fishing in the Behring Sea.  Lord Herschell, the chairman, died during
the sittings, and the deliberations came to an untimely end,
principally because, though agreement seemed to be in sight on the
other points, a violent divergence of views was apparent on the Alaskan
frontier question.  On this the difference of attitude and interests
between Canada and her neighbour came to a head, and it formed in many
ways the most delicate and troublesome problem of Minto's term of
office.

{168}

Alaska had been first explored by the Russians Behring and Cherikov,
and its coast had been first charted by Captain Cook in 1778 and
Vancouver in 1793-94.  The land originally was Russian territory, and
its relations with America were fixed by treaty in 1824, and its
boundary with the British possessions by the treaty of 1825.  In 1867
Russian Alaska was sold to the United States, but the frontier question
with Canada was not scientifically determined.  Towards the close of
the century the matter was made urgent by the discovery of gold in the
Klondyke and the rapid development of the Yukon district.  Canada
needed ports for her hinterland, and the question of police regulations
was insoluble so long as the boundary line was vague.  There were many
suggestions made for a compromise, but America stood on what she
believed to be her legal rights given by the treaty of 1825.
Arbitration was proposed under an impartial tribunal and an umpire, but
this America rejected.  The feeling in Canada may be judged from a
letter of Minto's to Arthur Elliot in August 1899:--


    "The States are impossible to deal with.  Their leading men,
    however high-minded personally, are entirely under the influence of
    local organizations which they can't ignore.  No one for an instant
    expects fair play from the States either in business or in sport.
    The feeling here is very strong against them, and it is only human
    nature that it should be so.  On the other hand, thinking people of
    course see the vital necessity of being on friendly terms with
    them.  Canadian statesmen fully recognize the overwhelming
    importance of this; but one can't forget that you have an unruly
    mining population on the debatable frontier of Alaska, rubbing up
    against Canadian posts, and a good hearty hatred between a large
    part of both nations."


The ordinary reader, when he first approaches the subject, is inclined
to be amazed at the unreason and truculence of the American attitude,
and to set it down to that high-handedness in international questions
which has occasionally distinguished a nation accustomed more than
others to proclaim the majesty of international law.  Here was a {169}
long strip of coast, running far to the south and overlapping British
Columbia, which had been given by an old treaty to Russia because of
the rights created at that date by occupation, when America had no
interest in the region.  It was fair to argue that the whole position
as between two friendly neighbours should be revised by arbitration in
the light of the facts of Canadian western development.  Arbitration
seemed to be a pet American procedure.  In 1895-96 President Cleveland
had compelled Lord Salisbury to accept it in a boundary dispute with
Venezuela--had insisted on it, indeed, with notable discourtesy.  But
now, when a neighbour asked for arbitration in a case far more
difficult than that of the Venezuela frontier, America would have none
of it.  She was indignant when it was suggested that Alaska should be
included in the reference of the Herschell Commission, and on that very
score the Commission failed.  She was in effective occupation of the
coast strip; "what I have I hold," seemed to be her answer,
irrespective of law or decency.

[Sidenote: 1901]

[Sidenote: President Roosevelt]

Then Britain proposed arbitration anew, and there is reason to believe
that President M'Kinley would have accepted it.  Even John Hay, his
Secretary of State, though he did not like it, felt some difficulty in
refusing what America had demanded in the case of Venezuela.  But in
September 1901 M'Kinley was assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt
succeeded him as President; and one of Roosevelt's first acts was to
refuse categorically any suggestion for arbitration.  What were his
reasons?  He was a wise and a strong man, a lover of his country, but a
lover also of fair play and international righteousness.  Had he been
convinced that America was behaving dishonourably, we may be certain
that he would have done what he held to be right and consigned all
intriguing interests and threatening electorates to the devil.  On what
did he base his unhesitating refusal?

In the first place--if we may guess at his thoughts--he regarded the
treaty of 1825 as a legal document to be interpreted judicially.  It
was the title-deeds of America's property on the southern Alaskan
coast.  For seventy years a certain obvious interpretation of it had
held the field, which showed the boundary running round the heads of
many inlets.  It was clear to him that it had been the {170} intention
of the treaty to give Russia not merely a string of isolated headlands,
but the unbroken _lisire_.  Now Canada had made the mistake of
overstating her case.  She claimed that the line should run across the
mouths of the fjords, leaving her the deep inlets behind.  To Roosevelt
and to the American people the claim seemed preposterous, both on the
wording of the treaty and on the prescriptive right given by the
assumption of seventy years.  Had there been an arbitration, this
extreme case of Canada's would have been put forward as a bargaining
counter, and, since arbitrators invariably compromise, Canada would
have received more than her due.  He felt that he had no right to play
fast and loose with the property of his country; it was not only
Seattle and the West that would object, it was the whole American
nation.  He strongly desired a settlement, but he did not believe that
any settlement would endure which violated plain legal rights.  All he
was concerned with was to have these rights explicitly ascertained, and
for that the proper instrument was a judicial commission.

It was believed at the time in Canada that the negotiations with
America over the revision of the Bulwer-Clayton Treaty, in order to
assure her control of the Panama Canal, gave Britain an opportunity for
bartering concessions in Central America for concessions in Alaska.
The opportunity, if it ever really existed, was missed, and the Alaska
question was referred to a commission of "six impartial jurists of
repute," three British and three American.  This was not satisfactory
to Canada, for it seemed likely to lead to a deadlock, but Laurier
accepted the proposal, it being understood that the British three would
be an English and a Canadian judge and the English Chief-Justice.  To
the amazement of the world the American trio consisted of the Secretary
for War, Mr. Elihu Root; Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, the Senator for
Massachusetts; and Senator Turner of Washington.  Mr. Root was a great
lawyer, but he was also a member of the American Executive; Senator
Lodge had publicly described the Canadian case as "a baseless and
manufactured claim," and Senator Turner represented those Western
interests which were hostile to Canadian trade.  Where were the
"impartial jurists"?  Roosevelt's motive in the appointments {171}
seems to have been that he was determined on a speedy settlement which
would remove "the last obstacle to absolute agreement between the two
peoples," and that he was convinced that his case was so unanswerable
that he did not need to seek an appearance of impartiality.

[Sidenote: 1903]

Canada, who had argued herself into a belief in the justice of her full
claim, could scarcely be expected to approve this conduct or appreciate
the motives behind it.  On March 1, 1903, Minto wrote to Arthur
Elliot:--


    "The U.S. have behaved quite disgracefully.  Briefly, we accepted
    their proposal, or rather Herbert and Hay's arrangement for the
    judicial discussion of the frontier dispute--three 'impartial
    jurists of repute' on each side.  This was entirely contrary to
    what Canada has always sought for, viz., arbitration with a court
    selected under unprejudiced conditions and an umpire; but, being
    honestly anxious to have the arguments on both sides fully
    considered, we agreed to the Hay-Herbert treaty, pointing out that
    it was not what we hoped for, but that the immense importance of a
    friendly international consideration of the subject had decided us
    to accept the terms proposed.  The _pourparlers_ were perfectly
    distinct that on one side we should have the Chief-Justice of
    England and two judges of the High Courts of England and Canada
    respectively--assuming, of course, that the U.S. commissioners
    would be jurists of distinction not at present mixed up in
    politics.  Imagine our surprise when Roosevelt appoints Root, his
    Sec. of S. for War; Lodge, who has given vent to the most
    anti-British views on Alaska; and Turner, the Senator for
    Washington State and the representative of the Pacific ports
    interest, in opposition, of course, to our Alaskan coast trade.
    It's the most monstrous thing....  The first inclination was to
    retire altogether as far as Canada was concerned from the bargain.
    On second thoughts, however, it seems better, while protesting
    against the U.S. action, to accept the President's nominations; but
    I have impressed upon Sir Wilfrid and upon H.M.'s Gov. that in my
    opinion we ought to insist on sticking to our side {172} of the
    bargain, and appointing the Chief-Justice and other judges on our
    side as originally intended.  For some reason or other H.M.'s Gov.
    seem to have got it into their heads that because the U.S. are
    appointing partisans, therefore we must give up the judicial
    character of our representatives.  I think exactly the opposite.
    If both sides appoint partisans the tribunal must lose all dignity
    and weight, whereas if we stick to the bargain like gentlemen, we
    shall not only gain by better professional arguments, but will
    place the U.S. before the world as not having played up to the
    terms of the treaty which they had agreed to."


Minto's good sense--with which Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in full
accord--prevailed.  It was considered wise to appoint, in addition to
Lord Alverstone, two Canadian judges, Sir Louis Jett and Mr. Justice
Armour, the latter of whom died in London and was succeeded by Mr. A.
B. Aylesworth, a leader of the Ontario bar.  In October 1903 the
tribunal reported.  By a majority of four to two, Lord Alverstone
voting with the American representatives, it was held that the boundary
should run, not across the mouths, but round the heads of the fjords,
and that the Portland Channel, the southern limit, should be taken as
running in such a way as to give Canada only two of the four islands
claimed.  In effect the verdict accepted the case of the United States.

There was an instant uproar in Canada, and the bitter part of the pill
was the Portland Channel.  It appeared that Lord Alverstone had
admitted the strength of the British case on 12th October, and had
delivered on 17th October a judgment contradicting his expressed
opinion, and the natural deduction was that, in his anxiety to settle
the matter, he had compromised, and acted as a diplomatist and not as a
judge.  The two Canadian commissioners protested publicly, and Minto
lamented the awakening of all kinds of old separatist and anti-British
ghosts which he hoped had long been laid in their graves.  It may be
safely said that for the allegations against Lord Alverstone there was
no foundation.  The English Chief-Justice was not a great lawyer or a
conspicuously strong man, but he was a very honest one, and he was
incapable {173} on such a tribunal of forgetting the primary duties of
a judge.  The best legal view at the time was that the question of the
Portland Channel was one of extreme difficulty in which the merits were
evenly balanced, and that the American contention was at least as
justifiable as the Canadian.

[Sidenote: Minto's statesmanship]

Now that the irritation has long been forgotten, the considered opinion
of Canada accepts the finding as a reasonable settlement.  Undoubtedly
President Roosevelt, however excellent his intentions, and however
cogent his grounds for refusing an arbitration, played a blundering
part, for his choice of the American commissioners was one of those
pieces of folly and bluster which sometimes marred his great career.
If his case was as strong as he believed it to be, and as it no doubt
was, to pack the court with partisans was to make certain that any
decision would be suspect in the eyes of Canada and the world; and he
did not help matters when, after the decision was announced, he
proclaimed it to the housetops as "the greatest diplomatic victory of
our time."  Minto, on the contrary, showed a restraint and wisdom which
had a soothing effect on the exacerbated temper of his Government.  He
had been as angry as any Canadian at the American appointments, but he
did not question the justice of the verdict.  He calmed down those who
demanded that in future Canada should have the "treaty-making power" by
suggesting that in that event Canada must shoulder the whole burden of
her defence.  He made himself a complete master of the facts of the
case, and defended Lord Alverstone much better than that honest
gentleman defended himself.  He went over every argument with his
Ministers in long conversations, the notes of which show not only his
trenchant good sense but an unexpected legal acumen; while his letters
to Sir Wilfrid contain an argument on the Portland Channel which was
certainly not bettered by counsel during the hearing of the case.


III

[Sidenote: 1900]

Canadian internal politics were no part of Minto's province, but there
was a margin of domestic questions {174} where the Governor-General had
a certain status, and was free to inquire and advise.  Notable among
these was the administration of the new Yukon province, the position of
the Indian remnants, and matters of historical and antiquarian
interest, which are apt to be ignored in a country borne on the high
tide of commercial triumph.  In July 1900, while Sir Wilfrid Laurier
was in the thick of preparations for a general election, Minto left
Ottawa for a prolonged tour in the North-West.  It was a land he had
not visited since he went to Vancouver with Lord Lansdowne fifteen
years before, and every mile was a revelation, for the old villages had
swelled into towns, and towns had been transformed into cities.  He
left Vancouver on 8th August with Lady Minto, and, travelling by way of
Skagway and the White Horse Pass, reached Dawson City on the 14th.  For
four days he led a strenuous life, of which the burden was not
lightened by excessive proffers of champagne.  "It has been a wonderful
experience," his diary records.  "There seems to have been an idea that
we would hold ourselves aloof, and refuse generally to meet all classes
or interchange ideas.  We have done our best to see every one and do
everything that time allowed.  I have received petitions from the
citizens and the Board of Trade, and discussed matters with the
politicians, and have had many conversations with miners and others
interested in the country.  I have no doubt that my search for
information will be bitterly resented by those in power, but to have
refused to listen would have been, in my opinion, miserable."  Among
those who resented his conduct was certainly not Sir Wilfrid, to whom
the Yukon was a perpetual source of disquiet, and who gladly welcomed
an honest and first-hand opinion.  The enthusiasm attending the
Governor-General's departure from Dawson was in marked contrast to the
apathy shown on his arrival.  The miners felt they had found a friend
who understood them.  They presented Lady Minto with a gold basket,
made in Dawson, filled with nuggets, and with hearty hand-shakes and
amid ringing cheers the party embarked on the paddle-boat, _Sybil_, on
their return journey down the Yukon River.

[Sidenote: The Yukon]

In Minto's view the direction of the Yukon at that time was a disgrace.
It was too far away to be effectively {175} governed from Ottawa, and
corruption, which was always an ugly background force in Canadian
politics, walked there open and unashamed.  The place was a Territory,
administered by a commissioner and five others appointed by the
Governor-General-in-Council, to which body two elected members had just
been added.  The problem, it is true, was far from easy.  The
population was rough, mixed, and nomadic, and of the 17,000 in Dawson
City 75 per cent. were American subjects.  The system of getting gold
was entirely "placer" mining, which is not easily developed into a
systematic industry.  Distance and the difficulties of transport made
supplies costly, and administrative blunders added to the expense of
living and intensified the gambling atmosphere.  "Prices are enormous,"
Minto wrote to Arthur Elliot; "an egg 75 cents, a bottle of champagne
cheap at 20 dollars, but every one drinks it on every possible
occasion; hay very cheap when I was there at 300 dollars a ton (I
believe it has been up to 600 dollars).  The high prices are to a great
extent of course due to expense of freight, but also to the
misgovernment which has so taxed the gold output that there is a
feeling that only gambling prices are worth going in for.  Liquor is
only allowed in by a system of permits, the Minister of the Interior
disposing of these permits to his friends at a royalty of two dollars a
gallon, and they selling it in Dawson for four and five dollars a
gallon to speculators there."

It is the tale of all new mining camps.  A remote government treats
them as a milch-cow for revenue and a field for patronage, and forgets
its duties.  In a long private letter to Mr. Chamberlain, Minto set out
the reforms which seemed to him essential.  The excessive royalty on
the gold output--10 per cent. on the gross--should be reduced; the
liquor permits system should be abolished, since it put the trade into
a few corrupt hands; there should be a change in the system of the
reservation of claims for the Dominion Government, which was no less
than an invitation to official dishonesty; above all, a reasonable
proportion of the revenue should be spent on the improvement of the
country.  There was nothing new either in the complaints or the
proposed reforms, for Canada had been humming for the past year with
talk of Yukon {176} scandals.  Sir Wilfrid was far from easy in his own
mind about the matter, and he could not disregard the emphatic comments
of the Governor-General.  The gold royalty was reduced, and other
reforms were in process, when the Yukon question was suddenly
transformed into the Alaskan boundary controversy.  In a few years the
decline of the placer mining stripped the problem of its urgency, for
the wilds closed in upon many mushroom settlements, and the torrential
growth checked and ebbed.

[Sidenote: 1901]

[Sidenote: The Indians]

For the Indians, the ancient owners of the land, Minto had at all times
a peculiar tenderness.  In his early wanderings he had been brought
much into contact with savage tribes, and in particular had seen how
the frontier officers in India kept the peace by a wise tolerance, when
the harsh hand would have led to strife.  In the Batoche expedition he
had had experience of the red man, and was eager to preserve something
of his traditional life from the steam-roller of civilization.  We find
him, on his way back from his Yukon journey, visiting the Sarcee and
Blackfoot Reserves, of which he wrote to Queen Victoria:--


    "The Indians, too, have made great advances, and though they met me
    with all their old barbaric pomp, bead-work, feathers, and
    tomahawks, I am told I am probably the last Governor-General who
    will receive such a welcome, and that my successors will have to be
    content with chiefs in tall hats and black coats.  I suppose one
    must not regret the coming change, but I confess the wild red man
    has charms for me."


Two years later he was at Fort Qu'appelle and held a pow-wow with the
chiefs of a neighbouring reserve and heard their grievances.  One of
them was the Sioux, Standing Buffalo, with whose intelligence he was
much impressed, and he listened patiently to the tale of their woes.
The foremost was the suppression of their traditional dancing.  "The
Commissioner for Native Affairs," says the journal, "is evidently
opposed to dancing.  He is a tall cadaverous Scotsman, more like an
elder of the Kirk than anything else, and had the most depressing
effect on me....  I cannot conceive his ever approving of dancing!  But
why should not these poor people dance?  It is their only amusement,
and sober beyond words in {177} comparison to a Scottish reel.  Of
course the Sun Dance and its cruelties it was right to stop, but surely
not all dancing....  The ridiculous wish to cut it down, root and
branch, on the part of narrow-minded authorities makes me sick, and I
said plainly that I saw no harm in it, and was in no way opposed to it.
I suppose I shall be reported, as usual, as in violent opposition to my
Ministers.  I don't care a damn, as I am convinced all reasonable
people who know the Indians agree with me, and I believe my speaking
out occasionally does much good."  So we find him to the end of his
tenure of office pleading the cause of the Indians, especially of his
friend Standing Buffalo, to Indian commissioners and
Lieutenant-Governors, without much assistance from the Prime Minister.
Sir Wilfrid, who might have been expected to have a tender side towards
the ancient ways, had no wish to rouse the Canadian equivalent of the
Nonconformist conscience.

[Illustration: LORD MINTO AND "DANDY," 1900 (_Photo by Topley, Ottawa_)]

Some months after Minto's return from the Yukon a Dawson paper thus
described his visit and its results:--


    "For a Governor-General in an aggressive young colony like Canada
    to be actively interested in affairs necessitates the constant
    exercise of the greatest common sense.  An illustration was
    afforded in Dawson.  The complaints from the territory percolating
    through to the outside were loud and deep.  The Government had
    considered it necessary on the floor of the House to protest that
    there was really nothing wrong here excepting the people.  Lord
    Minto was not content to come here and be blind and deaf.  The
    Administration desired it.  There were many staunch supporters of
    the party in power who stood prepared to take mortal offence did
    the Governor-General make any capital for the Opposition.

    "A weak man would have taken the hint and remained silent, leaving
    abuses unredressed and the people oppressed.  A cowardly man would
    have avoided the dangerous shoals by retiring from the public
    behind official dignity and red tape.  A stupid man would have had
    the party and Government about his ears in a week.  But Lord Minto
    avoided every pitfall.  He first insisted upon receiving the people
    {178} here and hearing their complaints: the Administration stood
    off in affright!  The Governor-General even invited bills of rights
    and memorials recapitulating abuses; and the stauncher members of
    the party almost collapsed!  He cross-examined his callers closely,
    showing the most intelligent and sympathetic understanding of the
    questions brought before him.  The wise ones winked knowingly, and
    intimated that the Governor-General would avoid the rocks by
    shelving the complaints; that the memorials would be pigeon-holed
    and never resurrected; that, in short, it was all a 'stall.'

    "He left Dawson, and it is a matter of Yukon history that after his
    departure he was silent as the grave.  Not a word came back to
    Dawson; not a word reached the outside papers.  Ottawa gossip never
    even discovered he was having anything to say to the Ministers, or
    reporting to them his discoveries while here.  And the only way in
    which we know we were not forgotten was that, commencing some
    twenty days after his departure, the very reforms were begun for
    which he had been petitioned.  Day by day the abuses were removed,
    until presently everything complained of to Lord Minto had been
    remedied without a word of explanation.  Moreover, it was to be
    observed that so cleverly had his recommendations been made that
    his standing with the Canadian Government and in official circles
    was higher than ever.  He had dared to be more than an official
    puppet; had put his spoke in the Canadian wheel; had not feared to
    essay the amendment of palpable abuses; and yet had interfered so
    cleverly that there was not the slightest soreness discoverable
    anywhere."


[Sidenote: A Constitutional Governor]

That was the kind of recognition which Minto desired.  He was a man of
action, and, though his position forbade him to act himself, he could
get things done by others.  He adhered scrupulously to constitutional
form, and he did not seek personal repute or advertisement, but he
secured results without friction, where the gushing popularity-hunting
type of Governor would have {179} utterly failed.  Dr. Doughty has
written of him: "Sir Wilfrid Laurier said once: 'Lord Minto is the most
constitutional Governor we have had.'  And yet perhaps no other
Governor succeeded so completely in imposing his own policy upon the
Government.  He would suggest, persuade, insist; but when once his
point was gained, there was complete self-effacement, and the measure
became that of his advisers, even in its inception.  He might be the
discoverer of the evil and the author of the remedy, but the action
must be taken by, and the credit belong to, the Government of Canada."

He would have asked for no finer tribute.  It is a definition of the
essential function of a wise viceroy in a free Dominion.



[1] Skelton, II., page 292.

[2] The phrase is the late Sir Walter Raleigh's.




{180}

CHAPTER VIII

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 1898-1904

(_continued_)

_Social and Personal Relations_

I

[Sidenote: 1898-1904]

A Governor-General lives an intricate and crowded life in the public
eye, and he is fortunate if from the whirl of minor duties he can
snatch time for study and reflection.  His mind may be absorbed in some
grave discussion with his Ministers or the home Government, but he must
present himself smiling at a dozen functions, and let no one guess his
preoccupation.  He must perpetually entertain and be entertained: he
must show interest in every form of public activity, from a charity
bazaar to a university celebration; he must be accessible to all men
that he may learn of them and they of him; he must visit every corner
of his domain, and become, for the time being, not only one of its
citizens, but by adoption a perfervid son of each town and province.
These things are the imponderabilia of governorship, not less important
than a cool head and a sound judgment in the greater matters of policy,
and many a man who is well fitted for the latter duties fails signally
in the other.

We have seen Minto's work on the political side; in its social and
personal aspects its merits were no less conspicuous.  To the task
indeed he brought splendid endowments.  He had remarkable physical
strength, and could go through a long ceremonial day without loss of
vigour or temper.  He mentions in his journal that at the age of
fifty-six he wore glasses for the first time in reading, which shows
how little he had to complain of in bodily powers.  He was also endowed
with the liveliest curiosity {181} about all sorts and conditions of
men, their business, their sports, the whims and humours of their
lives.  Being the extreme contrary of an egoist, it was easy for him to
enter into other people's interests, and his sympathy was no painfully
adopted pose, but sincere and spontaneous.  Lastly, he had a wife who
shared his happy temperament, and relieved him of more than half his
burden.  Lady Minto's energy was unflagging, and her tact infallible.
She busied herself with every form of social work, interesting herself
in the charities already established, and raising a fund in memory of
Queen Victoria which was devoted to establishing cottage hospitals in
outlying districts.  She accompanied him everywhere, and everywhere
made friends.

[Sidenote: Government House]

Few Governor-Generals have made a greater success of that delicate and
arduous duty, official entertainments.  There was a cordiality about
the reception of each guest which gave the impression of an individual
welcome, and the happy atmosphere could not fail to leave its
impression on the stream of visitors who crossed the threshold, for the
hospitable doors of Government House were always open.  The secret of
this success was apparent: the whole establishment worked for the
common end with a spirit of co-operation which produced a harmonious
household, for there was a magnetism about Minto which called forth the
best in others.  He had the good fortune to be assisted by the most
competent staff; his first military secretary was Laurence Drummond, to
be followed two years later by that officer of the Coldstream Guards
who, as Sir Stanley Maude, in the Great War saved our fortunes in
Mesopotamia.  Minto was no lover of functions, but he accepted them
cheerfully, wearing on every possible occasion his military uniform in
preference to the diplomatic gold coat.  "You are so absurdly fond of
my bare legs and dancing pumps," he wrote to his wife.  "What I feel is
that all my service till I came here has been military service, every
little honour I have won is for that, and on retirement I was given the
right to wear a General's uniform, and I shall always do so.  I hate
these bare-legged people."  He could find a source of humour even in
boredom.


    "An awful dinner last night," he told his wife; "timed for 7 and we
    did not get home till 2 a.m.  {182} The toast list was sent to me
    beforehand, and, to my horror, five toasts and seventeen people to
    speak.  I violently remonstrated, but was assured the speeches
    would be very short.  They were yards long!  At last, when I was
    getting desperate, and was just going to propose Sir ----'s health
    to close the proceedings, to my dismay he jumped up and proposed
    mine for the second time.  We were by that time so overcome with
    emotion at each other's eloquence that we simultaneously broke up.
    X---- made a tremendous speech, and, trembling with emotion,
    proclaimed a Monroe doctrine for Canada, and that she must absorb
    the States and rule the world.  As he had a U.S. professor next
    door to him, who had just made an excellent speech, I quite
    expected war would be declared this morning."


The group of high-spirited and extraordinarily handsome children became
something of a legend, and their doings and sayings did much to add to
the lively interest which Canada took in Government House.  A happy
home life is not only an indispensable background for a busy man, but,
if that man be Governor-General, it is an element in his influence and
a direct aid to the popularity of his rgime.  The atmosphere of
Government House, with its warm family affection, its gaiety and its
simplicity, was a rest and a refreshment to all who entered it.
Minto's journals and letters are full of his children and his pride in
their achievements, and the humours and surprises of the young; the
remarkable talent that Eileen showed for acting; Ruby's success in
taking a first-class at the Toronto College of Music; Esmond's wit and
charm; Larry's and Violet's horsemanship.  He tells this story of his
youngest daughter, who accompanied him on a journey to Lake
Tamiscaming.  "As we arrived at the station a poor man was brought in
horribly mutilated by a blast on the new railway near here.  He was
quite insensible and practically dead, and they put him in the booking
office.  I hoped Vi had not seen him, but she had, and assumed he was
in frightful agony and asked me angrily why they did not kill him now,
at once: 'Do have him killed, Father.'  So thoroughly practical {183}
and so like old Vi--it would so often be much the best plan."

There were other entertainments at Government House than formal
parties, one of the most successful being a children's fancy dress ball
at the Christmas of 1903, when the chief characters were taken from
_Alice in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking-Glass_, his youngest
daughter Violet filling the part of Alice, and Esmond, then seven years
old, that of the White Rabbit.  There were also many dramatic
performances, brilliantly stage-managed by Captain Harry Graham.  There
were unrehearsed performances too, such as the fire that broke out in
the new wing of the house on the early morning of Easter Sunday 1904,
when Lady Minto was lying helpless with a broken leg.  "My own
bedroom," Minto writes in his journal, "was so full of smoke I could
hardly breathe in it.  We made a stretcher out of a screen and carried
Mary down to the oval room.  She really behaved magnificently; my fear
was that she was too cool and would not allow us to hurry her enough.
The children's wing was almost totally destroyed, and much damage was
done by water before the fire was extinguished.  The younger children
had been taken for safety to the stables, and were found there later,
kneeling by the corn bin, earnestly praying for their mother's
safety."[1]

[Sidenote: 1901]

[Sidenote: Queen Victoria's death]

There were certain incidents which belonged to the social and
ceremonial side of Minto's duties which gave him as much thought and
trouble as the major problems of politics.  Two of them are worth
noting, as an example of the kind of difficulty which beset the
Governor-General's path.  When in January 1901 Queen Victoria died, it
seemed to Minto only fitting that there should be an official memorial
service in Ottawa.  He consulted Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who approved, and
it was decided that a service should be held in the Church of England
Cathedral, at which the Governor-General and Ministers should attend in
state.  It was arranged that Minto should issue the invitations, that
the Primate should officiate, and that the Government should contribute
to the Cathedral decorations.  Suddenly there arrived a note from Sir
Wilfrid {184} saying that there could be no state service, as there was
no state church in Canada, and that Ministers could only attend the
services of their own communions.  Minto was naturally surprised, not
at the information about the state church, but at Sir Wilfrid's
conclusion.  It seemed to him reasonable to hold the memorial service
for the dead Queen in the church to which she had belonged, though the
Prime Minister was a Catholic.  Moreover, there was an exact precedent.
The body of Sir John Thompson had been brought from England in a
man-of-war, there had been a state funeral at Halifax, and a state
memorial service in the Roman Catholic Basilica at Ottawa, for all of
which the Government had paid.  Sir Wilfrid, much embarrassed,
explained that Sir John's had been a "burial" service with the body
present; but Minto replied that the body had remained at Halifax, while
the memorial service was held at Ottawa.  There was indeed no argument
possible on the Prime Minister's side; he had been willing enough, but
had changed his mind because of the objections of certain of the
Ministers, notably Mr. Scott, who was a narrow type of Catholic.
Meantime the Ministerial press accused the Governor-General of having
taken a high-handed line on his own authority and of attempting to
force a state church upon Canada.  Minto very properly issued a
contradiction, pointing out that every step he had taken had been with
Sir Wilfrid's assent, and the consequence was that Ministers looked
extremely foolish.  The whole affair was scarcely to the Prime
Minister's credit; he had agreed without consulting his Cabinet, and at
a hint of opposition had chosen to leave the Governor-General in the
lurch.  The result was that the solemnity of the occasion was somewhat
marred: the Catholic Mayor of Quebec, who was also Prime Minister of
the Province, attended in state a service in the English Cathedral in
that city; at Ottawa Sir Wilfrid went to the Roman Catholic Basilica,
while Minto with some of the Ministers went to the English
service--accompanied, to the amazement of the citizens, by that stout
Catholic, Mr. Israel Tarte.

[Sidenote: The Royal Visit]

A second incident was the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and
York in the autumn of 1901.  The Government at first showed complete
apathy in the business; Mr. Scott was doubtful about Canada's welcome,
{185} but waived his objection in haste when Minto proposed to cable
his views home and suggest that the visit be countermanded.  Then
Ministers desired to make arrangements themselves, which was manifestly
an impossible plan, but Minto pointed out that he would be held
personally responsible for the details, and they willingly relinquished
the task.  The organization from beginning to end was the work of the
Governor-General and his staff, and it was no small undertaking.  The
time was limited, the Royal visitors wished to travel Canada from East
to West, local susceptibilities had to be considered in order that no
area might be neglected, and it was equally important that the Duke and
Duchess should not be overweighted with duties but should have a
reasonable share of leisure and amusement.  There were anxious hearts
at the Citadel before the _Ophir_ arrived at Quebec, but the success of
the visit was complete and unequivocal.  Minto's letter of October 25,
1901, to King Edward is the best summary:--


    "It is a great pleasure to me to be able to tell your Majesty of
    the immense success of their Royal Highnesses' visit.  From the day
    they arrived at Quebec till their departure last Monday their stay
    here has been a series of ovations, and I hear nothing on all sides
    but expressions of pleasure, not only as to the success of the
    tour, but as to the affectionate impressions they have left behind
    them....  Their Royal Highnesses held receptions at all the chief
    towns, which were very largely attended.  They were arranged on the
    lines of the state receptions held at Ottawa, though there was at
    first considerable divergence of opinion as to the best manner of
    conducting them--whether they should simply be receptions in the
    ordinary sense of the word, a few selected people being brought up
    and introduced, or whether people should 'pass' and bow without
    shaking hands, or whether every one should shake hands.  Their
    Royal Highnesses adopted the last course, and it has been deeply
    appreciated as a personal intercourse between themselves and the
    Canadian people, which will always be remembered.

    "Your Majesty will have seen from the newspapers {186} that I did
    not accompany their Royal Highnesses across the continent....  I
    confess I was at first much in doubt as to what to do.  I was very
    anxious to give all the help I could, and felt that I might be able
    to give a good deal of help from my acquaintance with leading
    people in the North-West and in British Columbia.  But at the same
    time I felt that it was only natural that Lieutenant-Governors
    should wish personally to take the lead in doing honour to the Duke
    and Duchess, and that I should perhaps be rather in the way at
    small Government Houses, where two staffs would multiply
    difficulties.  So I hope your Majesty may think I decided rightly
    in not going across the continent.  Lady Minto went everywhere with
    the Duke and Duchess, and was, I hope, an assistance to them.  I
    met them on their return from the West at a place called Poplar
    Point, in Manitoba, where we had two days' duck shooting, which I
    believe the Duke enjoyed.  I think that eleven guns got about 700
    duck in a day and a half's shooting, and a detached party of four
    guns got about 200 more.  I had great difficulty in arranging this
    shoot: my Ministers were opposed to any shooting at all, and I
    finally had to insist on it on the ground that it really was absurd
    to say that H.R.H. should not be allowed a day and a half's
    relaxation....  I am sure your Majesty will understand that the
    organization of the tour was not without its difficulties.  There
    was at first an inclination to do nothing to prepare for the
    reception and to leave everything to chance.  It was hopeless, too,
    to endeavour to explain that their Royal Highnesses' time was
    limited, or that it was fair to consider their powers of endurance.
    Consequently it rested with me to undertake many refusals and
    curtailments of ceremonies, the necessity for which people here are
    unwilling to admit.  But it is an immense satisfaction to realize
    that Canada's reception has been a triumphant demonstration of
    loyal sentiment.  The letter of hearty thanks which the Duke has
    addressed to me, expressing his sincere appreciation of the
    reception he had received throughout Canada, has given great
    pleasure everywhere."


{187}

[Sidenote: 1898-1904]

The weeks passed at the Citadel during the autumn of each year were of
special interest to Minto.  Quebec had a peculiar attraction for him,
and he spent many an afternoon wandering through the Old Town searching
out its historical treasures and examining the details of its
battlefields.  His interest led him to desire a deeper and more
accurate knowledge, and on making inquiries for the historical
manuscripts Minto found that these valuable records were not available,
and that the whole of the Canadian archives were in a state of dire
disorder.  They were rotting uncatalogued and uncared for in cellars
and basements: no one department was responsible for their custody, and
no attempt was made to fill up the gaps in them, with the result that
they were virtually useless for the purposes of the scholar.  In a long
letter to Sir Wilfrid, Minto pointed out what appeared to him the
iniquity of the neglect: "My researches have aroused in me such
interest and concern that I cannot refrain from speaking strongly.
Prior to 1882 many papers were committed to the flames; I have heard of
large consignments of unsorted documents, some of which were known to
be valuable, being removed from the Privy Council Office for the
benefit of the paper factories.  It is not only in the Government
offices that these records exist, but many are scattered throughout the
country in the old Hudson's Bay posts, utterly neglected, which are of
the greatest historical value.  It appears to me that the appointment
of a Deputy Keeper of the Records would be of the greatest value to the
history of the Dominion, and would effect a substantial saving on the
extravagant system which at present exists.  For this appointment, both
on account of his ability and literary taste, I should like to mention
Mr. Doughty, the Parliamentary Librarian, with whom I have been in
close touch in connection with the old plans of the defences of Quebec."

[Sidenote: The Canadian Archives]

Minto pressed the question, with the result that the present Archives
building was erected, and the Government laid the foundation of a new
system of safeguarding and completing the public records which has
grown to-day to be one of the best in the world.  He secured for Canada
the originals of the despatches to the Governor-Generals, as well as
many valuable documents from private muniment {188} rooms.  He also
took up the matter of the teaching of Canadian history in schools, and,
being dissatisfied with the existing text-books, induced the Government
to undertake the preparation and issue of documents for Canadian
history, of which the Board of Historical Publications of Canada and
the brilliant work of Dr. A. S. Doughty were the ultimate fruit.

Minto also interceded with the Prime Minister for the preservation of
the Plains of Abraham, having discovered to his horror that it was
proposed to desecrate that historic ground by building and road-making,
and that Sir Wilfrid had actually signed, without reading it, an
order-in-council for the purpose.  He at once took the matter up and
converted the Prime Minister to his views, so that legislation was
passed preserving the Plains for all time as a national memorial.

The Governor-General had an unusual experience one winter in reaching
Quebec:--


    "Left Government House in the worst blizzard I ever saw.  Telegrams
    from Quebec told us of a terrible storm raging there, but I thought
    it was best to push through if possible.  We arrived at Levis about
    midnight.  The ice-bridge jam gave way last night, and the river
    was passable only in canoes; the banks were piled with rough ice
    and fields of icebergs were floating down the river.  It is very
    rare that the ferry-boats fail to keep the river open, and canoes
    are now seldom used.  It was a most thrilling experience.  We got
    into our canoe on dry land and were pushed and towed partly over
    the floes of ice and partly in the open river.  We had eight men to
    each canoe, who paddled in the open water and were wonderfully
    quick in jumping out and pushing the canoe over the ice, singing
    French-Canadian songs as they paddled.  I would not have missed the
    passage for anything.  In these days of ice-breakers such a
    crossing is almost unique.  At the landing sleighs had been
    provided for us, and the Snow Shoe Clubs in their costumes escorted
    us to the Citadel, which we found warm and comfortable."


{189}

II

[Sidenote: Winnipeg]

The Governor-General travelled throughout the length and breadth of
Canada, covering 113,000 miles during his term of office.  Generations
of Whig decorum had not killed in him the moss-trooping instincts of
Liddesdale; his love of adventure, often of the roughest kind, and of
every description of sport, brought him very near to the heart of the
country.  His bodily fitness and the hard training in which he always
kept himself made expeditions possible for him which would have broken
up younger men.  His old family connections, too, and his share in the
little war of 1885 stood him in good stead, and wherever he went he
found friends--Border Scots who remembered the Elliots, and men who had
been with him at Batoche.


    "Arrived at Winnipeg, where we met with a most extraordinary
    reception.  A huge crowd packed the streets, and we passed through
    a narrow line of people all carrying torches.  It is said that
    Canadians can't cheer, but there was no doubt about it at Winnipeg,
    and people kept running out of the crowd to shake my hand, Hawick
    men shouting 'Terribus.'[2]  The enthusiasm continued the whole way
    to Government House.  Winnipeg is intensely Scots: the Mayor in one
    of his speeches said that though they were very proud to welcome
    the representative of the Queen, their demonstration was for Lord
    Melgund, who had fought for them in 1885....

    "Attended church parade in uniform.  I marched at the head of the
    90th, very full of old recollections of 1885, and with rather a
    lump in my throat.  I was with them so much; they and the Scouts
    bore all the brunt of the early days of the campaign.  It was with
    a strong party of the 90th that I went, two days after the fight at
    Fish Creek, to recover the bodies of the men left there.  And as we
    passed the gate of old Fort Garry one could not but think of
    Wolseley, and Buller, and the Red River Expedition, and all the
    history they have shared in since then, when there {190} was
    scarcely anything but the Hudson's Bay Fort and a few houses with
    about 200 inhabitants where the great city now stands.  In 1885,
    when I first knew it, the main street was a quagmire, and the
    population about 25,000.  At the last census it was returned at
    95,000.  Huge buildings, banks, and warehouses rivalling London and
    New York are springing up everywhere alongside the old wooden
    shacks of days gone by.  It has become a vast railway centre with a
    hundred miles of sidings.  It seems a fairy tale."[3]


The Mintos paid two visits to the United States.  The first was in
October 1899:--


    "We left Ottawa and arrived at New York on 1st October, to be the
    guests of Colonel Roosevelt, Governor of New York State, in order
    to attend the International Yacht Race between Sir Thomas Lipton's
    _Shamrock_ and the United States yacht _Columbia_.  Roosevelt's
    home is Sagamore Hill, Long Island, a small and unpretentious
    house....  In the afternoon I took a walk with Colonel Roosevelt,
    who is quite one of the most remarkable men I ever met, bubbling
    over with energy of mind and body; hardly ever stops talking, a
    great sense of humour, and an excellent raconteur; I should think
    afraid of nothing physically or morally, and absolutely
    straightforward.  Though a great sportsman--the house is full of
    magnificent heads--he has much literary talent, and has written
    many books, sporting and historical, and is considered to be in the
    running for the Presidency.  He is rather fat and short, with a
    bull-dog expression, and a way of gnashing his teeth when eager in
    conversation.  I delighted in him."


During one walk Roosevelt led Minto to a precipitous cliff and pointed
out a zigzag path by which he advised {191} him to descend, saying that
he himself preferred climbing down the face of the rock.  To his
surprise Minto at once volunteered to accompany him, and the Governor
of New York State and the Governor-General of Canada raced together to
the bottom.  At the close of the visit their host, on wishing Lady
Minto good-bye, confided to her that he had dreaded their arrival, his
idea of an English peer being somebody "wedded to a frock coat and a
tall hat, who had rarely left the London pavements."

