But I shall be much surprised if his study of Cromwell does not outlive in English literature his biography of Gladstone. The Gladstone book will no doubt be indispensable to the future historian, and will occupy an abiding place among the materials out of which the history of England in future will be built; but I should not be surprised if a hundred years hence Mr. Morley were better known by his Burke and his Cromwell than by all his greater works which bulk much more voluminously in the catalogue of his writings.

WHY CROMWELL IS REVERED.

Mr. Morley may possibly be surprised that so thoroughgoing a Cromwellian as his old assistant at Northumberland Street should be enthusiastic about his diligent effort to minimise the successes of Cromwell in the domain of statesmanship. The Saturday Review, I notice, exults in what it regards as the depreciatory effect of Mr. Morley's criticism upon the reputation of the Lord Protector. But those who indulge in such comments simply fail to understand the real hold which the character of Cromwell has upon the English nation. It is not that we think him divinely inspired or infallible. We know him to have been intensely human and humbly conscious of his manifold shortcomings. It is not that we regard him as a heaven-sent genius, with a perfect formula for the solution of all difficulties. No such formula is possible on this earth. No; the intense abiding and ever-increasing appreciation of Cromwell, which makes him above all others the supreme embodiment of the national ideal, is not due to any of the delusions which Mr. Morley sets himself, with somewhat unnecessary zeal, to demolish. It is due to the fact that Cromwell was-first, a thoroughly honest and a thoroughly earnest, good man. Secondly, that he was animated by the noblest ideals, many of which were far in advance of those of his own generation. Thirdly, that while never for a moment forgetting these ideals, and constantly making almost superhuman efforts for their realisation, he was never a pedant or a doctrinaire, but always the supremely practical Englishman. Fourthly, that he was a who never despaired. "In him hope glowed like a pillar of fire after it had gone out in other men." And his energy, his patience, his perseverance, his courage, were not unworthy of his invincible faith. Fifthly, that whatever difficulties encompassed him, he never submerged. He always came out on top, displaying greater resources in defeat and disaster than even in prosperity. He was the Handy-man incarnate-the man who in one way or another always put things through, and, on the whole, put them through more satisfactorily than could have been accomplished by any other method which any one else can even now suggest as possible. It was the indomitableness of the man, his unfailing resource, his magnificent hopefulness, his robust faith, and his absolute indifference to all but the vital essence of things, which make him the national hero.

man

was

THE NET EFFECT OF MR. MORLEY'S BOOK. Mr. Morley may tell us that this, that, or the other project of his perished with the using. No doubt. But for the time it served his turn, and was capable of being used. A statesman in a revolutionary time is like a sailor sweeping down a rock-strewn rapid with nothing between him and destruction but the débris of a wreck. Merely to survive and get through he has to display a thousandfold more valour, more dexterity, more resource, more presence of mind, than is demanded from the captain who plies between Gravesend and

Greenwich. It is easy to say that Cromwell did not work miracles. Had he possessed that gift he would have lost his fascination. Mr. Morley points to many expedients or policies which Cromwell tried and abandoned. But what neither Mr. Morley nor any other critic has ever ventured to tell us is, what is better or more lasting expedient or policy they could have invented if they had been in his place, and had been doomed to work with his materials. Hence Cromwell will stand rather higher in the opinion of his countrymen after they read Mr. Morley's book than he did after they finished reading Carlyle's magnificent dithyramb in praise of the Lord Protector.

PECCAVI.

BY E. W. HORNUNG.

THIS is a very powerful story. It is the tragedy of a single soul, told with marvellous sympathy and great power. A clergyman, eloquent and popular, is overcome in a moment of passion with the daughter of one of his parishioners. He implored her to marry him, but the girl, who loved him devotedly, considered that such a union would injure him in his parish. She therefore disappeared, only to return when her baby was born. Her father, who is an atheist, a strong, rugged, semi-savage character, hears that his daughter has sent for the clergyman on her deathbed. Without dreaming that the clergyman was the father of his grandson, he goes to the vicarage and insists upon knowing the name of the scoundrel who has ruined his child. The clergyman confesses. Thereupon the whole parish turns upon him. His vicarage is wrecked, and the church burned down. The clergyman is suspended for five years, but is not deprived of his living.

