The Review of Reviews. 



Bipin Chandra Pal. 

 A pliotograph taken on his release from prison in Hombay. 



were punished for protesting against a policy now 

 admitted to have been mistaken, ought to have been 

 liberated. But the Indian Government, so far from 

 recognising its duty in these matters, actually locked 

 up Bipin Chandra Pal for a month on his return to 

 India, for having published two years ago in London 

 in his newspaper the Sjcnrnj an article which I re. 

 pul)lished in the Review ok Reviews without exciting 

 any protest or objection. The Sfar nf the East, a 

 harmless, well-intentioned missionary magazine, pub- 

 lished in Australia by a Swedish ladv who is a follower 

 of the Swami Vivekcnanda, is prohibited in India — 

 Heaven only knows why. Lord Crewe will have to 

 look into many things ])retty closely if the good inten- 

 tions of his Durbar proclamations have to take their 

 full effect. The Indian National Congress seems to 

 have received the changes in an excellent spirit, and 

 fur the moment all goes well. 



The King and Queen appear to 

 have done their parts in the great 

 ceremonial to perfection. It must 

 have been a great satisfaction to 

 His Majesty to have seen all tiie gloomy prognostica- 



Thc 

 utilisation 



of 

 Roy.ilties. 



tions of his advisers falsified by the event. The only 

 untoward incident was the apparent display of dis- 

 respect shown by the Guicowar of Baroda while 

 paying homage — a lontretemps officially declared to 

 be due to sheer nervousness ; although the Guicowar 

 is no blushing debutante. A fire which consumed the 

 great pavilion prepared for the reception of the 

 Princes was pronounced an event of good omen — 

 an offering made by fire worthy the solemnity of the 

 occasion. But no soothsayer has been able to 

 explain away the evil omen of the wreck of the 

 1'. and O. steamer Di-//it off the coast of Morocco 

 within a few hours of the proclamation of the change 

 of capital. The King's sister, the Princess Royal, 

 her husband, the Duke of Fife, and the Princesses 

 Alexandra and Maud were dragged with difiticulty 

 through the boiling surf There could hardly be a 

 greater contrast to the splendours of the Durbar than 

 the procession of bedrenched and bedraggled half- 

 clad Royalties which rode on mule-back for ten miles 

 in the dark and rainy night from Cape Spartel to 

 Tiingier. Fortunately the whole party escaped with 

 noihing worse than a wetting and a fright. The 

 De//ti was a total wreck. The only redeeming feature 

 in the story was the lieroism displayed by the French 

 sailors in rescuing the passengers and crew. 



The fate of the Manchu dynasty 

 The 

 United States appears to be sealed. After much 



of deb.Tting between Yuan Shih Kai 



and our old friend Wu Ting Fang, 

 who appears to have been the directing genius of the 

 Chinese Revolution, the master spirit. Sun Yat Sen, 

 arrived upon the scene on December 27th. The 

 Delegates at Nanking appear to have been irrecon- 

 cilably opposed to any recognition of the Manchu 

 dynasty. It was in vain that they were offered the 

 .substance of a Republican Government with a 

 Manchu Emperor divested of all power as a gilded 

 figure-head of the ship of .State. They must have the 

 Republic or nothing. And as Yuan Shih Kai was not 

 authorised to countersign the death warrant of the 

 dynasty, he returned to Pekin, leaving the Revolu- 

 tionists to do their best or their worst. Despite some 

 bloody fighting, in which the fortune of war rested WMth 

 the Imperial troops, the licart seems to have gone out of 

 the .Manchus, and it is expected that the New Year will 

 see the proclamation of the federated Republic of the 

 eighteen united provinces of China, with Sun Yat Sen 

 as the first President. 'I'he general sentiment of the 

 outside world is that whatever is to be done had best 

 be done quickly. If the Manchus are to go they 

 should not stand on the order of their going, hut go 