[Sidenote: 1903]

[Sidenote: Visit to Detroit]

The second crossing of the border took place in May 1903.  During one
of his arduous official tours in Western Ontario--when it was no
exception to visit from five to six towns in one day, inspecting every
charitable institution of importance, replying to a dozen or more
addresses, and holding receptions of nearer thousands than
hundreds--Minto was invited to visit Detroit.  The journal contains
this account:--


    "Our reception at Detroit took us entirely by surprise.  We found
    Colonel Hecker's yacht full of lovely ladies in the latest Paris
    fashions, and on landing we found a carriage, and the Mayor,
    waiting to escort us.  The streets were cleared of all traffic, and
    the Mayor said there were some 150,000 people along the line of our
    route.  Every window was crowded, and our reception was
    enthusiastic.  'The Fighting First,' a regular regiment home the
    day before from the Philippines, headed the procession in khaki,
    then the National Guard, then the Naval Reserve, all in open
    columns of companies.  A small boy marched alongside of our
    carriage yelling: 'What's the matter with Lady Minto--she's all
    right,' after the custom of the New World.  After marching through
    the chief parts of the town, the troops formed line along the
    magnificent principal street, and the bands played 'God save the
    King' as we passed.  We were then taken to the hotel, where a
    deputation from both Houses of the Legislature of Michigan State
    presented me with an address of welcome, unanimously voted by both
    Houses, for which I expressed my thanks.  The Mayor made a very
    nice speech, to which I {192} replied, saying that I could only
    suppose the enthusiasm of my reception was intended as a testimony
    of friendship for the King whom I was so proud to represent.  Then
    followed a supper and a reception of the leading citizens, when we
    were presented to the officers of the 'Fighting First.'  The City
    Hall was illuminated with a 'Welcome' to us, and then we returned
    in our yacht to our own side.  It was a most remarkable ceremony
    from first to last.  Everything perfectly organized, and I am at a
    loss to account for the enthusiasm.  Whether it was all the
    American wish to lead the world, even as to receptions, or whether
    there was any inspiration from Washington, or whether the large
    Canadian population of Detroit had anything to do with it, I don't
    know; but it is impossible to think that there was not some
    friendly feeling underlying it all."


[Sidenote: The North-West]

The journal throughout his term of office is full of notes of camping
expeditions, sometimes part of an official tour, sometimes snatched in
the intervals of business.  Twice with his family Minto camped on the
shores of Qu'appelle Lake, celebrated for its duck shooting; but what
he enjoyed most was revisiting the scenes of the Riel Rebellion and
living over again his old campaigning days.


    "Moved to Edmonton during the night.  Received an address on the
    hill above the Saskatchewan on which the town stands.  The beech
    woods a mass of yellow.  The escort must have been a pretty sight
    as they crossed the bridge and rose the hill.  Just as I got off my
    horse a man in the crowd shouted out, 'We'll give the Indian war
    whoop for our fighting Governor-General;' they gave three cheers
    and then yelled the war whoop.  I suppose I, and those in the Riel
    Rebellion in 1885, will be the last to hear the Indian war whoop in
    battle.

    "We lunched with Bishop Grandin, a delightful old man, at the
    Mission at Fort Albert, where I met an old soldier who told me that
    he had served with me in the Mounted Infantry in Egypt in 1882.
    Just as I was leaving a priest came up and spoke to me: 'Had I ever
    seen him before?' I said, 'Yes, I think {193} in a cottage at
    Batoche fifteen years ago.'  He then told me that he was the priest
    to whom I gave a safe-conduct and a message to the rebels.  I
    remembered it all perfectly, and had always a hope that the rebels
    might surrender without further loss of life.

    "Three curious things have happened to me to-day.  The war whoop,
    the old soldier, and the priest.

    "(Batoche) Strolled with Mary and the girls to the church.  The
    last time I saw it it was full of our wounded, and I had given
    orders for them to be ready to move at once if we had to fall back.
    Places and scenes came vividly before me....

    "We had a most interesting day too at Fish Creek.  We lunched in
    the hollow leading to the ravine where I was twice fired at and
    where Middleton had his cap shot through.  I was told long
    afterwards that it was Gabriel Dumont who fired at us.  I walked
    over to Pre Moulin's house in the moonlight, and had a last look
    at the church and the open ground in front of it, so full of
    memories.  When I last saw it the bush to the right was on fire,
    and things were not going well.  I went into Batoche's house and
    saw the room in which poor Jack French was killed, shot through the
    window.  He was a fine gallant fellow and much liked....  A day
    full of interest, but rather sad; recollections of hard but very
    happy times and many old friends.  Our camp here has been
    luxurious, very different from the old campaigning days.  Mary is
    sitting here beside me.  Our tent opens towards the beautiful
    Saskatchewan."


In September 1904 Minto introduced a new feature into the usual autumn
programme, starting with Maude, and an escort of North-West Mounted
Police commanded by Gilpin Brown, on a 400-mile ride from Edmonton to
Saskatoon, in order to acquaint himself with the conditions of the
country:--


    "The prairie looking lovely in all the glory of autumn tints,
    golden beech, and crimson-leaf dwarf rose, and the magnificent
    outline of the Rockies always in the background.  My staff laugh at
    me because I say that if I began life over again I would {194}
    choose the Bow River country for a home.  To me, too, even the
    flatter prairie has a charm.

    "_September_ 2l_st._--Struck our camp for the last time.  In all
    probability my last camp on the prairie.  Such a pretty place on
    the banks of the North Saskatchewan.  Last night brilliant
    moonlight--a couple of coyotes speaking to each other not far off,
    and the rush of a flight of ducks over my tent about midnight.  It
    is a dreadful pang leaving it all.  The population of these parts
    is entirely old country.  It is curious to find refined ladies and
    gentlemen in this rough Western life, but they are splendid, full
    of ideas and energy, and the more I see the more I admire the
    vanguard of the best of our people, and the more I dislike the
    self-satisfied luxury of home.  The people of the Far West, the
    Indians, the Mounted Police, are generally far better fellows."


III

[Sidenote: Shooting the rapids]

To the wonderful Canadian rivers Minto and his family owed their chief
enjoyment.  Those mighty waterways, with their relentless currents and
snowy rapids, cast a spell over them.  River expeditions were made
almost every day during the summer, sailing, canoeing, or rowing, and
on more than one occasion at considerable personal risk.  Unexpected
squalls would arise, when the waves would well-nigh swamp the frail
canoe, or the sail would hardly be lowered in time.  The calm cool
evenings on the Ottawa, after the great heat of the day, with the sun
setting in a pageant of crimson, brought rest and contentment.  Minto
could handle a canoe as well as any half-breed, and he never forgot his
"wet-bob" exploits at Eton.  "I have just returned from dining at the
Shack on the Gatineau," he wrote to his wife, "Lawless, Hanlon and some
rowing men, Bill Lascelles and self.  Hanlon, as I dare say you know,
was champion sculler of the world for years, probably the best that
ever rowed.  You would have been amused this afternoon: of course they
did not know I knew anything about sculling.  Well, Hanlon came up in a
light racing {195} boat, and after dinner Bill, goodness knows why,
said he must go out in it.  I thought it odd if he knew nothing about
it to venture in an outrigger with a sliding seat.  However, out he
went, and sort of floated into the middle of the river, where he became
powerless to move either way, and Lawless had to go out in a canoe and
somehow bring him in.  So I thought I would give them a show.  I
believe they thought me mad, and that I was bound to capsize, so I
handed my watch to Hanlon, who evidently considered it all up with me,
and quietly seated myself, being certain I should feel just as I did
thirty years ago.  I made them push me out, and I fancy they were
utterly overcome by surprise at the first few strokes I took, when they
all burst into wild applause.  In a few minutes I felt I was quite in
good form, and left them all gaping with wonder!"

One of the recognized Ottawa expeditions was to shoot the lumber slides
on the Chaudire Falls, a comparatively tame performance; but to add
zest to the exploit the Governor-General was advised to use a
lumberman's boat instead of a prosaic raft.  Arrangements were
accordingly made, and the Mintos, accompanied by the Drummonds and the
Grenfells,[4] embarked above the Falls, quite unaware of the extreme
danger of the adventure.  Once in the boat it was too late to draw
back.  The lock gates were open, the river was exceptionally high, the
current carried them off, and soon they were plunging down a drop of
twenty feet into the surging rapids of the Falls.  The nose of the boat
was completely submerged, and the two men who were attempting to guide
her were powerless.  The torrent took command and flung the boat like a
cork first one way then the other, till, with its drenched occupants,
it was providentially carried into calmer waters.

In the early spring of 1902 Minto had another narrow escape from
drowning.  When walking one day on the frozen Ottawa River the ice
suddenly gave way with him and he found himself in the water:--


    "At first I thought it was only the snow crust, but soon realized
    it was more than that.  I could see {196} the solid ice about three
    feet below the surface, and close to it was the unmistakable
    black-looking deep water, just under my head.  I fell full length,
    and luckily the crust supported my arm, but on the right side I was
    wet up to the neck.  I cautiously raised myself on to the crust on
    my hands and knees and was then all right.  I must have struck an
    air hole connected with the deep water, and only thinly covered.
    It does not do to take liberties with the Ottawa River!"


It was a great grief to Minto that the fishing on the Cascapedia was no
longer the perquisite of the Governor-General; for the enjoyment of
this sport he had to be beholden to private owners, or to accept the
hospitality of the American clubs who had purchased the fishing of many
Canadian rivers.  The luxury of the newcomers seemed to him to
suburbanize the sport.  "Very hospitable, certainly," the journal
notes, "but an unworkman-like look about them; very smart sporting
clothes, looking as if they never had been and never would be rained
on.  X---- himself in a grey hat and white puggaree, variegated
waistcoat, new putties under white low gaiters, and brand new leather
boots.  He would have startled them on the Tweed."  Minto loved the
river, frozen or running free; the whole family skated, Lady Minto
brilliantly, and during their term of office the Minto Skating Club was
inaugurated, which has since produced competitors for the world's
championship.  Throughout the winter there were weekly skating parties,
but the favourite entertainments were by moonlight, when the bonfires
blazed and the rinks were brilliant with fairy lights.  There would be
an occasional tramp with the Snow-shoers in their picturesque costumes
to the rhythm of French-Canadian songs.  Minto also took up ski-ing
with enthusiasm, and with Lady Minto and the children was often seen
careering over the snow-clad hills at Fairy Lake.[5]

{197}

[Sidenote: A moose hunt]

No sport came amiss to the Governor-General, and an adventure while on
a moose-hunt in the Matawa district of Ontario is described in a letter
to his wife:--


    "We started at 8.30 a.m. through nice open bush.  I got a shot at a
    moose in the afternoon, and thought I had killed him, but he went
    on.  He was close in front of us, but we could not quite manage to
    get up to him.  As it was getting late we thought we had better
    make for camp; the guide assured me we should get the moose the
    next day, so we started for home.  We tramped along for some time,
    but before long I was convinced that neither of the guides knew in
    the least where we were; however, we struggled on due north,
    steering by the compass.  At last we came down to a little lake; it
    was getting dark, and the guide, Frank Le Claire, pulled up, looked
    at me and said, 'We must make fire.'

    "It is a pretty dismal feeling to be utterly lost in these huge
    forests.  We had practically nothing to eat, and very thin coats
    on, though we luckily had our sweaters.  We had eight small
    biscuits left from our lunch, some tea, and a spoonful of whisky in
    my flask.  There was nothing for it but 'to make fire,' and the
    guide at once tackled a huge dead pine with his small axe, an
    enormous tree which came down with a tremendous crash.  It was
    rotten all through, and the hollow tree formed a sort of draught
    chimney, at the end of which we lighted our fire, and kept it
    burning all night.  It was certainly an unpleasant experience,
    bitterly cold, but fine, the new moon just showing itself.  The
    guides cut us some spruce boughs, and we lay down on these, getting
    roasted on one side so that our things scorched, and frozen on the
    other, so that one had to keep revolving like a kitchen spit.

    "The morning came at last; we started again at 7.30 a.m., still
    steering north.  A very rough walk till we hit a lumber trail.
    Soon we got down to the lake, doubtfully frozen over, and nervously
    crossed till within a few yards of the other side; but seeing no
    signs of the trail in the bush, and not knowing where {198} in the
    world we might get to if we still went on our course, we decided to
    turn back to our bivouac and take up our old trail of the day
    before and hunt it out if we could stick the distance, as we knew
    it must eventually get us home unless snow came and obliterated our
    marks.  About 4 o'clock, after tramping all day through the snow,
    we heard a shout, and to our intense delight found that one of the
    guides had come out from the camp to meet us, bringing whisky and
    sandwiches.  We had practically eaten nothing since 12 o'clock the
    day before, and had had tremendously hard walking, up to our knees
    in snow.  Another hour brought us into the camp.  I do not think I
    have ever had such a hard time, and have never been so played out;
    we had been on the go for about 34 hours.  I wondered how much
    further it was possible for us to keep on.  To-day we felt we must
    have a rest, but the guides went out, and the Indians have just
    brought in my moose, a splendid head measuring 49, and the whole
    establishment is wild with excitement."


Canada is not famous as a hunting country, and Minto had few chances of
indulging in his favourite pursuit.  On one occasion, however, shortly
after his arrival in the country, he was out riding with his
children--"when, to our intense surprise, we heard hounds running in
the cemetery, and five and a half couple crossed the road, running
hard, with a tremendous cry, and not a soul with them."  The promise of
this ghostly hunt was not fulfilled, but the journal records one day
with the hounds at St. Anne's, near Montreal: "What recollections of
old days!  Red coats and all the panoply of the chase!  We found in a
large wood and went away very fast for twenty minutes quite straight
and lost him.  Found again late in the afternoon, over very difficult
country, stone walls, and stiff timber with no end of ditches.  My
horse was the cleverest I ever rode.  A very good day's sport!"  The
gusto with which he recounts the details of the run showed that the
passion of the old Limber days had not abated.


{199}

IV

[Sidenote: Visit to England]

In June 1902 Minto returned to England on a flying visit to attend the
Coronation, where he was just in time to prevent the announcement of a
peerage for Sir Wilfrid Laurier which Sir Wilfrid had refused.  He
found it difficult to get any serious talk with the Ministers.


    "They are generally head over ears in work and interested only in
    their own departments.  Mr. Chamberlain's accident too has
    prevented my having much conversation with him.  He himself has
    done a great work in developing the colonial and imperial
    connection, but I doubt if he is in touch with colonial
    sentiment--I mean, if he entirely realizes the sentimental
    affection for the motherland, or judges fairly of the unwillingness
    of colonial statesmen to commit themselves hastily to an imperial
    policy.  He appears to be a hard-headed man of business, bent on
    the idea of utilizing our colonial possessions for imperial
    benefit....  He is a very strong man but not a sympathetic one, and
    therefore his colonial administration is not without risk.  I
    suppose my eyes have been opened by my life on the other side of
    the Atlantic, for I confess I feel that there is much that is very
    insular at home in ideas and knowledge of mankind."


About military affairs Minto was pessimistic.  He thought Lord Roberts
incapable of carrying through any real army reforms, and the conditions
of the War Office seemed to him primeval chaos.  "Kitchener said at
luncheon the other day at the Duke of Connaught's, 'One could run a War
Office elsewhere for a year without the War Office finding one out.'
There have only been telephones at the War Office for the last few
months, for fear, it is said, that some one should say something down
them of which there was no record!"[6]

{200}

In April 1903 Mr. Chamberlain, in terms of high compliment, begged
Minto to remain another year in Canada, since the office was in reality
a six-year appointment, though custom had curtailed it to five.  Minto
consented, as he was bound to do, especially as Sir Wilfrid Laurier
added his entreaties.  That same month we find the first mention of the
possibility of his going to India as Lord Curzon's successor.  Mr.
Chamberlain referred to it in his letter, and Sir Wilfrid spoke
privately to the Governor-General, saying that he would do all in his
power to urge the appointment, adding that Minto had "his foot in the
stirrup, if he was not yet in the saddle," and that he would be glad to
see Lord Palmerston's advice followed--"When in difficulty send an
Elliot."  There had been other suggestions as to his future, one of
which, the Embassy at Washington, he had unhesitatingly rejected.
India appealed to him on every ground of past connection and
present-day opportunity; but it was never his habit to ask for things,
and for the next eighteen months the subject dropped.  Lady Minto, who
was in England in the summer of 1904, reported that the inclination
seemed to be to send a Cabinet Minister, somebody like Lord Selborne,
and that Lord Curzon had told her that no man over fifty should be
appointed, as the post was the most arduous in the Empire.  The letters
Minto wrote to his wife during these brief absences are perhaps the
most full and characteristic of all his correspondence, for from her he
had no reservations, and to her he could reveal much which his natural
reticence withheld from others.

[Sidenote: 1904]

The extra year of office passed, and in August 1904 came the last state
function, the prorogation of Parliament, when the retiring
Governor-General received an address of thanks from both Houses, Lady
Minto taking her place on the dais beside him, and the speeches of Sir
Wilfrid Laurier and Sir Robert Borden constituted such a tribute as no
man could listen to unmoved.  Minto had before this been privately
informed that his successor would be his brother-in-law, Lord Grey.  He
paid a farewell visit to Quebec--"Our last night at the Citadel; very
sad; everything full of old recollections"--and then started with his
wife and eldest daughter for a final trip {201} to the North-West and
British Columbia.  The tour was saddened by a horrible railway accident
near Sintaluta, in which five lives were lost and the
Governor-General's party had a narrow escape.  The journal, amidst its
lists of addresses and receptions, falls often into a mood of wistful
regret, for Minto was too deeply in love with the country to leave it
easily.  When he records "Struck our camp for the last time--my last
camp in all human probability"--it is the reflection of a man who, in
the great spaces of the prairie and amongst the pioneers of a new land,
had found a life after his own heart.

[Sidenote: Departure from Canada]

On Friday, 18th November, the party sailed in the _Tunisian_ from
Quebec, after a trying time of presentations and farewells.  There had
been far more in the leave-taking than a formal ceremony, for there was
affection on both sides, and if Minto was loth to go, Canada was loth
to lose him.  Says the journal:--


    "At sea.  So our life in Canada is over at last, and it has been a
    great wrench parting from so many friends and leaving a country
    which I love and which has been very full of interest to me.  We
    have had nothing but 'good-byes' for weeks....  We left Government
    House, Ottawa, for the last time in brilliant sunshine, and drove
    to the Armoury, where I received a farewell address, Mary
    afterwards being presented with a beautiful diamond maple leaf by
    Belcourt on behalf of the city.  Her speech in expressing her
    thanks was perfect.  The station was crowded with our friends; the
    inside of the car was decorated with flowers, and the band played
    'Auld Lang Syne' as we moved off.  We arrived at Quebec and drove
    to the Frontenac as guests of the city.  The last evening we gave a
    banquet, and our guests accompanied us to the wharf through an
    avenue of lighted torches, and amidst cheering and waving of
    handkerchiefs we put off at 10 p.m., the old Citadel blazing away
    her nineteen guns.

    "So ends our career in Canada.  Innumerable addresses and speeches,
    but it has been a very affectionate farewell, and one cannot but
    feel very pleased at what has been said on every side.  I cannot
    write {202} a memoir now, but the six years have been far from
    ordinary ones, very full of history, imperial and Canadian, with
    much that is fraught with meaning for the future.  And now the task
    is over, and I am grateful for the appreciation of the country I
    have worked for; and through it all Mary has been more than
    splendid."


Minto arrived at Liverpool and found a host of friends to greet him.
Mr. Alfred Lyttelton had succeeded Mr. Chamberlain at the Colonial
Office, and his official dispatch was cordial in its tribute:--


    "The six years during which you have represented the Sovereign in
    Canada have been marked by events of great importance to the
    Dominion and the Empire at large, including a war in which the
    military forces of the United Kingdom and Canada acted together in
    an imperial cause.  These years have also been marked by a splendid
    development in the prosperity and greatness of Canada, and His
    Majesty's Government has been glad to recognize that during this
    period the highest office in the Dominion has been held by one upon
    whose discretion, ability, and courageous sense of duty they could
    confidently rely on all occasions....  I also note with pleasure
    the appreciation of the admirable qualities and services of the
    Countess of Minto, shown by the Canadian Parliament and people."


V

[Sidenote: Retrospect]

It had been a happy time, and Minto brought away from it that legacy of
delectable memories which is the reward of the traveller.  Lady Minto,
in a paper in the _National Review_ in March 1905, tried to tell
something of the wonders of the great Dominion.  "With vivid
distinctness scenes too numerous to recount come back to me.  I see
again the foaming waters of the St. John River racing in wild career
through turbulent rapids for 45 miles to the Saguenay, my frail canoe
tossing like a leaf on the mighty stream, gliding swiftly past the
treacherous whirlpools and the sharp rocks, safe in the {203} skilful
hands of the half-breeds.  And now I am galloping once more on the
boundless prairie, over that fragrant carpet woven of wild spring
flowers, elated by the pure air and transparent atmosphere, exulting in
the freedom of my life.  And now the silence of the night has fallen,
and in the awe-inspiring forests or in the sweet stillness of the
prairie the camp sleeps, watched over by a myriad stars."  Minto, no
less than his wife, was intoxicated by the beauty of Canada's deep
winters and riotous summers and flaming autumns.  To a Border Scot the
land provided on a magnificent scale the fir woods, the clear waters,
and the wide spaces of his own countryside.  With all classes of the
people he felt an immediate kinship, and he could appraise the quality
alike of an Indian chief and a Montreal lawyer, a Scots settler in
Manitoba and a Quebec _habitant_.  He shared in their hopes, rejoiced
in their triumphs, and mourned with them in their sorrows.  When the
skating tragedy took place at Ottawa in December 1901, of which Mr.
Mackenzie King has written in his _Secret of Heroism_, it was the
Governor-General who was out at dawn next day helping to recover the
bodies.  The humanity learned in the democratic Borders, and ripened by
years of racing and soldiering, enabled him to meet men of every rank
and breed with friendliness and understanding.

Minto gave much to Canada, but he received much in return.  He was
enabled to look within the mechanism of the constitutional State.  His
party politics, never cherished with much conviction, were mellowed and
liberalized by an insight into the eternal difficulties of all parties
and their curious alikeness in fundamentals.  He acquired perspective,
and learned to separate the accidental from the essential.  His
imperialism, which had been a dream, became a reasoned faith.  More and
more he came to value the moral qualities in statesmanship above the
intellectual; for, since democracy among men of British blood is
practically the same whatever party governs, excellence is found rather
in character than in creed.  His _flair_ for the true constitutional
path, an inheritance from his Whig forbears, developed into a sure
instinct, which was often in advance of that of Ministers both in
Canada and at home.  Earlier in his life he had disliked {204} the game
of politics, now he came to see the gravity of it, and he exerted
himself to ensure that it was played wisely and honestly.  There was
much in the Canadian parties that he disliked, but he saw that reform
could not come merely by reprobation, and he did his best to set before
the youth with which he came in contact a high, if undogmatic and
unpharisaic, ideal of public service.  To Mr. Mackenzie King, then a
young man on the threshold of his career, Minto wrote:--


    "Though I thanked you for your speech a few days ago, I have always
    meant to write and tell you how glad I am to have a copy of it.  If
    you will allow me to say so, the speech was a most eloquent one,
    and not only that, but it gave expression to opinions which, in my
    estimation, it is impossible to over-value.  To me it seems
    all-important that the young men who are coming on, and who will
    make the history of Canada, should speak out clearly and decidedly
    in their insistence on the manliness and purity of public life.
    Nothing, in my opinion, can be more unfortunate to a country than
    that its people should be ready to accept as a matter of course a
    low standard of public and political morality.

    "I know how difficult it is from the nature of things for people to
    speak out as they would often like to do.  At the same time I
    sometimes think that public opinion in Canada is too apathetic, and
    not prone enough to be outspoken on public affairs.  Many of the
    best brains in the country are no doubt engaged in business and
    professions and are not available for political careers--but even
    they can make their voices heard; and I venture to think that more
    of them might be inclined to enter the political lists than do at
    present.  Anyhow I am thoroughly with you in the all-importance of
    the pure public spirit of rising Canada."


[Sidenote: Chamberlain and Laurier]

Minto's main task had been the harmonizing of forces which might well
have clashed--the nationalism of Canada and the new self-conscious
imperialism of Britain.  Largely owing to his patience and tact any
shadow of {205} conflict was avoided.  In the matter which he had most
at heart, imperial defence, his prescient warnings were indeed
neglected, but Canada was enabled to advance towards her national
destiny unhampered by a too strait imperial bond, while at the same
time the more potent and delicate ties with the mother-country were
notably strengthened.  In his term of office he had to deal especially
with two distinguished figures who had a real formative effect on his
mind.  Of the two Mr. Chamberlain's influence was perhaps the lesser.
Minto respected him extremely, and shared most of his views; to him the
Colonial Office without Mr. Chamberlain was like the War Office without
Lord Wolseley; but in temperament the two had little in common except
courage.  Their relationship was one of mutual loyalty and respect, but
scarcely of intimacy.  With Sir Wilfrid Laurier, on the other hand,
Minto frequently disagreed, and was often exasperated.  He believed
that excessive temporizing for the sake of party unity was bad tactics
even for that purpose, and he had little patience with the type of mind
which seemed to be content to govern adroitly from day to day without
any policy worthy of the name.  But it is impossible to read his
letters and journals without realizing that there was growing up in him
a feeling that after all Sir Wilfrid might be right--that in a new
land, with so many incompatible elements inside her borders, the slow
game might be the wise game, that the time was not ripe for a clenched
and riveted formula of Empire, and that the true solution must be left
to the processes of time.  At any rate, lover of decided action as he
was, in his public conduct the Whig element in Minto dominated the
Liddesdale impetuosity, and it would appear that history has vindicated
both him and his Prime Minister.  Of the affection between the two men
there was no question.  Sir Wilfrid's graciousness and charm won the
heart of one who was always a lover of gentleness.  Once Lady Minto,
speaking of him to Mr. Chamberlain, said that, whatever his foibles, he
was a great gentleman.  "I would rather," ran the reply, "do business
with a cad who knows his own mind."  Minto would not have assented.
Under no circumstances did he believe in the cad.



[1] This was not the only experience the Mintos had of fires, for in
the same month four years earlier four miles of the town of Ottawa had
been burnt, and the Governor-General had himself assisted the fire
brigade in fighting the flames.

[2] The rallying cry of the men of Hawick.

[3] It was from Winnipeg four years later that Minto received his most
touching farewell.  The Town Hall was illuminated with "Au revoir,
Minto": the Governor-General's train stood for some time in the
station, and the crowd made the most remarkable demonstration.
Thousands surrounded the car; they climbed on the wheels, on the
footboard, and clung to the door.  Again and again Minto had to appear;
he thanked them and tried to bid them good-bye, but they refused to
disperse until the train slowly moved out of the station amid ringing
cheers.

[4] Lord and Lady Desborough.

[5] As a Scotsman Minto was also a curler, and had the pleasure of
entertaining the Scottish team that came over to play Canada.  In the
dry and electric air of the Canadian winter it is possible to light the
gas by placing a finger on the jet.  This was pointed out to one of the
visitors, who duly performed the feat, and observed that "it cowed a'."
"When I get hame," he said, "I'll hae some queer things to tell the
wife, but I'll no tell her that.  She would say I had been drinkin'."

[6] The journal for 1902 closes with this entry: "This year has been
full of events; the Peace, the Coronation, and all its sensational
interest, and latterly the completion of the Pacific Cable and the
'All-round-the-World' message to me, and still more Marconi's wonderful
success, and my wireless message to the King.  For the future Sir
Wilfrid's delicate health makes me anxious both in a public and a
private sense, for he is a great friend, and a stormy session is
approaching....  And now we shall advance at midnight for the next
campaign.  The bells are ringing in the New Year, and Mary wishes me a
happy one."




{207}

BOOK III


{209}

CHAPTER IX

VICEROY OF INDIA, 1905-6

[Sidenote: 1905]

After his six strenuous Canadian years Minto hoped for a rest at home,
and longed especially for that Border country life which lay always
nearest to his heart.  But a retiring Governor-General is not readily
permitted to sink into the ease of a private citizen; he became the
quarry of a thousand organizations in quest of a president or an
apologist; and even when he escaped to Minto he found leisure hard to
come by.  He was busy with improvements on his estate, including the
installation of electric light and the building of a new wing, and
these, with a little hunting and a number of visits, filled his time in
the winter and spring of 1904-5.  In May he went to Rome, at the
request of the Board of Agriculture, as one of the British delegates to
the International Agricultural Congress, and after a brief stay
returned in July to politics and dinners in London, including a banquet
to his old tutor, Dr. Warre, on his retirement from the headmastership
of Eton.  By the 12th of August he was back at Minto, filling his days,
like Sir Walter Scott, with the overseeing of his improvements.  The
place was in the hands of workmen, and he and his wife were installed
in the factor's little house at Cleughhead.

Absorbed in domestic plans, and already half drawn into the machine of
British affairs, Minto had almost forgotten the possibility of the
Indian viceroyalty which had been mooted a year ago before he left
Canada.  There seemed to be many candidates, and it had been his
fashion to wait in these matters upon the hand of Providence.
Therefore it was with a real surprise that, on the morning {210} of
18th August, as he was walking down to Minto before breakfast, he
opened a letter from Mr. St. John Brodrick, which told him that Lord
Curzon had resigned and that he was nominated as his successor.  In the
garden afterwards, when the hot August sun was beginning to drive the
mist from the hills, he told his wife.  "The greatest appointment I
have ever hoped for," he wrote in his journal, "and still what a pang
to leave the dear old place again--and all the difficulties about the
children.  Mary took it so well.  I know she feels the same as I do,
and it is a recognition of all her good work quite as much as of
anything I have ever done.  But it is a very high trial."

[Sidenote: The Indian Viceroyalty]

The appointment was to be curiously informal in every detail.  Minto
never heard a word directly from the Prime Minister.  The Prince and
Princess of Wales were on the eve of departing for India, and it was
arranged that Lord Curzon should meet them at Bombay, and that he
should receive the incoming Viceroy in the same place instead of in
Calcutta--a departure from precedent fraught with possibilities of
_contretemps_.  Minto paid a visit to the King at Balmoral, and then
set himself to the exhausting business of farewells.  He found it hard
to tear himself from his home, which he had just recovered and
beautified, for the spell of the Border grows the stronger for absence,
and many of the old folk about the place he could not expect in the
course of nature to see again.  He had the regulation talks with Mr.
Balfour, and with Mr. Brodrick, the Secretary of State for India, but
as the Conservative administration was tottering to its fall these were
naturally of a slighter character than usual.  It was tacitly
recognized that in a month or two he would be the servant of a very
different government.  He took counsel of the Nestor of imperial
administration, Lord Cromer, "the only one among all the public men I
know who has impressed me as a really big man."  There were the usual
dinners--one, especially, composed entirely of old Eton, Cambridge,
Army, and hunting friends, when Minto very modestly set out his hopes.
"I am succeeding," he said, "a brilliant ruler who, in perfecting the
machinery of state, has given evidence of abilities and talents which
no successor can hope to emulate.  And yet my racing days have taught
me that many a race has been {211} won by giving the horse a rest in
his gallops."  On 2nd November the Mintos left London, almost on the
same day as seven years before they had sailed from Liverpool for
Canada, and on the afternoon of 17th November arrived at Bombay.


II

When in 1806 the first Earl of Minto went to India as Governor-General,
it was in succession--save for the brief interludes of Cornwallis and
Sir George Barlow--to the great era of expansion under the Marquis
Wellesley which had made the British Government paramount throughout
the peninsula.  His task was to consolidate what had been won, to join
the raw edges which are left by change, and to make of the new order of
things a harmonious and organic polity.  The duty which fell to his
descendant a century later was not dissimilar.  The history of India
does not permit itself to be summarized in a paragraph, but it is
necessary to glance briefly at the decade which preceded Minto's
arrival.

The age of the conquering Viceroys ended with Dalhousie, and with him,
too, began the succession of rulers who have given their minds to the
development of the wealth of the land and the prosperity of the Indian
people, for even the great reforming rgime of Lord William Bentinck
had been devoted rather to the elimination of old abuses than to
positive advances in what the modern world calls civilization.  The
Mutiny obscured for a moment the work of the greatest figure among the
Viceroys, who completed the task of Wellesley and continued the policy
of Bentinck, but the foundations remained, and the India of to-day is
in the main Dalhousie's creation.  The post-Mutiny governors, after the
transference in 1858 of all India to the British Crown, had the same
types of problem to face, which they dealt with after their individual
fashions.  They had the permanent question of frontier defence--the
belt of wild tribes in the mountains of the North-West, the uncertain
Power of Afghanistan, and the potential menace of Russia from beyond
the trans-Himalayan deserts.  They had the difficult business of
finance, complicated by the falling rupee, and an intricate {212} group
of economic problems, dating from Dalhousie's reconstruction.  They had
the more purely administrative questions, the efficiency of the civil
service, the degree to which decentralization was possible, the nature
and strength of the armed forces of the Crown, both British and native,
and their relations to the civil government.  And behind all, they had
the problem of the Indian people, their education, the effect upon them
of Western ideas, the question of how far and to what end they should
be trained in political responsibility.  Different Viceroys
concentrated on different aspects of their task; Lytton was preoccupied
with the frontier, Northbrook with finance, Ripon with the application
to India of Gladstonian Liberalism, Dufferin with administrative
reforms; and to the idiosyncrasies of each must be added the
idiosyncrasies of the various British Governments which they served.
But behind all the transitory viceregal race there was the continuity
of the greatest civil service since the days of the Roman Empire, a
body of highly-trained and devoted men, working with a vast accumulated
body of knowledge to aid them and in the spirit of a high and unselfish
tradition.  India was virtually a bureaucracy of the most efficient
type, for the machine was stronger than any Viceroy, great as were the
Viceroy's powers, and far stronger than even the most vigilant
Secretary of State.  For, since the passing away of the East India
Company, Britain had infinitely less knowledge of her Indian
dependency.  In the old days at each renewal of the Company's charter
there had been a more or less thorough inquisition into the state of
Indian affairs, but now the home country was content to trust to the
India Office and the Viceroy, and an Indian discussion in the House of
Commons became a byword for apathy and dullness.  The mood of the
Indian people could only be guessed at even by the well-informed at
home, and its aspirations became little more than rhetorical
speculations in party debate.

[Sidenote: Lord Curzon]

In 1899 Lord Curzon, then scarcely forty years of age, succeeded Lord
Elgin.  He had imagination and enthusiasm, complete self-confidence, a
high courage, and an industry and a speed which left his colleagues
panting behind him.  This is not the place to enlarge on {213} that
remarkable term of office.  To each of the standing problems of Indian
rule he brought his own weighty contribution.  He continued the policy
begun by Lord Elgin, on the North-West frontier, withdrew British
garrisons from the tribal zone, putting tribal levies in their place,
and created a new North-West frontier province.  By comprehensive
schemes of irrigation, by reforms in the collection of land revenue,
and by the institution of co-operative credit societies, he laboured to
put agriculture on a securer basis.  He overhauled the whole
administrative machine, reformed the police, lopped off dead wood from
the civil service, and checked that addiction to _paperasserie_ which
is the foible of even the best bureaucracy.  Inspired with the romance
of India's history, he showed a reverent concern for her great public
memorials.  He was aware of the growth of the self-government movement,
which, from the small beginnings of the first Indian National Congress
of 1885, had now become a power, and, believing that the ills caused by
a smattering of Western education could only be cured by a better and
fuller knowledge, he strove to broaden the whole educational system,
and in spite of much opposition carried his Universities Act of 1904.
To a casual observer the spectacular and controversial character of
some of his reforms was apt to obscure the enormous mass of sound and
painstaking work, the beneficial effect of which was beyond question.

But the wisest changes, if they are many and sudden, will produce a
revulsion.  On the long view, it may fairly be said that Lord Curzon
had provided for India a diet which, though wholesome in quality, was
too large in quantity for a normal digestion.  No Viceroy had ever
sought more earnestly the welfare of the Indian people, but there comes
a time in the development of a race when they are less grateful for
wise ruling than for permission to blunder on their own account.  He
had underrated the dissatisfaction which a cyclone of reform from above
would produce not only among the cruder vested interests of the Indian
bar and Indian journalism, but among even honest and public-spirited
citizens.  The event which caused his resignation was, indeed, a
comparatively trivial matter as far as Indian policy was {214}
concerned, being no more than a difference of opinion with Lord
Kitchener as to the method by which military proposals should be
presented to the Viceroy's Executive Council--Lord Kitchener demanding
a single department presided over by the Commander-in-Chief as an
ordinary member of Council, and Lord Curzon objecting that the civil
power would thereby be deprived of independent military advice, and all
military authority would be concentrated in the hands of the
Commander-in-Chief.  It may be fantastic to argue, as some have done,
that Lord Kitchener's victory was responsible for the breakdown of the
Indian army system ten years later in Mesopotamia, but it is doubtful
whether much was gained by the change either in administrative
efficiency or economy.  Lord Curzon was tired and out of health, and a
difference which might easily have been settled was allowed to become a
clash of adamantine principles.  More serious was the other step which
the Viceroy took in his last year of office.  The Presidency of Bengal
was proving unwieldy for a single provincial government, and Lord
Curzon decided to separate the flat wet plains and jungles of the
eastern section and combine them with the province of Assam.  This gave
the Mohammedans a majority in the new province, and thereby inflamed
the Hindus of Bengal, who saw in it a menace to their religious
preponderance, and to the importance of Calcutta.  The cry arose that
the Bengali nation had been insulted and split in twain, and, the
sensational triumph of Japan over Russia having kindled the
race-consciousness of the East, in the autumn of 1905 a very pretty
campaign began of boycott and agitation.

[Sidenote: Clouds in the sky]

The first Minto had followed on the stirring times of Wellesley, and
had rightly hoped for a period of peace and internal development, which
he did not obtain.  His great-grandson entered upon office with the
same hopes, and was to be doomed to the same disappointment.  In India
it is unsafe at the best to forecast the future.  "No prudent man,"
said Dalhousie, as he left with the seal of death on him, "would
venture to predict a long continuance of peace in India....
Insurrection may arise like an exhalation from the earth;" and his
successor, Canning, speaking at a farewell banquet in England, {215}
declared in prophetic words: "I wish for a peaceful time of office.
But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small
cloud may arise, no larger than a man's, hand, but which, growing
larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with
ruin."  Already the cloud was larger than a man's hand.  There were the
smouldering embers in Bengal, rapidly being fanned into flame; there
was a general unsettlement of men's minds owing to a plethora of sudden
changes, the vigour of which had not perhaps been softened by
tactfulness in method.  Peace and quiet might be what India needed, but
it was far from certain that they were what she would choose.  From the
beginning of his term of office it was clear that the land stood at the
parting of the ways, and that it lay with the new Viceroy to make
decisions as momentous as any taken by his predecessors.

In Canada Minto had learned the duty of a self-effacing governor, quick
to understand the nuances of constitutionalism, and exercising his
power by suggestion and counsel.  His new position was very different,
for he was in a land remote from the forms and spirit of Western
democracy, wielding through his Council an executive authority far
greater than that of an ordinary monarch.  His business was to govern
as well as to reign.  His position was not only the most responsible in
the overseas British Empire, but by far the most onerous, and its
laboriousness had been increased by Lord Curzon's passion for drawing
into his hands the minutest details.  In addition to the normal routine
which filled most of the hours of a working day, he must exercise a
personal influence, for in the East the personal factor is omnipotent,
journeying throughout the length of the land, to meet and learn from
every class and condition.  He must be patient and tactful and urbane,
for in recent years many nerves had been frayed and tempers ruffled.
He must not become so immersed in detail as to miss seeing the wood for
the trees, for his first duty was the long view.  As Minto reflected
upon his burden it must have occurred to him that at last his ambition
had been gratified, and that he had found a form of soldiering.  The
position of a Viceroy is like that of a general; he has to forecast the
campaign, to take in the last resort great decisions alone, to foster
the {216} _moral_ of his army, which is the three hundred millions of
India, and to check ruthlessly in the common interest any impulse to
anarchy.  The words which his great-grandfather used a century earlier
must have often recurred to his memory, as a reminder of the solemnity
of his charge: "I entreat them to be persuaded that no man of honour at
the head of a government will ever compromise with revolt; he has no
option but to maintain the contest or abandon his trust and fly from
his duty."  And he may well have reflected that the giving effect to
this maxim might be for a far-sighted and liberal mind one of the most
difficult of human tasks.


III

[Sidenote: 1905-6]

The arrival at Bombay was an embarrassing affair, with Lord Curzon
waiting on the eve of departure and the officials of the Bombay
Government unable to cope with a situation which had no precedent.
Minto landed late in the afternoon, too late, it was judged, for a
public reception.  He had a long talk that evening with Lord Curzon,
who left early next morning, when the deferred public reception of the
new Viceroy at last took place.  Minto was conducted to the
Secretariat, where the warrant of appointment was read, and he took his
seat as Viceroy, but the whole ceremony was something of a muddle.  The
subject may be dismissed with the dry note which is to be found in the
official report on his administration: "These proceedings were not
entirely in accordance with precedent, and Lord Minto has decided that
they shall not be taken as a guide for the future."

[Sidenote: The first impressions]

On 22nd November the Mintos arrived in Calcutta, where their reception
made amends for the informalities of Bombay.  The first impression of a
Viceroy must be of a ceremonial state almost too heavy to be endured,
of a cloth-of-gold ritual which stiffens all the movements of life.  A
household of seven hundred native servants, whose tasks are infinitely
and rigidly differentiated, leaves upon the newcomer a sense of living
alone in the heart of vast solitudes, from which it is possible to get
only a distant prospect of the normal world.  The Viceroy has {217}
immediate duties to turn his mind from this weighty magnificence, but
his wife must grapple with it and domesticate it.  Lady Minto's first
feeling was one of an immense loneliness.  "Letters are brought in from
A.D.C.'s saying that they await my commands--at present I have none to
give them.  Apparently in future I shall have to send for any one I may
wish to see, as no one intrudes upon the sacred presence uninvited.  I
am bound to say a deep depression has taken possession of my soul!"
Nothing cheered them both so much as to come across traces of the
family traditions which linked the quiet home by Teviot with this
gorgeous East.  The portrait of the first Earl hung conspicuously in
the Council Chamber of Government House.  Almost the first deputations
which Minto received were from the four Maharajas of Patiala, Jind,
Nabha, and Behawalpur, states which the first Lord Minto had protected
against the encroachments of Ranjit Singh, who was seeking to extend
his territory across the Sutlej.  It was pleasant to find that India
had a long memory.