Boycotted by his flock to such an extent that no one will sell him food, he determines, as an act of expiation, to rebuild the church from his own private means. The squire, who had determined to drive the clergyman out of the parish, succeeds in prevailing upon all the builders in the countryside to refuse to supply him with materials or to accept the contract for rebuilding the church. Thereupon the penitent sinner determined to build it with his own hands, and for years, in winter's cold and summer's heat, he labours as a mason, placing stone upon stone without any soul to speak to him or give him comfort. His faithful dog alone bears him company, but after a time the poor dog is murdered by some ruffian, and he is left entirely alone. Undaunted and undismayed, he pursues his self-appointed task. He is then accused of having burnt the church down himself, and prosecuted, with no other result, however, than that of enabling him to score heavily off the squire, who had trumped up the charge in the hope of finally ruining the man whose dogged resolution and iron will had baffled all his efforts to banish him from the parish. After some years his child strays into the church where the clergyman is busy working, and through him the solitary worker makes the acquaintance of the squire's adopted daughter, and between them there springs up a dangerous intimacy. It would not be fair to the author to tell the end of this pathetic tale. The tragic note struck at the first is maintained throughout with great skill. It is a great sermon, which will probably be more discussed this year than any sermon preached in any pulpit.

The picture of the lonely clergyman, a labouring and excommunicated outcast, at his self-imposed task, until his hair turns white, though not with age, will long dwell in the memory of all those who read this remarkable book. (Grant Richards, 69.)

THE LIFE OF MR. CHAMBERLAIN.* LAST month I was lunching in Paris with one of the greatest criminologists in Europe. He remarked that he would like very much to make an autopsy of Mr. Chamberlain.

"What,” said I, laughing, "as the supreme criminal of the century?"

It would be very interesting," he replied. "But I should particularly like to have all the documents necessary-his portraits at various ages, his autograph, the history of his career, and above all," he added, "I should like some account of his ancestry and particulars concerning his boyhood."

"Oh," I said, “I believe he was a very good boy." "Ah," said he, "it is often so. Criminal traits develop

late."

Miss Marris' book contains a good deal of the material which my friend desired for his criminological autopsy of Mr. Chamberlain. As a frontispiece it has his autograph and portrait, both as recent as last August. We have also full details of all that is known of Mr. Chamberlain's ancestry and Mr. Chamberlain's boyhood. These form much the most interesting part of the book; but there is also at the end a description of Mr. Chamberlain's daily life, which is very interesting and delightful to read. It is, indeed, very welcome to be able to read something about Mr. Chamberlain which excites no animosity and provokes no criticism.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN AS HE SEES HIMSELF. Since the book may be regarded as, to a very large extent, Mr. Chamberlain painted by himself, it is very profitable to know what Mr. Chamberlain sees when he looks in the mirror. For those who have not the advantage of surveying his natural features in the glass, I hasten to announce that Mr. Chamberlain appears quite too good for this wicked world. But for the unfortunate accident of his Unitarian ancestry he would certainly be canonised. This book, indeed, may be regarded as a kind of contemporary canonisation. He is, perhaps, not quite so great and good a man as the excellent Mr. Perks is described in the electioneering literature which he distributes to his constituents; but, after Mr. Perks, it is difficult to imagine that any one could be altogether so super-eminently excellent as Mr. Chamberlain. When Nature fashions such a prodigy, she usually breaks the mould.

HIS CORDWAINING ANCESTRY.

Mr. Chamberlain, on his great-great-grandmother's side, was descended from one of the Nonconformist ministers ejected from the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity. He is very proud of his Nonconformist ancestors-much prouder, indeed, of them than most living Nonconformists are of his ancestors' descendant. What was far more conspicuous in his ancestry than their Nonconformity was their hereditary devotion to the art of the cordwainer. Cordwainers, it seems, differ from cobblers in that the former works in new leather, while the latter works in old. Mr. Chamberlain's father, grandfather, and an indefinite number of uncles had all been Masters of the Cordwainers' Company in the City of London. There is a cobbler in Hayling Island who made to me the very honourable boast that his family had mended the understandings of the Hayling Islanders for the last two hundred years. Mr. Chamberlain's connection with leather did not go back quite so far as that of my worthy

"Joseph Chamberlain: the Man and the Statesman," by N. Murrell Marris. Hutchinson. 10s. net.

friend at Hayling, but he has an honourable record in this respect, and one of which he would do well to be proud. In India all callings are hereditary, even those of the hereditary clerks who pray to their inkhorns. But in England also some families stick to their last; and until Mr. Joseph Chamberlain took to politics his family had been faithful to their hereditary calling.

