Rreiew of Rrcieirs, 20/i/Oe. 



History of the Month. 



337 



truth in the principle that ail interests ought to be 

 represented in an assembly which has to legislate 

 for the whole community, it is as <:xpedient as it is 

 logical that the natives should have their spokes 

 men. Mr. Rhodes was always against the colour 

 line. " Equal rights for all civilised men " was his 

 watchword. It will be interesting to see whether 

 the present advanced Liberal Ministry will have the 

 courage to be as liberal as Mr. Rhodes. There is 

 to be a deputation from the African Political Or- 

 ganisation, formed during my visit to Cape Town two 

 years ago, which, under the able presidency of Dr. 

 Abdurahman, has now 8000 menilxrs, with seventy 

 branches covering all the South African colonies. 

 Thev are specially desirous to see to it that the 

 Cape coloured bovs who have votes in the ('ap::' 

 Colonv should not be deprived of the franchise if 

 thev migrate northwards. It may be remembered 

 that one of our special grievaJices against President 

 Kruger had to do with this question of the Caix- 

 boys. It is to be hoped that Lord Ivlgin will not be. 

 less Liberal than was Lord Milner in this matter. 



jhg The new House has sustained the 



New Members high expectations of the electorate. 



and The Session at the time of writing 



New Ministers, i^ not a fortnight old ; only the 

 King's Speech has been untler discussion, liut at 

 least half a dozen new reputations have been made 

 and manv old rejnitations refurbished. Among the 

 Ministers Mr. Bryce achie\ed the I'arlianu'utary 

 success he has waited for so long in his first speech 

 as Irish Secretary. Everyone knew he had it in 

 him — what has Mr. Bryce not got within that 

 capacious brain? — but heretofore he had not b<'en 

 regarded as a force in Parliamentary debate. He 

 is better appreciated to-day. Another Minister who 

 improved his reputation was Mr. Winston Churchill. 

 His speech on the Chinese question was as clever 

 as anv speech his father ever made, and in some 

 respects more statesmanlike than any Randolphian 

 oration. John Burns achieved a great success from 

 a verv exacting autlience — exacting because they 

 expected more from him than from anv other man 

 — but he rose to the occasion, and no' one w-ho 

 heard him went away disappointed. Sir Rolxrt 

 Reid, speaking as Lord Loreburn from the woolsack 

 of the Lord Chancellor, made a masterlv exposition 

 of the Liberal policy in South Africa. Among the 

 new* members, Mr. George Barnes, Mr. Walsh of 

 Ince, Mr. W'ard the navvy, Mr. Hilaire Belloc the 

 journalist, Mr. J. M. Robertson, Mr. Bradlaugh's 

 political heir, and Sir Henry Cotton, the member 

 for India, all made their mark. Mr. Herbert Paul 

 revived the memories of old davs by his brilliant 

 and incisive denunciation of the South African War 

 and the men who made it. Altogether, if the new- 

 House goes on at this rate, it will be a record Par- 

 liament. 



Mr Morlev made his debut last 



■'"''"a^d"''^^ month as Master of India in two 



Lord Kitchener. «ays. In a despatch he put Lord 



Kitchener back a step or two, and 



affirmed and secured the supremacy of the Civil 



administration over the Army. To quote from the 



lucid summary by a well-infornn'i.l writer in the 



]Vctimi lister Gazette: — 



In tlie draft rules submitted by Lord Minto tlie position 

 of tbe Secretary in the .\rmy Department differs from and, 

 as Mr. Morley claims, is interior to. that, of tlie secretaries 

 i 1 otiier departments. Papers and cases may, according 

 to tliese rules, be laid direct, before the Commander-in- 

 Chief, who i.s also member of Council in charge of the Army 

 Department, and laid by liim before the Governor-Oeneral 

 in Council without tbe knowlcdEe of the Secretary and 

 before the Secretary has had any opportunity of stating 

 his opinion. This Mr. Morley disallows. He lays down 

 the principle tbat tbe functions and duties of the Head- 

 quarters Staff and the Army Uepartnicnl shall l)e strictly 

 QilTerenliated. though they arc discharged by the same 

 individuals. .\s members of the Staff tlie Adjutant-(.iene- 

 ral. Quartermaster-CJeneral. and their colleagues will, of 

 course, be subordinate to tbe Commander-in-Chief and an- 

 swerable to him alone, but as officers in tbe Department 

 thev will not be permitted to ignore the Secretary and sub- 

 mit ca.*es direct to tbe Commanderin-Ciuef in his other 

 capacity as member in charge of the Department, nor to 

 issue oruers on behalf of the (iovernment of India. That, 

 is to say, all business in the Department is from its in- 

 ception, and as a matter of course to pass through the 

 liands of the Secretary, who is to lie exa<'tly like all other 

 Secretaries— an officer of the dovernnient. and not a sub- 

 ordinate of the Commander-in-Chief. 



.A.S Mr. Morley has the Indian Council behind him, 

 and also four members of the Viceroy's Council, 

 Lord Kitchener will probably acquiesce. The mo- 

 dification will not cripple him in reforming the army 

 of India, which (pace Lord Roberts) he has said, 

 was " an accidental, planless thing, having no rela- 

 tion to any possible emergency." 



The other appearance of Mr. 



3 ^»-«?Z \.r ^lor'ev was in the House of Com- 

 as Minister for -' , ,. • ^ 1 l- 

 India. mons when he disappointed his 



Indian friends by refusing to undo 

 the partition of Bengal — a decision which, I fear, 

 he will soon regret. He admitted that nothing could 

 have been worse than the way in which it had been 

 done, and he did not deny that the feeling of the 

 people was overwhelmingly against it. But following 

 the fatal precedent of 1880, when under similar pre- 

 texts Mr. Glaldstone refused to undo the annexation 

 of the Transvaal, he declared the redistribution of 

 Bengal was now- a settled fact. " In view of the sub- 

 sidence of the feeling against the redistribution," it 

 wou'.d be unreasonable to ask, etc. Just so argued 

 Mr. Gladstone in 1880. But there has been no sub- 

 sidence of the feeling. There has been a subsidence 

 of the expression of the feeling because the Ben- 

 galees waited, hoping that Mr. Morley would do 

 them justice. To make the sinister parallel complete 

 Sir B. Fuller seems to be a very counterpart of Sir 

 Owen Lanyon. I sincerely hope that Mr. Morley 

 will not find that he has lost a great opportunity. 

 The rest of his speech was full of sound words — 

 respect for popular sentiments, and a promise that 

 " by-and-bye " and step by step we may build up a 