Christmas was a season of functions--the state visit of the Tashi Lama
of Tibet, a young man in a yellow bishop's mitre, with a
tom-tom-beating escort on shaggy ponies, and the Tongsa Penlop of
Bhutan, a famous figure in the Lhasa expedition.  On 29th December the
Royal party arrived in Calcutta, and till their departure on January 9,
1906, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their hosts led crowded
lives.  At first there had been a threat that the native population
would boycott the visit, but Minto took the bold step of sending for
Mr. Gokhale, the leader of the Indian progressives, and talking to him
with so much effect that all danger from that source was removed.  It
was a visit in which the future monarchs of Britain won golden opinions
from every class, European and native alike, for their graciousness and
friendly simplicity, and it was of the first importance, too, in the
development of Indian policy.  The Prince, in his speech at the
Guildhall on his return, declared as the moral he had read from his
tour the need of a closer and wider sympathy between government and
governed in India, and it fell to Minto to provide means for the
realization of this ideal.

{218}

[Sidenote: 1906]

By the early months of 1906 the new Viceroy was in the toils of the
laborious routine of his office, and attempting in his scanty leisure
to bring into focus the multitude of new problems which each day
presented.  His indefatigable predecessor had drawn all the details of
administration to himself, and this centralization, beneficial as were
many of its results, involved the emasculation of the local
governments, and a dead-weight of detail for the Viceroy.  The Members
of Council had been stripped of all real responsibility, and from
coadjutors had become clerks.  In Colonel Dunlop Smith, Minto had a
most capable private secretary who laboured to spare him, but the
system of bringing the most trivial of matters to the Viceroy for
decision, of using, in Burke's phrase, the "extreme medicine of the
constitution as its daily bread," could not be altered in a day.
"Every morning about eight," Lady Minto writes, "heavily laden servants
stagger upstairs with innumerable papers.  These colossal files, with
their distinctive labels and huge red tickets with 'Urgent' printed in
aggressive letters, are built in a zareba on the floor round his
writing table and almost hide him from view."  It was not easy to wade
through morasses of the inessential--to sanction the spending of a
thousand rupees on building a bathroom for a remote official or decide
whether a man should have leave to visit his dentist--and at the same
time to keep the mind clear and fresh for the consideration of the
greater matters of policy.  From that _folie de doute_ which prevents a
man from delegating work and makes him nervous about the most
microscopic detail to which he has not given personal attention, Minto
was conspicuously free.  He thought of government as an exercise in
co-operation and not as an anxious dictatorship, and he steadily
refused to be buried under a drift of files.  From the first he strove
to restore the responsibility and initiative of the Executive Council,
and he insisted on making leisure for himself to study and meditate
upon the larger questions of Indian rule.  He was not sent to India to
be an under-secretary but a Viceroy.


{219}

IV

[Sidenote: The Secretary of State]

Before the close of 1905 Mr. Balfour's Government had fallen, and the
election of January 1906 brought the Liberals into power with a
majority almost too big to be comfortable.  The new Government entered
upon office with a large programme of reform, and, since they had
defeated decisively the imperialist policy of Mr. Chamberlain, it was
assumed by many that their accession would involve some radical changes
in the administration of the Empire.  Mr. John Morley, who had his
choice of many posts, selected the Secretaryship for India, and,
whatever doubts may have been in Minto's mind as to future unanimity,
he welcomed the appointment to the India Office of a man so able, so
generally esteemed, and so powerful in the councils of his party, as a
proof that India would not be relegated to the position of a forgotten
side-show in British policy.  He had met Mr. Morley in Canada and had
greatly liked him, and the first letter from the new Secretary of State
recalled the meeting.  "The conversation we had when you so kindly
sheltered me at Ottawa last year convinces me that we speak the same
political language, even though we may not always say precisely the
same things."  Their relations thus began on a note of friendship, a
friendship which through frequent differences of opinion was never
impaired.  The many private letters which passed during this period
between Whitehall and Calcutta form a body of correspondence as
fascinating in its revelation of temperament and mind, and as
politically informative, as any in the archives of the British Empire.
Lord Morley has happily given to the world many of his letters, and it
is our privilege in these pages to supplement them by certain
quotations from Minto's side.  He has also published in his
_Recollections_[1] a tribute to his correspondent, based upon five
years of intimate colleagueship:--


{220}

[Sidenote: Lord Morley's tribute]


    "Lord Minto, the new Viceroy, had all the manly traditions and
    honourable associations that gather round the best of youth at Eton
    and Trinity.  In stock he was descended from patrician Whigs, and
    he had his share of the intuitive political perception that
    belonged to that sect since its rise at the revolutionary
    settlement.  His temperament was theirs.  He had seen active
    service under Roberts in India; he had fought on the side of the
    Turks against Russia: nor, in truth, did friendly feeling for the
    Ottoman ever leave him.  As Governor-General of Canada he had
    acquired insight into the working technicalities of public
    administration in a free parliamentary system.  Such habits of mind
    he joined to the spirit of the soldier.  The Indian Viceroy is not
    bound to know political philosophy or juristic theory or
    constitutional history; he is first and foremost an administrator,
    and the working head of a complicated civil and military service.
    Nature had endowed Lord Minto with an ample supply of constancy and
    good-humour.  His loyalty, courage, friendliness,
    straight-forwardness, and pressing sense of public duty were all
    splendid; so was his rooted contempt for those in whom he found
    such excellences languid.  A Viceroy needs to be a judge of men,
    whether with dark skins or white, and Lord Minto mixed tact and
    good common sense and the milk of human kindness in the right
    proportion for discovering with what sort of man he had to deal.
    He liked people, though he did not always believe them, and he
    began by a disposition to get on with people as well as they would
    let him.  If he found on trial what he thought good reason for
    distrusting a man, he did not change.  His vision was not subtle,
    but, what is far better, it was remarkably shrewd.  A bare
    catalogue of qualities, however, is not all; such lists never are,
    nor can be.  It is the summary of them, the man himself, that
    matters.  His ancestor, an idolater of Burke, and Indian Viceroy a
    hundred years before, once dropped the ingenuous but profound
    remark, 'How curious it is to see how exactly people follow their
    own characters all through life.'  Our Lord Minto {221} was a
    first-rate case.  You were always sure where you would find him;
    there was no fear of selfishness or pettiness drawing him for a
    single passing moment from the straight path; his standard of
    political weights and measures was simple--it was true to the right
    facts, and it was steadfast.

    "In early days at the India Office it was refreshing to hear from
    him how grateful he was for my proposal that he should pardon three
    hundred students who had been injudiciously dismissed from their
    school.  'For,' said he, 'I do believe that in this country one can
    do any amount of good, and accumulate a very growing influence, if
    one only gives evidence of some feelings of sympathy.'  This was
    the result of a sure instinct.  It went with a strong and active
    conscience, not a weak one; with a manful sense both of public
    responsibility and of practical proportion.  The sympathy of which
    he spoke was much more than humane sentiment; it was a key to sound
    politics, and I very soon made no doubt that, though he did not
    belong to my own political party on the Thames at Westminster, we
    should find all that was wanted of common ground on the banks of
    the Ganges.  Good mutual understanding between Secretary of State
    and Viceroy makes all the difference, and between us two it never
    failed.  We were most happily alike, if I may use again some old
    words of my own, in aversion to all quackery and cant, whether it
    be the quackery of hurried violence dissembling as love of order or
    the cant of unsound and misapplied sentiment, divorced from
    knowledge and untouched by cool comprehension of realities."


Every item in this wise and generous tribute was, we may be assured,
deeply felt by the writer, and every phrase is true.  Minto had not the
literary skill of his colleague, and he has left us no such exercise in
the art of Theophrastus; his estimate of Mr. Morley is to be gathered
only from fragments of his letters and conversations.  But it is clear
that from the very outset he had arrived at an accurate judgment of the
Secretary of State.  A warm regard soon ripened into affection; he
admired the brilliance {222} and diversity of his talents, and was
grateful for the treasures of wisdom, drawn from a rich memory of the
world's thought and literature, with which he brightened his
correspondence.  This, he felt, was a compliment of which any man might
well be proud.  But he had to meet Mr. Morley not as a private friend,
but as a Secretary of State, and as a Secretary of State he had his
drawbacks.  His clear-cut personality, free from ragged edges and
indeterminate colours, was not the one best suited to the task of
administration.  His life had been that of the scholar and the teacher,
and even in Parliament his power lay rather in debate than in the arts
of leadership.  He was not, like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a skilled party
tactician, but an exponent of principles, and an inspirer, rather than
a framer, of policies.  His intellectual allegiance was owed to a
school of thought which tended always towards rigidity in theory, and
rigidity in theory is apt, if the thinker becomes a statesman, to
develop into absolutism in practice.  He had had no training in affairs
such as falls to the lot of the humblest country gentleman, and had
never had his corners rubbed off by mingling with the ruck of humanity.
The scholar, especially a scholar of Mr. Morley's type, transferred to
the seat of power, is always apt to order things with a high hand,
because he has little knowledge of the daily compromises by means of
which the business of the world is conducted.

[Sidenote: Lord Morley's character]

The innocent vanity of the scholar, too, may easily acquire that touch
of arrogance which brings it near to _folie des grandeurs_, and is
indeed the almost inevitable concomitant of a quick imagination.  Mr.
Morley was attracted to the India Office by his susceptibility to
historic state; he loved to sit in a large room and issue decrees to
high officials; it delighted him to feel that he had the control of the
fortunes of some hundreds of millions of human souls; there was even
satisfaction in the thought that troops might move at his command in
just and beneficent wars.  It is a curious trait to record in a
follower of Comte, but he had no general humanitarian sympathies.
Indeed, he had a strong distaste for all coloured races, and little
imaginative insight into their moods and views.  "The real truth," he
told Lady Minto in a delightful letter, "is that I am an Occidental,
not an Oriental; don't betray this fatal {223} secret or I shall be
ruined!  I think I like Mohammedans, but I cannot go much further than
that in an easterly direction."  He had a prejudice against
bureaucracy, but had himself the temperament of the austerest
bureaucrat; he professed a distaste for militarism, but he had an odd
liking for soldiers, and his affection was vowed in history to figures
like Cromwell and Strafford.  He called it a "wicked thought," but it
was a self-revealing suggestion of his that "Strafford was an ideal
type, both for governor of Ireland in the seventeenth century and
governor of India in the twentieth century."  Indeed, if an irreverence
may be permitted which its subject would assuredly have forgiven, there
was about Mr. Morley at the India Office the air of a colleger who is
admitted in his last year at school to the companionship of the
captains of the boats and the cricket eleven, and who is intoxicated
with his new society and inclined to forget the scholar in the
sportsman.  He was like Dr. Johnson in his capacity as Mr. Thrale's
executor, striding about the brewery with a great inkhorn and rejoicing
in the playing of a novel part.[2]  There are many passages which
express his distaste for the doctrinaire, but no man so ready as he was
to put his philosophy of life into maxims and aphorisms could escape a
touch of doctrinairedom.  His school of thought had taught him
high-flying doctrines of parliamentary supremacy, and there was a risk
that he might incline to views about the government of India which were
not the less despotic because the despotism was parliamentary.  His
rule was in danger of becoming autocratic and inelastic; he would
certainly override his own Council, he would probably pay small respect
to the Viceroy's Council, and he might end by ignoring the Viceroy
himself.

Minto shrewdly assessed the temperament of the Secretary of State and
set himself to counteract its dangers.  His aim was by patient argument
and adroit suggestion to get Mr. Morley to believe that the policy of
the Government of India was initiated by Whitehall; it {224} mattered
little who got the credit so long as the work was done.  He avoided
scrupulously any conflict except on the gravest issues; in lesser
matters he was only too willing to humour his colleague.  Having no
vanity himself, he was not offended by an innocent manifestation of it
in another, especially when he had for that other a sincere respect and
affection.  He recognized, too, that the fates had been kind in giving
him, in a new Government of unpredictable tendencies, just such a
Secretary of State.  To Mr. Morley he could look with certainty for
support in all liberal and sympathetic policies, and, should it become
necessary to take strong measures of repression, if he could convince
Mr. Morley, he could count with confidence on the support of the
Cabinet.  A statesman of such an impeccable democratic record would
soon silence the ill-informed critics of his own side, for he had about
him an aura of earnest morality which would enable him to steal a horse
with safety when another man dare not look over the hedge.

The first of Minto's tasks was to settle the quarrel on military
administration which had led to the break between Lord Curzon and Lord
Kitchener.  With the latter he had only a slight previous acquaintance,
and looked forward with some trepidation to their first official
meeting.  To his delight he found a man whom he could work with in
perfect confidence and ease, a fellow-soldier who spoke the same tongue
as himself, a friend whose humour and loyalty made him an admirable
colleague.  The new arrangement, which had been sanctioned in principle
by Mr. Brodrick in the previous year, was worked out in detail, and,
with some modifications, received the assent of His Majesty's
Government, and came into force as from March 19, 1906.  The Military
Department of the Government of India, which had existed for over one
hundred and twenty years, was abolished; the administrative control of
the Army in India was distributed between two new departments--the Army
Department and the Department of Military Supply; the former was placed
under the Commander-in-Chief, who was now directly responsible to the
Governor-General {225} in Council for the administration of the Indian
forces.  The scheme was accepted as a reasonable settlement both in
Britain and India; the Cabinet contented itself with altering certain
small provisions which the Government of India intentionally inserted
that they might be altered.  Mr. Morley told Minto that he did not
consider the solution particularly brilliant, but that everything
depended "upon the C.-in-C. being held by you strictly within the
limits we are assigning to him;" the Viceroy, thankful to be quit of
the business, told the Secretary of State that "it was refreshing to
see ideas conveyed in a kind of English unknown to official language
here."  So in an atmosphere of mutual compliments an acrimonious
controversy was laid to rest.

[Sidenote: The policy towards Russia]

Following close upon it, came Mr. Morley's first suggestion of the new
policy of the Foreign Office towards Russia, whose position in the
world had been materially altered by her defeat at the hands of Japan.
"Supposing," Mr. Morley wrote to the Viceroy, "you were coming to some
sort of understanding with Russia--a hypothesis which may be many
hundred miles off realization--and suppose even that we held the upper
hand in the negotiation, _what would be the terms that you would exact
from Russia as essential to a bargain_?  I mean what, from military,
strategic, and political points of view, are the things that she is to
undertake to do or not to do?"  Minto took time to consider the
question in consultation with Lord Kitchener, and the view of the two
was set forth in a letter of 2nd May.  Kitchener's conditions were that
Russia should publicly recognize that Afghanistan was outside her
sphere of influence and that its external relations must be conducted
through Britain; that she should make no strategic extension of her
present railway system towards the Indian frontier; that she should
recognize the preponderating interests of Britain in Seistan and
southern Persia, and that she should scrupulously respect the integrity
of China in Kashgar and elsewhere, and refrain from all interference in
Tibet.  On 25th May Mr. Morley sent to India a draft of Sir Edward
Grey's instructions to Sir Arthur Nicolson in Petrograd on the treaty
so far as it related to Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet, and Minto
replied on 12th June, criticizing {226} strongly the provisions as to
Afghanistan.  He was prepared for the most generous concessions to
Russia in Persia, but he was nervous about the Indian North-West
frontier.  He doubted the wisdom of permitting communications between
Russian and Afghan officials even on purely local matters; he
questioned the advisability of a Russo-Afghan frontier commission, and
he took the gravest exception to the proposed agreement of Britain not
to extend her railways in the direction of the Afghan border during a
period of ten years.  He believed that railways were the true frontier
defence of India, a necessary consequence of the frontier military
policy.


    "We must be masters in our own house.  We surely cannot agree to
    sacrifice the security and internal improvement of a portion of our
    dominions for the sake of our relations with a foreign Power? ...
    We should have to stand still for ten years, to give up hopes of
    closer relations with our tribes, and, for the sake of our own
    safety, to go on fighting them as we have done for generations....
    I cannot but feel strongly opposed to any agreement with Russia in
    respect to railways.  I should be inclined to let her do what she
    wants.  She has practically in respect to her propinquity to the
    Afghan frontier got all she wants now, or can get it at very short
    notice.  I earnestly hope it may be realized how such an agreement
    would tie our hands....  I cannot but think that primarily the Amir
    is a more dangerous neighbour to us than Russia, and therefore in
    respect to India a more necessary friend....  To me it seems
    infinitely more important to keep on friendly and controlling terms
    with him than to enter into any bargain with Russia which might
    lessen our influence with him, or alienate him from us.  I believe
    him to be sensitive, suspicious, and over-confident in his own
    strength, but in my opinion it is vitally important to keep on good
    terms with him....  If we are to enter upon an _entente_ with
    Russia, let us bargain with her elsewhere than in Central Asia....
    I have only given you my own views in answer to your letter, but I
    certainly think that, for reasons affecting the internal {227}
    administration of India independently of imperial foreign policy,
    the Government of India should be fully consulted before any
    agreement is entered into with Russia."


[Sidenote: Lord Morley's views]

This letter embodies Minto's main articles of frontier defence--that,
having accepted the dubious plan of holding the marches with tribal
levies, a road and railway policy was necessary to bring these tribes
more closely under our influence, and to provide the strategical means
for rapid military concentration; and that the Amir's friendship was
the foundation of frontier peace.  In a matter so vitally affecting the
internal interests of India it seems a modest request that the
Government of India should be consulted.  In replying on 6th July to a
letter of which he praised the "great clearness, ability, and force,"
Mr. Morley delivered a lecture on the principles and practice of
statesmanship, a vigorous homily which is worth quoting as an example
of the aptitude of the Secretary of State for discovering suddenly in
the most prosaic connection that fundamentals were endangered:--


    "You argue ... as if the policy of _entente_ with Russia were an
    open question.  That is just what it is not.  His Majesty's
    Government, with almost universal support in public opinion, have
    decided to make such attempt as Russian circumstances may permit to
    arrange an _entente_.  The grounds for this I have often referred
    to when writing to you.  Be they good or bad, be we right or wrong,
    that is our policy....

    "You say, 'If we are to enter on an _entente_ with Russia, let us
    bargain with her elsewhere than in Central Asia.'  But then this
    was not the question laid before you.  The question was, in view of
    the policy resolved upon deliberately by us, what you thought of
    the line on which in respect of Afghanistan we intended to pursue
    our policy.  An _entente_ with Russia that should leave out Central
    Asia would be a sorry trophy of our diplomacy indeed.  Anyhow,
    H.M.'s Government has determined on this course, and it is for
    their agents and officers all over the world to accept it.  If
    there is one among them to whom {228} it would be more idle to
    repeat the _abc_ of the constitution than to another you are that
    man.

    "I am, however, a little frightened when you say at the end of your
    letter that 'the Government of India should be fully consulted
    before the agreement suggested is entered into with Russia.'  If
    you mean the Government of India in a technical sense--as the G.-G.
    in C.--I must with all respect demur.  For one thing the G.-G. is
    his own foreign minister, and the Foreign department is under his
    own immediate superintendence.  Second, with sincere regard for the
    capacity of your Council, I fail to see what particular
    contribution they could make to questions of public policy....
    Third, have you considered how in practice this 'full consultation'
    could be worked?  Diplomacy, as you will agree, is necessarily
    delicate, flexible, elastic.  Is Nicolson in his talks with
    Isvolsky to pull himself up by thinking how this or that proposal
    would be taken not only at Whitehall, but also at Simla?  You know
    better than anybody how the pretensions of Canada (I don't use
    pretensions in any bad sense) fetter and shackle negotiations with
    the United States.  The plain truth is--and you won't mind my
    saying it frankly because you will agree--that this country cannot
    have two foreign policies.  The Government of India in Curzon's
    day, and in days before Curzon, tried to have its own foreign
    policy.  I seem to see the same spectre lurking behind the phrase
    about 'full consultation.'"


In these sentences there is obviously much dubious doctrine, and what
is sound is a little beside the point.  Minto contented himself with
replying that no one could be more opposed than himself to any attempt
of the Government of India to have a policy apart from the policy of
Britain.  "But opinions are a different thing, and it is quite possible
and often probable that the opinions of a subsidiary Government may be
different from those of His Majesty's Government.  In that case it
seems to me all-important that the Secretary of State should have the
opportunity of hearing these opinions and deciding upon their value."
In one detail of his frontier policy {229} he had the Secretary of
State's full concurrence--the fostering of friendly relations with the
Amir of Afghanistan.  Lord Curzon had tried to persuade Habibullah to
visit India to attend the Coronation Durbar at Delhi; but the
invitation had been perhaps too much in the nature of a command, and
Habibullah took umbrage.  Since then Sir Louis Dane's mission had
smoothed away the irritation, and early in 1906 Minto heard that the
Amir was anxious to make a pleasure trip to the chief Indian cities.
He sent him a cordial invitation to be his guest, and a ready
acceptance followed.  "I was determined," Habibullah told his durbar,
"never to go to India in the manner desired by Lord Curzon.  The
attitude adopted by Lord Minto, however, is so friendly and free from
motives that I cannot possibly hesitate to accept the invitation of His
Excellency, which is couched in such terms of kindness expressing a
desire for an interview between friends."  It was the first time since
the days of Lord Dufferin that the ruler of Afghanistan had consented
to visit India.

[Sidenote: The inception of the reforms]

The chief internal problem of the first half of 1906 was the agitation
against the partition of Bengal, that vexed inheritance to which Minto
had fallen heir.  We shall presently see this volcano in irruption.
But in the early months of the year Minto had begun to turn his
attention to the matter which the Prince of Wales had made the keynote
of his speech on his return, and which he and Mr. Morley had canvassed
from the beginning of their colleagueship--the possibility of
establishing a truer sympathy between rulers and ruled by admitting
Indians to some share in the government of their country.  It would be
an idle task to determine whether the first suggestion came from the
side of the Viceroy or of the Secretary of State, for both men were
from the start at one on the desirability of the reform, if it were
practically feasible.  In Minto's mind the ruling motive was a sense of
honour, the wish to fulfil the promise held out as long ago as the Act
of 1833 and the Royal proclamation of 1858.  Lord Curzon, labouring
single-heartedly in what he believed to be the cause of the Indian
people, had shown himself somewhat intolerant of the claims of the new
educated public which Britain had created.  On the ground of efficiency
he had declared, {230} with perhaps needless sharpness, that the higher
ranks of civil employment must be reserved for Englishmen, "for the
reason that they possess, partly by heredity, partly by upbringing, and
partly by education, the knowledge of the principles of government, the
habits of mind, and the vigour of character which are essential for the
task."  He had declared, too, that the West had a higher standard of
truthfulness than the East, "where craftiness and diplomatic wile have
always been held in much repute."  These dicta, whatever their
justification, were deeply wounding to Indian self-esteem, and they
seemed to postpone the realization of Britain's solemn pledge till the
Greek Kalends.  Minto, with his lively sense of public honour, could
not be comfortable in this blank refusal.

[Sidenote: Loyal unrest]

Moreover, as a practical man, he did not see the common sense of the
attitude.  He had to the full Lord Curzon's admiration for the
qualities of his own countrymen, but his very pride in these qualities
made him incline to the belief that they could maintain good government
even when the problem was complicated by admitting Indians to a share
in it.  It was the boast of the British in India that they had been
willing to face the facts of a new world and alter their administration
accordingly; one of the greatest of them, Warren Hastings, had foreseen
that the true task of his race was not in conquest but in what came
after, when he said, "To obtain empire is common; to govern it well has
been rare indeed."  To Minto it seemed that to govern with the assent
of the governed was less a moral than a physical necessity; the
opposite was not so much wrong as impossible.  As he looked around him
he saw two currents of unrest--one the inevitable desire of men whom we
had educated on Western lines to share in the government, the other the
dark stream of anarchy and revolution, which had its springs as much in
Europe as in India.  If both were suffered to overflow there might be
cataclysmic disaster; but the two were different in kind, and if the
second was to be restrained, there was the more need for canalizing and
regulating the first; otherwise the currents might join in a tragic
inundation.  He was incapable of taking a melodramatic view, and
reading anarchy into what was natural and reasonable.  There was a type
of {231} unrest which might fairly be called "loyal."  In his own
words, he saw that "beneath a seemingly calm surface there existed a
mass of smothered political discontent, much of which was thoroughly
justifiable and due to causes which we were bound to examine."  He
desired to check the revolutionary by preventing his alliance with the
moderate reformer.  The words which Mr. Gokhale used in the Budget
debate in March 1906 seemed to him the bare truth.  "The question of
the conciliation of the educated classes ... raises issues which will
tax all the resources of British statesmanship.  There is but one way
in which this conciliation can be secured, and that is by associating
these classes more and more with the government of their own country.
This is the policy to which England stands committed by solemn pledges
given in the past....  What the country needs at the moment above
everything else is a government national in spirit, even though it may
be foreign in _personnel_."

The first step was taken by the Viceroy.  In March 1906, before leaving
Calcutta, he raised boldly in private with certain members of his
Executive Council the question of the desirability of appointing an
Indian to its membership, since to him the path of executive
partnership between the races seemed the simplest and most hopeful.  He
found the majority of his advisers strongly against the proposal, and
he did not report the discussion to the Secretary of State, since he
intended to open the whole question later.  On 16th May, in connection
with the position of Mr. Gokhale, he wrote to Mr. Morley deprecating
the importation of British institutions into India _en bloc_, and Mr.
Morley replied, agreeing, but arguing that British institutions were
one thing and the spirit of British institutions another--"a thing we
cannot escape, even if we wished, which I hope we don't....  I have no
sort of ambition for us to take a part in any grand revolution during
my time of responsibility, whether it be long or short.  Just the very
opposite.  You need have no apprehension whatever of a private telegram
reaching you from me some fine morning requesting you at once to summon
an Indian Duma.  On the other hand, I don't want to walk blindfold in
the ways of bureaucracy."  A week or two earlier Mr. Morley had quoted
a frequent {232} saying of Lord Cromer, which he had heard from Mr.
Brodrick, to the effect that it had always been his habit in Egypt to
employ a native whenever it was at all possible, even though a European
might be more efficient.  "That," said Lord Cromer, "is where the
Government of India go wrong, and have always gone wrong; they find the
native less competent, or not competent at all, and then they employ an
Englishman instead.  You lose more by the effect on popular content
than you gain by having your work better done."

This was very much Minto's own way of looking at things, and in his
letter of 28th May he emphasized this view and liberated his soul on
the foolish exclusiveness of British society in India, instancing the
case of Sir Pertab Singh:--


    "I will tell you a story of Sir Pertab.  Not long ago a young
    British officer of whom he was very fond died of cholera in his
    house.  He was to be buried the same afternoon, and had just been
    put in his coffin in a room in which were Sir Pertab and an English
    officer, who, seeing that there would be some difficulty in
    carrying the coffin down to the gun-carriage at the door, asked Sir
    Pertab to send for a 'sweeper.'  'Sweeper!' said Sir Pertab, 'what
    do you want a sweeper for?  I shall carry the boy down myself.'
    The English officer, knowing that this meant that he would lose his
    caste, implored him not to do so, but he insisted, carried the
    coffin on his shoulder to the door, walked by the gun-carriage, and
    again carried the coffin from it to the grave.  Next morning a
    deputation of Brahmins came to Sir Pertab's house and told him that
    a terrible thing had happened the day before.  'Yes!' he answered,
    'a young officer died here.'  'More terrible than that,' they said.
    'You, a Rahtor Rajput, have lost your caste.'  He flared up like a
    shot.  'Look here, you pigs!  There is one caste higher than all
    other castes throughout the world, and that is the caste of a
    soldier!  That is my caste!'  Turning to one of his staff he
    angrily asked for his hunting whip, the Brahmins fled, and he
    remains as great as ever.  And that is the man {233} that we can't
    allow inside an English club at Calcutta!"


[Sidenote: The reforms outlined]

On 15th June, in a letter of Mr. Morley's occurred a passage of the
first importance:--


    "I wonder whether we could not now make a good start in the way of
    reform in the popular direction.  If we don't, is it not certain
    that the demands will widen and extend into 'national' reasons,
    which I at least look upon with a very doubtful and suspicious eye.
    Why should you not now consider as practical and immediate
    things--the extension of the native element in your Legislative
    Council; ditto in local councils; full time for discussing Budget
    in your L.C., instead of four or five skimpy hours; right of moving
    amendments?  (Of course, officials would remain a majority.)  If I
    read your letters correctly you have no disposition whatsoever to
    look on such changes in a hostile spirit; quite the contrary.  Why
    not, then, be getting ready to announce reforms of this sort?
    Either you write me a dispatch, or I write you one--by way of
    opening the ball.  It need be no long or high-flown affair.  I
    suppose the notion of a native in your Executive Council would not
    do at all.  Is that certain?  I daresay it is--and it would
    frighten that nervous personage (naturally nervous), the
    Anglo-Indian."


These suggestions were the "common form" of Indian liberalism, and Mr.
Morley had adopted them partly from Minto's letters, partly from talks
with Mr. Gokhale, and partly from Indian sympathizers at home.  Minto
replied on 5th July, agreeing heartily with the Secretary of State, and
mentioning that the possibility of a native on his Executive Council
had been simmering for months in his mind.  On 11th July he wrote at
greater length:--


    "I need not tell you how heartily I am in accord with all you say
    as to the necessity of dealing with our Indian political future.
    Moreover, it appears to me that our opportunity has come....  I
    would for the present put aside the question of the Council of
    Princes and the possibility of a native Member of {234} Council....
    What I think we have distinctly before us is the prolongation of
    the Budget debate, the encouragement of greater discussion at that
    debate not only on questions of finance, but on other matters of
    public moment, and also a larger representation on the Legislative
    Council of the Viceroy....  I believe, as a matter of sound
    improvement, we should do very right in commencing our reforms from
    the bottom of the tree.  The Congress leaders would begin at the
    top.  They want ready-made power for themselves.  We must remember
    that our own people at home have been educated for centuries in the
    idea of constitutional government, and have only advanced by slow
    steps to the popular representation of to-day.  Here everything is
    different.  From time immemorial it has been a rule of dictators,
    and we must be very careful not to thrust modern political
    machinery upon a people who are generally totally unprepared for
    it....  What I should venture to propose to you is that you should
    let me know what you think of my crude suggestions, that we should
    put our ideas as far as possible into shape by private
    correspondence, and that I should then place the position before my
    Council for discussion, with the intention of our sending you our
    proposals in the shape of an official dispatch.  I attach great
    importance to the official initiative being taken by the Government
    of India.  It is better in every respect, both for the present and
    for the future, that the Government of India should appear to
    recognize all that is in the air here, and the necessity of meeting
    new conditions, and that they should not run the risk of being
    assumed to have at last taken tardy action out of respect to
    instructions from home."


VI

[Sidenote: The North-West Frontier]

At the close of March the Mintos left Calcutta for a tour in the
North-West, visiting Delhi on the way, where the Viceroy unveiled a
statue of John Nicholson.  It was his first breathing-space, and he
exulted in the keen air of the frontier hills, and the revisiting of
places where he {235} had campaigned twenty-seven years before.  At
Mardan they saw the memorial to Cavagnari, and Lady Minto remembered
with a shudder how narrowly her husband had escaped Cavagnari's fate.


    "I saw the headmen at Dargai," Minto wrote to Mr. Morley on 18th
    April, "who presented me with an address in verse in Pushtu, the
    main point of which was a desire for improved railway
    communication.  On the other side of the pass I again met all the
    leading men--a strong, manly, cheerful people, eminently
    respectable-looking in their long white dresses, who were fighting
    hard against us in 1895-97 and 1898.  I am afraid my Border blood
    conduced to a certain amount of sympathy between us.  I talked to
    all the leaders among them, and somehow could not help feeling that
    we liked each other, and they presented me with two of their
    standards, which, I believe, is an honour never paid to any one
    before, as no standard has ever been parted with unless it was lost
    in war.  It is a peculiar society, perpetual blood-feuds and little
    wars among themselves.  Younghusband, commanding the Guides, Sir
    Francis's brother, told me the other day that only a few months ago
    he was coming back from playing polo in the Swat valley close to a
    village through which I passed, when to his astonishment he
    realized that a heavy musketry fire was going on, and he rode up to
    a line of warriors who were firing away merrily, and asked what on
    earth they were doing.  They said they were only fighting about a
    piece of land, and that, though there 'were yet but five corpses,
    by God's grace there would soon be more.'  Our frontier officers,
    like Roos-Keppel in the Khyber, and Deane, love these people.
    There is a curious feeling of fun and devilry in it all which is
    fascinating."


The last week of April found the Viceregal household settled in Simla,
the place which Minto had found odious on his first visit, but which he
was soon to appreciate.  It was a change of residence, but no change of
life, for the inexorable files flowed in ceaselessly, and the Viceroy
was fortunate if he snatched an hour's ride in the day.  In {236} June
they had an alarming earthquake, and in July the community was saddened
by the tragic news of Lady Curzon's death.  Lady Minto was hard at work
at her organization of the Indian Nursing Association, and preparing
for the huge Fancy Fte in Calcutta which was to provide it with
endowments.  In this scheme she had Mr. Morley's warm support.  "Do you
know," he wrote, "that I have often wondered whether I would not rather
be in Lord Shaftesbury's place on the Day of Judgment than in the place
of all the glittering statesmen.  I mean that I would rather have done
something pretty certain--nothing is quite certain--to mitigate
miseries such as your Nursing Scheme aims at, than have done all the
grand things about which high speeches are made and great articles
written in the newspapers."  There were expeditions in which the
hard-worked Viceroy sometimes managed to join, and the marvellous
ritual of the household never ceased to inspire awe.  After a very wet
ride they arrive at Fagu in the hills, and Lady Minto's journal notes:
"The scarlet servants with immovable faces stood round the table as
usual, looking as if they had never left Government House.  Francis
Grenfell told me he expected a picnic luncheon, but I informed him that
the Viceroy must have his silver plate, his Star of India china, and
every variety of wine, even if he happens to be on the highest pinnacle
of the Himalaya mountains, and somehow they always appear as if by
magic!"

Simla was scarcely less elaborate than Calcutta.  "We counted the other
day, when Rolly and I were absolutely alone, nineteen servants waiting
about in the passages, and thirty-two men who compose the band playing
in the hall below--fifty-one in all."  It was a gay and intimate world,
full of polo and tennis, gymkhanas, amateur theatricals, and endless
dances, in which the three daughters, soon to be respectfully known
throughout India as the "Destroying Angels," played a notable part.
But it was a world in which perforce the Viceroy could have little
share.  The Secretary of State was courteous and kindly, but he was
exacting, and cables demanding information arrived at all hours.  Mr.
Morley praised the "cool, equitable, and penetrating reflection" which
Minto was giving to his problems, and wrote to Lady Minto: {237} "We
have had widely different training and experience, but I do believe
that, in the way we approach public business, Lord Minto and I are just
the same.  It is inevitable that in detail and carrying things out we
should sometimes vary, and controversies cannot be avoided in all these
complex and difficult affairs.  But, at any rate, after our six months'
experience, I am confident that neither on his side nor mine will a
difficulty ever be made worse by any element of huffy personality."  It
was a fortunate state of things, for the problems themselves were of a
magnitude to demand the undivided attention of both.

[Sidenote: The partition of Bengal]

In July the difficulties in Eastern Bengal came to a head.  The
inevitable troubles connected with partition were not soothed by the
personality of the first lieutenant-governor of the new province.  Sir
Bampfylde Fuller was a man of ability and energy, and single-hearted in
his devotion to duty.  But he had not the qualities of tact and
judgment necessary for the delicate situation in which he was placed;
he was impetuous and hot-headed, apt to use the strong hand, and not
inclined to be too deferent to the views of his official superiors, who
had to envisage the problems of all India.  Already in the first six
months of his tenure of office he had made many blunders, and greatly
increased the Viceroy's burden.  Mr. Morley was eager that he should be
removed; Minto shrank, not unnaturally, from a step which would be
certainly misconstrued by the critics of the Government; but he was
convinced that Sir Bampfylde's administration was a serious danger,
since he lacked the qualities of patience and discretion which could
alone in time abate the partition ferment.  Perpetual pin-pricks, on
the contrary, kept the irritation alive.  "What ails Fuller Sahib," Sir
Pertab Singh once asked, "that he wants to blow flies from cannon?"
Then in July an incident happened which was not quite unwelcome to
either Viceroy or Secretary of State.  Before the partition came into
force the Government of Bengal had prohibited the participation of
students in the boycott movement, and warned the heads of schools and
colleges that, if this prohibition were disregarded, state aid would be
withdrawn, and Calcutta University would be asked to disaffiliate such
{238} institutions.  In February 1906 the Government of Eastern Bengal
asked that Calcutta University should withdraw recognition from two
schools which had ignored the prohibition.  Now, at that moment such
action would have been dangerous, for Lord Curzon's University Act was
not yet in full working order, Calcutta University was in process of
reorganization, and if the disaffiliation request had been pressed
forthwith it might have been refused, with the most awkward
consequences.  Accordingly, the Home department of the Government of
India suggested semi-officially to the Lieutenant-Governor the
advisability of withdrawing the request on the ground that "the
political objections to pressing the application to the Syndicate
outweigh whatever educational advantages might be supposed to attach to
a withdrawal of recognition from the schools."  To this Sir Bampfylde
replied with an autograph letter to the Viceroy, in which he announced
that he was unable to acquiesce in this view, and that if it were
persisted in he must tender his resignation.

[Sidenote: Sir Bampfylde Fuller]

To his amazement Minto, after consulting the Secretary of State,
accepted the resignation.[3]  "I feel," he wrote, "that, as you had
expressed your willingness to resign, it would not be right to ask you
to undertake proceedings of which you did not approve."  The incident
produced a profound sensation, and there was much foolish talk of
"throwing officers to the wolves."  But there can be no doubt that
Minto was right.  Sir Bampfylde Fuller had not proved a success, and
that he should have been unable to perceive the cogent reasons of the
Government of India for refusing his request was sufficient proof that
he had not the qualifications needed for a most difficult post.  In
substance his policy was sound, and a year later, {239} when the Senate
of Calcutta University had been reconstituted, it was put into effect
by the Viceroy.  But in the summer of 1906 it was premature, for it is
a truism of statesmanship that what is wise at one moment may be
foolish at another.  As for the charge of disloyalty to a subordinate,
it was more correct to say that the subordinate had been disloyal to
his superior.  To reply with a threat of resignation to a letter
pointing out difficulties and suggesting a reconsideration of a demand
was to fail in the first duty of a public servant.  No Government could
survive for long if, when an official differed from it and offered to
resign, it felt bound to capitulate to the pistol held at its head.

The sensation was short-lived.  Sir Bampfylde Fuller behaved at first
with discretion, but when in June 1908 he published in the _Times_ his
letter headed "J'accuse" he convinced reasonable men that, whatever his
talents, he was unfitted for the more delicate tasks of administration.
Mr. Morley's account of his interview with him in the following October
is the best comment on a painful but unavoidable affair:--


    "I had a talk with him yesterday which lasted two solid hours and a
    half.  I did not grudge the time, though it was a pretty stiff
    dose....  His extraordinary vivacity attracted me; so did his
    evident candour and good faith; he soon became free and colloquial
    in his speech, playing with cards on the table, in which tactics I
    followed him, both of us being perfectly frank and entirely
    good-natured.  He is certainly a shrewdish, eager, impulsive,
    overflowing sort of man, quite well fitted for government work of
    ordinary scope, but I fear no more fitted to manage the state of
    things in E. Bengal than am I to drive an engine....  'Well,' said
    I, 'you have a right to present your case in your own way.  My
    reply will be a very simple one, and it will be this: "You resigned
    not because you had been ill-supported by the G. of I., but because
    you could not have your own way in a particular matter where you
    took one view and the G. of I. took another.  That is the only
    question that arises on this set of facts.  _My_ {240} firm
    principle is that if any official resigns because he cannot have
    his way, I (if it be my business) will promptly and definitely
    accept his resignation, and I cannot see that Lord Minto had any
    other alternative.  Your policy was not recommended by success.
    You talk of the injury to prestige caused by the acceptance of your
    resignation.  You should have thought of that before you resigned.
    The responsibility is yours.  I don't believe it is for the good of
    prestige to back up every official whatever he does, right or
    wrong."  The effect of this eloquent burst upon the mobile man was
    to procure a vehement expression of _agreement_! ... The whole
    thing was intensely instructive and interesting, but it was also to
    me, as it certainly would have been to you, very painful.  Yet
    every minute of the interview convinced me more and more that his
    retention must have brought wider mischief."


[Sidenote: The Reform Note to Council]

In August Minto, after months of careful investigation and much anxious
thought, took the first practical step in his reforms policy.  He
appointed a committee, consisting of Sir A. T. Arundel, Sir Denzil
Ibbetson, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Erle Richards, with Mr. H. Risley as
secretary, to consider the question, and himself wrote a minute for
their guidance.  He referred to paragraph 7 in the report of Sir
Charles Aitchison's committee as detailing the interests which must be
protected in any increase of representation; the interests, namely, of
the hereditary nobility and landed classes, of the trading,
professional, and agricultural classes, of the planting and commercial
European community, and of stable and effective administration.  The
subjects he proposed for the committee's consideration were: (_a_) a
Council of Princes, and, should this be impossible, whether they might
be represented in the Viceroy's Legislative Council; (_b_) an Indian
member of the Viceroy's Executive Council; (_c_) increased
representation on the Legislative Council of the Viceroy and of local
governments; and (_d_) prolongation of the Budget debate, and increased
power of moving amendments.