THE FIGHT ABOUT THE PEACE SOCIETY.

When Mr. Chamberlain was a boy, he appears to have been one of those extraordinarily good boys who in the Sunday school books usually meet with a premature death, being too good for this world. He was serious, studious, and industrious, and the only occasion on which he ever seems to have been involved in a fight arose from his great zeal in the cause of peace. The boys in the school, it appears, had formed a Peace Society, a step which the worthy school-dame regarded with profound disapproval, knowing, as she said, that it would be sure to breed fighting. Mr. Chamberlain was president of that Peace Society, and the chief contributor to its funds; for it is recorded that he brought to the treasury no less a sum than a fourpenny piece, given him for the purpose by one of his uncles. The rest of the subscriptions appear to have amounted to three-halfpence, and a fierce feud arose as to how this magnificent balance should be disposed of. In the end it was given to a crossing-sweeper, although in what way this was supposed to advance the cause of peace does not appear in the narrative.

AN INCIDENT OF HIS SCHOOL DAYS.

The account of young Joseph's schooling seems to be authentic, and is confirmed by Joseph himself, who, as a good boy should, looks back to the record of these early days with gratitude and pride. One curious incident recorded by the schoolmistress, describes how Mr. Chamberlain, with other scholars, took part in a dramatic representation of the "Worship of Baal." She had been explaining to them the worship of Baal in the Biblelesson, and, going out afterwards into the playground, was astonished to find that her pupils had set up a model clay image on the wall, and were bowing down before it in imitation of the ancient idolaters. The subject has afforded a theme for the pencil of Mr. Gould, who portrays Joseph as doing obeisance before the image of Lord Salisbury. Mr. Gould would probably have been better inspired, had he substituted for the somewhat broad visage of Lord Salisbury an image of Moloch, the original prototype of the Jingoism of to-day.

A GOOD BOY WHO LEARNS FRENCH.

With the exception of that solitary battle-royal over the distribution of the 5d., Mr. Chamberlain's youth seems to have passed without any incident which could have been recorded as foreshadowing his present apotheosis as Jingo High Priest. He spent much of his time at the Polytechnic, and enjoyed himself as a well-behaved, serious-minded Nonconformist youth of the well-to-do middle class is expected to do. He early acquired a mastery of French, and now writes and reads it with facility, a fact which must not be forgotten when the time comes to consider his claims to be Foreign Minister of England. In this he has the advantage over Sir Edward Grey, who, if he ever should be Foreign Minister, will need an interpreter when holding converse with diplomatists accredited to the Crown.

ASHAMED OF HIS BEST DEEDS.

We have the history, told with much appreciation and enthusiasm, of how Mr. Chamberlain became the patron

saint of the Midland capital, after which, by a short transition, we come to the story of his début as member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister. As might be expected, considering his present surroundings, his biographer glides with delicate step over the narrative which deals with Mr. Chamberlain's career as a Radical Minister. For instance, Miss Marris barely mentions the part he took in handing over the Transvaal in 1881. A single paragraph stating that he supported Mr. Gladstone's policy gives the reader no clue to the fact that the policy of the retrocession of the Transvaal was not really Mr. Gladstone's policy, but Mr. Chamberlain's ; that, to Mr. Chamberlain's credit be it spoken, he was the most energetic, and at one time almost the only energetic advocate in the Cabinet for the restoration of the Boers' independence. Neither is any reference made to the eloquent and passionate speeches in which Mr. Chamberlain denounced in those days the policy.to which he has now succeeded in committing the nation.

THE JAMESON RAID AND THE KAISER'S TELEGRAM. We naturally turn with considerable interest to this official account of the Jameson Raid. It is interesting to find that Mr. Chamberlain's historian-in-waiting is very careful to discriminate between the Jameson Plan and the Jameson Raid. For the former, to which Mr. Chamberlain was a party, she has nothing but good words; whereas all her indignation is reserved for the ill-conceived measure by which Dr. Jameson upset the apple-cart in which Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Rhodes had embarked their political fortunes. Another interesting fact which may be noted is that Mr. Chamberlain asserts that the German Emperor's telegram to Mr. Kruger justified the English Government in expecting German intervention on behalf of the Transvaal. The exact words are as follows :—

:

Such support appeared by no means impossible, for it was rightly considered that the telegram to President Kruger, sent by the German Emperor immediately after the Raid, conveyed a thinly veiled offer of assistance should Kruger appeal for it, and it is certain that his subsequent attitude both towards Germany and England was based on this assumption.