The following is an extract from Minto's note to his Council when
appointing the committee:--


{241}


    "I feel sure my colleagues will agree with me that Indian affairs
    and the methods of Indian administration have never attracted more
    public attention in India and at home than at the present moment.
    The reasons for their doing so are not far to seek.  The growth of
    education, which British rule has done so much to encourage, is
    bearing fruit.  Important classes of the population are learning to
    realize their own position, to estimate for themselves their own
    intellectual capacities, and to compare their claims for an
    equality of citizenship with those of a ruling race, whilst the
    directing influences of political life at home are simultaneously
    in full accord with the advance of political thought in India.

    "To what extent the people of India as a whole are as yet capable
    of serving in all branches of administration, to what extent they
    are individually entitled to a share in the political
    representation of their country, to what extent it may be possible
    to weld together the traditional sympathies of many different races
    and different creeds, and to what extent the great hereditary
    rulers of native states should assist to direct imperial policy,
    are problems which the experience of future years can alone
    gradually solve.

    "But we, the Government of India, cannot shut our eyes to present
    conditions.  The political atmosphere is full of change, questions
    are before us which we cannot afford to ignore, and which we must
    attempt to answer: and to me it would appear all-important that the
    initiative should emanate from us; that the Government of India
    should not be put in the position of appearing to have its hands
    forced by agitation in this country, or by pressure from home; that
    we should be the first to recognize surrounding conditions, and to
    place before His Majesty's Government the opinions which personal
    experience and a close touch with the every-day life of India
    entitle us to hold."


The committee sat through an entire month, and during its session
Minto's letters to Mr. Morley showed that his views were hardening fast
about the native member of {242} the Viceroy's Council.  He had come to
think it a step not only desirable but essential.  The committee's
report, when completed, was circulated to the other members of Council,
with a note from the Viceroy dealing especially with the question of a
native member, of which two out of the four signatories to the report
were in favour.  Minto recognized that he must proceed slowly, and the
opposition which he expected to be most formidable was that of
Kitchener.  For the time the Secretary of State was too actively
engaged in the parliamentary struggles of his Government, in connection
mainly with education and the powers of the House of Lords, to give his
undivided attention to India.  His private letters were discursive and
wholly delightful--speculations on the dullness of a Viceroy's life
according to Dufferin and Lytton: a description of a tea-party at
Wimbledon for the Gaekwar of Baroda, and of a visit to Lord Roberts: an
explanation, accompanied by a gift of his _Life of Gladstone_ ("When
you are done with it, pray add my book to the kinematographs, brocades,
Martinis, and other appropriate presents to Kabul"), of the "frightful
school" of financial churlishness in which he had been reared: and a
recommendation that, should the House of Lords be abolished, Minto
should succeed him on his return from India as member for the Montrose
Burghs.  The Secretary of State was in excellent spirits:--


    "I am perfectly fascinated by that idea of yours, of you and me
    taking a walk together on your frontier.  But then I have
    misgivings--when I think of the possible effect upon your mind of
    the teaching of your new friends at Kashmir, and their maxims upon
    the 'political convenience' of 'the quiet removal to another world
    of a troublesome colleague.'  What a temptation to rid yourself of
    an importunate economist once for all!  Your description of the
    enchantments of Kashmir brings the wonder of them well before me,
    and makes me half jealous of you in my own trade of man of letters."


{243}

VII

[Sidenote: The Mohammedan deputation]

The Mohammedan population of India has always been a problem by itself,
different in kind from that of the other races.  The sixty-two millions
of the followers of Islam had, with a few exceptions, hitherto taken
little part in political life, and their leaders had held aloof from
the National Congress.  Their loyalty to the British Raj had been
beyond criticism, but, owing to their insistence upon a system of
education which was essentially religious, they found themselves
outstripped by the Hindus in the securing of public posts, and were
beginning to smart under a sense of inferiority.  The partition of
Bengal had been to their benefit, but the fate of Sir Bampfylde Fuller,
whom they regarded as their special champion, had roused anxiety, and
there was a danger that their young men might fall a prey to the
peripatetic agitator.  Minto, like the Secretary of State, had a liking
for the Mohammedan, and the wiser heads in the body decided that the
best preventive to unrest was to seek an interview with the Viceroy and
state their grievances.  The deputation was received at Simla on 1st
October, and the address, bearing the signatures of every class of the
Moslem community, was presented by the Aga Khan.  Never before had so
representative a body voiced Mohammedan views, and the address was
notably moderate and dignified.  It pointed out that the position of
Moslems "should be commensurate not merely with their numerical
strength but also with their political importance and the value of the
contribution which they made to the defence of the Empire."  Accepting,
without great enthusiasm, the setting up of representative
institutions, it claimed that provision should be made for the election
of Mohammedans by purely Mohammedan electorates.

Minto replied in a speech which was one of the most sagacious and
tactful that he ever made.  He realized that no reforms would work
which did not carry with them the assent of this great community, and
that the moment had come for a clear statement of his policy.  The
following passage was accepted as a charter of Islamic rights:--


{244}


    "The pith of your address, as I understand it, is a claim that, in
    any system of representation, whether it affects a municipality, a
    district board, or a legislative council, in which it is proposed
    to introduce or to increase the electoral organization, the
    Mohammedan community should be represented as a body.  You point
    out that in many cases electoral bodies as now constituted cannot
    be expected to return a Mohammedan candidate, and that, if by
    chance they did so, it could only be at the sacrifice of such a
    candidate's views to those of a majority opposed to his own
    community, whom he would in no way represent; and you justly claim
    that your position should be estimated not merely on your numerical
    strength but in respect to the political importance of your
    community and the service that it has rendered to the Empire.  I am
    entirely in accord with you.  Please do not misunderstand me; I
    make no attempt to indicate by what means the communities can be
    obtained, but I am as firmly convinced as I believe you to be, that
    any electoral representation in India would be doomed to
    mischievous failure which aimed at granting a personal
    enfranchisement regardless of the beliefs and traditions of the
    communities composing the population of this continent."


There was far more in his speech than the formal pledge; there was an
accent of friendliness and sincerity which deeply impressed his
hearers.  "Your address," Mr. Morley wrote, "was admirable alike in
spirit, in its choice of topics, and in the handling," and he added
that its gravity and steady dignity were thoroughly appreciated at
home.  After the interview the delegates had tea in the garden, and the
old Prime Minister of Patiala said to Lady Minto, "A hundred years ago
Lord Minto came and saved our state.  We cannot forget the gratitude we
owe to his family.  Now God has sent his descendant not only to help
Patiala but to save India, and our hearts are full of thankfulness."
The language of hyperbole was not without reason.  The speech
undoubtedly prevented the ranks of sedition from being swollen by
Moslem recruits, an inestimable advantage in the day of trouble which
was dawning.

{245}

The Mohammedan deputation having been received, the Viceroy departed on
a lengthy tour.  He went first to Quetta, where he held a _durbar_ of
Baluchi chiefs and enjoyed a day's hunting over remarkable country, a
network of ridges, blind ditches, and old irrigation works.  Then by
way of Rawal Pindi he reached Kashmir, proceeding to Srinagar up the
Jhelum in a lordly house-boat.  "It was amusing," Lady Minto's diary
notes, "to see the Viceroy trying to take a little exercise by walking
along the bank.  He was surrounded by a concourse of people.  His
dignity demanded a huge escort in front, soldiers bringing up the rear,
policemen to the right and left of him, scouts on ahead, and
skirmishers surveying the country on either side.  Had we been marching
through an enemy's country it would have been impossible to take more
drastic precautions."  In Kashmir the Mintos were royally entertained,
and, later in Poonch, among other forms of sport had a day's
bear-shooting, when the bag was thirty-one bears, of which Lady Minto
accounted for five.  Here is an extract from her Kashmir diary:--


    "At Dachigan Camp two thousand were accommodated, including the
    Maharaja's band of eighty musicians, and the beaters numbered six
    thousand.  We were told to expect bear, deer, and barasingh, but
    the forest was nearly devoid of game.  Owing to the disturbing
    noises of this vast imported multitude the wild animals had all
    migrated over the mountains into Tibet.  I was fortunate, however,
    in killing a large brown bear, and the next day Rolly shot the only
    barasingh in the beat.  The return of the party was a curious
    sight.  They alighted from the tongas at the gates, where the pipes
    and drums awaited them, playing a suitable Scottish air for the
    return of the successful sportsmen.  Rolly and the Maharaja slowly
    advanced, accompanied by the band, and followed by a huge retinue,
    and preceded by an army of men carrying torches.  It seems at five
    o'clock the Maharaja heard there was to be another beat, and became
    terribly fussy lest the Viceroy should be out in the dark.  Orders
    were sent to all the neighbouring villages that men carrying
    torches must line {246} the road, and with some of the coolies sent
    from the camp this was accomplished.  The Maharaja drove to the
    foot of the mountain himself to see that all was faithfully carried
    out, and sure enough, as if by magic, for eight solid miles a thick
    avenue of coolies held flaming torches to illumine the Viceroy on
    his way....

    "It was amusing to see old Dandy's departure from camp, lying at
    his ease on the soft mattress of a specially-made wooden bedstead,
    which was carried by four coolies with four relief men, and one man
    in a red uniform, fully armed, and holding a sword at the salute,
    walking beside him to ensure that he should not fall out.  The
    coolies speak respectfully of the Viceroy's dog as 'Dandy Sahib,'
    who accepts their homage and seems quite aware of his own
    importance."


The next visit was paid to Bikanir, where they had some marvellous
sport with the sand-grouse.  In the brief space of this Memoir it is
impossible to do justice to the splendid hospitality extended to the
Viceroy and his family by the Princes of India.  For many of them Minto
felt the warmest regard, they looked to him constantly for counsel, and
in the native states perhaps his happiest hours of recreation were
spent.

On 26th November his younger son, Esmond, arrived from England, and
accompanied him for the rest of the tour.  At Nabha the old Raja went
up to the little boy, who could hardly be seen under an enormous sun
hat, and bent low so as to look in his face.  Then he said in Punjabi,
"Your father is kind to the Phulkian _misl_ (confederation), because
God, the Immortal, has caused the noble spirit of his ancestor, who
saved their forefathers, to pass into him.  You must never forget this,
and must be kind to my grandchildren as your father is to me.  My sword
is yours."  He put out his sword for Esmond to touch.  Then came
Patiala, and then Delhi, where Minto dined with the 18th Sikhs, and was
conveyed to the barracks in a motor-car, the property of some Raja.
"It meandered about all over the road, and finally charged a lamp-post,
nearly demolishing the whole party."  On inquiry it was {247}
discovered that the Raja had not allowed his accomplished chauffeur to
drive, "not thinking his station in life to be adequate; so the
Viceroy's life was entrusted to his principal _sirdar_, who knew
nothing about motor-cars."

[Sidenote: End of first year]

So closed the first year of Minto's Viceroyalty.  He could look back on
it with a modest comfort, for his health had stood the strain of
incessant work--no small feat for a man of sixty--and he had
established the best relations with the civil service, the native
princes, and large classes of the Indian people.  Sir Arthur Godley,
the permanent under-secretary at the India Office, summed up the year
in a kindly Christmas message:--"You came into office at a time of
unusual difficulty, and at the end of twelve months you can not only
say like Sieys, _J'ai vcu_, but you can look round upon a greatly
improved state of things, and look back upon some thoroughly good
pieces of work.  And the prospect before you is, I hope and believe, a
satisfactory one.  Not the least of your achievements is that of having
established thoroughly satisfactory relations with the Secretary of
State.  I can assure you (so far as I can judge) you have completely
won his confidence, and (what is not so easy to win by correspondence
alone) his friendship."



[1] Vol. II., pages 121-123.  In a presentation copy to Lady Minto the
author has written the following tribute:--

"To Lady Minto, with warm respect, in grateful memory of an able,
straight-forward, steadfast, unselfish, and most considerate comrade in
tasks of arduous public duty.  MORLEY OF B.

"_April_ 25, 1919."

[2] Once, when lunching at 10 Downing Street after he had become Lord
President of the Council, he was asked by his old friend, Mr. Thomas
Hardy, what books he had been reading lately, and replied loftily, "I
never read anything"--seeming, said Mr. Hardy gently in telling the
tale, "to draw an invisible ermine about him, as though he were a
sporting peer who never read anything but the _Pink 'Un_."--_Quarterly
Review_, January 1924.

[3] Mr. Morley wrote to the Viceroy, November 2, 1906: "... The Fuller
papers will be laid before Parliament in a day or two.  One matter in
connection with them lies rather heavy on my conscience, and it is
this.  There is not a word to show that the acceptance of Fuller's
resignation had my entire concurrence; and I have a feeling that you
may think it rather shabby in me, who clamoured every week for his
removal, to remain in the innocence of a lamb before Parliament.  The
Office were obdurate against the production of my telegram on the
ground that the Governor-General is technically and constitutionally
the sole authority over Lieutenant-Governors, and on the further ground
that both Governor-General and Secretary of State should communicate
with one another in absolute freedom, and this freedom would be much
impaired if either felt that his letter or telegram might be planted in
a blue book.  I will try to get it known in Parliament that I warmly
concurred in your acceptance of the resignation.  I only hope that you
will believe I am not thinking of saving my own skin, which, after all
this time, has become dreadfully indurated."




{248}

CHAPTER X

VICEROY OF INDIA, 1907-8

I

[Sidenote: 1907]

The first month of 1907 was given up to functions and gaieties, for it
was the month of Lady Minto's Fte in Calcutta for her Nursing
Association and local hospitals, and it saw the advent from the north
of the ruler of Afghanistan.  Of the Fte let it be recorded that it
was a conspicuous success, the most comprehensive fancy fair which
India had ever seen, perfectly organized in all details, and productive
of no less a sum in net profits than 25,000.  Side by side with the
anxieties of this gigantic _tamasha_ the Vicereine had to face with the
Viceroy the entertainment of the Amir Habibullah, on whose visit hung
grave issues for India's foreign policy.  The great Durbar was held at
Agra, where the Amir arrived on 9th January in a deluge of rain--which
he fortunately considered a good omen.  The Viceroy and the
Commander-in-Chief were there to meet him, and a large concourse of
guests, English and native.  The Amir's camp was superbly equipped.
"Huge silver poles support the great Durbar _shamiana_, where about a
dozen gorgeous silver chairs are arranged in a circle.  There is a
large empty room with prayer carpets, where his devotions will be said.
His bed is a silver four-poster with gold and silver embroideries
instead of sheets, and his bath is a large inlaid marble tombstone with
an iron pedestal beside it, on which a man stands and pours water over
him.  His other toilet requisites are all encased in plush and
embroideries.  On his dressing-table is a golden case full of
scents--one bottle containing the pure extract of attar of roses."

{249}

[Sidenote: The Amir's visit]

Then began a succession of garden parties, dinners, and receptions, and
a Grand Chapter of the Indian orders of knighthood, when the Amir was
invested by the Viceroy with the Grand Cross of the Bath.  It was a
scene of impressive splendour as he walked in procession with the
Viceroy and the Princes through the Dwan-i-kas to the Jasmine Hall,
with its priceless traceries and carvings, which in other days had
witnessed the glories of the Mogul dynasty.  He was--after much anxious
discussion--addressed as "His Majesty" and given a salute of thirty-one
guns.  He proved to be a short, thick-set gentleman, cheerful, voluble,
strong-headed, with a passion for novelties, most friendly and
susceptible, and obviously of a stout heart and a quick intelligence.
He wore English clothes, except for a small astrakhan cap, adorned with
a diamond sun, and occasionally put himself into knickerbockers and
Norfolk jacket.  He was deeply impressed by the review which he
witnessed of 32,000 Indian troops, and rated his _sirdars_ for making
him believe that the Afghan army outweighed the combined forces of
India and Russia.  "And the whole army of India, I now learn, is but a
fraction of the total military strength of the British Empire, and the
whole army of the British Empire, I further find, is one of the
smallest among the armies of the world's Great Powers.  What!  Have you
naught to say?  Look to it, I shall require your answer."

There was high comedy in the visit.  The Amir lost his heart to so many
ladies of diverse types that it was difficult to say whom he most
admired.


    "Lord Kitchener entertained the Amir at dinner last night," says
    Lady Minto's diary, "and it seems to have been a great success.  He
    became most hilarious, drank three bottles of soda-water and a tub
    of plain water, and the effect could not have been more
    invigorating had the liquid been wine.  He led Lord Kitchener to a
    sofa and said, 'You my friend, I your friend.  Now we joke.'  Lord
    Kitchener had the greatest difficulty in getting rid of him towards
    midnight."


He delivered various homilies on total abstinence, and a {250}
surprising address at Aligarh College on the need of religious
education, but he resolutely declined to mention politics.  Here is a
picture by Lady Minto of his appearance at the State Ball in Calcutta:--


    "He had never seen dancing in his life, and I was terrified that he
    was going to ask me to teach him.  We sat together on the dais in
    the ballroom discussing old Persian sayings, from which many of our
    proverbs are derived.  There happened to be an eclipse of the moon,
    and the Amir gallantly said, 'The moon in our country is masculine,
    and he even hides his face to-night so that your ball may have no
    rival.'  Later at supper I told him that it was our custom to put
    our knife and fork together if we had finished and wanted our plate
    removed.  He said, 'You tell, I learn!' ... He said, 'Please you
    tell me I been heavy guest or light guest?'  Of course I said,
    'You've been a light guest;' whereupon he added, 'Then I come and
    stay with you next year, not official.  I come as your friend for a
    long time.'  With a sickly smile I told him that we should look
    forward to that pleasure, privately praying that the Government
    will never allow the experiment to be repeated oftener than once in
    five years."


[Sidenote: The Amir's departure]

The Amir purchased enormous quantities of goods at the Calcutta Fte;
he gave largesse to any one who took his fancy; he did his best to
arrange a marriage for Lord Kitchener, whose celibacy was a constant
grief to him; and he departed at long last in tears, having found the
rivers of Damascus more attractive than his own scanty waters of
Israel.  In his farewell speech he gave a promise which he loyally kept
throughout the anxious days of the Great War: "Before I came to India
we called ourselves friends; now I find myself in such a position that
our friendship, which was like a plant before, is now like a big tree.
I have gained much experience in India, and from that experience I hope
to benefit my country in future.  Let me say that at no time will
Afghanistan pass from the friendship of India.  So long as the Indian
Empire desires to keep her friendship, so long will Afghanistan {251}
and Britain remain friends."  Melancholy telegrams and letters were
dispatched to the Viceroy from every halting-place on his return
journey, and he crossed the frontier in utter dolefulness.  "He drew
Sir Henry M'Mahon aside, put on his motoring goggles to hide the tears
that were coursing down his face, and was too overcome to say one word.
He finally jumped on to his horse, spurred him into a gallop, and
disappeared through the mountain passes towards his barbaric kingdom."

[Illustration: LADY MINTO, 1907]

The visit was not perhaps to the advantage of Habibullah; the fleshpots
of the West were much too attractive to him, he fell out of conceit
with his own people, and the way was prepared for the fate which befell
him twelve years later.  But from the point of view of Indian policy it
was an unequivocal triumph, for relations of cordial friendship had
been established which made it possible to tide over the difficulties
of the agreement with Russia, now approaching completion.  The British
Government warmly congratulated Minto on the success of the visit, and
two extracts from the correspondence of the Viceroy and the Secretary
of State may be quoted to show that the burden of it was not light and
that this was appreciated in Whitehall.  On 6th February Minto wrote:--


    "The Amir is still with us.  I am afraid these words can hardly
    convey what they mean to me.  Lady Minto and I are at the last
    stages of exhaustion.  He fills up one's every spare moment.  He
    came down to Barrackpore on Sunday for luncheon, after which I
    hoped for an afternoon to myself, but could not leave him.  He then
    got involved in a game of croquet with my daughters, and finally
    remained till dark.  He dined at the Frasers', and sang a Persian
    love song to Lady Fraser to his own accompaniment on the piano, and
    has shot clay pigeons with me, though for international reasons I
    thought it wise to divest the amusement of the conditions of a
    match!  The worst of it is he won't go away, and now, though every
    one was sworn to secrecy, he has discovered that our State Ball is
    on Friday, and insists on remaining for that.  A horrible rumour
    reached us this {252} evening that he wants to stay for the races
    on Saturday, but I have told M'Mahon that he absolutely must insist
    on his leaving, as His Majesty's ships are specially awaiting his
    arrival at Bombay, and there is a naval programme there which he
    cannot neglect.  He is simply irrepressible, more like a boy out of
    school than anything else.  Not a word of affairs of state....  I
    only pray that the joys of Calcutta may not have entirely unsettled
    him!  The responsibility of another such visit would really be more
    than I could bear, and I hear with apprehension that his _sirdars_
    say that there is no doubt there will now be an excellent
    motor-road from Kabul to Peshawar!  I am in great hopes, however,
    that the attractions of Western life may suggest a visit to you in
    London rather than to me!"


To which Mr. Morley replied with an incursion into _realpolitik_:--


    "I felt the horrible force of your opening words, 'The Amir is
    still with us.'  Ah, well, _il faut souffrir pour tre beau_, and
    Viceroys cannot have bright feathers in their caps without
    prodigious doses of boredom.  I am glad His Majesty has at last
    taken himself off, and without one single bit of new engagement on
    our part.  If, as I most confidently expect, he gets knocked on the
    head some fine morning by his brother or some other near relative,
    we are not bound to put him back on his shaky _gadi_, or, rather I
    should say, to avenge his deposition therefrom.  One great spring
    of mischief in these high politics is to suppose that the situation
    of to-day is to be the situation of to-morrow.  If I were Lord
    Chesterfield, writing to a son whom I meant to be a statesman, I
    should say to him, 'Remember that in the great high latitudes of
    policy all is fluid, elastic, mutable; the friend to-day, the foe
    to-morrow; the ally and confederate against the enemy, suddenly
    _his_ confederate against you; Russia or France or Germany or
    America, one sort of Power this year, quite another sort, and in
    deeply changed relations to you, the year after!'  Excuse this
    preachment, and be sure not to suspect any {253} 'application,'
    such as your Scotch preachers are fond of."


II

[Sidenote: The Council's view of the reforms]

During the first months of 1907 the discussion of reform was
approaching its culmination--the embodiment of the Viceroy's proposals
in an official dispatch.  The Arundel committee had reported, and the
suggestion as to a native member met with no support from the Viceroy's
Council, with one solitary exception, its chief opponents being Lord
Kitchener and Sir Denzil Ibbetson.  Minto's own view on the matter was
unshaken ("In accepting an Indian member of Council we should at once
admit the immediate right of a native to share in the highest executive
administration of the country"), but he was ready to look at the
question from every side, to admit the difficulties with the British
public, and to put before Mr. Morley the arguments urged against it in
India.  It was a strong measure to push the proposal in the face of all
his colleagues but one, but he was prepared to face it.  He told Mr.
Morley so on 27th February:--


    "The reasons against it as stated in the notes of members of
    Council are generally very narrow, based almost entirely on the
    assumption that it is impossible to trust a native in a position of
    great responsibility, and that the appointment of a native member
    is merely a concession to Congress agitation.  The truth is, that
    by far the most important factor we have to deal with in the
    political life of India is not impossible Congress ambitions, but
    the growing strength of an educated class, which is perfectly loyal
    and moderate in its views, but which, I think, quite justly
    considers itself entitled to a greater share in the government of
    India.  I believe that we shall derive the greatest assistance from
    this class if we recognize its existence, and that, if we do not,
    we shall drive it into the arms of Congress leaders."


On 21st March Minto, much encouraged by a deputation from Hindus and
Mohammedans, who were {254} anxious to combine in putting an end to the
unrest,[1] sent off the dispatch: "I do not believe that any dispatch
fraught with greater difficulties and greater possibilities has ever
left India."  The contents were kept a close secret, but some hint of
them got abroad, and Minto recognized that sooner or later, whatever
happened, the native member proposal would be known, and his own share
in it.


    "I think," he wrote to Mr. Morley on 17th April, "that Anglo-India
    would be divided into two camps, agreeing and disagreeing with me,
    and that I should be violently attacked by the latter both here and
    at home.  If he is appointed, the attacks will, I believe, die
    down, and gradually disappear; if he is not appointed, we shall
    have a tremendous revival of agitation, in which moderate natives
    will join and with which many Anglo-Indians will sympathize.  It
    will be generally known throughout India that the Viceroy (and it
    will be assumed, I am sure, that your sympathies run in the same
    direction) and reasonable British opinion as well as native have
    given way to the clamour of a bureaucracy largely influenced by
    concern for their own interests.  We shall have a row either way,
    but in the case of the appointment of a native member it would
    emanate from the official world alone, and would, in my opinion,
    gradually subside."


On 5th June Minto wrote that he had never been anxious to escape from
criticism, and was "quite ready to stand the shot."

The Secretary of State, as he admitted in a later letter of 31st
October, was less bold.  The King's Speech at the {255} opening of
Parliament had hinted at Indian reform, and he clamoured from January
till April for the Viceroy's dispatch.  When he got it he was inclined
to take alarm at the opposition of the Viceroy's Council, and the
certain repercussion at home.  "I have known," he had written on 24th
January, "some slippery places in my ill-spent political days, but I
declare I do not recall one when any step, both in reaching a
conclusion and in the process of making it known, needs more wary
deliberation."  He foresaw that his own Council would be unanimous
against the native member; ex-Viceroys like Lord Elgin and Lord
Lansdowne were hostile, as was an ex-Indian Secretary, Sir Henry
Fowler, who, however, according to Mr. Morley, was "not happily
constituted for swimming, or even floating, in deep waters"; there was
the whole host of retired Anglo-Indians, and the wary and untiring
opposition of Lord Curzon to be reckoned with.  Even Lord Ripon was
against the scheme on its merits.  Mr. Morley was better at dealing
with recalcitrants in the ranks of his own party, the rump of Indian
sympathizers in the House of Commons whom he despised, than with an
opposition of which he knew little and which he vaguely respected.  His
own views in the abstract were Minto's, but he was only half-persuaded
himself of the wisdom at the moment of the step, and he failed to
persuade the Cabinet, who had always at the back of their minds the
agitation which followed the notorious Ilbert Bill.  In the Budget
debate in the first week of June the Secretary of State did not mention
the subject, but announced that the time had now come when he might
safely nominate one, or even two Indian members to his own Council.
These appointments followed in August.

[Sidenote: Trouble in the Punjab]

Meantime, by the fantastic irony of events, while reforms matured
anarchy and disorder raised their heads.  The area was the Punjab,
always a dangerous neighbourhood because of the virile and warlike
qualities of the Sikh people, who formed a substantial part of the
Indian army.  There was rioting in Lahore in April and at Rawal Pindi
in May--serious rioting which had obviously been skilfully organized.
Something was due to the anti-British propaganda of Bengali agitators,
something to the recent plague and the wild suspicions which always
{256} accompany such a visitation, and much to the unwise handling by
the local Government of the canal colonies.  Undoubtedly the native
army was being tampered with, and in India a little flicker may in a
day be a prairie fire.  As Lord Kitchener said, "My officers tell me it
is all right, but they said the same thing in the Mutiny days till they
were shot by their own men."  Sir Denzil Ibbetson, as
Lieutenant-Governor, asked for special precautions to meet a special
danger.  There was some difference at first in the Viceroy's Council,
but summary measures were undertaken.  Under an old regulation of 1818
the two chief agitators, Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh, were arrested
and deported without trial.  An ordinance was also issued (The
Regulation of Meetings Ordinance, 1907) prohibiting the holding of
seditious meetings in the provinces of the Punjab and Eastern Bengal.
These were strong measures for a Liberal Secretary of State, but Mr.
Morley rose gallantly to the occasion, accepted the need for them, and
loyally defended the Government of India in Parliament.  He had in many
letters shown a curious restiveness under the very suggestion of the
charge that he might be averse from using the strong hand when the
situation demanded it.  He felt that to be a suspicion which followed
naturally upon his political record, and he was determined to give it
the lie.  He desired to make concessions to the Indian people, and was
the more zealous, therefore, to show that he also stood for law and
order.  "If we can hatch some plan and policy," he wrote, "for half a
generation, that will be something; and if for a whole generation, that
would be better.  Only I am bent, as you assuredly are, on _doing
nothing to loosen the bolts_."

[Sidenote: The Punjab colonies]

The instancy and vigour of the action of the Government of India had a
miraculous effect in allaying the Punjab unrest.  But more effective
than anything else was Minto's behaviour in connection with the Chenab
colony, suspicion of the Government's attitude as to which had been a
prime cause of the trouble.  In the administration of this colony,
peopled by 1,200,000 souls, the Punjab Government had introduced
certain measures which the colonists regarded, and with justice, as a
departure from the pledges on which the settlement had been {257}
formed.  The bill, passed by the Punjab Legislative Council, was now up
for the Viceroy's assent; it was admittedly an imperfect measure, it
was notoriously unpopular, and to Minto it seemed a clear breach of
faith.  But he was told, if he disallowed it, that at a critical time
he would lessen the prestige of the local government in the eyes of the
people.  This was never the kind of plea that appealed to Minto's mind.
If it was an unjust bill, he told an inquirer, he would not consider
the feelings of fifty Punjab governments.  "I hate the argument," he
wrote to Mr. Morley, "that to refuse to sanction what we know to be
wrong is a surrender to agitation and an indication of weakness.  It is
far weaker, to my mind, to persist in a wrong course for fear of being
thought weak."  So he disallowed the bill, with the most fortunate
consequences.  The trouble among the colonies disappeared, and the
Viceroy acquired in the eyes of the natives the repute of a just and
beneficent divinity.  It is needless to say that in his action he had
Mr. Morley's fullest support.  Lord Kitchener, too, was in favour of
the course followed, and Minto's only qualm was that it might seem to
cast a slight upon Sir Denzil Ibbetson, a most courageous and competent
administrator, who was leaving the Punjab fatally stricken with disease.

During these months the relations with the Secretary of State were
cordial, though on occasions a little delicate.  Mr. Morley's letters
were always full of urbanity and reason, but his telegrams, if there
should be any trouble brewing in Parliament, were sometimes petulant
and exasperating.  His extreme sensitiveness was now apparent to Minto,
who laboured to avoid any matter of offence, but sudden storms would
blow up, as on the question of Mr. Morley's private correspondence with
Kitchener, where an odd misunderstanding arose when Minto thought that
he was interpreting Mr. Morley's own expressed wishes.  Lady Minto was
in England at the time, and had some interesting talks at the India
Office.  "I don't suppose," the Secretary of State told her, "that any
Viceroy has had such a weight of responsibility on his shoulders since
India was taken over by the Crown."  He felt to the full the comedy of
a situation in which a Tory Viceroy on a matter of reform was bolder
than a Liberal Minister.


{258}


    "Lady Minto," he wrote, "told me the other day that I had said that
    you were a stronger Radical than I am; or else that I was the Whig
    and you were the Radical, or something of that sort.  I daresay I
    did in good humour talk in that vein, at my own expense, not yours.
    If I may seem over-cautious to you, 'tis only because I do not know
    the Indian ground, and I hate to drive quick in the dark.  You are
    at close quarters and see things with your own eyes, and this gives
    you, rightly gives you, confidence in the region of political
    expansion.  At least be certain that, in object and temper, I am in
    entire sympathy with you, even if in detail I may now and then
    differ.  You remember old Carlyle's saying of himself and
    another--'We walked away westward, from seeing Mill at the East
    India House, talking of all manner of things, _except in opinion
    not disagreeing_!'  About India I don't know that you and I
    disagree even in opinion."


III

In April Minto went into camp at Dehra Dun and elsewhere, and early in
May was settled again at Simla.  Those summer months, when the Punjab
danger was gone, were a time of constant busyness but of comparative
peace.  Minto had exerted himself to encourage independence among
officials, so that they should write what they believed to be true and
not what they assumed that the Viceroy wished to hear.  His work was
bearing fruit in a wide-spread sense of confidence throughout the
hierarchy, and the candour which confidence inspires.  Small annoyances
were not absent.  A section of the English press had constituted itself
the passionate apologist of Lord Curzon--which was well enough; but
this came to involve a subtle disparagement of his successor, which was
merely foolish.  Servants of the Crown are not rival beauties, so that
the praise of one involves the discrediting of the other.  Few people
had less vanity than Minto, but any honest man must chafe under
misrepresentation.  There were difficulties, too, about some of Lord
Curzon's enterprises--the Delhi memorial, for instance, which was to
{259} commemorate the famous Durbar, and which had got into dire
confusion, and the proposed memorial to Clive, with which Minto fully
sympathized, but which he saw danger in connecting with the field of
Plassey in the then state of feeling in Bengal.  He had little leisure
for amusement, but at the Horse Show in June he rode his horse
"Waitress" and had a toss over a wall--a thing which can never have
happened to a Viceroy before.  Lady Minto returned from England in
July, and Sir Pertab Singh came on a visit in August to reassure Minto
about the condition of India.  "People know Viceroy," he said; "he
soldier, he two-hand man, he make people happy; everyone trust two-hand
man.  Civilian, he only one-hand man."  Under the heaviest press of
duties Minto never lost his humour or even his boyishness of temper.
He could always see the ridiculous in pompous occasions, and enter into
the escapades of his staff, and gossip of sport past, present, or to
come, and laugh at the preposterous letter bag of a Viceroy--proposals
from unknown Bengalis for the hand of one of his daughters, and
requests for gifts to be repaid by the blessing of God, "Whom your
Excellency greatly resembles."

[Sidenote: The Anglo-Russian Convention]

During the summer the negotiations for an Anglo-Russian Convention came
to a head.  The _pourparlers_ between Sir Arthur Nicolson and M.
Isvolsky had begun early in 1906, and the first draft of the Convention
was telegraphed to India in May 1907.  Within these dates there had
been a lengthy correspondence between the Viceroy and the Secretary of
State, in which the former emphasized especially two points--the
absolute necessity of safeguarding the _status quo_ in the Persian
Gulf, and the desirability of carrying the ruler of Afghanistan with
them.  "It is most important," he wrote in June 1906, "to remember that
the present position has been agreed between the Amir and ourselves,
and that we are not entitled to cancel it without his consent."  Minto
had little confidence in the decencies of Russian diplomacy and the
assurances of St. Petersburg, and he foresaw that the agreement would
leave northern Persia a happy hunting-ground for Russian intrigue.
More, too, than Mr. Morley, he felt distaste for the whole tradition of
the Tsarist government.  But it was not his business to criticize the
foreign policy of {260} His Majesty's advisers, though he would have
assented to many of the criticisms which Lord Curzon made on the
Convention in the House of Lords, and, the Gulf position being secured,
he was only concerned with the Afghanistan problem.

The possibility of an agreement as to Central Asia between Russia and
Japan, which was apparent early in 1907, hastened the steps of the
British negotiators, and during the summer there was a continuous and
somewhat hectic correspondence between Simla and Whitehall.  Minto had
to work strenuously to prevent the British Cabinet from ruining utterly
the future relations of India and Afghanistan.  One instance may be
selected.  The Cabinet had accepted the following provision: "Should
any change occur in the political status of Afghanistan, the two
Governments will enter into a friendly interchange of views on the
subject."  The clause, away from the context of Article II., of which
it was to form a part, looked innocent enough, but Minto saw that it
might be a fruitful parent of mischief.  In order to secure from Russia
no more than a repetition of her pledge that Afghanistan was outside
the sphere of her influence, we were to bind ourselves to do what we
had never dreamed of before--to consult her whenever a change in the
political status occurred.  Such a change might mean anything.  If the
Amir sent a batch of officials to India to be trained in revenue work,
or asked for a Royal Engineer officer to advise on the fortifying of
Kabul, these requests might be reasonably construed as a change in the
political status.  Moreover, even without any action on the Amir's
part, Russia could herself at any time force an alteration in the
political status, and so bring the whole question of Britain's
relations with Afghanistan into the melting-pot.  Minto's protest had
its effect, and the objectionable clause was dropped.

The Viceroy failed, however, to induce the Government to consult the
Amir before concluding the negotiations.  Mr. Morley felt the
difficulty, but his colleagues were obdurate; candour with the Amir
would prevent the speedy execution of a diplomatic _coup_ on which they
had set their hearts.  On 2nd August he wrote: "It came to this at
last--a choice between accepting the drawbacks and losing the
Convention.  Of course any one can {261} see that the relations between
us and the Amir were never so good as they are at this moment.  Nothing
can mend them.  On the other hand, it is inevitable that the Convention
between us and Russia should make him suspicious and uneasy.  The
notion of his two neighbours 'exchanging views' about annexing and
occupying him will naturally have a very ugly look of Partition in his
eyes....  If the Convention goes on--as in spite of all its drawbacks I
am bound to hope that it will--I would ask you to encourage yourself in
the delicate diplomacy that we shall in that case impose on you with
the Amir....  Certainly, if you do not succeed in managing your Kabul
friend, the results of the whole proceeding will be disastrous."  On
31st August the Secretary of State telegraphed that the Convention had
been signed, and on 10th September the part relating to Afghanistan was
communicated to the Amir.  Minto wrote that he was pleased with the
arrangement, and hoped that the Amir would assent, but repeated that he
did not believe that it would enable India to reduce her military
budget.  Months of weary procrastination and obstruction on the part of
Kabul were to prove the soundness of his forebodings.

[Sidenote: Agitation in Bengal]

The trouble in the Punjab was allayed for the present, but there was
ugly evidence of disquiet elsewhere.  The tour in the Madras Presidency
of the Bengali agitator, Bepin Chandra Pal, led to a series of riots,
and in the autumn his doings in Calcutta resulted in his going to
prison for six months.  Throughout the autumn and early winter the
capital city was in a disturbed state, seditious meetings were
frequent, the police were stoned, and in the beginning of December an
attempt was made to murder Sir Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor.
The circular of the British Cabinet on the proposed reforms had arrived
in India, and had been communicated to the local governments for their
observations, but side by side with the discussion of reform there rose
for consideration the necessity of further steps for the preservation
of order.  Lord Kitchener, whose term of office had been extended by
Mr. Morley, was anxious for an improved Press Act, and the subject was
discussed in many letters between the Viceroy and the Secretary of
State: both disliked the policy on general grounds, but the former was
daily growing {262} more convinced of its inevitability.  In November
the Seditious Meetings Bill was passed (superseding the recent
Regulations of Meetings Ordinance), and Minto made a speech in the
Legislative Council in which he frankly defined his policy.  "The bill
is aimed at the inauguration of dangerous sedition, not at political
reform, not at the freedom of speech of the people of India....  Far
from wishing to check the growth of political thought, I have hoped
that with proper guidance Indian capacity and Indian patriotism might
earn for its people a greater share in the government of their
country....  We may repress sedition, we will repress it with a strong
hand, but the restlessness of new-born and advancing thought we cannot
repress.  We must be prepared to meet it with help and guidance, we
must seek for its causes."  This speech earned the commendation of Mr.
Gokhale, who had opposed the bill.  "I liked it," he told Dunlop Smith,
"though I cannot agree with it.  There was a true ring about it."  The
passing of the Act involved the release of the Punjab deportees.  "I
have not a shadow of doubt," Minto wrote on 5th November, "that we must
release them, and that the sooner we do so the better."  So, in spite
of the forebodings of the timid, released they were at Lahore on 18th
November.

[Sidenote: Lord Morley's letters]

The correspondence of these months with Mr. Morley shows the Secretary
of State preserving an air of philosophy under anxieties which he was
unwilling to confess and a growing exasperation at the denseness of
mankind.  "I am not very clever at egg-dances, as my old Chief was," he
wrote, "but I'll try my best; and I know that in you, who are the
person most directly involved, I shall have a judge who will make
allowances....  Radical supporters will be critical, and Tory opponents
will scent an inconsistency between deporting Lajpat and my old
fighting of Balfour for locking up William O'Brien.  I shall not,
however, waste much time about that.  I have always said that Strafford
would have made a far better business of Ireland than Cromwell did...."
A month before he had written: "I fancy you are of a good temperament
for troublous times, and I believe that I am not bad;" but his
philosophy was not always proof against vexation, and so we have this
_cri du coeur_:--


{263}


    "I am so very glad that my lot was cast in the nineteenth century,
    and not the twentieth!  When a man has that sort of feel, 'tis a
    sign that he should take in his sail, and drift peaceably into
    harbour.  You will understand this highly figurative conclusion."


In July he was getting very weary, not only of the Radical independents
in the House of Commons ("I have often thought that a man of Cotton's
stamp would like nothing less than such a pacification of India as you
are seeking--so perverse and wrong-headed is the vain creature's whole
line"), but even of the Indian moderates like Mr. Gokhale.  "I am the
best friend they have got in England ... yet they seize the first
chance that offers to declare me as much their enemy as Curzon!"  Yet,
though the letters show now and then the brittle patience of a man
approaching seventy, the main impression they leave is of a marvellous
vitality.  He sends Minto not only his reflections on life and
statesmanship, but news of every kind, including a startling view of
the German Emperor--which he called a "golden impression"--that "he
does really desire and intend peace."  At the close of August, when he
had appointed the two Indian members[2] of his Council and was looking
forward to a Swiss holiday, he again toyed with the notion of a visit
to India.  "I have sometimes played with the idea of a scamper to
India....  How glorious it would be!  But my shagreen skin (you know
Balzac's _Peau de Chagrin_?) is rapidly sinking to a sadly diminutive
scrap, and I am above all things a homebird.  Yet I would honestly give
up a moderate bit of my talisman skin if I could have a week's talk at
Simla with you."  Minto's letters are confined, as a rule, strictly to
business, but once he follows the example of the Secretary of State and
gives an excerpt from his philosophy of life:--


    "It is important to choose the right opportunity for the battle.
    Of course in many things one must fight and chance the
    consequences, but sometimes one is more sure to win if one can
    afford to wait.  There is an {264} old racing motto, of which I
    used to be very fond and which I have always thought well adapted
    to the race of life: 'Wait in front'--which, being interpreted,
    means, Do not make too much running, but always be in the place
    from which you can win when you want to."


[Sidenote: 1907-8]

In November the Mintos paid a visit to the Nizam at Hyderabad, and
proceeded thence to Madras.  Then they crossed the Bay of Bengal to
Rangoon, and after a pleasant but fatiguing tour in Burma were back in
Calcutta for Christmas.  One of the duties of a Viceroy is that of
public entertainer, and he is never without his guests, for any visitor
of note has to be bidden to Government House, and the Mintos, having
many relations and having accumulated up and down the world an infinity
of friends, entertained more extensively than most of their
predecessors.  Minto's modesty made him willing to learn from any man,
and his placid good sense and friendliness made a success of even
difficult meetings.  A case in point was the tour of the socialist
leader, Mr. Keir Hardie, in 1907.  He talked beyond question a good
deal of nonsense, but mischief-makers perverted what he said, until he
became a bogey of the first order to both England and India.  Minto
took a juster view and invited him to the Viceregal Lodge.  "Keir
Hardie," he wrote to Sir Arthur Bigge, "was much better than he was
painted.  I rather liked him, as I think every one at Simla did who met
him.  He is simply a crank, and his sayings were very much exaggerated.
He was most anxious to see people entirely opposed to his views, and he
saw many."  To Mr. Morley he wrote: "He said nothing that I could in
the least find fault with.  He impressed me as a warm-hearted
enthusiast, who had come out here with preconceived opinions.  He was
quite prepared to admit the difficulties of the present position....
Though much of this (his criticism) is entirely wrong-headed, there are
grains of truth."  "What a singular world," Mr. Morley replied.  "A
talk with Scindia one day and then with Keir Hardie the day after!  The
last event fills one with a queer exquisite sort of satisfaction; and I
think if you had been here while the Keir Hardie storm was at its
height (I did not quite escape the force {265} of the gale myself), you
would relish the notion of a 'cordial interview with the Viceroy' as
keenly as I do.  The King heartily approved of your seeing him."


IV

[Sidenote: Decentralization Commission]

In December 1907 a decentralization commission had begun work in India,
and in the beginning of 1908 it was plain that trouble would ensue.
The commission had been the result of a suggestion of Minto's made
early in 1907 as an alternative to Mr. Morley's dangerous proposal of a
parliamentary inquiry into Indian affairs.  It soon became a pet scheme
of the Secretary of State, and he took a keen interest in its
composition, selecting various chairmen who failed him one after the
other, and finally appointing Mr. (now Sir) Charles Hobhouse.  Mr.
Hobhouse did not turn out to be the most fortunate of choices.  He
contrived to offend many of the officials with whom he came into
contact, he disregarded the terms of his inquiry and proposed to report
on the most delicate and secret matters completely outside his scope,
and he finally came into conflict with the Viceroy himself.  One
evening about 9 p.m. he sent in eighty-six questions, which he asked
the Viceroy to consider before noon next day; when told that this was
impossible, and that he was in the range of his inquiries exceeding his
powers, he demanded a private luncheon with the Viceroy to discuss the
question, which was incompatible with vice-regal etiquette.  Minto
wrote to Mr. Morley on 3rd January an account of the deadlock.  He did
not think that the Government of India should be itself examined on any
of the great questions of administration, but should keep clear so that
it might be able to give an independent opinion upon the report when
completed.  Above all, it was impossible to have the commission
visiting and interrogating the native states, whose internal relations
were a delicate matter and depended mainly upon personal intercourse
between the ruling princes and the Viceroy.  On 9th January he wrote
that the chairman of the commission "is apparently under the impression
that some superior {266} power to that of the Government of India has
been delegated to him," and he went on to suggest a principle of which
Mr. Morley cordially approved: "Indian policy should generally depend
upon an exchange of views between the Secretary of State and the
Viceroy.  There must be a policy for India as a whole approved by His
Majesty's Government, and I can see nothing except confusion of ideas
if the Secretary of State should be advised by the heads of a number of
local governments, in whom generally little reliance can be placed in
reference to questions of imperial magnitude."

[Sidenote: 1908]

The worst difficulty was the matter of the native states.  Minto
refused, rightly, to let the commission visit these states, since its
purpose would have been misunderstood, and it would have led to endless
perplexities; so it was arranged that, so far as that subject was
concerned, the chairman should examine the head of the Foreign
department in Calcutta and political officers belonging to any native
state he cared to name.  Unhappily Mr. Hobhouse misunderstood or forgot
the arrangement, went to Rajputana apparently on a private tour, and
while there called for confidential reports on a variety of subjects,
alleging--or so the officials understood him--that he had a secret
commission from Mr. Morley to examine into these matters.  The Viceroy
promptly forbade the officials to furnish a line of information or Mr.
Hobhouse to ask for it.  Allowances must be made for the difficulties
of the commission; they had "sun-dried bureaucrats" on the brain, and,
being on the look-out for secretiveness naturally found it; their task
could not be a very easy or popular one, though the Viceroy and the
Government of India did everything to facilitate it.  But the chairman
was unhappily chosen, for his ability and energy were not mellowed by
the necessary tact.  The Secretary of State was the last man to suffer
his name to be taken in vain.  Even before the Rajputana incident he
had written: "I am in some despair about a certain commission that in a
doubtful hour I launched upon you.  From many quarters I have the same
story of want of tact, and of excessive brusqueness.  I can only plead
that I did my utmost to warn him, and in every letter I have harped
upon the same tune."  On the matter of a "secret mission" {267} he was
flat in his denial.  On 12th March he wrote: "The trouble Hobhouse is
giving us really is almost exasperating.  The 'secret mission' is
wholly unintelligible.  Why, I told him fifty times that you were to
decide everything in this region.  It is as absurd as his talk about my
'delegating' the powers of a Secretary of State to him."  The
commission was brought to a close with some celerity, and presently Mr.
Hobhouse was promoted from the India Office to the Treasury.


The second daughter, Ruby, had become engaged to Lord Cromer's eldest
son, and in February Lady Minto went home for the wedding.  Before she
left she had the felicity of seeing her youngest daughter, Violet, win
the Calcutta Ladies' Steeplechase at Tollygunge.


[Sidenote: Lady Violet's steeplechase]


    "I took up my position," she wrote in her diary, "in a long stretch
    of country where we could see four of the wall jumps, feeling too
    sick with fear to speak.  Rolly was equally wretched.  It was an
    awful moment seeing them crash past us.  One lady fell at the first
    wall; Rolly saw a heap on the ground with fair hair, and for one
    horrid moment thought it was Violet.  She was wonderfully calm, not
    a bit nervous, and holding her horse well together....  After
    seeing them pass we galloped back to the winning post.  It was a
    tricky course with turns, the slippery ground making it much more
    dangerous.  Fortunately the suspense was short-lived.  We had
    hardly got into position before Violet sailed round the corner,
    leading by several lengths, looking round with the _savoir faire_
    of an old jockey to see what she had in hand, as if she had been
    riding races all her life.  She cleared the last fence beautifully
    and won easily....  Violet's first remark after the race was, 'Why
    wasn't I a boy?'  For my peace of mind I am too thankful she
    wasn't."


Lady Minto left just as the long-expected war broke out on the
North-West frontier.  The frontier policy of India had been laid down
in Lord George Hamilton's dispatch of January 1898, during Lord Elgin's
viceroyalty, and had been accepted by Lord Elgin's successors.  Its
{268} aim was limited liability, and it was based on two main
principles--that the military force should be concentrated so as to
command the strategical points of the border, and that Government
interference with the tribes should be limited so as to avoid the
extension of administrative control over independent tribal territory.
In consequence most of the regular troops were withdrawn inside the
border, Chitral and Malakand being among the few trans-border stations
occupied, while the tribal valleys, like the Khyber, Kurram, Tochi, and
Zhob, were held by local militia corps commanded by British officers.
The position could not in the nature of things be satisfactory.  The
tribal levies were often incompetent, one tribe after another grew
restless or took to raiding, punitive expeditions followed, there was a
burning of huts and crops, the British retired, and a little later it
all began again.  The policy had no promise of finality, and the men
whose business it was to hold the frontier were inclined to the belief
that the strip of no-man's-land lying between India and Afghanistan
should be brought directly under British control.  The Amir, talking to
a British officer, once said, "Till the British frontier reaches the
frontier of Afghanistan we never can have peace.  So long as these
tribes have not been subdued by the British there will be trouble and
intrigue."  The whole question indeed bristled with difficulties.
There was on the one side the natural desire of the British Government
not to enlarge its territorial responsibilities; and there was on the
other side the exasperation of the frontier officials with a system
which did not get rid of responsibility but gave no real guarantee of
protection.  Minto's view was that a modified occupation was necessary.
He wrote to Mr. Morley on October 16, 1907:--


    "There need be no necessity for taking the country in the sense of
    forcing upon it British administration, collection of revenues,
    etc.  We could simply hold it by the creation of one or two roads,
    or rather by the improvement of the existing roads by means of
    tribal labour ... and the establishment of a few advanced posts,
    leaving the tribes as heretofore to carry on their own tribal
    administration, as we have done {269} in the Swat valley and other
    districts.  Why should we have a nest of cut-throats at our doors
    when all our experience has taught us that the mere evidence of
    British strength means not only safety to ourselves but happiness
    and prosperity to the districts we have pacified? ... Putting aside
    the loss of life and property consequent upon perpetual frontier
    outrages, the pacification of Waziristan would, in the long run, be
    far less expensive than a succession of expeditions.  I hope when
    an occasion does arise to resort to force that all this may be
    borne in mind."


On January 29, 1908, he wrote again:--


    "I think perhaps you misunderstand me.  I doubt very much if any
    one who thinks at all would wish to increase our landed property
    purely for the sake of adding to our possessions.  But an
    examination of our frontier history would, I should say,
    undoubtedly prove that when we have assumed control of tribal
    districts comparative civilization and peace have been the
    result....  The examples that come to my mind are Baluchistan, the
    Kurram valley, the Swat valley, and the tribal country on this side
    of the Malakand, in which latter district the chief request of the
    jirga which met me was for an improved railway service!  I believe,
    too, that the responsibility and expense these districts entailed
    upon us before they came under our control was probably far greater
    than that which exists at the present day....  The state of affairs
    on our frontier is becoming simply disreputable.  We cannot afford
    any longer to disregard the safety of our own subjects.  We shall
    have to fight, and, of course, we are sure to win.  But in doing so
    are we to spend lives and money and throw aside what we may gain,
    with the knowledge that in a few years' time we shall have to
    repeat the same expenditure, which our frontier experience has told
    us we can so well avoid?"


[Sidenote: The Zakka Khel uprising]

Mr. Morley was not convinced, but as the last letter was being penned
part of the writer's forecast was coming true.  On the night of 28th
January the Zakka Khel tribe {270} of the Afridi race made a most
daring raid on Peshawar.  This was the culmination of a long series of
outrages, and it was decided to send an expedition into their country,
the Bazar valley.  A force, consisting of two brigades under the
command of Sir James Willcocks, crossed the border on 15th February.
Mr. Morley's telegraphed instructions were explicit: "Orders are that
the end in view is strictly limited to the punishment of the Zakka
Khels, and neither immediately nor ultimately, directly nor indirectly,
will there be occupation of tribal territory."  The expedition was
entirely successful, and, having taken order with the tribes, it
withdrew on 29th February.  It was a delicate business, for the Zakka
Khels had to be isolated from the other Afridis, and there was an ugly
attempt of various _mullahs_ on the Afghan side to raise a _jehad_.  It
was plain that Habibullah could not control his subjects, for presently
came an attack by an Afghan _lashkar_ at Landi Kotal, which was easily
beaten off.  Also the trouble spread to the Mohmands, who in April
assumed an attitude so threatening that Sir James Willcocks had to
re-concentrate his field force and read them a sharp lesson.  By the
middle of May the frontier was quiet again; but anxiety remained, for
the springs of the mischief had been in Afghanistan, and the Amir had
wrapped himself in mystery and vouchsafed no communication about the
Anglo-Russian Convention or anything else.  It was fortunate that the
year before the Viceroy had at any rate established with him a strong
personal friendship.

The campaigns were brilliantly conducted, and the inflammable elements
on the frontier, which might have blazed into a formidable war, were
skilfully damped down.  Mr. Morley followed the details with acute
interest, and perhaps with a little nervousness, and its conclusion was
to his mind a relief, and also a source of pardonable pride.  The
philosopher for once had been in command of troops, for the war had
been fought under his explicit instructions.  The generals were _his_
generals.  To Sir James Willcocks he wrote: "I must congratulate you on
having carried out my orders so efficiently."


    "I follow the military doings with lively interest, and we have
    people in the office who know the ground.  {271} So, by the way,
    does Winston Churchill, who was there with Bindon Blood.  Winston
    is, next to poor Chamberlain, the most alive politician I have ever
    come across....  They make other folk seem like mere amateurs,
    _flneurs_...."


On 4th March:--


    "We Indians are all in good spirits here just now at the end of the
    Zakka, and at its being a good end; and our gratification is shared
    to the full by all the rest of the world.  I think the policy of
    His Majesty's Government has been amply justified in the result;
    and the military part of the work has evidently been done to
    perfection.  For this I cannot but feel that we owe Lord K. a
    special debt.  I don't suppose that he had any taste for our policy
    of prompt and peremptory withdrawal, and yet he manifestly (and as
    I learn from letters) threw himself into the execution of it with
    as much care, skill, and energy, as if he had thought it the best
    policy in the world.  That's the true soldier."


[Sidenote: Sir George Roos-Keppel]

In reply Minto wrote: "K. is the very essence of caution as regards the
frontier.  I know no one more anxious to avoid punitive expeditions,
possibly no doubt because he knows that with the vastly improved
armaments of the tribes a frontier war on a big scale would be a very
serious affair."  And he added this picturesque note:--


    "By far the most striking characteristic of the expedition has been
    its political management by Roos-Keppel....  His personal
    friendship with the very men against whom he was fighting is the
    most attractive part of the story.  Though his own Khyber Rifles
    are full of Zakkas, they insisted on accompanying him to fight
    their own fathers and sons and blow up their paternal mansions, and
    I am told the first thing the Zakka _jirga_ said to him when they
    saw him was, 'Sahib, did we put up a good fight?' to which he
    answered, 'I wouldn't have shaken hands with you unless you had!'
    He is unhappy about Dadai, {272} who was the most powerful Zakka
    leader against us, and is supposed to have been mortally wounded.
    He wrote Roos-Keppel a very nice letter from his death-bed, saying
    how sorry he was for all that had occurred, and that he fully
    realized the mistake he had made in relying upon assistance from
    Kabul.  Mooltan, too, the other great Zakka leader ... is also a
    great friend of Roos-Keppel's, and at one time stayed with him as
    his guest for three months.  He was leader of the famous attack on
    Peshawar the other day, and wrote to Roos-Keppel afterwards saying
    he hoped he was not annoyed at what he had done!"


This honeymoon atmosphere between the India Office and Calcutta was
fortunate, for there were matters pending on which both Minto and
Kitchener were directly at variance with the Secretary of State.  Mr.
Morley considered that the Anglo-Russian Convention should be followed
by a decreased military budget for India; both Viceroy and
Commander-in-Chief asked, most pertinently, in what respect the
Convention strengthened India's security or enabled her to relax her
defensive vigilance.  Another point of difference was the policy to be
pursued as to southern Persia and the Gulf.  Mr. Morley was inclined to
criticize Minto's view of the place as the glacis of the Indian
fortress; he questioned the appropriateness of the whole metaphor, and
he was disposed to deny India's right to a view on the larger questions
of foreign policy.  "China, Persia, Turkey, Russia, France, Germany,"
he wrote, "I have never been able to understand, and never shall
understand, what advantages the Government of India have for
comprehending the play of all these factors in the great game of
Empire.  On the contrary, the Government of India is by no means the
Man on the Spot.  That, I say again, is just what the Government of
India is not."  To such outbursts, which must seem a little beside the
mark, Minto replied by stating patiently in many letters the common
sense of the case.  It was not a matter for extreme dogmas on either
side.


    "It is not the appearance of German armies that we have to fear, it
    is the growth of German influence and its effect on Eastern
    nationalities.  Given {273} paramount German influence in Turkey,
    Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and southern Persia, our position in India
    would be seriously threatened....  I don't see how Indian interests
    in Persia and the Gulf can be handed over entirely to home
    administration, for if this were done, putting aside political
    matters, any military expenditure in Persia or naval expenditure in
    the Gulf could not fairly be charged to India.  And yet we know
    that, as a matter of fact, in the case of difficulties arising in
    Persia it would be upon Indian troops that His Majesty's Government
    would be obliged to rely.  I don't think you can separate Indian
    interests from the commerce of the Gulf, or the strategical
    position in Persia from the possible necessity of Indian military
    assistance."


[Sidenote: Lord Morley's peerage]

In April the resignation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman involved a
reconstruction of the Cabinet; Mr. Asquith became Prime Minister and
Mr. Morley went to the House of Lords, because, as he told Mr. Asquith,
"though my eye is not dim nor my natural force abated, I have had a
pretty industrious life, and I shall do my work all the better for the
comparative leisure of the other place."  To Minto he wrote on 15th
April:--


    "My inclination, almost to the last, was to bolt from public life
    altogether, for I have a decent library of books still unread, and
    in my brain a page or two still unwritten.  Before the present
    Government comes to an end, the hand of time will in any case have
    brought the zest for either reading or writing down near to zero,
    or beyond.  I suppose, however, one should do the business that
    lies to one's hand."


The new adventure seemed to have raised the spirits of one who never
wanted for courage, and who behind a staid exterior preserved a boyish
liking for enterprise.  A week later he wrote:--


    "I have been swamped with correspondence about my grand
    glorification, winding up with a fuss with a bearish squire in my
    native Lancashire, who swears I have no right to take the name of
    his manor as a {274} tag to my own surname.  His argument is that
    his family were there in 1600, 'when there were no Morleys and no
    Radicals.' ... I daresay I'll let the bear have his way....  As if
    it mattered to a man with no children who is within a few months of
    the Psalmist's allotted span!  All I hope is to be alive as long as
    I live--if you understand that; and at present I don't feel
    otherwise than alive!"


V

[Sidenote: Repressive measures]

The summer of 1908 was marked by a recrudescence of barbarous outrages,
of which the attempts to murder Sir Andrew Fraser and the district
magistrate of Dacca in the previous year had been a foretaste.  On the
night of 30th April a bomb, intended for Mr. Kingsford, a former Chief
Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta, was thrown into a carriage in which
two Englishwomen were returning from the Club at Muzaffarpur, and both
ladies died of their injuries.  A secret murder society, operating in
Calcutta and Midnapur, was revealed, connected with the notorious
Maniktolla Gardens, and bomb factories were discovered in various
quarters.  In July there were ugly disturbances in Bombay consequent
upon the prosecution of Tilak for sedition, and riots at Pandharpur and
Nagpur.  In September an approver was shot dead by two of the
Muzaffarpur prisoners in the chief prison in Calcutta.  In November
there was another attempt to murder Sir Andrew Fraser, and a native
inspector of police was shot in a Calcutta street.  It soon became
clear that there was a wide network of secret anarchist societies,
whose members, mostly of the student class, were inflamed by a
scurrilous press, and directed in their crimes by subtle and unwearied
leaders.

Minto took the alarming development with fortitude and good sense.  "I
am determined," he said in the Legislative Council on 8th June, "that
no anarchist crimes will for an instant deter me from endeavouring to
meet as best I can the political aspirations of honest reformers, and I
ask the people of India, and all who have the future welfare of this
country at heart, to unite in the support of {275} law and order, and
to join in one common effort to eradicate a cowardly conspiracy from
our midst."  But if he refused to be panicky, he was resolved not to be
supine.  He was responsible for the lives of many millions of quiet
folk, and for the maintenance of order and law, and he was determined
to apply the exact measures needed to meet the situation--no more and
no less.  He did not ask for a "free hand," he realized that he must
carry the Secretary of State with him in all his new measures; but it
was his duty to be frank with the British Government and make them
realize the truth, even at the cost of giving offence to minds which
loved to wrap ugly facts in soft phrases.  The measures which Minto
enforced may be briefly set down.  The English Explosives Act was
passed in June as an Indian statute.  The Indian Criminal Law Amendment
Act, passed in December, provided a summary procedure for the trial of
seditious conspiracies, and gave power to suppress associations formed
for unlawful acts.  The executive Government was empowered to declare
an association unlawful, and there was no appeal against its decision.
The Press Act of 1908, dealing with newspapers which published
incitements to murder and violence, did not create new offences but
provided a more drastic procedure, a better machinery for getting at
the real culprit, and severer penalties.  The Prevention of Seditious
Meetings Act of 1907 already gave the Government power to "proclaim" an
area and prohibit public meetings within it.  The old Regulation of
1818, which permitted the Government to place persons under detention
without trial, was put into use, and nine Bengali agitators were
clapped into jail in December with excellent results for the peace of
the realm.  This was perhaps the most criticized of the measures, but
it was on the same plane as the British power of suspending the Habeas
Corpus Act, and was made necessary because witnesses were being
terrorized and dared not go into court.

Such measures were a hard trial for the Secretary of State, and on the
whole he faced the facts with courage and reasonableness.  The legality
of a lawyer is as nothing to the legality of a Whig statesman, and Lord
Morley had to strive--not with critics in Parliament, of whom he was
habitually contemptuous--but with the prepossessions {276} and
traditions of a lifetime.  He may have drawn comfort (for he loved to
have philosophic authority on his side) from the words of his master
Mill, who had written, "A people like the Hindus, who are more disposed
to shelter a criminal than to apprehend him ... who are revolted by an
execution but not shocked by an assassination, require that the public
authorities should be armed with much sterner powers of repression than
elsewhere."  It was Lord Morley himself who suggested the application
of the Explosives Act to India, and it was enormously to his credit
that he accepted the arrest of the nine ringleaders in December.  He
was unable to resist Minto's resolute and moderate good sense, his
clemency which was not changed by difficulties, and his firmness which
was not clouded by hysteria.  But the Secretary of State had to
overcome his ingrained distrust of a bureaucracy, which he believed to
be always contemptuous of law and clamorous for the violent hand.


    "We cannot carry on upon the old maxims.  This is not to say that
    we are to watch the evildoers with folded arms, waiting to see what
    the devil will send us.  You will tell me what you think is
    needed....  I trust, and fully believe, that you will not judge me
    to be callous, sitting comfortably in an armchair at Whitehall
    while bombs are scattering violent death in India."


On 21st May he wrote:--


    "I am much with you, or rather you are much with me, in these
    pretty anxious days....  I daresay, however, that you are of the
    temperament of Thiers.  'In public things, take everything
    seriously, nothing tragically.'  When I began life I was rather the
    other way, scenting tragedy before there was any need; time and
    experience have brought me round.  Whether I should keep as cool if
    bombs were flying I don't know."


[Sidenote: Lord Morley's homily]

But sometimes his anxieties got the better of his philosophy.  He was
alarmed at the sentence of twelve months for the Bombay
stone-throwers--he seems to {277} have regarded them as only
mischievous urchins--and he was quick to take offence at any phrase in
Minto's letters which was capable of being construed into a defence of
arbitrary government.  There is an illuminating passage in his letter
of 17th June:--


    "This notion of the 'free hand' is really against both letter and
    spirit of law and constitution.  It cannot be; and let me assure
    you, on my word of honour as a student of our political history,
    that nobody would have been more opposed to it than that excellent
    ancestor and official predecessor of yours, Gilbert Elliot, the
    friend and disciple of Burke and one of the leaders against the
    greatest of our Governor-Generals....  I have amused myself by
    turning to Burke's correspondence, and in a letter to Gilbert
    Elliot I found this: 'No politician can make a situation.  His
    skill consists in his well-playing the game dealt to him by
    fortune, and following the indications given him by nature, times,
    and circumstances' (including H. of C. and the British Demos).
    This sage reflection by one of the greatest of men needs not to be
    quoted to you, for it is exactly in the vein of your own political
    temper.

    "Oh, but I must hold up my hands at your hint of 'Prerogative'!
    What a shock to all the Greys, Elliots, Russells, and other grand
    Whig shades, discussing over and over in the Elysian Fields the
    foundations of the happy and glorious Constitution of Great
    Britain!  But then you say that on this 'I feel that I am getting
    into deep water, and would rather sit upon the bank.'  My
    temperature had been slowly rising, but at this good-natured doubt
    it instantly fell to normal, and I thought how, if you and I had
    been conducting the controversy with face answering to face--you as
    Tory, I as the good orthodox Whig--we should have pushed our chairs
    back and gone forth laughing for a saunter in the garden."


"If reforms do not save the Raj nothing else will," Lord Morley had
written, and Minto had replied with spirit that he utterly disagreed.
"The Raj will not {278} disappear in India as long as the British race
remains what it is, because we shall fight for the Raj as hard as we
have ever fought if it comes to fighting, and we shall win as we have
always done.  My great object is that it shall not come to that."
Accordingly the Viceroy pressed on with the reform scheme now being
incubated at leisure by the local governments.  In this work the
Secretary of State most loyally and fruitfully co-operated, and, though
the proposals came from India and the details were all worked out
there, the scheme may fairly be regarded as preeminently the work of
these two men.  On 1st November there fell the fiftieth anniversary of
Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858, and it was decided to make this
the occasion of a message from the King to the people of India,
foreshadowing the reform proposals.  Minto was resolved that it should
also touch on another matter which lay very near his heart--the
abolition of the military disabilities of the Indian gentleman.  By law
an Indian might, if he were a member of the Indian civil service,
become lieutenant-governor of a province, he could hold the highest
position on the bench, and there was no legal objection to his being
Governor of Bombay or Madras, but whatever his value as a soldier he
could not rise above a very inferior rank.  Minto was well aware that
at first few Indians might be found qualified for responsible commands,
but, as he argued in reply to Lord Kitchener's objection, that was not
the point.  "We want to remove the disability for promotion to such
posts which now exists.  We can deal with the appointments to them
according to the merits of the individuals when the time comes."  In
November, too, the Secretary of State at last consented to his proposal
for a native member of Council.

On 1st October the Viceroy sent home the fateful dispatch giving the
considered scheme of the Government of India.  Lord Morley appointed a
small expert committee to report on the proposals, and in a dispatch of
27th November sanctioned the scheme, subject to certain slight
modifications.  Meantime, on 1st November, Minto, in a great durbar at
Jodhpur, had delivered the message of the King.  Lady Minto's diary
describes the scene in that ancient city set amid the deserts:--


{279}


    "It was exactly as if we had gone back at least five centuries.
    The entire route was lined on each side with the Thakurs and their
    retinues, each band having their distinctive pugrees.  On either
    side of the road there were caparisoned horses with marvellous
    trappings, long flowing draperies covering their heads, richly
    embroidered with gold and silver, all wearing the thick gold
    bracelet above the right knee, pawing the ground and arching their
    necks as they are taught to do; elephants completely covered with
    velvet embroideries and massive silver ornaments; camels galore,
    some carrying antediluvian guns which look as if they could never
    have done much execution; mounted men covered from head to foot
    with chain armour, wearing the identical suits of mail used in
    battle at the time of the early Mogul Emperors."


[Sidenote: The Jodhpur Durbar]

In this romantic setting the Viceroy read the words of the
King-Emperor, repeating and enlarging the charter of 1858.  The time
had come when the principle of representative institutions must be
prudently extended, and the measures to ensure this would soon be made
known.  "For the military guardianship of my Indian Dominion I
recognize the valour and fidelity of my Indian troops, and at the New
Year I have ordered that opportunity should be taken to show in
substantial form this my high appreciation of their martial instincts,
their splendid discipline, and their faithful readiness of service."

In December the reform scheme, the details of which will be discussed
in the next chapter, was made public both in England and India.  There
was little criticism, and much approval in both countries.  The "native
member," the supposed bone of contention, was universally accepted.
Only the scheme for "electoral colleges," which had been inserted at
home, was disquieting to the Mohammedans.  "I hope," Minto had written
to Lord Morley on 30th November, "I am not overweening in my feeling
that we are about to share in the triumph of a great work.  There may
be no visible triumph at first, and there will be any amount of
criticism, but I believe that thinking India will realize that much has
been gained.  {280} Notwithstanding all my warnings as to possible
further trouble, perhaps I am more sanguine than you are.  Instinct
seems to tell me that we are nearing the turn of the tide."

So the year 1908, which had been dark enough at times, ended with a
brighter horizon.  A vicious outbreak of anarchist crime had been
promptly checked, miscreants had been laid by the heels, and Tilak, the
cleverest agitator in India, had been transported for six years.  A
great scheme of reform had been happily passed into law.  The anxiety
about Afghanistan's attitude towards the Convention with Russia had
been protracted till September, to Lord Morley's intense annoyance, but
it was allayed during that month by the receipt of a friendly letter
from the Amir, and wholly dispelled in October when M. Isvolsky visited
England.  In spite of unceasing work Minto had kept his health, and his
private life had been happy as ever.  His youngest daughter had become
engaged to Lord Lansdowne's second son, Lord Charles Fitzmaurice, and
in November Melgund and Lady Eileen arrived from England.  Even in the
most harassing times Minto's correspondence never fails in a sense of
the humour of life.  He describes for the benefit of Lord Morley his
visit to Scindia, when the Maharani sang Scots songs to him from behind
the _purdah_, and he joined in the choruses.  "It was really all too
curious--the more so when I think that less than a hundred years ago my
grandfather, General Sir Thomas Hislop, finally defeated the Mahratta
army under Holkar at the battle of Medhipore, not so very far from
here, and that here was I, his grandson, singing songs with Scindia's
wife!"  Nor was the Secretary of State slow to reply in kind.  He
regrets that he did not remain in the House of Commons to deal as
"chief goose-herd" with what he described as "the honest Liberal Fools
and the baser sort of Unionist ditto."  "An under-secretary cannot put
the fear of God into their silly hearts, as the Secretary of State can
at least try to do.  However, I am up aloft, and there I am happy to
stop; at the same time I have told Asquith that there is to be no
playing with India to please the geese."  In a delightful letter on
10th December he complains that he has a black dog on his back, which
"makes me think of the Psalmist at his worst, or Job, Chapter III.,"
and which might be explained by {281} an influenza cold.  "To cook up a
powerful and impressive oration, one half for coercion and t'other half
against it, in the midst of cough, quinine, and blankets, is no joke, I
can assure you.  Ah, well, as I think I'm always saying to you:--

  "'Be the day short or be the day long,
  At length it ringeth to Evensong.'

A jingle that comforts me, I hardly know why, for Time is bringing me
into pretty close sight and sound of the last Evensong of all.  Time
recalls the _Times_ newspaper--" and then follows press gossip, which
never failed to amuse him.

But loyal and helpful as he was in all great matters, and warm as were
the feelings of the two men for each other, the Secretary of State did
much to increase the Viceroy's load.  The India Office was swathed in
red tape and slow in movement, and it was excessively curious about
trivialities--a free passage to a widow or a pension to some minor
official.  In September Minto protested strongly against this habit;
already a member of the Hobhouse commission had told Lord Morley that
the first object for decentralization was the India Office.  But the
Secretary of State himself was not free from the same fault, and he
harassed the Viceroy with constant telegrams about matters with which
he had no real concern, forgetting the words of Mill, at whose lamp he
said he had kindled his "modest rush-light"--"The executive Government
of India must be seated in India itself."  Lord Morley had not the gift
of quickly acquiring information on unfamiliar topics; he remained
oddly ignorant of the details of Indian conditions, and to the end made
suggestions which were occasionally so beside the mark as to be comic.
That would have been a small matter if he had not wished to direct
actively parts of the administrative machine himself, a task for which
he had neither the right kind of experience nor the right kind of
talent.  Constantly he wanted to use his fine brain as ineptly as the
man who sets a race-horse to the plough.  This habit doubled the
Viceroy's work, and it is impossible to read the telegraphic
correspondence between Simla and Whitehall without regarding much of it
as a sheer waste of time and energy.

{282}

There was often material for a quarrel.  Lord Morley was jealous of the
correspondence of Minto or any high Indian official except with
himself, and when Minto hinted at the extension of the same principle
to Lord Morley's correspondence with Lord Kitchener he was seriously
hurt.  When an Indian official went to England he was shepherded by the
Secretary of State from any contact with Foreign Office or War Office.
Few Ministers of the Crown have been so unyieldingly despotic in the
lesser matters of conduct.  His sense of personal dignity, too, was
easily offended; his vanity, otherwise an innocent and attractive
thing, could suddenly become peevish; a casual careless phrase in the
letter of an overworked man became the occasion for a homily.  The
truth seems to have been that in 1908 he was beginning to feel his
seventy years, and that the outrages in India and the inevitable
measures that followed so offended his sense of decency and his
lifelong traditions, that they preyed upon his mind and unsettled his
temper.  His letters were invariably courteous, his telegrams,
reflecting his momentary moods, were often petulant and unjust.  Minto
set himself the difficult task of refusing to be ruffled and replying
always considerately and calmly, and to his lasting honour he succeeded.

But it wore him down.  He was not the man to complain in public or
private; but in an occasional letter to his wife or to an old friend
like Sir Arthur Bigge there is a hint that he found it hard to soothe
the sensitiveness and allay the suspicions of a Secretary of State who
did not readily understand the etiquette of a service, and was apt to
accept, as veracious, preposterous gossip from private letters, and
demand of an overworked Viceroy immediate inquiry and explanation.  It
was his business to allow for Lord Morley's temperament as part of the
problem he had to meet, and in reading the correspondence it is
pleasant to note how Minto's knowledge of human nature and his real
affection for the Secretary of State taught him the best way of
handling his colleague.  He overstates a point that Lord Morley may
have the satisfaction of whittling it down; he insinuates in successive
letters a policy till presently it returns from Whitehall as Lord
Morley's own proposal; he patiently crumbles a prejudice against some
official till Lord Morley becomes the advocate of his merits.

{283}

[Sidenote: Their friendship]

Such a result would never have been obtained but for the solid
foundation of liking and respect between the two men.  The
compensations were great, for there would suddenly come from Lord
Morley such an outflow of kindliness that a less sensitive heart than
Minto's would have been touched.  The Viceroy hints that the Secretary
of State takes perhaps too detailed an interest in the affairs of
India, and the latter replies that he read the words with a friendly
smile.  "My only excuse is that I have to aid you in your battle."
There is a slight difference of opinion, and Lord Morley writes: "We
are placed in positions where the points of view of Whitehall and Simla
are necessarily different, but what I can say ... is that you and I
have entire confidence in one another's aims and sense of public duty."
On October 30, 1908, he writes again: "We have now had all but three
years of it, and considering the difference in our experience of life
and the world, and the difference in the political schools to which we
belong (or think we belong), and the intrinsic delicacy of our official
relations, our avoidance of reefs and snags has been rather creditable
all round.  When 11th December comes--the anniversary of my taking the
seals--I feel as if I could compose a very fine _Te Deum_ duet, in
which you shall take one part if you will, and I the other."  And the
last day of December brought the Viceroy this New Year message:
"Believe that I am very heartily your well-wisher for 1909, and as many
more years as you care to have.  At least you leave off at the end of
1908 in a position that must gratify all your friends, including Morley
of B."  Exasperation could not endure for long with a nature so
essentially warm and gracious, and--in its considered moods--so
magnanimous.  In talking with Lady Minto on her visit to England Lord
Morley paid the finest tribute which perhaps Secretary of State ever
paid to Viceroy.  "I am swimming," he said, "in a popular tide through
victories which are not my own."



[1] He wrote to Mr. Morley: "Of all the wonderful things that have
happened since I was in India, this, to my mind, was the most
wonderful....  The burden of it was that they are most anxious to put
an end to unrest and bad feeling, and that they propose to organize
associations throughout the country with a view to inducing Mohammedans
and Hindus to work together for the control of their respective
communities....  It was simply marvellous, with the troubles and
anxieties of a few months ago still fresh in one's memory, to see the
'King of Bengal' sitting on my sofa with his Mohammedan opponents,
asking for my assistance to moderate the evil passions of the Bengali,
and inveighing against the extravagances of Bepin Chandra Pal.  I hope
you will forgive me a little feeling of exultation at the confidence
expressed to me by these representatives of hostile camps, and their
declaration of faith in you and Mr. Hare and myself."

[2] Mr. Krishna Gobinda Gupta of the Indian Civil Service, a Hindu, and
Mr. Saiyid Husain Bilgrami, a Mohammedan who had been a member of the
Viceroy's Legislative Council.




{284}

CHAPTER XI

VICEROY OF INDIA, 1909-10

[Sidenote: 1909]

January was filled with preparations for Lady Violet's marriage to Lord
Charles Fitzmaurice, which was celebrated in Calcutta Cathedral on the
20th.  "Scindia, Sir Pertab Singh, and Cooch Behar," Minto wrote to
Lord Morley, "were all in the church--the ecclesiastics not being the
least shocked by their presence."  Wedding gifts were offered from
every quarter, and though their acceptance was forbidden by the
etiquette of the Viceroy's office, the feeling which prompted their
offer was gratefully recognized.  One such present, which was purchased
by Lady Minto, was a posteen offered by an Afghan trader with the
following letter: "As Vicereine of India, and we humble savages of the
wilds of Afghanistan having heard that your honoured daughter, Lady
Violet Elliot, will to-morrow become, by the grace of the Great Allah,
Lady Fitzmaurice, the husband which to-morrow will be the second son of
that great noble and benefactor of our land, the Marquis of Lansdowne.
On such news reaching us, we thought we could do no better than pay
homage to thee, good Ladyship, and to the great Viceroy, Lord Minto,
and to thy gracious daughter, Lady Violet, by coming and offering, as
our poor means will allow, something that will prove our loyalty to thy
Great Family and to the invincible British Raj."  Lord Kitchener
proposed the health of the bride, and the cake was cut with his sword.
"Lady Violet," he said, "has won more hearts than that of Lord Charles,
and I feel sure there are none present who do not deeply and sincerely
regret her departure from amongst us.  For that we hold Lord Charles
responsible, but considering his temptation, I think we must forgive
him."


{285}

I

[Sidenote: Reform debate in Parliament]

The year 1909 had for its chief work the final perfecting and
establishing of the new reforms.  The scheme received in India an
almost unanimous welcome, and Mr. Gokhale in the Budget debate in March
declared that the Viceroy and Lord Morley between them had saved India
from drifting "towards what cannot be described by any other name than
chaos."  In the early months of the year the Secretary of State was
engaged in piloting the necessary bill through Parliament, a task which
he performed with remarkable skill and with a certain humorous
enjoyment.


    "Balfour spoke in his usual pleasant and effective way for a short
    half-hour, mainly occupied with an interesting analysis of the
    conditions that are required to make representative government a
    success, ending in the conclusion that India satisfies none of
    these conditions....  He vouched me as undoubtedly agreeing with
    him as to Indian unfitness for representative institutions; and he
    was quite right.  With the bill and the scheme he hardly dealt at
    all, and his criticism was purely superficial.  It reminded me of
    what Gibbon said about Voltaire 'casting a keen and lively glance
    over the surface of history.'  On the whole, sitting perched up
    over the clock in the Peers' Gallery, I felt as if I were listening
    to a band of disembodied ghosts--so far off did they all seem from
    the hard realities and perplexities with which we have been
    grappling all these long months.  Though it would never do for me
    to say so, I must secretly admit that the thing compared very
    poorly with the strength and knowledge of the debates on the bill
    in the House of Lords.  I found also, when the dinner hour arrived,
    that I had already, in less than a twelvemonth, acquired one
    inexorable propensity of every self-respecting peer; I _adjourned_;
    and after a modest meal at the Club, instead of returning to hear
    more speeches, I went home to bed, where I did _not_ dream of
    Mackarness, Cotton, and other excellent men.  Some day it will be
    _your_ turn to listen to an Indian debate from the same perch; for
    I dare not suppose that we {286} have finally settled the business.
    I will not ask you to send me an account down in the Elysian
    Fields, where I shall then be wandering at my ease."


The inevitable criticism of the bill in the British Parliament and
press had its repercussion in India, and the doubts were chiefly about
the native member of the Viceroy's Council.  It had been decided to
offer the appointment as legal member to Mr. Sinha, the Bengal
Advocate-General, who, greatly to his credit, was willing to sacrifice
his very large private income at the Calcutta Bar.  King Edward was
seriously concerned at the whole proposal, and in a talk to Lord
Morley, while admitting that there was no alternative against a
unanimous Cabinet, remonstrated vigorously about the whole proceeding.
Minto wrote to the King on 4th March in the hope of removing certain
misconceptions:--


    "The Viceroy was inclined when he first came to India to argue with
    certain of his colleagues on his Executive Council that an Indian
    member should be added to their number and a seat provided for him
    by statute.  The Viceroy has, however, since come to the conclusion
    that an Indian member, occupying a seat created by statute, would
    be an admission of the necessity for racial representation, which
    would create rival claims for such seat amongst the many
    nationalities, religions, and castes of India.  Moreover, a seat
    held on racial qualifications would, it appeared to the Viceroy,
    indicate a disregard for the special qualities which should entitle
    an individual to hold such a seat, viz., professional ability,
    administrative experience, and social standing....  From the
    Viceroy's point of view, therefore, the point involved is the
    question whether, if an Indian gentleman is possessed of the above
    qualifications, he should be debarred because of his race from
    holding an appointment for which he may be exceptionally suited.
    The Viceroy thinks he can no longer in justice be so debarred, and
    that racial disability should be removed."