It would be interesting to know whether Mr. Chamberlain expressed this view to the Kaiser when he met him at Windsor.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND RUSSIA.

A

Another piece of thin ice, in skating over which some dexterity is necessary, is the episode of the Leicester speech. With this the author deals more frankly, and we may see in her pages Mr. Chamberlain pluming himself concerning his exploit on that occasion. Mr. Harmsworth must have read with despair this evidence that the Colonial Secretary is still unregenerate. It may be taken as a sign of grace that the biographer does not venture to refer to Mr. Chamberlain's famous long-spoon speech. Of that indiscretion the author is probably ashamed. She does not do justice to the extent to which Mr. Chamberlain in previous years supported Russia. mere passing reference is made to the part which he took in supporting Mr. Gladstone's Bulgarian campaign, nor does she allude to the fact that in 1885 Mr. Chamberlain was the only Cabinet Minister who withstood Mr. Gladstone, when the Prime Minister and his Cabinet committed themselves to a course of hostility to Russia about the Afghan frontier. Neither, on the other hand, does she chronicle the fact that it was Mr. Chamberlain who in the autumn of 1884 succeeded in thwarting and crippling for a time the efforts which were made in that year to rehabilitate the naval strength of Great Britain.

HOW HE BROUGHT ABOUT THE BOER WAR.

It is not necessary to notice the official narrative of the origin of the present war. Suffice it to say that it is wonderfully wanting in perspective, and no one who reads it could realise the fact that the war was rendered inevitable, first by Mr. Chamberlain's complicity in the Jameson Plan, which necessitated the subsequent whitewashing of Mr. Rhodes and the fiasco of the South African Committee; secondly, that the mischief thus done was aggravated by Mr. Chamberlain's revival of the pretension that the suzerainty of 1881 was still in existence; thirdly, that President Kruger from first to last begged and prayed for arbitration upon all the disputed questions at issue between the two countries, and that Mr. Chamberlain absolutely refused his request; fourthly, that when Mr. Kruger had accepted the Joint Commission proposed by Mr. Chamberlain for inquiry into the seven years' franchise, Mr. Chamberlain went back on his own offer, and sprang new demands upon the Boers in a fashion which convinced them that, no matter what concessions they made, he was determined to force them into war. To leave out these four things, or rather to slur them over in a disingenuous fashion, is the way in which history is written in Birmingham.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN "EN FAMILLE."

It is a relief to turn from this travesty of history to the description which we are given of Mr. Chamberlain in family life. Upon this subject Mr. Chamberlain and his amanuensis can speak with undisputed authority, and I gladly quote the following passages describing Mr. Chamberlain as a family man :

So far as the public sees he lives two lives-the one official, about which they think they know everything, the other private, about which they know nothing. These are so far dissociated that the public almost forgets there is a private life, and imagine that the Chamberlain of debate-cool, wary, relentless, absolute master of himself and of his facts, unmoved either by applause or dissent-is Chamberlain the man, in his relations with his family, his friends, and mankind generally.

His many acts of private charity are so privately performed that they are not even suspected.

"More than once," said one who knew him intimately, "he has taken endless pains to set up a ne'er-do-well on his feet again; often, perhaps, the effort has been wasted, but sometimes it was rewarded, and that was enough for Mr. Chamberlain, He will not allow anything to come between him and his friends, and would do his utmost to smooth away any misunderstanding; he was the life and soul of the circle he moved in before all the cares of office sat so heavily upon him; the truest and most loyal fellow it is possible to find."

To his servants he is a kind and considerate master; the gardener who first served him died in his service, and his town and country coachmen have both been with him for many years. He takes a kindly interest in those who serve him; and perhaps it may be allowable to mention that he steadily encourages his household in thrift and in making provision against old age by adding each Christmas a bonus to the savings of both his indoor and outdoor servants.