The step required no statutory authority, and on 24th March the press
contained the news of Mr. Sinha's {287} appointment.  At the
accomplished fact criticism died away.  "The _Times_," Lord Morley
wrote, "shakes its head a little ... they shed tears over the fact that
Sinha has not some score of the rarest political virtues in any
world--courage, patience, tact, foresight, penetration, breadth of
view, habit of authority, and Heaven knows what else--just as if all
those noble qualities were inherent in any third-rate lawyer that I
could have fished out of Lincoln's Inn, or even as if they are to be
found in _all_ the members of the Executive Council as it stands
to-day!"

The new member did his work most competently, though he often sighed
for his unofficial days, and at various times alarmed the Viceroy by
showing a strong inclination to return to them.  The notion that his
appointment would give offence to the ruling chiefs was dramatically
disposed of when in September Scindia came to Simla, and of his own
accord made it his first business to call on Mr. Sinha.  "Times have
changed," Minto wrote.  "How long will it take 'Indicus olim' to
recognize the fact?"  As to Mr. Sinha's attitude to British rule, it is
sufficient to record a saying of his in conversation with Lady Minto:
"If the English left India in a body, we should have to telegraph to
Aden and get them to return as fast as they could, for in a couple of
days India would be in chaos."

[Sidenote: The Bill passed]

The Reform bill was passed into law on 25th May, and, since much had
been left to be effected by regulations, the Government of India had to
frame these and send them home early in July.  Lord Morley appointed a
committee to consider them ("I can at least promise you that it shall
not be illuminated by the shining presence of Lord Macdonnell"), and
the Viceroy in Council brought the Act into operation as from 15th
November.  It is unnecessary here to give more than a general sketch of
the main provisions.  The total strength of the various legislative
councils was raised from 124 to 331, and the number of elected members
from 39 to 135, a majority of non-official members being introduced in
every legislative council except that of the Viceroy.  Power was given
to members to move resolutions on matters of general public interest,
to discuss the annual budgets more freely, and to put {288}
supplementary questions.  We have already seen the appointment of an
Indian member to the Viceroy's Executive Council; the members of the
Executive Councils of Madras and Bombay were increased, and power was
given to appoint an Indian member of each, while it was also made
possible for the Viceroy, with the assent of the Secretary of State, to
create an executive council in any other province.

The method of election of non-official members to the various
legislative councils was complex, since it was desired to ensure an
adequate representation of the professional classes, the landholders,
the Mohammedan population, and the European and Indian commercial
communities.  In a country such as India a simple plebiscitary system
was obviously out of the question.  These interests could be
represented only by means of separate electorates or by nomination.
The main difficulty concerned the Mohammedans, as to whom a vigorous
controversy raged all summer both in India and in Britain.  The
Government of India's plan, following upon Minto's pledge to the Moslem
deputation on October 1, 1906, was to give the Mohammedans separate
electorates, supplemented to the full extent of their legitimate claims
by further representation through mixed electorates, or by nomination
where they failed to obtain a fair share of the elective seats.  Minto
desired to prevent the followers of Islam from becoming a rigid
_enclave_, divorced from the rest of Indian life.  But unfortunately
during the discussion of the bill in Parliament the Secretary of State
suggested as the best solution mixed electoral colleges based on
proportional representation.  This proposal, which seemed to entrust
Mohammedan interests wholly to mixed electorates, and to abandon the
principle of communal representation, was stoutly opposed by Indian
Moslems, and by Mr. Ameer Ali and the Aga Khan in London.  The
Mohammedan leaders put their claims too high, but eventually they were
induced to agree to what was virtually the Viceroy's scheme, receiving
a minimum of six members in the Viceroy's Legislative Council--five
elected by purely Mohammedan electorates, one nominated, and possible
additions from the mixed electorates.  There were many deputations
received and interviews granted in Whitehall and Simla, {289} and Lord
Morley seems, in spite of his tenderness for Islam, to have grown very
weary of Islam's spokesmen.  It was delicate ground, for, as he wrote,
"We have to take care that in picking up the Mussulman we don't drop
our Hindu parcels."  "I have agreed," he told Minto, "to receive the
sons of the Crescent next week.  I wish the Prophet himself was coming!
There are not many historical figures whom I should be better pleased
to summon up from Paradise, or wherever he now abides."

[Sidenote: Conciliation _v._ repression]

The Viceroy and the Secretary of State had been at one in every major
detail of the reforms.  They were at one, too, in the perspective with
which they regarded them, though Lord Morley may have placed the main
emphasis on the increase of elected representatives in the
legislatures, and Minto on the executive partisanship of which the
first step was the admission of natives to the executive councils.
Neither thought that the scheme would be a final settlement; both
believed that it was that just measure of change required to meet what
was reasonable in the current demands.  The words of the Secretary of
State in the letter of 2nd April would have been willingly subscribed
to by the Viceroy:--


    "It may be that the notion of co-operation between foreigners and
    alien subjects is a dream.  Very likely.  Then the alternative is
    pure Repression and the Naked Sword.  But that is as dangerous and
    uncertain as Conciliation, be that as bad as Balfour thinks,
    because it is impossible that the Native Army can for ever escape
    contagion.  And railways and telegraphs put new and formidable
    implements in the hands of even the civil population, if they break
    into mutiny.  Our Liberal expedients may fail.  The Tory experiment
    of grudging and half-and-half concessions is sure ... to end in
    dangerous impotence.  The only chance, be it a good chance or a bad
    chance, is to do our best to make English rulers friends with
    Indian leaders, and at the same time to do our best to train them
    in habits of political responsibility."


But there was one question on which at no time the two men saw fully
eye to eye.  This was the matter of the deportations.  Lord Morley,
though he had assented to {290} the strong measures of the previous
winter, was never enamoured of them, and he was perpetually haunted by
doubts as to their advisability--doubts which it pleased certain young
Conservatives in the House of Commons to increase in their search for
cause of offence against the Government.  The question arose on the
political disqualification of deportees for which Minto argued.  The
mere right of veto in the Viceroy after election seemed to him to be
attended with the gravest disadvantages, and he proposed a general
disqualification, with the right of the Viceroy to permit candidature
in special cases.  Minto stated his views, as he felt it his duty to
do, with vigour and frankness:--


    "What is our main duty?  Surely it is, in the first place, to
    govern India with due regard to the welfare and peace of its
    population--not to attempt, irrespective of those interests, to
    conform with principles which the political training of years may
    have rendered dear to the people of England, but which are totally
    unadapted to the conditions we have now to deal with in this
    country....  It is such guidance of the Government of India by a
    Parliament totally ignorant of local conditions which, if it is to
    represent a generally accepted principle in our administration of
    India, is, I must regretfully say, in my opinion certain to prove
    disastrous....  Political disqualification in England, and in India
    just awakening to political life and governed largely by the mere
    prestige of British authority, cannot be judged by the same
    standard.  A released political prisoner who becomes a member of
    Parliament in no way threatens the safety of the constitution, but
    the election of Lajpat Rai to the Viceroy's Legislative Council
    would set India in a blaze....  We must not forget ... that our
    councils will be comparatively small, and that the introduction
    into them of a stormy petrel would have a very different effect to
    a similar introduction into the historic atmosphere of the House of
    Commons."


[Sidenote: The deportations]

The matter was finally settled by permitting the Viceroy by regulation
to give to himself and the local {291} governments the power to prevent
the _nomination_ of any irreconcilable--which was, of course, a more
stringent precaution than the disqualification of deportees as such.
On a second point the controversy was still warmer.  Lord Morley, not
unnaturally, wished to signalize the completion of the Reform scheme by
some notable act of clemency.  "The continued detention of the
deportees," he telegraphed on 21st October, "makes a mockery of the
language we are going to use about reform.  It makes a thoroughly
self-contradictory situation."  He therefore wished to announce their
release simultaneously with the publication of the regulations.  The
Secretary of State was being much badgered on the matter, and he wished
to get rid of so embarrassing a burden.


    "A very clever Tory lawyer, F. E. Smith," he wrote to the Viceroy
    in May, "the rising hope of his party and not at all a bad fellow,
    has joined the hunt....  You will understand that _I_ have no
    notion whatever of giving way, whatever happens, unless you see a
    chance of releasing some or all of the _dtenus_ one of these
    days....  The mischief to India of a long stream of nagging
    questions and attacks, especially if even a handful of Tories join
    my knot of critics, rather perturbs me....  F. E. Smith said to a
    friend of mine, 'I would not object to deportation in an emergency
    if the man who imposed it was an English country gentleman.'  'But
    then,' was my answer, 'what else is Lord Minto?' ... Don't be
    offended if I say boldly that, if I were Governor-General to-day, I
    would make up my mind to have an amnesty on the day when the new
    Councils Act comes into force.  As you know, I could argue the
    other way if I liked, but I have an _instinct_ that this is the way
    that would redound most to the credit and honour for courage
    acquired by you already."


Minto had long ago come to the conclusion that the deportees must be
released as soon as the reforms were in operation.  But he was
resolutely opposed to their release till the elections were over, and
so strongly did he feel on the matter that at one moment, when it
seemed likely that he might be overruled, he took the strong step of
{292} asking that the protest of the Government of India should be made
public.  His argument, which ultimately convinced Lord Morley, seems
difficult to resist:--


    "One of the great hopes of our Reform scheme was to 'rally the
    Moderates.'  Surely it would not be wise to turn loose those
    firebrands into the political arena just at the very moment when we
    are hoping that the reasonable and stable characters in Indian
    society will come forward and range themselves on our side, and on
    the side of constitutional progress.  It seems to me that, if we
    were to do this, we should indeed be creating a 'self-contradictory
    situation,' in that, having withdrawn the deportees from political
    life for nine months or so while nothing was going on, we should be
    liberating them at the very moment when the whole country will be
    in the turmoil of a general election, and when we are trying for
    the first time to work out an entirely novel electoral
    machinery!"[1]


{293}

[Sidenote: First outbreak of crime]

The period during which the reforms were approaching their consummation
was ironically marked by anarchy and outrage.  In February the public
prosecutor in the Alipore case was murdered; in the early summer secret
criminal societies were discovered in Gwalior, the Deccan, and Eastern
Bengal; and on 1st July there was perpetrated the hideous murder of Sir
William Curzon Wyllie and Dr. Lalkaka at the Imperial Institute in
London.  The murderer, Dingra, belonged to a most respectable Punjab
family, one of whom had written a book which he had dedicated to the
Viceroy.  There were constant dacoities in Bengal, committed by young
Hindus in order to swell the revolutionary funds, and there was
disquieting evidence that the mischief might spread from the Bengali
student class to the more virile races of the north.  Finally, on 21st
December, Mr. Jackson, the collector of Nasik in the Deccan, was shot
dead by a young Brahmin at a farewell theatrical performance given in
his honour.  The Nasik case compelled the Government to postpone the
return of the deportees and to prepare more stringent measures of
precaution.  Minto kept his head amid these embarrassments.  "I hope,"
he wrote to Lord Morley, "that public opinion won't take the
unreasonable view that the deeds of a few anarchists are proof of the
doubtful loyalty of all India.  Of this I am absolutely certain, that
if it had not been for our recognition of Indian political ambitions,
we should now have had ranged against us a mass of discontent composed
not only of extremists, but of those who are now our most loyal
supporters."

He had himself a share of the attention of the criminals.  On 13th
November, while on a visit to Ahmedabad, two bombs were thrown at the
carriage in which he and Lady Minto were driving.  They failed to
explode, but one subsequently went off in the hands of a water-carrier
who picked it up, causing serious injuries.  Both the Viceroy and his
wife took the affair with the utmost coolness and courage.  Lady Minto
in her journal merely records that {294} the day was her birthday and
that bombs were an odd kind of birthday present.  Minto, writing a
short account of it to Lord Morley, prefaced his letter by saying that
he was too overworked to send him more than scraps of news, and ended
with a mild grumble at the discomfort which attempts on a man's life
entailed:--


    "Imagine our portentous precautions!  Last night we proceeded
    solemnly to that awful ordeal, a State Banquet.  After being seated
    some time and no food appearing, various high officials sallied
    forth to investigate the causes of delay and found two sentries
    with fixed bayonets standing over the soup, which they refused to
    admit without a pass!"


Lord Morley wrote:--


    "In spite of your magnanimous refusal to attach any political
    significance to the bombs, one cannot but feel that the miscreants
    who planned the outrage were animated by politics, if one can give
    the name of politics to such folly and wickedness.  Anyhow it was
    fine and truly generous of you to say that you stoutly resisted the
    idea that it represented anything like the heart of the general
    Indian population.  This is one of the utterances that will stick,
    and will cause your name to be held in honour.  Lord Roberts was
    here the day after, and I read him your first telegram.  He said,
    'Ah, Minto is an intrepid fellow!  He hasn't a nerve in him!'  This
    would be rather an awkward thing for you from the anatomical and
    physiological point of view; but I knew what he meant!"


II

The year 1909 deprived the Viceroy of two fellow-workers whom he deeply
valued.  His private secretary, Sir James Dunlop Smith, whose great
Indian experience, unfailing loyalty, and tireless industry had been of
incalculable service, was appointed to follow Sir W. Curzon Wyllie at
the India Office.  In August Lord Kitchener ceased to be
Commander-in-Chief, and was succeeded by Sir O'Moore Creagh.  It was an
open secret that {295} Kitchener would have liked to be the next
Viceroy; he was made a Field-Marshal and accepted the offer of the
Malta command which was pressed on him, but he obtained permission
after his long Indian service to indulge himself with a preliminary
holiday in the Far East.  His relations with Minto had been always
those of the most cordial friendship, and the fact is the more
remarkable when it is remembered that Minto was himself a soldier and
in no way disposed to accept the Commander-in-Chief's views on army
questions without a searching examination of his own.  "In military
matters," he wrote to Lord Morley, "I am not quite the same as other
Viceroys have been, or are likely to be in the future.  For many years
I served as a soldier in various capacities all over the world, have
seen much active service, and much of other armies besides our own, and
this not only from the love of adventure, for I worked hard at the more
intellectual requirements of a military career.  Consequently the
comprehension of military organization and administration comes very
naturally to me, and military policy in India is a matter on which I
shall always hold decided views of my own, no matter what my
Commander-in-Chief may think!" In August he wrote: "I shall miss K.
very much, for he has supported me most loyally always, and I look upon
him as a real friend.  We have differed--as, of course, we must
occasionally--over certain things, but I have always found him very
open to conviction.  He is such a different man to what the outside
public suppose him to be.  In my humble opinion you could not select
for the _gadi_ a more reliable occupant."  Minto had laboured to
interpret Kitchener to the Secretary of State, and had met with some
success, but on the question of the Viceroyalty he found him adamant.
"I should not much care," wrote Lord Morley, "to be Secretary of State
if he were Governor-General, and what is more, my dear Viceroy, I don't
mean to be."  To Lord Morley Kitchener was only a competent and
stiff-necked soldier; perhaps it was impossible except for those who
worked closely with him to realize that his political sagacity and
prescience were more notable than even his talents for tactics or
strategy.

[Sidenote: Lord Kitchener's departure]

Lord Kitchener's departure was not unattended with sensation.  His
farewell speech at Simla proved to be {296} largely an adaptation of
Lord Curzon's farewell speech at the Byculla Club in 1905.  Parallel
columns in the _Times_ showed a damaging identity both in matter and
style.  There had been no such case of plagiarism since Disraeli
cribbed from Thiers his panegyrics on the Duke of Wellington, and the
situation was made piquant by the fact that copier and copied were old
and unreconciled antagonists.  Minto's letter to Lord Morley explains
the affair as far as explanation was possible.  Sir Beauchamp Duff had
been in the habit of helping Kitchener with his speeches.


    "At first I thought the similarity might be mere coincidence--but
    such a possibility vanishes when one sees the passages side by
    side.  The best explanation I have heard--and I have good reason to
    think it the true one--is that K. merely told Duff that he would
    find some good points in Curzon's speech, but I am firmly convinced
    that K. never intended that he should use it as he did, and never
    had any idea that he had done so.  But then, as I say--how is
    Duff's performance to be accounted for?  Of course there are
    ill-natured explanations beneath contempt.  The supposition that it
    was irony on K.'s part has also gone the rounds here--sheer
    impossible nonsense....  K. is a very bad speaker--hates having
    even to say a few words--always reads his speeches, and read the
    one in question particularly badly....  I am very sorry about it
    all.  It is lucky for K. that he is on the high seas!"


[Sidenote: Visit to Lahore]

The arduousness of the Viceroy's life did not decrease as the months
went by.  In October he wrote to Lord Morley: "I have been in India
almost four years now, and during that time I have not had one single
free day to myself.  Even on the few occasions I have been away in
camp, I have never had a day without official work.  One must be strong
and well to start early in the morning, go through long tiring hours in
the sun, and come back to one's tent to find it full of files and
official telegrams and work till midnight or the small hours of the
morning.  But so it is, and I am thankful to say, so far, I am fit and
well."  The relief in such a life was the shifting of base--the move
from Calcutta to Simla, and the journeys to distant provinces.  {297}
The visit to Lahore in April was a great success.  The Viceregal party
on elephants entered the narrow streets of the old city, where every
house was decorated with embroideries and mottoes, including the
remarkable couplet:--

  "Ripon, Minto, Morley, England's greatest three,
  India sing their praises till eternity."

"The wonderful part," Minto wrote to Lord Morley, "was that our route
lay through the very heart of the old city, through streets no Viceroy
had ever before been allowed to pass.  It had not been considered
safe....  Nothing but friendly enthusiasm the whole way.  I confess it
was all very encouraging.  Yet it is an inflammable population, a much
more dangerous population in reality than in Bengal."

Later in the same month the Mintos went tiger-shooting in the vicinity
of Dehra Dun, and while waiting mounted on elephants while the jungle
was being beaten out, encountered an appalling thunderstorm.  "The air
seemed full of electricity," says Lady Minto's journal; "the noise was
deafening, and besides the forks of flame flashes of light seemed to
break out in all directions....  We all agreed that, as long as the
Viceroy held on to his rifle, the rest of the party were in duty bound
to follow suit.  Rolly declared that he would have given a thousand
pounds to get rid of it, but his _izzat_ forbade his taking such a
course."

That summer Minto and his wife had an encounter with a mad dog, and had
to undergo the Pasteur treatment, which has a most depressing effect
upon the system.  Happily both had equable nerves, but the twenty-one
days of suspense were a nightmare to the staff.  During the autumn
there was an extended tour among the Rajput states, and at Udaipur on
6th November Minto delivered an important speech on the subject of the
native states and the ruling princes.  The loyalty of the latter had
been questioned in irresponsible quarters in Britain, but their
behaviour during the outbreak of anarchy in the past two years had
given the lie to the calumny.  The Viceroy now took occasion to define
the policy of Britain--the more necessary now that democratic reform
was on the eve of being introduced in British India.  {298} At Gwalior
in 1899 Lord Curzon had announced that he considered the native chiefs
as "his colleagues and partners in the administration."  But such
colleagueship might involve an unwelcome and unworkable responsibility,
and an attempt to enforce uniformity in administration.  It was not
possible to turn a ruling class, sensitive about their prerogatives and
status, into a picturesque kind of lieutenant-governor or commissioner.
Minto accordingly emphasized their internal independence, as far as it
was consistent with the interests of India and the British Empire, and
the need of elasticity and variety in their relations with the Raj.  He
had no belief in a world steam-rollered out into a uniform flatness to
please a certain type of official mind.


    "I have made it a rule to avoid as far as possible the issue of
    general instructions, and have endeavoured to deal with questions
    as they arose with reference to existing treaties, the merits of
    each case, local conditions, antecedent circumstances, and the
    particular stage of development, feudal and constitutional, of
    individual principalities....  I have always been opposed to
    anything like pressure on Durbars with a view to introducing
    British methods of administration--I have preferred that reform
    should emanate from the Durbars themselves, and grow up in harmony
    with the traditions of the State.  It is easy to overestimate the
    value of administrative efficiency."


[Sidenote: Lord Morley's table-talk]

The colleagueship of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State remained
during the year close and friendly, though not without occasions of
vigorous dispute.  There was the old trouble of private correspondence
by subordinates without the cognizance of the superior, and in the case
of a flagrant breach of etiquette by one member of the Viceroy's
Council the Secretary of State seemed scarcely to appreciate the
Viceroy's indignation.  Minto, too, was harassed at times by Lord
Morley's thirst for what he felt to be irrelevant information, and, as
we have seen, the matter of the deportees involved much cabled
argument.  But the mutual regard of the two men is shown in the
correspondence by their inclination to discuss with each other {299}
matters of moment not strictly pertinent to their offices.  Minto
laments that in a time of strain and constant watchfulness he has no
leisure for private reflection.  "It makes me sad to think how little
time there has been to read or study the many mysteries of India--it
has been a life of every-day action--certainly learning much as one
goes along, but realizing all the more how terribly ignorant one is of
many things."  He comments on the land clauses of Mr. Lloyd George's
famous Budget, and mentions that at Minto he had, out of a gross
rent-roll of 5,600, net receipts of 83, which he hoped would still be
available to entertain the Secretary of State when he visited the
Borders.  Lord Morley replied with his impressions of the German
Emperor as "_Mars commis-voyageur_."  "He is a consummately interesting
figure all the same, with just that streak of Crackedness which is
perhaps essential to the interesting.  As for Bagman, don't suppose I
think it a term of reproach: just the opposite.  The soldier is a fine
fellow; the diplomatist is indispensable; but the alert and thrifty
Bagman, making money, accumulating it, employing it, he's the
foundation of a strong State!  I much suspect that this will _revolt_
you!"  He draws an amusing picture of Indian humbug in Surendra Nath
Banerji.  "He nearly made me cascade with gross compliments--their
_Guru_, a Great Man, then (by noble crescendo) the greatest Man since
_Akhbar_!  I hope he'll balance the little account between us two by
swearing that you are far greater than Aurungzebe.  After this
nauseating dose, he went straight off to a meeting presided over by
Cotton, and listened with silent composure to an orator denouncing me
as no less of an oppressor and tyrant than the Tsar of Russia!"

There are graver moments, too.  He transcribes, to comfort Minto in his
difficulties with a disloyal colleague, a wise passage from Mr.
Gladstone:--


    "The imperious nature of the subjects, their weight and form,
    demanding the entire strength of a man and all his faculties, leave
    him no residue, at least for the time, to apply to self-regard; no
    more than there is for a swimmer, swimming for his life.  He must,
    too, in retrospect feel himself to be so very {300} small in
    comparison with the themes and interests of which he has to think."


He was beginning, in spite of all his vitality, to feel the burden of
his years, and wondered sometimes whether he would ever have a talk
with his correspondent face to face.  "I am rather jaded, and I have a
birthday of terribly high figure next month.  I had promised myself a
rest as soon as ever I got free of Reforms and Deportees.  Unhappily I
am not quite my own master for three or four weeks to come.  They
insist that I denounce the House of Lords to their noble faces--a
pastime that would have given me lively satisfaction once, and I should
have produced an hour's oration with the utmost ease.  So I shall have
to revive my memory of Pym, Hampden, Eliot, and King Charles.  Then I'm
bidden to Windsor for four days--very agreeable always, only not _rest_
like my library."  The shadow of a general election, too, hung over
him, and a possible change of Government.  "The men named by the
Cabinet-makers for this office are Percy, Midleton, and Milner.  If it
should be the last, I do believe you will sometimes sigh with a passing
breath for the meek individual who now subscribes himself."


III

[Sidenote: 1910]

The Nasik murder in December 1909 had created throughout all India a
sense of insecurity, and on January 24, 1910, it was followed by a no
less startling crime, when the Mohammedan police officer who had been
mainly instrumental in unravelling the Bengal murder plots was shot
dead in the very precincts of the Calcutta High Court.  It was an
ill-omened prologue to the opening of the reformed Legislative Council.
Some comfort was to be drawn from the replies of the ruling princes of
India, whom Minto had officially consulted on the question of the
growth of sedition.  Their responses, published on the 21st, were a
splendid manifesto of loyalty, and a promise of vigorous co-operation
in whatever policy of repression the Government of India proposed.  It
was clear that that Government must arm itself with further powers,
for, {301} as Minto wrote on 6th January, "we want above all things to
convince the public, both Indian and European, that we are determined
to do all in our power to protect the safety of individuals and to
uphold the credit of British administration.  We can afford no delay in
doing so.  We may have another assassination at any moment."  That
other assassination came on the day preceding the opening of the new
Council.

[Illustration: LORD MINTO ADDRESSING THE FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA, 1910]

It was a season of tense anxiety, in which only the Viceroy seems to
have wholly kept his head.  "The worst of it," he wrote, "is that the
meaning of outrages is so enormously exaggerated at home.  I wish the
British public would understand that the troubles we have to deal with
do not mean the possibility of rebellion."  He was very averse to
further deportations, for he believed that he had adequate machinery to
deal with the crisis--the Criminal Amendment Act and the ordinary
processes of law.  "Speaking frankly," he wrote later, "there was at
one time a very decided slackness on the part of local governments in
respect to prosecutions for sedition.  They were much more inclined to
advise deportation and throw the responsibility on the Government of
India and the Secretary of State, and there was a tendency to complain
of the weakness of our legal machinery, the truth being that it was
often ample, but that its application was neglected.  I have done all I
can to insist on every use being made of the ordinary law and to
discourage demands for exceptional procedure."  But in January he was
doubtful whether the Criminal Amendment Act would be sufficient.  "The
difficulty is that the European Calcutta population is so unnerved
that, if things go wrong, it may be necessary to restore confidence by
immediate deportation.  I do not like saying this sort of thing at all,
but that's how it is."  There was a proposal for martial law, made by
the Commander-in-Chief, which Minto vetoed, and which Lord Morley said
made his hair stand on end.  The Viceroy decided to ask the support of
the new Council for an enlarged Press Act--for one main source of the
mischief lay in press incitation--and at the same time to seek the
earliest favourable occasion for the release of the nine Bengalis
deported in December 1908.  Lord Morley had been pressing for their
release in a tone which was not {302} far from peevish, and with
arguments which, however justifiable by formal logic, were strangely
remote from reality.  No doubt it seemed an anomaly that men, whose
release had been determined upon, should continue in confinement
because of fresh murders in which they had no complicity, but such
anomalies are of the essence of practical administration.  "If this
indefinite detention," the Secretary of State wrote, "until the Day of
Judgment (if that be thought necessary) is what you mean by
deportation, then I do not expect to find myself able to sanction any
more of it, nor the continuance of this."  The argument was purely
academic; the facts were that murders had been committed which had
spread consternation in India, that reforms were about to be put into
practical effect which involved in many eyes a slackening of the reins
of British government, and that any day fresh deportations might become
inevitable.  To release deportees at the moment without any new
safeguards would have been a "gesture" wholly contrary to the logic of
facts, and a potent stimulus to the prevalent anxiety.

[Sidenote: Minto's speech]

On 25th January, in the old-world Council Room at Calcutta, with the
portraits of Warren Hastings, Wellesley, Cornwallis, and the first Lord
Minto looking down upon him, the Viceroy opened the new Legislative
Council.  "He began his speech," Lady Minto wrote, "amid profound
silence; you might have heard a pin drop.  He spoke gradually with more
and more emphasis, and when he announced that whether for good or ill
he alone was responsible for the reforms, his strength and
determination quite carried his audience with him, and at last they
broke out into an enthusiastic burst of applause, a thing hitherto
unheard of in the Council Chamber."  He traced the reasons for the
reforms, and the various steps in their progress, which showed that
they had sprung from the initiative of the Government of India.  "It is
important that my colleagues and the Indian public should know the
history, the early history, of the reforms which have now been
sanctioned by Parliament.  They had their genesis in a note of my own
addressed to my colleagues in August 1906--nearly three and a half
years ago.  It was based entirely on the views I had myself formed of
the position of affairs in India.  It was due to no {303} suggestions
from home: _whether it was good or bad, I am entirely responsible for
it_."  Then he turned to the assassinations.  "I had hoped to open this
new Council under an unclouded political sky.  No man has longed more
earnestly than I have to allow bygones to be bygones, and to commence a
new administrative era with a clean slate.  The course of recent events
has cancelled the realization of those hopes, and I can but assert that
the first duty of every Government is to maintain the observance of the
law--to provide for the present, and as far as it can for the future,
welfare of the populations committed to its charge--to rule, and, if
need be, to rule with a strong hand."  These were almost the words of
his great-grandfather: "No man of honour at the head of a Government
will ever compromise with revolt."  He concluded on a more hopeful
note:--


    "I do not for an instant admit that the necessity of ruthlessly
    eradicating a great evil from our midst should throw more than a
    passing shadow over the general political situation in India.  I
    believe that situation to be better than it was five years ago.  We
    must not allow immediate dangers to blind us to the evidence of
    future promise.  I believe that the broadening of political
    representation has saved India from far greater troubles than those
    we have now to face.  I am convinced that the enlargement of our
    administrative machinery has enormously strengthened the hands of
    the Viceroy and the Government of India, and has brought factors to
    our aid which would otherwise have had no sympathy with us.  I
    believe above all that the fellow-services of British and Indian
    administrators under a supreme British Government is the key to the
    future political happiness of this country."


The behaviour of the new Council was such as to justify the hopes of
the reformers.  On 9th February the new Press Act was passed, which
compelled the publisher or printer of a newspaper to give security for
good behaviour, and laid down that, in the event of the paper
publishing prohibited matter, the security might be forfeited, and, on
the second offence, the plant itself.  An editor was free {304} to
publish what he pleased, as in England, but he did it at his own risk;
in England that risk took the form of liability to damages or
imprisonment, in India of the forfeiture of property.  Mr. Gokhale,
though he criticized certain details, accepted the measure, only two
members differed from the main principle, and the bill passed the
Council without a division.

That same day the Viceroy issued orders for the release of the Bengal
deportees.  The loyal co-operation of the new Council gave him the cue
which he had long sought.  In a note which he sent to a colleague who
criticized his decision occur these sentences: "That advice (to his
Council on the subject of release) was given without any reference
whatever, either by letter or telegram, to the Secretary of State.  I
did not even forewarn him of the possibility of release.  I acted
entirely on my own responsibility, and I was especially anxious to do
so in order to avoid any appearance of any documental suggestion that
the Government of India had acted under pressure.  As far as I am
concerned, the advice I gave my Council was based entirely on what I
considered best for India, independently of any influence in England."
But he went on to point out that at any moment there might arise an
agitation in Parliament for release, to which the British Government
might be compelled to bow, and that it would be disastrous for the
strength of future Governments of India if they were dictated to from
home on a matter of internal administration owing to the exigencies of
party politics.

There was much criticism of the action in India, and more in Britain,
by those who accused Minto of being, in the phrase of Tacitus, "suarum
legum auctor ac subversor," of passing a repressive measure with one
hand and giving a licence to notorious agitators with the other.  The
defence is obvious: it was manifestly unjust to keep men in captivity
indefinitely because of new crimes which they had not committed, and
the loyal action of the Legislative Council made their release both
desirable and safe.  But Minto's note which has just been quoted did
not please the Secretary of State, who read him a grave homily for
imagining that he or any member of the Cabinet had ever urged the
release of the deportees from {305} any other motive than strict
justice.  Minto gently replied that they seemed to be at
cross-purposes, and that he had been answering a specific accusation,
which, if believed, would have done mischief, and not criticizing the
Secretary of State.  He might have added that for four years Lord
Morley had been emphasizing the fact that the House of Commons governed
India, and that that House must consequently be humoured.  But indeed
the question of deportations and prosecutions was becoming an obsession
with Lord Morley, and he ceased to judge things with his wonted acumen.
During the early summer he discovered a tenderness for Arabindo Ghose,
perhaps the most dangerous man in India, and hoped that the Bengal
Government would not secure a conviction against him, and he appeared
to hanker after some spectacular exercise of the "clemency of the
Crown" in the shape of an amnesty in the ancient Oriental fashion.  In
June Minto was compelled to speak with great frankness:--


    "I can only say that under existing conditions it is an
    impossibility.  The old Oriental monarchs exercised their clemency
    in different circumstances to those of the present day.  Their
    jurisdiction was summary--they had no House of Commons to answer
    to--they took life freely as it suited them, they released as they
    liked, and imprisoned as they liked without any question.  No one
    is a greater believer than I am in the elements of sentiment and
    imagination, but their influence cuts both ways.  It may bring
    grateful tears to the eyes of the effeminate Bengali, or it may
    shock the spirited traditions and the warlike imagination of more
    manly races.  The great factor, as far as I have been able to
    judge, in the success of Indian rulers has been strong personality
    represented by sympathy and power, but sympathy and power must work
    together hand in hand."


IV

[Sidenote: Second visit to the North-West]

In April the Mintos went by way of Agra, Delhi, and Dehra Dun to the
North-West Frontier, and visited Peiwar Kotal and the Kurram valley,
the scene of the Viceroy's {306} old campaign with Roberts.  On this
trip occurred the incident which has been narrated elsewhere.[2]  In
the first week of May came the news of King Edward's death.  Behind the
stately memorial services there was evidence of a sincere national
mourning throughout India.  Thirty of the accused in the Nasik case
were anxious to send a message of sympathy to Queen Alexandra, and were
surprised when the prison authorities forbade it.  There was a great
Hindu demonstration on the Maidan at Calcutta, when the Maharaja of
Darbhunga pronounced a eulogy on the dead monarch.  "After all that has
passed," Minto wrote to the Secretary of State, "I am sure you will
think the manifestation of feeling most remarkable--Surendra Nath
Banerji, Bhupendra Nath Basu, and Moti Lai Ghose on bended knees before
a picture of the King-Emperor!  What an emotional people!  And yet the
fact that they are so ought to give us a master-key to many of the
secrets of governing them."  Lord Morley's note is worth quotation:--


    "He (King Edward), had just the character that Englishmen at any
    rate thoroughly understand, thoroughly like, and make any quantity
    of allowance for.  It was odd how he had managed to combine regal
    dignity with bonhomie, and regard for form with entire absence of
    spurious pomp.  As I told you, I had an audience just a week before
    he died, and the topic was one on which we did not take the same
    view.  He was very much in earnest, but not for an instant did he
    cease to be kindly, considerate, genial, nor did he press with an
    atom of anything like overweening insistence.  Well, he is gone.
    The Queen Alexandra took me to see him yesterday, and he lay as if
    in natural peaceful slumber, his face transfigured by the hand of
    kind Death into an image of what was best in him, or in any other
    great Prince.  I had known him off and on in various relations
    since he was a boy at Oxford, where I was; and it was moving to see
    him lying there, after the curtain had fallen and the play come to
    an end.  The part he had played was generous and high."


{307}

[Sidenote: Minto's replacement]

Meantime Lord Kitchener had arrived in London after an absence of eight
years, and had been enthusiastically received.  When he had his first
interview with the King and was created a Field-Marshal, he left his
baton in the hall of Buckingham Palace, and was in a great state till
he discovered its whereabouts.  The advent of Kitchener meant that the
appointment of Minto's successor could not long be delayed.  Lord
Morley records his impression of the distinguished soldier:--


    "I was a good deal astonished, for I had expected a silent, stiff,
    moody fellow; behold I could hardly get a word in, and he hammered
    away loud and strong with manly gestures and high tones.  He used
    the warmest language, as to which I was in no need of such
    emphasis, about yourself; it was very agreeable to hear, you may be
    certain.  He has the poorest opinion possible of your Council, not
    as an institution, but of its present members.  He talked about the
    Partition of Bengal in a way that rather made me open my eyes; for,
    although he hardly went so far as to favour reversal, he was
    persuaded that we must do something in bringing the people of the
    two severed portions into some species of unity.  We got on well
    enough--he and I--for nothing was said about his going to India.
    At night he dined alone with Haldane, and then he expressed _his
    firm expectations_ with perfect frankness, and even a sort of
    vehemence.  Haldane told him that the decision would be mine;
    whatever my decision might be, the Prime Minister would back it
    (though, by the way, I hear that the Prime Minister personally
    would be much better pleased if the lot fell upon K.).  To-day I
    had an audience in high quarters and found the atmosphere almost
    _torrid_!"


Minto, as we have already seen, had hoped for Kitchener as his
successor, his only doubts being as to his shyness, his brusqueness,
and the want of a wife.  Mr. Asquith was in favour of the appointment,
but Lord Morley was adamant on the ground that at that juncture a
military Viceroy would be fatal.  "My own mind has been clear enough
for a long time, that Lord K., while he would be no bad {308} Viceroy,
and indeed from his marked personality and his fame might be an
extremely good one, still would produce an impression that might easily
set back the clock that you and I have with no ordinary labour and
pains successfully wound up."  To this argument Minto reluctantly
assented.  There was much gossip, the names of Lord Selborne, the
Master of Elibank, Sir George Murray, and others being tossed about by
rumour.  Late in June the appointment was announced of Sir Charles
Hardinge, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office.  On 16th
June Minto wrote:--


    "I cannot but feel that I am only now commencing to gain an insight
    into many things, and that no successor could start where I leave
    off.  In many ways he will have to begin the game over again.  But
    I hope the great principles for which we have fought so hard are
    safe.  As far as I can judge, Hardinge's appointment is excellent.
    I hardly know him myself, but he has a record, and his family
    connection with India will stand him in good stead, for the stories
    of British administration of old days are cherished here.  Lady
    Hardinge, too, will, I know, play a great part in a world where a
    lady leader has great and growing opportunities for good."



V

Lord Morley early in the year had told Minto of his intention to leave
the India Office simultaneously with Minto's relinquishment of the
Viceroyalty, and there were signs throughout the summer that the
Secretary of State was beginning to bow under the burden of his work.
A tartness appeared in a correspondence previously so urbane, and
phrases like "grave displeasure" and "painful inadequacy" became
frequent.  Vexatious little incidents arose to make a rift in the
harmony.  There was the complaint of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald that on his
Indian visit he had been shadowed and his letters tampered with;
complaints decisively answered by the production of the instructions to
the police that there was to be no sort of {309} surveillance, and by
the explanation that in the mail-bags in the hot weather sealing-wax
was apt to melt.  A more difficult matter arose in connection with the
question of a new Education department.  For this it was decided to
appoint a member of Council from the Indian civil service, and it was
therefore possible to appoint a man from home, as Lord Morley desired,
to the vacant department of Commerce and Industry.  He selected Mr.
(afterwards Sir William) Clark, who had been Mr. Lloyd George's
secretary, and was thought well of by the future Lord Inchcape.
Against Mr. Clark personally there was no word to say, but to Minto it
appeared that he scarcely met the requirements of the office.  "The
commercial world in India," he wrote, "wants, quite justifiably, to
have an experienced representative on the Viceroy's Council, and it
will not admit that a young official from Whitehall can be in touch
with its interests.  Moreover, from the Viceroy's point of view, there
are even stronger reasons against such an appointment, as what he needs
to assist him is not merely departmental experience, but a wide
knowledge of India and its requirements.  If he does not find this
assistance he must assert himself and rule alone, or with the help of
an inner circle of his Council, and that is not what is wanted.  The
Viceroy does not want a pupil, but an adviser."  But Lord Morley's
obstinacy (it was his own word) had been aroused by the newspaper
clamour against Mr. Clark and what he described as the "unreasonable
pretensions of the I.C.S.," and, though shaken for a moment by the
Viceroy's disapproval, he persisted in the appointment.

[Sidenote: Mr. Montagu's Budget speech]

But the most serious difference between India and Whitehall was the
work of Mr. Edwin Montagu, the under-secretary for India, who, in his
Budget speech in the beginning of August, had this passage:--


    "The relations of the Viceroy to the Secretary of State are
    ultimate and responsible.  The act of Parliament says 'that the
    Secretary of State in Council shall superintend, direct, and
    control all acts, operations, and concerns which in any way relate
    to or concern the Government and revenues of India, and all grants
    of salaries, gratuities or allowances, and {310} all other payments
    and charges whatever out of or on the revenues of India.'  It will
    be seen how wide, how far-reaching, and how complete these powers
    are.  Lord Morley and his Council, _working through the agency of
    Lord Minto_, have accomplished much...."


[Sidenote: The position of the Viceroy]

The last sentence roused a storm of criticism in India, for it asserted
unequivocally that the Viceroy was merely an agent of the Secretary of
State, and the Government of India a registry office.  The doctrine was
bad alike in constitutional law and in constitutional practice.  The
supreme authority of the Secretary of State was beyond doubt, but, both
by statute and custom, that authority had been limited to certain
definite functions.  Mr. Montagu was unfortunate in his statutory
citations.  His quotation was from the Act of 1833, but section 39 of
the same Act provided that "the superintendence, direction, and control
of the whole civil and military government of all the said territories
and revenues in India shall be and is hereby vested in a
Governor-General and Councillors to be styled 'The Governor-General of
India in Council.'"  The Act which Mr. Montagu quoted described the
powers of the old Board of Control, which were transferred to the
Secretary of State by the Government of India Act of 1858.  That Act in
section 3 declared that the Secretary of State should have and perform
the powers and duties which might have been held and performed by the
Company and the Board of Control.  What these were has been described
by an authority whom Lord Morley was bound to respect.  The Board of
Control, said Mill, "is not so much an executive as a deliberative
body.  The executive government of India is, and must be, seated in
India itself."  It is clear from the Act that, while the Secretary of
State had full ultimate powers of supervision, their exercise was
contemplated as the exception and not as the rule.  As for the accepted
practice, the reader may consult Chapter V. of Sir John Strachey's
great book on India.  In such a case the letter of a statute is less
authoritative than that customary law which has grown up out of urgent
practical needs.  The Viceroy was the visible ruler to millions who had
never heard of the Secretary of State.  To reduce him {311} to the
level of a docile agent was to strike at the root of British prestige.

Lord Morley apologized for Mr. Montagu's manner as "not felicitous,"
but he adhered to the substance of the doctrine.  Minto contented
himself with a good-humoured protest, for he did not wish to mar his
last weeks with a quarrel; but he regarded the matter as one of the
first importance, and, had the incident occurred earlier in his term of
office, he would undoubtedly have fought the fight to a finish.  His
views are best gathered from his personal letters to Sir Arthur Bigge
(Lord Stamfordham), from one of which (July 5, 1910) a long quotation
is justified:--


    "What is important is the constant insistence by the S. of S. on
    his sole right to appoint members of Council, together with
    perpetual interference with the details of administration in India.
    By statute the members of Council are appointed by the King--and
    there is no mention of recommendation by either S. of S. or
    Viceroy.  I had much correspondence about this when I first came
    out--my argument being that, whilst quite recognizing the S. of S.
    as the King's constitutional adviser, it seemed to me reasonable to
    assume that it was intended that the Viceroy should be consulted as
    to appointments to his own Council which concerned him more than
    any one else, and that great weight should at any rate be given to
    his objections.  M., on the other hand, arrogates to himself
    complete independence, and I am bound to say that the appointments
    he has made off his own bat have been most unfortunate.  I have
    constantly felt that I must depend upon myself alone with the
    exception of one or two advisers I had managed to secure, and that
    those sent me were not only useless but mischievous.  As to
    lieutenant-governors, they are appointed by the King on the
    recommendation of the Viceroy, and consequently have always been
    considered as the Viceroy's appointments; but though I have
    succeeded in maintaining them as such, it has been after any amount
    of useless correspondence and often of useless objections.  Besides
    the damage done to Indian authority by interference {312} of this
    sort at home, the door is thrown open to wire-pulling in England by
    the friends of candidates for appointments, and the Viceroy is
    bound to feel that his advice is handicapped by that of personally
    interested and unqualified persons.

    "It seems to me that, as regards these high appointments made by
    the King, the position of the Viceroy is so peculiar, as being
    answerable for the safety and good administration of India, and
    that the authority of the King-Emperor is so direct towards India
    itself, that the King would be fully and constitutionally
    justified, when such appointments are submitted to him, in asking
    for the Viceroy's opinion and in being largely influenced by it in
    his decision.  As long as I am here I cannot feel justified in
    writing to the King about one of his own Ministers.  I must serve
    H.M.'s Government straightforwardly, but if I had been going to
    stay longer I should have felt bound to ask that the position of
    the S. of S. towards the G. of I. should be considered.  No one
    except those who have been behind the scenes here knows what the
    interference has been about every little thing.  I used to imagine
    that the S. of S. aimed only at directing great principles of
    Indian policy, and that the administration of the country rested
    with the Government of India, but there has been interference in
    everything.  It only results in intense worry for the Viceroy, for,
    do what he will, the S. of S. cannot administer India....  As a
    matter of fact, I believe I have gained my point in everything
    since I have been here, but it has generally been by not losing my
    temper when I should have been thoroughly justified in doing
    so--sometimes by not answering--often by asserting myself in the
    most courteous language--and often by humouring the peculiar
    personality with whom I had to deal.  Ever since I have been in
    India it has seemed to me of vital importance to run the ship as
    best I could, regardless of the inexcusable troubles hurled at me
    from home....  So I have been determined to sit tight, to say what
    I wanted, and to get it, without raising the personal question on
    my own behalf, {313} and so far I know I have won the game--and
    there are only a few months more.  But for the sake of the future
    of India things must not be allowed to go on as they are."


Lord Morley's conception of his office was in the truest sense
despotic--a despotism but little tempered by lip service to a
Parliament which he believed he could manage.  He was prepared to
accept a friendly Viceroy as a junior colleague, but with these two
began and ended the government of India.  With Minto personally he
would deal, but he jibbed at the "Governor-General in Council," and he
always tended to ignore the existence both of his own Council and of
the Viceroy's.  With little talent for practical administration, and
with an imperfect sense of those arcana imperil which are more potent
than the text of statutes, he attempted by fits and starts the task of
direct government, and only Minto's stalwart resistance prevented
disaster.  But the method he followed had inevitably a malign effect
upon the efficiency of the Indian Government.  His policy was in the
strictest sense retrograde, a relapse into bureaucratic and personal
rule.  His denial to the Viceroy's Council of a voice in foreign policy
led India to take too narrow a view of her imperial responsibilities;
his substitution of private communications to the Viceroy for official
correspondence weakened the prestige and energy of her executive
officers.  As has been well said, Lord Morley narrowed India's
institutions at the top while broadening them at the bottom; in the
Great War she suffered the penalty of this impossible regimen, and the
report of the Mesopotamia Commission is the best comment on its
unwisdom.

[Sidenote: Lord Morley's _Reminiscences_]

The series of letters to Minto which Lord Morley has printed in the
second volume of his _Reminiscences_ is a contribution to English
epistolary literature which will not soon be forgotten.  But it is an
anthology, not the full text, and its humour and kindliness, its blend
of wise saws and modern instances, its occasional pedagogic tone as if
instructing a promising pupil, do not give the reader a fair conception
of the relations between the two men.  Some of Lord Morley's sagest
passages are, when read in conjunction with Minto's letters which
occasioned {314} them, curiously beside the point; often his arguments
are captious, the result of a misunderstanding; often they are pleas
which in practice he was compelled to abandon.  An innocent suggestion
that England did not readily understand Indian conditions would elicit
a spirited defence of the plenary inspiration of the English people,
but in a month's time the Secretary of State would be repeating the
Viceroy's suggestion as his own considered opinion.  Minto complains of
parliamentary ignorance, Lord Morley replies that no King Canute can
restrain the ocean, Minto rejoins that "we nowadays know of some most
effective sea-walls," and presently the Secretary of State himself
adopts the attitude of a haughty Canute towards the tides of
ill-informed popular opinion.  In reading the full correspondence the
impression grows that it was the Viceroy who from start to finish had
the more consistent and considered view of Indian problems, and that by
tact and patience he invariably got his way with the Secretary of
State.  It is difficult for a man whose chief equipment is a wide
reading in the history and philosophy of politics and a long experience
of party strife to keep an even keel in the yeasty seas of foreign
administration, for the aphorisms of philosophy may be useless, since
they can be summoned to support either of two opposite practical
policies.  Minto's arguments are often met to begin with by opposition,
buttressed by stately citations from the past; but in the end they are
accepted and come forth eventually as the ukase of the Secretary of
State, dressed in all the purple and gold of the literary graces.

It is necessary to make this clear, for Lord Morley's publication of
one side of a correspondence may well leave a false impression.  It is
necessary, too, to remember that this correspondence was not always the
friendly docile affair which the letters in the _Reminiscences_ would
lead one to believe.  There was much stiff and strenuous argument, and
much plain speaking.  But it is no less necessary to emphasize the deep
underlying friendliness, the fundamental respect, sympathy, even
affection of the two men for each other.  As Minto's term of office
drew to its close he communicates to Lord Morley his feelings as freely
as he would to a brother.  Though he is tired out, he hates the idea of
leaving his work before it is completed.  {315} "I wish I could found a
dynasty," he writes.  He longs to be back among his own hills, and he
finds comfort in the Simla landscape.  "I was reared in the mountains
and the mist, and have suffered from mountain madness all my life.
Peaks, passes, and glaciers have a fascination for me.  I never saw
anything so gorgeous as the view of the snows here yesterday morning--a
whole range of peaks towering one above another against the brightness
of blue skies and a dark foreground of hills and pine-woods.  You must
never think I don't share in your passion for hills and mist."  And
again: "You tell me when I come home I may find myself in the turmoil
of a Tibetan debate.  No, nothing will draw me into the political
arena, not even the suffragettes!  I shall go straight off to my own
Borderland and bury my head in the heather."  He talks, too, with the
utmost frankness about party questions at home.  He deplores the
decadence of the Parliamentary system, and pleads for "some sort of
federation in the United Kingdom."  Again, "Though I am enrolled in the
ranks of the present Opposition, I often feel that in many ways my
inclinations are much more in accord with the views of your side of the
House.  Yet I suppose in many matters I am diametrically opposed to
them.  I am afraid I am possessed of that infirmity--a 'cross-bench
mind.'"  Of Lord Spencer he writes: "I was a rabid anti-Home Ruler,
knowing nothing whatever at all about it--and now, still knowing
nothing at all about it, am half inclined to think that you and he were
right."  Lord Morley had written of the same statesman: "If ever there
was a man to go bear-hunting with, it was he; and if ever I am engaged
in shooting tigers, I bargain that you accompany me;" and Minto
replied: "You don't realize how refreshing your words are.  If we go
tiger-hunting together, it must, I am afraid, be after some political
tiger in the Westminster jungle.  There seems to be a large preserve of
them in that district."

[Sidenote: The colleagues bid farewell]

In October the two colleagues took leave in their letters of their high
offices and of each other.  "I suppose," Lord Morley writes, "this will
very likely be my last letter to you; and somebody says that to do
anything for the last time has always an element of the sorrowful in
it.  Well, we have had plenty of stiff campaigning {316} together, and
it is a comfort, and no discredit to either of us, that we have got to
the end of it without any bones broken, or other mischief.  There was
opportunity enough, if we had not been too sensible....  About the time
when you get this, you will know by wire that your famous prediction,
that you and I should quit Indian government at the same hour, has come
true....  I think five years of arduous work are a justification for
retirement.  And I shall have a short span for serene musing on my own
virtues.  After all, a short span will be quite long enough for so
meagre a topic."  A week later Minto wrote his farewell:--


    "As I look back upon the years that have passed, I must say, if you
    will allow me, that few people, as far as I can judge, could have
    differed so little upon big questions of policy and principle as
    you and I have.  In fact, I really think we have hardly differed at
    all.  About questions of actual administration, or rather of the
    interpretation of executive authority as it should be wielded at a
    distance from a supreme Government, I know we do hold different
    views, and, when we have done so, I have always told you my
    opinions and the reason for them.  We have certainly been through
    very stormy times together, and after all it is the risks and
    dangers that strengthen comradeship.  No one knows as well as I do
    how much India owes to the fact of your having been Secretary of
    State through all this period of development, and I hope you will
    never think that I have not truly realized the generous support you
    have so often given me at very critical moments, or that I have not
    appreciated the peculiar difficulties which have surrounded you at
    home, and from which I have been spared."



[1] The following telegrams may be quoted:--

_Secretary of State to Viceroy_.

"31_st October_ 1909.

"Regarding the deportees--I earnestly hope that I am not to understand
that you reject the unanimous suggestion of the Cabinet.  Such a result
would be most grave, and I am sure you will consider the situation with
a full sense of responsibility, as I sincerely try to do."


_Viceroy to Secretary of State_.

"2_nd November_ 1909.

"Your telegram of 31st October.  I have always recognized the great
importance of our agreement in all matters, and also know the many
considerations you have to deal with at home, but the Viceroy and
Government of India are answerable to you for the immediate
administration of India, and are bound to state their views to you as
to the safety or otherwise of action affecting that administration.  I
have already told you that the decision of my Council against release
is unanimous, and is supported by the strong opinions of
Lieutenant-Governors.  My telegram of 22nd October explains our
reasons.  I cannot state position more clearly than in last part of my
private telegram to you of 31st October, the following portion of which
I venture to quote--namely:--

"'The question is whether the deportees can be released with due regard
to the internal peace of India.  My Council have twice decided that
they cannot now be so released, in which Lieutenant-Governors concerned
absolutely agree.  We shall be heartily glad to release them when we
know that conditions will allow of it, but I must say distinctly that
to release them on either of the dates you name would be full of
unjustifiable risk, and would be entirely contrary to the reasons for
which they were deported--namely, that their freedom endangered the
peace of the country.'

"I have most carefully considered the situation, and can only say, with
a full knowledge of conditions throughout the whole of India, that the
Viceroy and Government of India would be betraying the trust imposed
upon them by His Majesty's Government if they now expressed themselves
otherwise than in my telegram of 22nd October.  If His Majesty's
Government decides upon the opposite course, the Viceroy and Government
of India must accept their instructions, but they could not be held
responsible for the results: and, putting aside the renewal of
agitation, I feel bound to tell you that, from an Indian point of view,
I cannot conceive at the present moment anything more dangerous than
that disregard should be had to the matured opinions of the Government
of India and local Governments."

[2] See page 48.




{317}

CHAPTER XII

VICEROY OF INDIA: DEPARTURE

I

[Sidenote: 1910]

The positive achievements of Minto's Viceroyalty may be read by those
who seek them in the many volumes of the departmental reports of the
Government of India.  They include a thousand matters which can only be
mentioned in such a memoir as this--matters of administrative and
financial reform, such as the reorganization of the railway and
education departments; policies of great social import, like the new
and vigorous attempt to grapple with the scourge of malaria and the
plague; questions of India's foreign relations, such as the effort to
obtain just treatment for Indians in South Africa, the controversy with
the home Government over the Convention with Russia, and Minto's
far-sighted representations as to the Bagdad railway, Mesopotamia, and
southern Persia.  Like all Viceroys, he had a frontier problem to
grapple with, and a little frontier war.  On the vexed matter of the
"open" and the "closed" frontier, he took up, as we have seen, the
attitude of a practical soldier, and his contribution to a discussion
which is still unconcluded has not been excelled in wisdom; for, while
he was as averse as Lord Morley to territorial extension, he held that
the strip of border no-man's-land instead of being a security was a
constant peril, unless British influence was brought to bear on it and
it was within reason opened up to civilizing and pacifying influences.
The strategy of frontier defence could only be complicated by a _terra
incognita_ in which unknown mischief might at any moment blow up like a
sandstorm in the desert.  One temporary safeguard he provided, {318}
for he made of the Amir of Afghanistan an attached friend.  In military
affairs generally, his technical knowledge rendered him an efficient
coadjutor to Lord Kitchener in carrying out the changes of machinery
made at the beginning of his term of office.  For the Indian army he
had a deep admiration and care; he laboured, as we have seen, to give
Indian gentlemen the right of serving the British Crown on equal terms
with the British-born, and the last dispatch he sent home was on this
matter.

[Sidenote: A triumph of character]

But it is customary to judge a Viceroy by those parts of his work which
constitute a new departure in policy, which are not merely
"carrying-on" but initiation.  On this view Minto had to his credit two
notable achievements.  The first was that into a fevered and disturbed
India he introduced by the sheer force of his personality a new harmony
and confidence.  The official hierarchy, the educated classes, the
ruling chiefs, were all, in 1905, in a state of discomfort and
discontent.  Their nerves had been frayed by startling changes; often
their feelings had been wounded by blunders in tact, by a dictatorial
tone insulting to their pride, by the left-handedness of an able man
whose delicacy of perception was not equal to his earnestness of
purpose.  On this side Minto was able to realize the hope which he had
expressed before leaving England of "giving the horse a rest in its
gallops."  His personality alone, apart from his acts, was soothing and
engaging.  He was both trusted and liked by his officials, for they
realized that he asked only for candour and honest service, and had no
vanity to be offended by plain dealing; that he was loyalty itself, and
would never leave a colleague in the lurch.  The educated Indian
recognized in him one who believed in the fundamental good sense of the
Indian people, and who was warmly sympathetic towards all that was
honourable and reasonable in Indian aims.  Though he passed more
repressive laws and acted more absolutely than any Viceroy since
Canning, he did not lose the confidence even of the classes most
opposed to his measures.  Lastly, his relations with the ruling chiefs
were cordial and straightforward, as of one gentleman to others.  They
understood him as he understood them.  He showed a scrupulous regard
for their rights and dignities, and a wise appreciation of their
difficulties.  By his speech at {319} Udaipur he dispelled the last
remnants of their distrust of the Government of India, which had been
growing up during the previous rgime, and by his personal relations be
made of them devoted allies and friends.[1]

[Sidenote: 1910]

This aspect of his constructive work--and there is no greater
constructive task than to create confidence out of distrust--was
primarily a triumph of character.  There were not wanting critics who
complained that he reigned but did not govern, because he refused to
turn his office into a fussy satrapy, based upon constant personal
interference.  There were critics who saw in his avoidance of pedantry
and his love of sport the proof of a second-rate mind.  "What can you
expect," one of these was reported to have asked, "when they send out
as Viceroy of India a pleasant-spoken gentleman who jumps hedges?"  The
critic was blind to the spell which, since the world began, has been
exercised by honesty, kindness, and simplicity.  Minto's was not a
subtle character, for it was built on broad and simple lines, but his
qualities were those which men at the bottom of their hearts prize
most, and he had a rare power of communicating them.  Good breeding is
happily not uncommon, but Minto's was of that rare type which the
French call _politesse du coeur_.  He was friendly to everybody,
because he liked everybody; and he could judge men shrewdly because he
had learned the ways of human nature not only in an office but on the
turf, in the hunting field, in many wars, and in much travelling in
strange countries.  Old Ayub Khan, the victor of Maiwand, who had been
given an interview, declared: "The Viceroy rained gentlemanliness upon
me."  Sir George Roos-Keppel wrote: "If I had a son I would ask you to
let him come and stay for a month at Minto in order to show him what a
perfect English gentleman should be."  Bhupendra Nath Basu, who might
be considered an unprejudiced witness, said, "The Viceroy has the power
of drawing out the best side of a man, because he makes them feel
affection for him."  To the long-descended chiefs he was one whose
every taste and quality they whole-heartedly understood.  They {320}
respected him as a fine horseman and a bold shikari, and after his
sedentary predecessors rejoiced in a Viceroy who galloped on to the
parade ground; they admired the unhesitating courage which made him
treat an attempt at assassination as a trifle and take the risk of
driving through narrow streets to show his trust in the people.  Old
Sir Pertab, after his fashion, put it all down to good family.
"Viceroy has good pedigree.  Why for sending man no pedigree?  I not
buying horse no pedigree, not buying dog no pedigree, not buying
buffalo no pedigree, why for man no pedigree?"  But lest ruling chiefs
should be held to be biased, we may quote from Mrs. Besant's words when
in September 1910 Minto visited the Hindu college at Benares:--


    "It will help you to understand the real nature of the Viceroy if I
    tell you what happened....  When he got into the carriage at the
    station surrounded by guards, it went at a gallop through Calcutta
    streets.  Reaching Government House, he asked why such a strange
    pace was adopted.  The answer was, 'Your Excellency, there is
    danger in the streets.'  'Is that the way to meet danger, as if you
    were running away from it?'  'Your Excellency, we removed the
    Indian guards and replaced them with Scots.'  'Take the Scots away
    and put on my Indian guards.  If we do not trust Indians, how can
    we hope Indians will trust us?'  This when Calcutta was seething
    with excitement, and he was not alone, but with his wife and
    children.  He tried to draw the two nations together in spite of
    the difficulties.  He inherited many sad traditions, and the wave
    of life sweeping over India showed itself in many objectionable
    forms.  He rightly struck down violence, but did not refuse the
    gift of self-government.  He has done what few would do in the
    midst of danger and criticism.  He kept a straight course.
    Flawless justice and perfect courage laid the foundations of
    self-government within the Empire.  Of his own initiative, taking
    full responsibility, he set free the deportees.  A man so strong,
    far-seeing, and quiet, who makes no boast, says little, does much,
    is the best type of English gentleman."


{321}

On the eve of his departure a high official wrote to him: "May I add a
humble tribute to your healing power.  India cried aloud for a healer,
and there is not a man in the British Empire who could have healed
India as you have done."  "Healing" is the appropriate word to describe
the influence of his character.  In spite of the tumult of events he
had succeeded in giving the horse a rest in its gallops, for he
exercised a balancing and moderating power, sweetened the acerbities of
life, and calmed anxieties.  He radiated a simple kindliness, and
accepted criticism, misunderstanding, and set-backs with a smiling face
and an unshaken heart.  Lord Canning in his troubled years of office
declared that he had become "a moral rhinoceros as regards the world at
large."  Minto had the same proof armour, woven not of callousness but
of simplicity.  It is an idle task to compare one Viceroy with another,
for there is little uniformity of conditions.  Minto did not belong to
the school of those who come to India with certain preconceived
policies, or those who have far-reaching ideals wedded to lively
personal ambitions--a combination which is apt to induce hurry and
violence.  If we seek a parallel in temperament it will be found in his
own great-grandfather, or in some figure like Lord Mayo, whom he
resembled in his geniality, his love of sport, and his invincible
sangfroid.  For the successful administrator the _intellectuel_ is not
needed, nor the egoist; a Viceroy should possess the kind of ability
required of a Viceroy, and what this is some sentences of Mr.
Rivett-Carnac's, speaking of Lord Mayo, will show.  "Your clever man is
not what is wanted.  Such a one will probably be full of fads, and will
rub every one up the wrong way in his desire to assert himself and make
himself important, and in doing so will overlook the necessity of
keeping the Government machine working steadily and quietly.  If you
employ a very clever man, the effect will be somewhat the same, as I
have seen it described, as using a sharp pen-knife in cutting the
leaves of your book.  The very sharp blade will run off the line and
commence to cut out curves on its own accord, independent of direction.
What is wanted for the purpose is in the nature of a good, solid, sound
paper-knife, which, working steadily through the folds of the pages,
will do its work honestly and neatly."

{322}

But, if we put Minto's gifts of character as the basis of that
constructive work which consisted in bringing a spirit of harmony out
of discord, we must set beside them the other achievement which was
based upon vigorous powers of mind.  He had to face a great emergency
and devise a remedy to meet it.  The questions of the reforms and the
handling of sedition were really one.  He had to diagnose a widespread
unrest, check with a firm hand its purely mischievous elements, and
relieve what was worthy and reasonable.  He framed a scheme from his
own diagnosis, and that scheme was put into effect; the reforms were
primarily his work, and to him must belong whatever merit or demerit
history may assign to them.  There can be no denying that they met the
immediate crisis.  Minto did not believe in the possibility of a
universally contented India.  The land would continue in travail, for
West and East were drawing close together, and in their meeting lay
endless possibilities of strife.  His task was to legislate for the
present and the immediate future; all beyond that was in the lap of the
gods.  The reforms fulfilled the purpose for which they were framed.
They satisfied the immediate ambition of educated Indians, they checked
the influence of the professional politicians, and for a little they
drowned nationalism in provincial and local sentiment.  But they did
not abolish all the causes of unrest, and in India no system of the
kind could hope for permanence.  The old secret anarchy remained,
weakened but alive, and there was the eternal difficulty--that
education had created, and was creating, a class far larger than the
opportunities of employing it.

In the reforms there were obvious points of danger.  An immovable
executive and an irresponsible legislature do not, according to the
teaching of political philosophy and the lessons of history, make for
harmony.  The appointment to high executive posts of Indians of one
race or creed, would, in a land of racial and religious rivalry,
antagonize those of another race and creed.  These objections were
considered at the time and dismissed, for, however weighty they might
be, they were not final, and certain risks must be taken in all
constitution-making.  Minto had no wish to add a Brahmin bureaucracy to
an English; his aim was simply to remove a barrier to capacity {323}
which he felt to be insulting, and so to pave the way for the
co-operation of the best brains of the two races.  The reforms, again,
must be read in conjunction with his policy towards the ruling princes,
and with his settled determination to stamp out cruelty and crime.  He
was aware of the dark worships of the Hindu pantheon, which might blaze
into a sudden madness--the fires smouldering beneath the lava crust.
But he believed, too, in the common-sense and decency of the great
masses of the Indian people, and while prepared for the worst he sought
to give encouragement to the best.

[Sidenote: "Varieties of untried being"]

All constitutional experiments must in one sense sooner or later fail.
If they are organic things they must be outgrown and superseded.  It is
probably true to say that even before the outbreak of the Great War,
which produced a chemical change so that no constituent was left
unaltered, the reforms were in need of revision--the more as they were
not accompanied by that firmness and consistency in executive
government which Minto had postulated.  Both Viceroy and Secretary of
State deprecated too long a view in such a matter; sufficient unto them
the day, and the day after to-morrow.  Could the two men now look back
from those Elysian Fields which were always in Lord Morley's mind, and
see the course of India, in what light would they regard their efforts?
To Minto there would be certain grounds for satisfaction.  He would
rejoice at the great achievement of India in the War, and in the fact
that at last to Indians had been opened British commissions in the
King's army.  He would not be surprised at the continuance of the
North-West frontier problem, for he had never believed that Britain's
policy there gave any chance of a final settlement.  But both men would
be puzzled, and a little perturbed at the dyarchy of the
Montagu-Chelmsford scheme, and somewhat sceptical of its continuance.
We can imagine Lord Morley quoting some high phrase of Burke's about
"great varieties of untried being," and shrugging his shoulders.  Both
would admit--since they constantly admitted it to each other--that
reform in India had no fixed limits, and that the Great War with its
loud promises of self-determination, accepted literally by many peoples
who had no self to determine, made some bold advance {324} inevitable.
The ironic spirit of _The Dynasts_ has brooded so long over the modern
world that we have ceased to marvel at paradoxes, but a paradox the two
would most certainly consider the present government of India.
Representative government they believed in, but to both responsible
government, even a truncated version of it, would be a startling
thought, for each conceived of India, in Mill's words, as "a kingly
government, free from the control, though strengthened by the support,
of representative institutions."  Minto would be the first to recover
from his surprise; for, since he did not trouble greatly about
theories, a theoretic revolution would shock him the less.  About India
he held the same view as he held about the British Empire, that
progress must come mainly by executive co-operation, and for that
reason he regarded the addition of native members to the councils as
the most potent of the reforms.  But it was always his habit to face
facts, and, had he read in the facts the need for a long stride forward
in India's education in the responsibilities of government, he would
not have shrunk from it.  It is significant that in one of his last
letters to Lord Morley he declared his view that the future problems of
India would be fiscal and economic, matters directly concerning the
livelihood of her people, and that in these native opinion must have a
controlling voice.  He would have assented to any change which promised
a real advance in opportunities for political education, though he
might have had qualms about a system which invited constant deadlocks,
and therefore the revival of the reserved dictatorship of the
Government.

But there was one proviso which he would have made, and in which Lord
Morley would have solemnly joined.  He realized that the real demand in
India was not for irrelevant slices of the British constitution.  The
Indian moderate asked not for democracy, but for Indianization, the
extremist for "national" independence, and though the first could in
large measure be granted, the second was on the facts impossible.  In a
land so remote from true integration the only _national_ government
must be British government.  The status of an autonomous dominion for
all India was, in India's interest, inconceivable.  If one may judge
from his letters, he would have gone far {325} in the direction of
provincial autonomy where there was a homogeneous race to be dealt
with, but he would never have surrendered the right to interfere and
the duty to oversee.  "Blow hot or blow cold as you please," the Nizam
once said to Sir Harcourt Butler, "but never forget your strength."  "I
am bent," the Secretary of State told the Viceroy, "on doing nothing to
loosen the bolts."  We have seen that when Lord Morley had said in a
moment of fatigue that, if reform could not save India, nothing would,
Minto had replied trenchantly that India would not be lost, reform or
no, for in the last resort Britain would fight for her and win.  This
was the fundamental principle of both men--that the immense bulk of the
Indian people cared not a straw for politics, but depended for their
very lives on the continuance of British authority, and that any talk
of giving up India was a mischievous treason to national honour, to
civilization, and to the world's peace.  Always, or at all events for
any period within the forecast of the human mind, Britain must be
responsible for that Indian Empire which she had created out of
conflicting creeds and races, and retain in the last resort the power
of enforcing her commands.  This robust faith was held by Minto and
Lord Morley alike; without it Indian reforms would have seemed to them
no more than a drifting towards the cataract.

[Sidenote: Sir Harcourt Butler's tribute]

As a summary of Minto's viceroyalty a memorandum may be quoted which
Sir Harcourt Butler, the most devoted of his lieutenants, wrote towards
the close of 1919:--


    "To a captivating grace of manner and unerring tact he added a
    peculiar gift of putting one at ease.  He was interested in and
    courteous and considerate to all.  He drew the best out of men
    because he looked for the good in them.  There was nothing forced
    in this.  It seemed natural to him.  Nothing mean or petty could
    live near him for any length of time.

    "He will long be remembered as the joint author of a scheme of
    reforms for internal India, and as the originator of a new policy
    and spirit in the relations between the Government of India and
    native states.  Nothing new is popular in an intensely conservative
    country like India.  Both reforms were criticized {326} at the time
    for going too far, and later for not going far enough.  Both were
    inspired by deep and sincere appreciation of the changes at work in
    India.  No one now questions the wisdom of Lord Minto's policy
    towards native states.  It has been adopted and developed by his
    successors.  As regards the joint reforms, I said publicly at
    Meerut on July 15, 1918, and repeat here:--

    "'You have been told that the Minto-Morley reforms were doomed to
    failure and have failed.  With all respect to those who hold this
    view, I must say that this is not my experience as vice-president
    of the Imperial Legislative Council, as Lieutenant-Governor of
    Burma, and as Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces.  In my
    experience, and this was the expressed opinion of Lord Hardinge,
    the Minto-Morley reforms have been successful.  They have been a
    valuable training to Indian politicians and have prepared them for
    another forward move.  The executive government has been far more
    influenced by the discussions in Council than is popularly
    imagined, and the debates have been maintained at a really high
    level.  Occasionally time has been wasted.  Occasionally feeling
    has run high.  Of what assembly cannot this be said?  I was led to
    believe that in our Legislative Council I should find a spirit of
    opposition and hostility to Government.  I have found, on the
    contrary, a responsive and reasonable spirit.  Indeed, I go so far
    as to say that it is the very success of the Minto-Morley reforms
    that makes me most hopeful in regard to the future course of
    reform.'

    "This also I may say.  As a reformer Lord Minto showed not once but
    on many occasions high courage, patience, and clearness of vision.
    He was as absolutely straight in his public as in his private life.
    He took large-minded and generous views of things.  He met
    formidable difficulties with a rare sense of duty.  'If I resign,
    following the action of my predecessor,' he once said to me, 'the
    office of Viceroy will be lowered for ever.'  He never hesitated to
    do what he thought the right thing....

    {327}

    "Working under him I was struck by his sagacity and sense of
    justice.  He reminded me of an elephant, which will not tread on
    rotten ground.  Once he had harvested the facts of the case in his
    mind his judgment was seldom wrong.  There was no limit to the
    trouble that he would take to master facts when any question of
    justice was concerned.  Again, more than any one under whom I have
    served, he had the gift of seeing 'the other fellow's point of
    view.'  'Think how that letter will read at the other end,' he
    often used to say in correcting the abruptness of official
    communications.  He was a great sportsman, and up to the last he
    admired a spirit of adventure.  He used to quote some lines on the
    spirit of adventure written by my uncle (Arthur Butler)[2] at a
    time when people wrote to the press about the dangers of
    mountaineering.  He always supported frontier officers or officers
    in distant places who took reasonable risks.

    "Looking back on Lord Minto as statesman, administrator, gentleman,
    sportsman, man of the world, and constant kind friend, I can truly
    say of him:--

  "'He was a man, take him for all in all,
  I shall not look upon his like again.'"


II

[Sidenote: India's regret]

As the time of leave-taking approached there were hourly proofs of the
regret of every class in the community.  The rotation of Viceroys has
always been a puzzle to the Indian native, who looks for permanence in
his rulers.  Said one tiny heir to a native state: "Why is the Lat
Sahib going to leave us?  Is it because he wants the Gods to let him
live on a great stone horse in the Maidan like the other Lat Sahibs?
The great Queen asked the Gods to let her come to India too, and she
sits and watches over them from a chair."  One Indian tradesman
journeyed from Hyderabad to say farewell, announcing that the "Viceroy
has sprinkled water on the people after the {328} fire which he found."
The Maharaja of Darbhunga, the greatest of the Bengal zemindars, Lady
Minto's diary records, "as he was leaving the room, flung himself on
his knees, removed his cap, and begged Rolly to bless him."

In October Simla saw a succession of farewell dinners--a Scots dinner
on the 11th, and on the 14th a banquet at the United Service Club,
where Minto took occasion to review the years of his Viceroyalty.  It
was almost the best of his speeches, because it contained not only a
just summary of his work, but his whole political creed and philosophy
of life.  One passage may well become a part of the unwritten manual of
British administrative wisdom, worthy to rank with Dalhousie's famous
saying that "to fear God and to fear nothing else is the first
principle even of worldly success."


    "The public, especially the public at home, not fully acquainted
    with Indian difficulties, has, perhaps not unnaturally, been unable
    to distinguish between the utterly different problems and risks
    that have confronted us.  The necessity for dealing with reasonable
    hopes has been lost sight of, while every outrage that has occurred
    has been taken as indicative of the general state of India.  And
    throughout its time of trouble every action of the Government has
    been subjected to microscopic examination, to a running fire of
    newspaper criticism, to questions in Parliament, to the advice of
    travellers who have returned home to write books on India after a
    few weeks' sojourn in the country--while sensational headlines have
    helped to fire the imagination of the man in the street, who in his
    turn has cried out for 'strong measures,' regardless of the meaning
    of his words, and for a 'strong man' to enforce them.  Gentlemen, I
    have heard a good deal of 'strong men' in my time, and I can only
    say that my experience in all our anxious days in India has taught
    me _that the strongest man is he who is not afraid of being called
    weak_."


It was the last occasion when he would meet the representatives of the
public services, and he could not leave his old colleagues without
emotion.


{329}


    "I have told you my story--I have told it to you who have been my
    fellow-workers and comrades in troublous times, who have helped me
    to steer the ship through many dangerous straits--the men of the
    great services which have built up the British Raj.  We may perhaps
    at times have thought differently as to the course to be
    steered--it could not be otherwise--but you have stood behind me
    loyally, and I thank you.  I leave India knowing full well that you
    will perpetuate the great traditions of British rule--perhaps with
    few opportunities of much public applause, but with the inestimable
    satisfaction that you are doing your duty."


[Sidenote: The last scenes]

On 16th November Minto held his last review in Calcutta, and told
General Mahon that "it had revived the memories of service in the field
in the years gone by and the wish that it would all come over again."
That night there was a banquet at the Turf Club, when Minto recalled
his early racing career in a speech which has already been quoted,[3]
and two days later a great dinner at the Calcutta Club, when Mr. Sinha
proposed his health and he replied by pleading for the abolition of a
foolish race barrier in ordinary social relations: "National and racial
differences of thought and ways of life there must be, but a good
fellow is a good fellow all the world over."

On the 21st the guns announced the arrival of the new Viceroy, and two
days later, a little after noon, the Mintos left Calcutta.  I take the
description of the scene from Lady Minto's journal:--


    "I tried to feel as stony as possible, but tearful eyes, the
    pressure of the hand, and a 'God bless you' are enough to upset
    one.  A great many Indian friends came to bid us farewell--the
    Maharajas of Gwalior, Kashmir, Bikanir, Benares, Jodpur, Kurupam,
    Gidhour, Burdwar, Darbhunga, Vizianagram, the Prince of Arcot, and
    crowds more whose names I can't cope with.  By 12.15 the halls were
    packed, and Rolly and I took twenty minutes, literally fighting our
    way through the people.  I can never describe the enthusiasm....
    At last we reached the top of {330} the marble steps, and walked
    for the last time over the red carpet between the two lines of the
    splendid Bodyguard.  The Hardinges stood at the foot of the steps,
    and we both bade them a most cordial farewell ... and I made them
    each a curtsey and wished them good luck.  He seemed quite
    overcome, and it really was a moving sight, the enormous escort and
    a guard of honour, and the steps thronged by this wonderful
    concourse of people....  Scindia and Bikanir pressed our hands in
    both their own, but they couldn't speak.  We passed through the
    gates where the band was stationed playing 'Auld Lang Syne.'...  As
    we drove through the streets packed with spectators, cheer after
    cheer rang out, and occasionally I caught sight of a face I knew at
    some window or on a balcony.  Howrah Bridge was beautifully
    decorated with palms, as was also the railway station; a few
    officials met us there, and I found my carriage a bower of flowers.
    Amid cheers we steamed slowly out of the station, and sat down with
    a sigh of relief, but with very mixed feelings of sorrow and
    gladness.  A wonderful chapter in our lives is ended.  The guns
    boomed out our departure, and announced the installation of the new
    Viceroy."


They arrived at Bombay on the afternoon of the 25th, and after a final
reception by the native community at Convocation Hall, where Mr.
Gokhale proposed their healths, they drove to the Apollo Bundur.  There
stood Sir Pertab Singh, with tears rolling down his cheeks, and
speechless with emotion.  At sunset they embarked in the R.I.M. steamer
_Dufferin_, and moved away from the shores of India.


    "The evening was a gorgeous one.  The sky was a deep orange, and
    the glow was reflected on the sea.  The dark spires and buildings
    of Bombay stood out in sharp relief.  Then came the twilight, and
    along the coast the lights blazed out in a myriad twinkling eyes,
    turning the darkened mass into a city of fire.  A great calm
    pervaded the atmosphere, and we sat on in the ever-increasing gloom
    till the beacons of flame from the revolving lighthouses faded away
    like stars in the heavens.  Nature seemed to {331} understand our
    mood, and I could not have wished to bid a more perfect farewell to
    the shores of India.  The East has cast her magic spell around us,
    and nothing can ever fascinate me quite in the same way again."


[Sidenote: Looking backward]

In every such leave-taking there must be both solemnity and sadness.
Of the latter the smallest part was the laying down of great office and
becoming again one of the crowd, for, as Walter Savage Landor has
written, "external power can affect those only who have none
intrinsically."  But there was the parting with old friends, the
unlacing of armour, the sense that a great epoch in one's life was
over.  There was the bidding farewell to a staff of which any Viceroy
might have been proud, a staff perfect in its official capacity, and
working harmoniously, unselfishly, and devotedly for the success of the
rgime.  Yet mingled with regrets was that knowledge of a thing well
completed which is the highest of mortal pleasures.  Lady Minto had
been the organizer of great enterprises of charity and social welfare;
she had, in the words of the Aga Khan, "humanized the homes of which
she had been for five years the chatelaine;" she had made warm friends
in every class and province; and she had been to her husband a constant
source of wisdom and sympathy.[4]  Minto himself left India with his
work honoured by all competent to judge, and, though he had had his
troubles with the Government at home, he could not complain of neglect
and frustration--unlike {332} Dalhousie who, crippled, heart-broken,
and dying, limped on board a wretched cockle-boat of six hundred tons,
which was all that England could spare for one of the greatest of her
servants.  He left with the priceless boon of a quiet mind.  Patient
and deliberate in arriving at a conclusion, he had no regrets for a
single decision.  He told his wife, as the Bombay lights sank astern,
that, had he those five years to live again, he would do nothing
differently, that he wished no single act undone, no single word
unspoken.


When the Mintos reached Port Said, they found there, to their delight,
Lord Kitchener, who had travelled in haste from Smyrna to meet them.
At Dover they were met by Dunlop Smith, and at Victoria by Sir Arthur
Bigge, Lord Morley, Lord Crewe, Lord Roberts, and a great concourse of
family and friends.  Minto was greeted on his arrival by a letter from
the Lord Mayor of London offering him the freedom of the City.  Four
days later they both lunched at Buckingham Palace, and Minto was
invested with the Order of the Garter.

He was eager to get back to his Border home, which in all his Indian
years had been rarely absent from his thoughts.  There was no heather
in mid-December to bury his head in, but he had a wish to complete the
circuit of his journey where his great-grandfather had failed.[5]
Among the papers of the first Lord Minto there is a pathetic bundle,
containing the plans for his home-coming; over this his widow had
written the words "Poor fools!"  The fates were kinder to his
descendant.  At Hawick there was a guard of honour from the King's Own
Scottish Borderers and the Lothians and Border Horse, and the provost
and town council were on the platform.  Denholm, the little village at
the park gates, was ablaze with lights and decorations, and in a
procession, accompanied by flaring torches and pipers, the party moved
up the long avenue to Minto House, where the oldest tenant presented an
address and he heard again the well-loved Border speech.  Above the
doorway were the words "Safe in," a phrase from his own kindly pastoral
world.  The far-wandering Ulysses had come back to Ithaca.



[1] The Begum of Bhopal, on receiving a letter written by the Viceroy
himself, was so elated that she ordered her troops to parade with the
letter held at the saluting point, while twenty-one guns were fired in
its honour.

[2] See page 19.

[3] See page 28.

[4] A verse or two may be quoted of a poem addressed to Lady Minto
which appeared in the _Empire_ in February 1910:--

  "Lady, you at your husband's side for years
    An Empire's burden like a queen have borne,
  You have found smiles for them that joy, and tears
    For them that mourn.

  You, when the assassin's deadly aim had failed,
    No sign of terror to our eyes displayed;
  And in your task at danger never quailed,
    Regal and unafraid....

  We have no stars nor jewels to bestow,
    Nor honours that shall make your name to live;
  But what of love and gratitude we owe,
    That we can give.

  A people whom your care has helped shall be
    For ever mindful of a noble name,
  And in their hearts enthroned by memory
    Shall live your fame!"

[5] See page xvi.




{333}

CHAPTER XIII

CONCLUSION

[Sidenote: 1911]

It has always been the fashion for a British proconsul on his return
home to give a public account of his stewardship, and in this case the
occasion selected was the presentation of the freedom of the City of
London.  On February 23, 1911, the ceremony took place in the presence
of many friends and colleagues, such as Lord Crewe, Lord Morley, Lord
Midleton, Lord Cromer, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Strathcona, Mr. Asquith,
and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.  Minto in his speech carefully avoided
matters of contention, but in his sketch of his years of office he
reiterated the principles which he had followed--the need in India of
"separating the sheep from the goats," of following a dual policy of
administrative reform and the enforcement of disciplinary law.  He
thought it right to emphasize the necessity for an elastic
administration on the part of Britain in the new era which was
beginning.