Some people may find it difficult to realise that such a man as Mr. Chamberlain is truly fond of children. . . . In the days when his children were young he would not have them banished to the nursery, but kept them with him as much as possible, and was seldom too busy to play with them at their own games, or to devise treats for them. And in later years it has been said of him that his sons are his most intimate friends.

His rule of life he has himself declared. "No work is worth doing badly; and he who puts his best into every task that comes to him will surely outstrip the inan who waits for a great opportunity before he condescends to exert himself.",

His

LIFE OF SIR ARTHUR COTTON.* IT is very difficult to review a book such as this, because the importance of the question which it raises so enormously transcends the interest, great as it is, in the subject of the biography. Sir Arthur Cotton was a good and great man. He was a very fine type of the AngloIndian school which represents much that is finest, noblest, and altogether most admirable in the British character. His character is not only worthy to be placed with that of Lawrence and Edwards, and the great Indians of the first half-century, but he was a singularly fascinating and charming human personality. daughter has told the story of his life with wonderful felicity, never over-doing the devotion which one less nearly related to her father might have paid to her subject, but on the other hand never neglecting an opportunity to portray by happy, familiar touches the man as he was. Yet, although the book as a biography is interesting, the questions which it raises are so terribly grave that in the limited space at my disposal I feel it impossible to do even the slightest justice to Sir Arthur Cotton as a man. I must devote my whole space to the two questions that are forced home upon the mind of the reader on every other page of the book.

OUGHT AN EXPERT TO BE LISTENED TO? The first question is a bewildering wonder whether any regard ought ever to be paid to the authority of an expert. The question seems an absurd one, but it appears not only to have been put, but to have been answered decisively by a succession of able Anglo-Indian administrators in a sense which would justify the conclusion that the only man who has no right to be heard on the subject is the supremely able, honest expert who has devoted his life to its study. Sir Arthur Cotton was an expert of the best type; he was a man of varied experience, with the highest character of scrupulous honesty, and a man who had not only written as to what might be done, but who had with his own hands actually accomplished it on a sufficient scale to verify the accuracy of his conclusions. Yet for fifty years his solemn, reiterated, and emphatic warnings have been treated as non-existent by the men placed in supreme authority in India, who were perfectly well aware of the statements which he had made, and who were also ready to admit that he spoke from sincere conviction with a single eye to the public welfare. For fifty years Sir Arthur Cotton lifted up his voice, in the press, on the platform, before select committees, and used every method of accessible publicity, with the net result that neither Liberal nor Tory Viceroy, or Liberal, or Tory Secretary of State for India, has done anything else but pass him by as if he were a mere crank uttering wild and whirling words. He meant well, no doubt, but he had no right to be treated seriously by sane and sober administrators. It is therefore possible, and not only possible but has actually been shown to be a principle acted pon at the India Office, and by the Viceroy and his officials in India, that no attention need to be paid to the expert, no matter how capable, how honest, how public-spirited he may be, if his conclusions should not commend themselves to the judgment of our Anglo-Indian bureaucracy. It may be said that this is as it should be-that Sir Arthur Cotton was but one expert out of a multitude, that the India Office had other experts quite as good as he to consult and in whose judgment they had more By Lady Hope. (Hodder and

* "Life of Sir Arthur Cotton." Stoughton.)

confidence, that therefore the neglect shown to Sir Arthur Cotton does not in the least discredit expert testimony, it only shows, which no one can deny, that it is possible for an occasional expert to have a "bee in his bonnet." Let us admit this, and pass on to the second question. WHOM SHOULD WE HANG?

It is one which may be stated in a much more striking fashion than the former question which I have just discussed. It is whether, in face of the facts as to the loss of life and the infinite agony of human suffering occasioned by the last great famine in India and its predecessor in Madras, it would not be right and just to order Sir Henry Fowler, Lord George Hamilton, Lord Lansdowne, and various other high officials who might be named, to the gallows in order that they might make such tardy retribution for their crimes as can be obtained by the sacrifice of their lives. To that question the nature of our answer must depend upon the decision arrived at on the prior question, namely, whether it is right to hold the ruler or the minister personally responsible with his life for an honest if perverse error of judgment which has cost the lives of millions of his fellow-subjects. For it is difficult for any one to read carefully through the chapters in this book describing the long struggle which Sir Arthur Cotton waged in vain against the obstinacy of the opponents of canals in high places, without feeling that whatever there may have been to be said on the other side, history has with an iron finger written her infallible verdict. Lord Curzon this month admitted that the recent famine had cost the lives of five millions of human beings. Ten millions more had been saved from perishing by being fed from day to day by the Government.