    "It is an era in which I firmly believe the Government of India--in
    India--will continue to grow in strength, in response to Indian
    sympathy and support.  But it is an era also in which its relations
    with the central Government of the Empire will require to be
    directed with a very light hand.  The Government of India is, of
    course, entirely subservient to the Secretary of State, and must be
    so in respect to the recognition of political principles and the
    inauguration of broad lines of policy.  But the daily
    administration of the Government of the country can only be carried
    on efficiently and safely by those to whom long and anxious
    experience has given some insight into the complex and mysterious
    surroundings of the people {334} committed to their charge.  India
    cannot be safely governed from home.  Any attempt so to govern it
    in these days of rapid communication, when collusion between
    political parties in India and political parties in England is not
    difficult, and when consequently the Government of India may be
    harassed by political influences to which it should never be
    exposed, can only end in disaster.  No one admires more than I do
    the generous impulses of the people of England in respect to the
    just government of their fellow-subjects, of whatever race, in
    every part of the Empire; but Western modes of treatment are not
    necessarily applicable to Eastern grievances.  No Viceroy, however
    eloquent he may be with his pen, can portray to the Secretary of
    State thousands of miles away the picture which lies before him.
    He can, perhaps, describe its rugged outlines, but the
    ever-changing lights and shades, which must so often influence his
    instant action, he cannot reproduce.  He and his Council can alone
    be safely entrusted with the daily conduct of affairs in the vast
    territories they are appointed to administer."


At the luncheon which followed Lord Morley paid a final tribute to his
colleague.  "Lord Minto could reflect with confidence that he had left
behind him in India high esteem, large general regard, and warm
good-will.  The great feudatories and native princes had found in him a
genial, sincere, and unaffected good-will.  The Mohammedans respected
and liked him.  The Hindus respected and liked him.  The political
leaders, though neither Lord Minto nor the Secretary of State agreed in
all they desired, had perfect confidence in his constancy and good
faith.  The Civil Service, not always averse from criticism, admired
his courage, patience, and unruffled equanimity.  He really got on
consummately well with everybody with whom he had commerce, from the
Amir in the fastnesses of Afghanistan down to the imperious autocrat
who for the moment was Secretary of State in the fastnesses of
Whitehall.  Having come back from the banks of the Ganges, he found on
the banks of the Thames a cordial appreciation and generous recognition
of his fulfilment of {335} a great national duty.  His predecessor,
Lord Curzon, a man of powerful mind and eloquent tongue, had said that
a man who could bring together the hearts of sundered peoples was a
greater benefactor than the conqueror of kingdoms.  Lord Minto was
entitled to that praise."  The same evening he wrote to his friend: "I
cannot go to rest to-night without a word of congratulation.  It ends a
chapter in the day's fine ceremony that is infinitely to your honour
and credit, and I have a right to use language of this sort, because I
do really know all the difficulties with which you have had to contend,
and which you have so manfully overcome.  I shall always be proud of
your kind words about me.  We have had a great campaign together, and I
believe more than ever to-day, when you have been in my visual eye,
that we have been good comrades and shall remain good friends.  May you
and Lady Minto have long and unclouded days."

[Sidenote: Visit to Corsica]

The days were not destined to be long.  Minto was now a man of
sixty-five, and with his marvellous constitution and his vigorous
habits might well have looked forward to a hale old age.  But his
labours in India had worn down even his iron strength, and taken a
score of years from his life.  After the Mansion House ceremony he went
for three weeks to Corsica, and visited the house in Bastia where the
first Lord Minto had lived in 1794.  Lady Minto describes in her
letters the high rooms and windows overlooking the sea, and the garden
full of orange blossom.  "The whole place to our imagination seemed
peopled with Sir Gilbert, Lady Elliot, Nelson, Hood, and Jervis.  It
was wonderful to feel that after all these years Lord Minto's
descendant should have discovered this remote house and should be
gazing at the same objects that had been so familiar to his
great-grandfather....  We called on the descendant of Pozzo di Borgo,
Sir Gilbert's old friend, and saw the full-length picture of his
ancestor, a smaller replica of which hangs at Minto.  The present Pozzo
told us that the name of Elliot was still remembered in Corsica."
After that came spring in the Borders, a happy and peaceful season, in
which the only noteworthy event was the presentation of the freedom of
the City of Edinburgh in April.

The season in London was a succession of dinners, {336} private and
official.  At the dinner of the Central Asian Society Minto declared
his belief that Indian industries were entitled to a reasonable
protection, a speech which alarmed both Lord Morley and Mr. Austen
Chamberlain.  "Morley afraid for free trade," the journal notes,
"Austen apprehensive for Manchester--yet both admitting that I had
spoken the truth."  At the Asquiths' he met Louis Botha, whom he
described as "most manly and attractive."  The Mounted Infantry dinner
gave him the keenest pleasure, for his old hobby was still close to his
heart.  "The toast of my health was enthusiastically welcomed, and
things were said which I treasure more than I can say, and shall never
forget.  It took me back to the old days, and I longed to have them
over again."  He presided at the Newspaper Fund dinner, when Lord
Kitchener, who was not prone to the dithyrambic, gave eloquent
expression to his affection:--


    "Lord Minto needs no words of praise from me to strengthen his
    position in the hearts of his country-men, for I venture to say
    that there are few living men whose services to the Empire have
    been greater and more valuable than those of the subject of my
    toast.  Two great countries can bear testimony to his
    administrative genius, his modesty, his industry, and, above all,
    to his knowledge of human nature and his warm sympathy with all
    those various races it has fallen to his lot to rule.  It is to
    these qualities that the great success of his government in such
    different surroundings as Canada and India has been mainly due.
    But if I was asked what quality above all others I would ascribe to
    Lord Minto, it is that of pluck; not mere physical pluck, although
    of that he has shown innumerable proofs, but the greater quality of
    moral pluck.  There comes always to a public man a time when the
    right course is not the most popular course; in such cases I have
    never known or heard of Lord Minto weighing popularity in the scale
    against what he has considered right and just: and I venture to say
    that this quality is one without which no man can achieve true
    greatness as an administrator....

    {337}

    "I can speak with perhaps more intimate knowledge of his career as
    a soldier, as we more than once served in the same campaign.  I
    feel sure that, had he stuck to military life, he would have
    attained the highest honours my profession could give him, though
    perhaps not such a distinguished position as he now holds.  Lord
    Minto in his military career was thorough and no medal hunter or
    seeker after a soldier's bubble reputation; and the medals he wears
    were always won in the hardest and most arduous services in each
    campaign....

    "During his tenure of office as Governor-General of Canada and
    Viceroy of India the world closely followed his policy, and as one
    who was nearly associated with him in India, and perhaps to a
    certain extent behind the veil, I can only say that my admiration
    of his able statesmanship in somewhat difficult times was
    unbounded.  Few Viceroys have been able to impress so favourably
    the Princes of India, and in his sympathetic treatment of the
    natives, as well as of the officers and men of the Indian Army, he
    obtained and retained the affectionate regard and esteem of the
    whole country."


[Sidenote: The Parliament Bill]

In June Minto received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at
Cambridge, his first visit to those precincts since he had taken his
bachelor's degree in racing kit forty-five years before.  At the
Coronation in that month he was one of the four peers who held the
panoply over the King.  In July he saw Eton win the Ladies' Plate at
Henley in record time, with his younger son Esmond as cox, and a week
later was in command of the veterans in the review at Holyrood during
the Royal visit.  It was the year of the acrimonious debates on the
Parliament Bill, and in August the measure reached the House of Lords,
when Lord Crewe announced that, should it be defeated, the King had
given the Prime Minister his promise to create as many new peers as
might be necessary to pass it into law.  Minto, little as he liked the
bill, liked the alternative still less, and having no taste for
melodramatic intransigence, voted with the Government--a proceeding
which brought him a deluge of letters, {338} half of which described
him as a traitor and half as a patriot.

The autumn and winter were spent at Minto, broken by a visit to Eton in
December to unveil a portrait of Lord Roberts.  He was settling down
into the routine of a country gentleman--shooting, an occasional day
with hounds, dinners at the Jed Forest Club, the management of his
estates--and was induced to accept the convenership of the county of
Roxburgh.  But the peace of Minto was impaired by an enormous
correspondence with friends in India, for an ex-Viceroy cannot divest
himself of matters which for five years have monopolized his life.
With the vagaries of home politics he was not greatly troubled, but
Indian policy deeply concerned him.  He was alarmed at the proposal to
reverse the partition of Bengal, he distrusted the wisdom of moving the
capital to Delhi, and, above all, he felt that the association of these
steps with the coming visit of the King-Emperor to India was to put
upon the Sovereign the direct responsibility for a dubious scheme.  In
February 1912 he went to London for the Indian debate in the House of
Lords, where he supported Lord Curzon in his criticism of the Delhi
move.  His speech was in a high degree tactful and wise, and earned
general commendation as that of a man who spoke only from a sense of
duty and with none of the vanity which has sometimes made ex-Viceroys
critical of the doings of their successors.

[Sidenote: 1912-14]

Minto had been elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, defeating
Lord Crewe, and in January 1912 he was the guest of honour at a
University dinner.  The election gave him peculiar pleasure, for if the
Borders were the cradle, Edinburgh had been the nursery of his
forbears.  In March he was elected to the Athenum Club under Rule II.
"I don't think," his brother Arthur wrote, "I have ever seen so much
unanimity at an election."  Meantime, in February, "Cat" Richardson had
died.  Minto saw him just before the end, and his journal records his
sense of loss.


    "My oldest friend gone.  I cannot say what a wrench it is--the link
    with so many recollections, and with a life which seems now to have
    belonged to {339} another world.  We had been friends ever since we
    went to Cambridge.  A change seems to have come over my world, and
    it is not the same now he has gone out of it.  He was a splendid
    fellow, by far the best and most polished rider I ever saw, and not
    only very excellent at all games, but possessed of brilliant
    natural ability....  In any line of life he might have taken up he
    would have held a foremost place among his fellow-men."


In the summer he was much in London, and a good deal at a house he had
taken on the river near Windsor.  The autumn at Minto was
restful--parties of Indian and military friends, much shooting and
hunting, and the modest cares of the estate.  No man who has been
blessed with a sound body will admit readily that its forces can fail,
and as late as March 1913 we find hunting notes in the diary like this:
"I got a most abominable toss.  I hope I am not losing my power of
gripping.  Certainly it was a detestable place, and I was at the top of
the hunt...."  But presently it became clear that his ill-health was no
trivial thing, that his strenuous Indian years were inexorably
demanding their price.  The journal grows scrappier, and it is only the
passing of a friend that moves him to an entry.  Such was Lord
Wolseley's death in March--"By far our greatest soldier; and perhaps
the greatest service which he has rendered to this country has been the
example of his own personality."  The last sentence would be a not
inappropriate epitaph for the writer himself.

We need not linger over the year during which his body was dying of its
wounds, for to those who knew his eager vitality it is hard to think of
Minto on a sick-bed.[1] From April 1913 he was continuously unwell.  He
recovered to {340} some extent, and in the autumn was able to welcome a
few friends at Minto.  But with the opening of 1914 he became gravely
ill, and on the first day of March the end came.  Since a death in
battle was denied him, it was the passing that he would have chosen,
for he drew his last breath in his ancient home with his family around
him.  When he received his last Communion he said, "I have tried to be
loyal to my God and my King," and his dying words were faltered
messages of love to the wife and children who had so warmed and lit his
house of life.

He was buried in the little churchyard of Minto, which looks towards
the blue hills of Teviotdale.  The press proclaimed the achievements of
his public life, but it is by the simple, homely, often broken messages
of condolence received by his wife that the magnitude of the affection
he inspired may be judged.  Lord Kitchener, always chary of
superlatives, called him simply "the best, most gallant, and able
administrator that England ever produced," and a brother-officer wrote:
"I do not believe that any man ever passed away, or ever will do so,
leaving more behind him who will from the very bottom of their hearts
say 'Dear Minto.'"  That is not how men commonly write of the esteemed
and the successful; it is more like the lament of youth for youth.


Minto died on the very eve of the Great War.  He was by training and
taste a soldier, and that profession was always dearer to his heart
than any other, but fate had sent him nothing but minor campaigns.  It
is sometimes given to a son to realize the ambition of the father, and
the little boy whom we have seen in a great sun-helmet touching the
proffered sword-hilt of the old Raja of Nabha and promising when he
grew up to protect that state, was destined to a part in the sternest
test of manhood which the world has known.  Once, at Agra, the Begum of
Bhopal took Esmond's hands in hers and told him that he would be a
great lord sahib one day and do much for the British {341} Empire.  The
prophecy came true, for he gave his all for his country, and in a brief
time fulfilled the ends of life.  At Eton he had coxed the Eight for
three years, and had lived in the sunshine of that affection which
young men give to one who combines infinite humour and high spirits
with modesty and kindliness.  On the outbreak of war he joined the
Lothians and Border Horse, and presently, a boy scarcely out of his
teens, he was in France as A.D.C. to General Geoffrey Fielding, then
commanding the Guards Division.  He could not endure to remain a staff
officer, so in June 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, he joined the
Scots Guards, and in October was gazetted to the second battalion.

[Sidenote: Esmond]

There never was a happier soldier or one more clearly born to the trade
of arms.  His gallantry was remarkable even among gallant men, he was
supremely competent in his work, and in the darkest days his debonair
and gentle spirit made a light around him.  Alike over his men and his
brother-officers he cast a spell, which was far more than a mere
infection of cheerfulness, for, as one wrote, he made other people
ashamed of all that was ignoble.  He was given some of the roughest
material for his platoon, because the most troublesome old soldier
became docile under his influence.  His men made an idol of him, and
would have followed him blindly to any hazard.  When one of them went
on leave his comrades used to commission him to bring back some little
present for Esmond.  Once, when volunteers were called for a raid, only
a few came forward, till it became known that Esmond was to be in
command, when the whole platoon volunteered and most of the company.
"When the war is over and these Scotsmen return to their homes," an
officer wrote, "they will tell their people of the wonderful boy who
came to them in France, and who showed them what could be achieved by
goodness."

Courage and devotion such as his could scarcely escape the nemesis
which in those years overtook the flower of youth.  The end came during
the Third Battle of Ypres, when he was selected to command his company
in the trenches.  Shortly after midnight on August 6, 1917, there was
an engagement between pickets, and while reconnoitring the situation
Esmond was shot through {342} the chest by a chance bullet.  A little
later he died in the clearing-station, peacefully and without pain.  In
a short space he had lived greatly, and had left an influence which
will fructify in the lives of those who knew him long after the memory
of the war is dim.  The noble monument which commemorates him at Minto
stands near the tall cross which marks his father's grave.  It is the
memorial of two soldiers fallen in arms that meets the dawn coming over
Cheviot from the eastern seas.


A life of conspicuous public achievement, spent largely in the handling
of great affairs, belongs even in its own day to history, and must be
assessed by other canons than personal friendship.  The statesman plays
for high stakes, and is judged by a high tribunal.  In the service of
the State two notable types stand out, each with its share of merits
and deficiencies.  The first is the man of searching and introspective
intellect, who has behind him the treasures of the world's culture.
Such an one has studied and meditated upon the whole history of
politics, he is steeped in good literature, his mind by constant
application has become a tempered weapon, so that easily and
competently it attacks whatever body of knowledge presents itself.  A
new problem to him has familiar elements, for it is related to kindred
problems in the past, and he has in his memory large store of maxims
and precedents.  For certain matters of statecraft such a mind will be
of superlative value--matters principally where exact science, whether
legal, economic, or constitutional, is the prime factor.  Imagination,
too, and the balance which a wide culture gives, will rarely be absent.
In politics the pure intellect has its own splendid functions which
only folly will decry.  But there is a danger that a man of this type,
though he may be the parent of ideas which have an enduring power over
humanity, will fail in the day-to-day business of government.  He may
live too much in the world of books and thought to learn the ways of
the average man, so that he lacks the gift of personal leadership.  He
may speak a tongue, like Burke, too high and noble for the commonplace
business he has to conduct; he may fall into the snare of intellectual
arrogance and excessive subtlety, so that, like Shelburne {343} or
George Canning, his very brilliance breeds distrust; or he may be
betrayed into an impractical idealism which beats its wings in the
void.  If he miss the human touch, his place is in the library and not
in the council or the field, for, though he may move the future world
by his thought, his personality will leave his contemporaries cold.

[Sidenote: Minto's central talent]

In the other type the human touch is the dominant gift.  The second man
will always be a leader, but he will lead by character and not by mind.
He has a large masculine common sense, an accurate notion of what can
be achieved in an imperfect world, a fine and equable temper, good
humour, patience, and an honest opportunism.  His very foibles will be
a source of strength; his qualities and tastes will be exactly
comprehended by everybody; he will be popular, because no one will feel
in his presence the uncomfortable sense of intellectual inferiority.
Lord Palmerston might be taken as an instance, but a better is Lord
Althorp, who largely carried the Reform Act of 1832 by his popularity.
That "most honest, frank, true, and stout-hearted of God's creatures,"
as Lord Jeffrey called him, had the foremost influence in political
life of any man of his generation, and he won it not by great
knowledge, for he had little, or by great dialectical powers, for he
had none, but by the atmosphere of integrity, unselfishness, and
humanity which he diffused around him.  To such a leader England will
always respond, for he has the characteristic virtues of her people.
But he has also their characteristic faults.  He is without a creed in
the larger sense; he is incapable of the long view and the true
perspective, for he has no appreciation of principles; and in complex
matters he will be too simple and rough-and-ready to meet the needs of
the case.  He may serve his day well enough with hand-to-mouth
expedients, but he will lay down no lasting foundation for posterity.

Such are the two extremes in talents and temperament.  A just mixture
is needed in the work of governing, but it is proper that the second
should have the larger share.  The right character is more essential
than the right mind; or, to put it more exactly, the right disposition
will succeed, even though the intellectual equipment be moderate,
whereas high intellectual power, not conjoined with the requisite
character, will assuredly fail.  Minto, as we have {344} seen, had the
normal education of his class and no more; he had not, like Lord
Morley, many chambers in his memory stored with theory and knowledge.
But he had what was more important for his task, a strong natural
intelligence, not easily befogged by subtleties, an intelligence which
had a notable power of cutting clean to the root of a problem.  He had
a _flair_ for the essential, which was in itself an intellectual gift,
not indeed working by complex processes of ratiocination, but simply
the result of a strong mind accustomed for long to exercise itself
vigorously on practical affairs.  We see it in Canada--his instant
perception of the proper sphere of the Governor-General, his wise
appreciation of the Alaskan tangle, his infallible constitutional
probity.  We see it in India--his diagnosis of the unrest, his
understanding of the complex interplay of creeds and races, his
instinct as to when to relax and when to tighten the rein, his doctrine
of the true relation of Secretary of State and Viceroy.  We see it in
his view of the development of the British Empire--his ready assent to
the principle of colonial nationalism, his early realization that the
hope of the future lay not in legislative federation but in an
executive alliance.  We speak of a _flair_, but let us remember that
such a _flair_ is no blind instinct, no lucky guess, but the
consequences of reasoning none the less close and cogent because it is
not formally set out.  He judged calmly and correctly because his
powers of mind were strong, and in no way weakened by that theoretic
distraction which often besets the professed _intellectuel_.

Such talents are inestimable in the business of life, and they are
essentially the talents of the British people--the landowner, the
merchant, the plain citizen; that is why we have always had so rich a
reservoir to draw on for the administration of the country and the
Empire.  When raised to a high power, the result is some great
achievement, like the settlement of Egypt and the union of South
Africa.  Both Cromer and Louis Botha had this gift for simplifying the
complex, and by concentrating on the essential bringing order out of
confusion.  They, like Minto, made no pretensions to academic
superiority; their principles were a sober deduction from facts, and
their brilliance was revealed not in dazzling theories or glittering
{345} words but in the solid structure which they built.  Their
qualities of mind won them confidence, because they were always
comprehensible, the qualities of the ordinary man on the heroic scale.
Much the same may be said of Minto.  He had the endowments of the best
kind of country gentleman raised to a high power, and it may fairly be
argued that in the art of government these endowments are the most
valuable which the State can command for its service--the more valuable
because they are not rare and exotic growths, but the staple of the
national genius.

[Sidenote: The spell of his character]

Character plays the major part in the life of action, and Minto's we
have seen revealed in a variety of testing circumstances.  A nature
always modest, generous, and dutiful was broadened and toughened by his
early life on the turf.  The career of a gentleman-jockey has doubtless
its drawbacks, but it is a school of certain indisputable virtues.  A
man starts on a level with others and has to strive without favour.  He
learns to take chances coolly, to cultivate steady nerves and the power
of rapid decision; and he acquires in the process a rude stoicism.  He
meets human nature of every sort in the rough, and learns to judge his
fellows by other standards than the conventional.  Such a man may be a
philistine but he will rarely be a fool, and Minto was preserved from
the hardness and narrowness of the ordinary sportsman by his liberal
education, the cultivated traditions of his family, and his perpetual
interest in the arts of politics and war.  Physically he was handsomely
endowed by nature, for apart from great good looks he had perfect
health and an amazing vitality, so that he was always eager for work
and adventure.  Nor had he any foibles or eccentricities of temper.  He
looked on the world cheerfully and sanely, wholly untormented by
egotism, with a ready sense of humour--even of boyish fun, and also
with the modest soldierly confidence of one who could forget himself in
his task.

All who came in contact with him fell under the spell of his simple
graciousness, for he could not have been discourteous had he tried.
But those who saw much of him soon realized that his charm of manner
was only the index of an inner graciousness of soul.  This deeper charm
sprang from two impressions which he left on all who had to deal with
him.  One was of unhesitating bravery.  It was {346} inconceivable that
under any circumstances he should be afraid, or should hesitate to do
what he believed to be right.  The physical side was the least of it,
for most men of his antecedents have that kind of courage; far rarer
and more impressive was his moral fortitude.  In Canada he could oppose
all those whose esteem he most valued in a matter where an imperial
officer and the local Government came into conflict; in India he could
shape a course in direct opposition to the prejudices of his own
military and sporting worlds, and choose in the pursuit of his duty to
earn the imputation of weakness.  The other impression was of a
profound goodness--honour as hard as stone, and mercifulness as plain
as bread.  Deep in his nature lay an undogmatic religion, a simple
trust in the wisdom and beneficence of God, and in the faith which he
had learned in his childhood.  It was a soldier's creed, unsullied by
doubt, and it gave him both fearlessness and tenderness; though far
enough from the rugged Calvinism of Dalhousie, it had the same moral
inspiration.  His assessment of values in life had the justness which
comes only from a sense of what is temporal and what is eternal, and at
the same time this clear-sightedness was mellowed always by his love of
human nature.  He judged himself by austere standards, but the rest of
mankind with abundant charity.

Few men have had a happier and fuller life, which was indeed his due,
for he had a supreme talent for living.  An adventurous youth, a middle
age of high distinction, a delightful family circle, innumerable
attached friends, a temper which warmed the world around him--the gods
gave their gifts in ample measure.  Looking back upon his career, it is
notable how little in essentials he changed.  The man who smoked out a
gambling den at Cambridge was the same man who put down his foot about
the Punjab colonies.  Nor did the boy in him ever pass, for at whatever
age he had died he would have died young.  He had indeed to the full
the two strains which we have seen in his race--the speed and fire of
the old Liddesdale Elliots and the practical sagacity and balance of
the Whig lords of Minto.  It is a combination that is characteristic of
the Borders, which were never prone to a narrow fanaticism, and which
rarely lost a certain genial {347} tolerance and a gift for
mirthfulness and the graces of life.  Of this the greatest of
Borderers, Sir Walter Scott, is an example, and Minto had something of
the same central wisdom, combined with the same ready ear for the fife
and clarion.  The union makes for happiness and for achievement, and is
perhaps the best that can be found in the "difficult but not desperate"
life of man.

          "Blest are those
  Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled."



[1] Minto in his illness often referred to some lines by Professor
Blackie, which he declared contained his confession of faith:--

  "Creeds and Confessions!  High Church or the Low?
    I cannot say; but you would vastly please us,
  If with some pointed Scripture you could show
    To which of these belonged the Saviour Jesus,
  I think to all or none: not curious creeds
    Or ordered forms of churchly rule He taught,
  But soul of love that blossomed into deeds
    With human good and human blessing fraught.

  On me nor Priest, nor Presbyter, nor Pope,
    Bishop nor Dean may stamp a party name;
  But Jesus, with His largely human scope,
    The service of my human life may claim.
  Let prideful priests do battle about creeds,
    The Church is mine that does most Christlike deeds."




{349}

INDEX


Abdur Rahman, 53

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph (Lord Dunfermline), 3

Afghan War, the, 45-53

Afghanistan, xvi, 211, 225, 226, 227, 229, 250, 251, 259-61, 268, 270,
280

Aga Khan, the, 243, 288, 331

Alaskan Question, the, 167-73

Ale, river, 13

Althorp, Lord, 343

Alverstone, Lord (Sir Richard Webster), 15, 90, 172, 173

Arabi, 67

Ardagh, Sir John, 55

Argyll, Duke of, 112

Armour, Mr. Justice, 172

Arundel, Sir A. T., 240

Ashburnham, Harriet Lady, 44 (_n._)

Astley, Sir J., 25

Asquith, Mr. H. H., 109, 273, 280, 307, 333

Aylesworth, Mr. A. B., 172


Balfour, Earl of (Mr. A. J. Balfour), 88, 113, 210, 219, 285

Baroda, the Gaekwar of, 242

Bartholomew the Englishman, x

Batoche, 81, 189, 193

Behawalpur, 217

Bentinck, Lord George, 62

Bentinck, Lord William, 211

Beresford, Lord Charles, 22

Beresford, Lord Marcus, 28

Beresford, Lord William, 46

Besant, Mrs. Annie, 320

Bhopal, the Begum of, 319 (_n._), 340

Bigge, Sir Arthur (_see_ Lord Stamfordham)

Bikanir, 246

Birkenhead, Earl of (Mr. F. E. Smith), 291

Blood, Sir Bindon, 271

Boorde, Andrew, x

Borden, Sir Frederick, 126, 137, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151

Borden, Sir Robert, 200

Border Mounted Rifles, the, 36, 37, 51, 52, 86, 89

Borders, the Scottish, ix-xii

Borthwick, Sir Algernon (Lord Glenesk), 35

Botha, General Louis, 344

Bourassa, Mr., 142, 144, 158

Brodrick, Mr. St. John (_see_ Midleton, Earl of)

Bryce, Lord, 153

Buccleuch, family of, xi

Buccleuch Hunt, the, 4, 13, 36, 93

Burke, Edmund, xv, 277

Burnaby, Colonel Fred, 34

Butler, Rev. Arthur G., 19, 327

Butler, Sir Harcourt, 325, 326

Butler, Dr. Montagu, 15 (_n._)


Cambridge, 15-18, 20, 21, 346

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 88, 273

Canada (_see under_ Minto, 4th Earl of)

Canning, Lord, 213, 318, 321

Cannon, Joe, 28

Cannon, Tom, 28

Carlist Army, the, 34-36

Cavagnari, Sir Louis, 47, 51, 52, 235

Chamberlain, Mr. Austen, 333-6

Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 49, 99, 104, 106, 109, 113, 120, 121, 131,
133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 148, 154, 158, 159, 160,
163, 164, 165, 167, 175, 199, 200, 202, 205, 271

Chermside, Sir Herbert, 40, 41, 58

Churchill, Mr. Winston, 271

Clark, Sir William, 309

Cleveland, President, 169

Colley, Sir George, 59

Commune, the Paris, 30-34

Corlett, Mr. John, 25

Corsica, xv, 335

Creagh, Sir O'Moore, 294

Cromer, 1st Earl of, 210, 232, 344

Curzon, 1st Marquis (Mr. George Nathaniel Curzon), 117, 200, 210, 212,
213, 214, 215, 216, 224, 229, 230, 238, 255, 258, 260, 262, 296, 298,
335


Dalhousie, 1st Marquis of, 211, 212, 214, 328, 332, 346

Dane, Sir Louis, 229

Darbhunga, Maharaja of, 306, 328

Dawnay, Lewis, 100

Disraeli, Mr. (Earl of Beaconsfield), 72, 157

Doughty, Dr. A. S., 179, 187, 188

Douglas, Lord Francis, 19

Drummond, Major-General Laurence, 147, 181

Duff, Sir Beauchamp, 296

Dufferin, 1st Marquis of, 212, 229, 242

Dumont, Gabriel, 81, 82

Dundonald, 12th Earl of, 150, 152

Durham, Lord, 71


Ede, George, 30

Edward VII., H.M. King, 8, 23, 185, 186, 279, 286, 306

Egyptian Campaign, the (1882), 65-68

Elliot family, origin of, x

Elliot, Arthur, 4, 15, 16, 49, 55, 85, 86, 132 (_n._), 136 (_n._), 158,
161, 168, 171, 175, 338

Elliot, Lady Eileen (Lady Francis Scott), 76, 110, 118, 182, 249, 250,
280

Elliot, Esmond, 110, 182, 183, 246, 337, 340-42

Elliot, Lieut.-Colonel Fitzwilliam, 4, 7, 31, 79

Elliot, Gavin, of Midlem Mill, xiii

Elliot, Gilbert, of Stobs, xii

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 1st Baronet, xiii, xiv

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 2nd Baronet, xiv

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 3rd Baronet, xiv, xv

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 4th Baronet (_see_ Minto, 1st Earl of)

Elliot, Sir Henry, 38 (_n._)

Elliot, Hugh (the Ambassador), xv, xvii, 118

Elliot, Mr. Hugh, 4, 7, 31, 32, 71, 72

Elliot, Lady Ruby (Countess of Cromer), 110, 182, 267

Elliot, Lady Violet (Lady Violet Astor), 110, 182, 183, 267, 280, 284

Eton, 7-13, 16, 22, 117, 118, 125, 194, 337-38, 340


Fisher, Mr. Sydney, 150, 151

Forbes, Archibald, 54

Fraser, Sir Andrew, 251, 261, 274

French Canadians, the, 136, 161, 162

Fuller, Sir Bampfylde, 237-40, 243


Gallifet, General, 31

George V., H.M. King, 184, 186, 210, 217, 229

Gladstone, W. E., 49, 55, 72, 84, 85, 86, 101, 117, 299

Godley, Sir Arthur (Lord Kilbracken), 247

Gokhale, Mr., 217, 231, 233, 262, 263, 285, 304, 330

Gordon, General Charles, 57, 75, 76

Graham, Captain Harry, 183

Grand National, the, 24, 27, 29, 30, 62

Grandin, Bishop, 192

Grenfell, Francis, 26, 236

Grey, Albert, 4th Earl, 85, 88, 102, 105, 200

Grey, General Charles, 69

Grey, Henry, 3rd Earl, 72, 102

Grey, Viscount (Sir Edward Grey), 225

Guards, the Scots, 21, 22, 30


Habibullah, 229, 248-51, 259, 261, 270

Haldane, Viscount, 307

Hamilton, Lord George, 267

Hardinge of Penshurst, Lord, 308, 326, 330

Hardy, Mr. Thomas, 223 (_n._)

Hartopp, Captain, 31

Hastings, Warren, xv, 230, 302

Heathfield, Lord, xiii

Henley, 10, 11

Herschell, Lord, 167, 169

Hislop, Lady, 3

Hislop, Lieut.-General Sir Thomas, xviii, 280

Hobhouse, Sir Charles, 265-67

Home Rule, Irish, 84, 86, 99, 315

Hope, Sir Edward, 9, 10

Hutton, Lieut.-General Sir Edward, 125-30, 136, 137, 139, 142, 144-49,
152


Ibbetson, Sir Denzil, 240, 253, 256, 257

Indians in Canada, the, 176, 177


Jameson, Sir Starr, 105

Jameson Raid, the, 104, 105, 131

Jersey, 7th Earl of, 9, 10, 16, 90

Jett, Sir Louis, 172

Jind, 217

Jodhpur, 278


Kashmir, 242, 245, 246

Keir-Hardie, Mr., 264

King, Mr. W. Mackenzie, 203, 204

Kitchener, F.-M. Earl, 113, 199, 214, 224, 225, 242, 248, 249, 250,
253, 257, 261, 271, 282, 284, 294, 295, 296, 307, 318, 332, 336

Kruger, President, 105, 131, 132, 133


Lahore, xvi, 255, 297

Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of, 22, 57, 71, 73, 75, 76, 82, 113, 148, 154,
255, 280

Lariston, xii, xiv

Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 119, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127, 130, 131, 132, 133,
134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148,
149, 151, 152, 153, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165, 166, 167, 172, 173,
174, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 187, 188, 199, 200, 205, 222

Legard, Cecil, 20, 26

Lesley, Bishop, x

Liddesdale, x, xii, xviii, 189, 346

Limber, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 198

Lloyd George, Mr., 299, 309

Loch, Lord, 101, 102

Lodge, Mr. Henry Cabot, 170, 171

Lonsdale, 5th Earl of, 27

Lyons, Lord, 31

Lyttelton, Mr. Alfred, 109, 152, 202


Macdonald, Sir John, 73, 74, 76, 77 (_n._), 83, 119, 120, 124, 132, 135

Macdonald, Mr. Ramsay, 308

Macdonnell, Lord, 287

Machell, Captain, 25, 26, 27

M'Kinley, President, 169

M'Mahon, Sir Henry, 251, 252

Manners, Lord, 62

Maude, Sir Stanley, 181, 193

Mayo, 6th Earl of, 321

Melgund, Lord (_see_ Minto, 4th Earl of)

Methuen, F.-M. Lord, 65

Middleton, General, 77, 80-83

Midleton, 1st Earl of, 103, 109, 150, 154, 210, 224, 300

Mill, John Stuart, 258, 276, 281, 310, 324

Mills, General Nelson, 124

Milner, Lord, 132, 300

Minto, 1st Earl of, xv, xvi, 46, 118, 211, 214, 216, 217, 277, 302,
303, 335

Minto, 2nd Earl of, xvi

Minto, 3rd Earl of, xvii, 35, 95, 96

Minto, Gilbert John, 4th Earl of, birth and childhood, 3-7; Eton, 7,
13; Cambridge, 15, 20; gazetted to Scots Guards, 21; his steeplechasing
career, 23-30; in Paris during Commune, 31, 34; visits Carlist Army,
35, 36; work with Border Mounted Rifles, 37, 107-9; candidatures for
Parliament, 37, 85, 86; Russo-Turkish War, 37, 42; in Afghan War, 45,
54; life in London, 55, 57; in South Africa with Roberts, 59, 60; death
of his mother, 63, 64; the Egyptian campaign, 64-68; marriage, 69, 70;
Military Secretary in Canada, 71-79; in Riel Rebellion, 79-83; sporting
reminiscences, 90-94; succession to earldom, 96; life at Minto, 109-13;
appointed Governor-General of Canada, 113; work for Canadian Defence,
128-31, 152-55; Canadian contingent for South Africa, 137, 144; the
Hutton affair, 145-49; the Dundonald affair, 150-52; views on Imperial
union, 157-66; the Alaskan difficulty, 167-73; visit to the Yukon,
174-78; society and sport in Canada, 181-86, 189-98; work for Canadian
Records, 187; departure from Canada, 201; summary of
Governor-Generalship, 202-5; appointed Viceroy of India, 210; arrival
in India, 216; relations with Lord Kitchener, 224, 225; the partition
of Bengal, 229, 237-240; inception of the Reform scheme, 271; visit to
North-West Frontier, 275; speech to Mohammedan delegation, 243, 244;
visit to Kashmir, 245; reception of Amir of Afghanistan, 246-52; the
Punjab colonies question, 256, 257; the Anglo-Russian Convention,
259-61; visit to Madras and Burma, 264; the Hobhouse commission,
265-67; the Zakka Khel rising, 269, 272; measures to deal with Indian
unrest, 274, 278; the Jodhpur Durbar, 279; the Reform Bill passed,
285-87; the deportations, 291, 292; the opening of the new Legislative
Council, 300, 304; last visit to North-West frontier, 305, 306; Mr.
Montagu's speech, 309, 312; summary of Viceroyalty, 317-27; departure
from India, 327-32; receives the Garter, 332; Mansion House speech,
333-35; the Parliament Bill, 337, 338; Lord Rector of Edinburgh
University, 338; death, 339; character and achievements, 341-46

Minto, 5th Earl of, 95, 110, 182, 280

Minto, Mary Countess of, 55, 69, 71, 74, 83, 93, 94, 95, 114, 183, 186,
191, 193, 196, 201, 202, 205, 210, 217, 218, 219 (_n._), 235, 236, 245,
248, 249, 250, 251, 257, 267, 278, 283, 284, 293, 297, 328, 329, 331

Minto, Nina Countess of, xvii, xviii, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 46,
63, 64

Minto House, xiii, xiv, xvi, 3, 4, 5, 37, 110, 111, 209, 210, 332, 338,
339, 340

Moncreiff, Lord, 95

Montagu, Mr. Edwin, 309, 311

Montagu-Chelmsford scheme, the, 323, 324

Morley of Blackburn, 1st Viscount (Mr. John Morley), 219-24, 225, 227,
229, 231, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 241, 244, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257,
260, 261, 262, 264, 265, 266, 268, 270, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278,
279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 286, 287, 289, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296,
297, 298, 299, 301, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 313, 314, 315,
323, 324, 326, 332, 334, 336, 343

Mountaineering, 6, 18-20, 39, 315

Mounted Infantry, the, 65, 68, 70, 94, 126 (_see also under_ Volunteers)

Mulock, Sir William, 159

Muzaffarpur murders, the, 274


Nabha, 217, 246, 340

Nicolson, Sir Arthur (Lord Carnock), 225, 228

Nizam of Hyderabad, the, 264, 325

North-West frontier of India, the, 49-51, 234, 235, 267, 271, 305, 317

Norton, Mrs., 4


Osborne, Mr. John, 28 (_n._)


Palmerston, Lord, 323

Parkin, Sir George, 159

Patiala, 217, 244, 246

Pole-Carew, Lieut.-General Sir R., 53, 59

Police, the Canadian North-West Mounted, 80, 82, 83, 193, 194

Pozzo di Borgo, 335

Primrose, Sir Henry, 58


Red River Expedition, the, 75, 79, 189

Rhodes, Cecil, 88, 105, 106, 131

Riarden, Sergeant, 67

Richardson, John Maunsell, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 62, 63, 338

Riel Rebellion, the, 79-82, 192

Ripon, 1st Marquis of, 57, 58, 212, 255

Roberts, F.-M. Earl (Sir Frederick Roberts), 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 53,
58, 59, 60, 97, 98, 199, 242, 294, 332, 338

Robinson, Sir Hercules (Lord Rosmead), 60

Roosevelt, President, 169, 170, 171, 173, 190, 191

Roos-Keppel, Sir George, 235, 271, 272, 319

Root, Mr. Elihu, 170, 171

Rosebery, Lord, 74, 101, 104, 117, 118, 145

Russell, Lord John, 3

Russia, 211, 225-28, 251, 252, 259-61, 270, 272, 280

Russo-Turkish War, the, 37-42


Salisbury, Lord, 134, 169

Saunderson, Colonel, 100

Scindia, Maharaja, 264, 280, 287

Scot of Satchels, xii

Scott, Mr. F. W., 126, 137, 142, 184

Scott, Sir Walter, 110, 209, 346

Seddon, Mr. Richard, 160

Seeley, Sir John, 157

Singh, Sir Pertab, 232, 237, 259, 320, 330

Sinha, Lord, 286, 287, 329

Smith, F. E. (_see_ Birkenhead, Earl of)

Smith, Goldwin, 77, 78

Smith, Sir James Dunlop, 218, 262, 294, 332

South Africa, 59, 60, 88, 317

South African War, the, 131-44

Southwell, Rev. H. G., 26, 37, 42, 43, 45

Spencer, Lady Sarah, 69

Stamfordham, Lord, 264, 282, 311, 332

Stewart, F.-M. Sir Donald, 45, 53, 97

Stobs, family of, xii, xiii

Strachey, Sir John, 310

Strathcona, Lord, 64, 117, 143

Stuart, Lady Louisa, xvii

Sudan Expedition, the (1884), 75-77


Tashi Lama, the, 217

Tarte, Mr. Israel, 126, 137, 140, 142, 159, 184

Teviot, river, 13, 340

Thompson, Sir John, 184

Tongsa Penlop, the, 217

Townshend, Charles, xiv

Turner, Senator, 170, 171


Udaipur, 297


Victoria, H.M. Queen, 69, 70, 95, 117, 167, 176, 183, 278

Volunteers, the, 36, 87, 96, 107-9


Walker, Horace, 19

War correspondents, position of, 54

War, the Great, 155, 181, 250, 313, 323, 340

Warre, Dr., 7, 11, 13, 209

Webster, Richard (_see_ Alverstone, Lord)

Wellesley, Marquis, 211

Wellington, Duke of, 86, 296

Willcocks, General Sir James, 270

Wolseley, 1st Viscount (Sir Garnet Wolseley), 37, 55, 61, 64, 65, 67,
68, 69, 70, 75, 76, 82, 86, 88, 95, 97, 98, 103, 107, 113, 114, 123,
128, 129, 144 (_n._), 189, 205, 339

Wood, Sir Evelyn, 103

Woodford, F.-M. Sir Alexander, 22

Wyllie, Sir W. Curzon, 293, 294


Yukon question, the, 174, 176, 178


Zakka Khel rising, the, 270-72




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[End of Lord Minto, A Memoir, by John Buchan]