THE REFUSAL TO MAKE CANALS.

The great famine in Madras which occurred in 1878 showed a similar terrible death-bill. And these are but two of nearly fifty famines which have mowed down our fellow-subjects in India since Sir Arthur Cotton by his great irrigation works on the Godaveri showed how easy it was to ensure an Indian province against famine, not only without cost to the State, but with direct profit to the Imperial exchequer. The contention that Sir Arthur Cotton brought forward with inexhaustible, patient persistency has been abundantly demonstrated by the facts now universally admitted. Railways, he said, while very useful, cannot possibly prevent famine. Whereas canals for irrigation and for navigation can be absolutely relied upon to safeguard the population from starvation. The first and negative part of his proposition has been lamentably proved by the recent famines. In 1880, the Famine Commission appointed by the Indian Government expressly confirmed the accuracy of Sir Arthur Cotton's contention when it declared that the construction of canals was the measure of the first importance to be taken in providing remedies from famine. Instead of acting upon this mandate, the Indian Government has since 1880 spent £250,000,000 upon railways and has not spent half that amount upon canals. Instead of giving the canal the first place, it has had to take a very back seat indeed. But the canal in the regions where it has been constructed has prevented famine, while the railways, which have been favoured in every way, have utterly failed to do more than facilitate measures for its relief when famine had actually broken out.

IS IT A CASE OF CULPABLE HOMICIDE? Now these facts, which no one can dispute in face of Lord Curzon's own admission as to the mortality and expenditure caused by the recent famine,

compel us to face the question how far previous Viceroys and Indian Secretaries and others who share their responsibility for ignoring Sir Arthur Cotton's advice can be held guiltless of culpable homicide. It is no answer to say that they were honestly mistaken. So is many an engine- driver who misreads, honestly enough, the signals, and finds, when put on trial for manslaughter, that the honesty of his intentions is no answer to the terrible charge of having by his mistaken judgment entailed the death of one or more of his fellow-men. How much more is the responsibility which weighs upon those whose error of judgment has entailed the murder by the slow torture of starvation of twice five millions of innocent human beings for whom they proudly assume the rôle of an earthly providence?

THE CRUCIAL QUESTION.

It is, of course, impossible to do more than state the question in the brief space at my disposal for the review of Lady Hope's book, but no one who reads the book will be able to get rid of the question. He may answer it one way or he may answer it another, but whatever answer he may finally decide to make, he will find it impossible to arrive at any conclusion without having passed through a very terrible quarter of an hour, in which there will have come home to him in grim reality the suspicion that all our recent Indian Viceroys and Secretaries of State for India may have deserved capital punishment. Further, there is no doubt that if we could on one occasion only behead a Viceroy or Secretary of State for India when it was proved that a million men had died because he had arrived at a wrong conclusion in face of repeated warnings, it would do more to rehabilitate the somewhat tarnished prestige of our Indian administration than all the dithyrambic eloquence which is so freely employed to magnify the sagacity, the wisdom, and the benevolence of our Indian Administration.

THE GREAT BOER WAR.*

BY DR. CONAN DOYLE.

DR. CONAN DOYLE is a brilliant writer and an enthusiastic patriot, and his book is thoroughly readable from first to last. Although Dr. Doyle was swept off his feet by the wave of military enthusiasm which passed over this country last year, he is too sane a man and too vigilant an observer to produce a book of this kind without saying many things which are well worth saying and well worth remembering. His narrative of the causes leading to the war is very imperfect, and very far from doing justice to President Kruger. He recognises, however, that the Jameson Raid, or still more the way in which it was handled by the South African Committee and Mr. Chamberlain, did much to aggravate the situation. He inserts in a parenthesis that he does not believe that Her Majesty's Government was privy to the Jameson conspiracy; and therein I entirely agree with him. The question is not as to whether Her Majesty's Government approved of the conspiracy, but whether Mr. Joseph Chamberlain knew and approved of and supported and co-operated in this conspiracy. Of this unfortunately there is now no room for doubt. In describing the negotiations which preceded the outbreak of war, Dr. Doyle fails entirely to realise the extent to which Mr. Chamberlain's assertion of the suzerainty of 1881 prejudiced the case, nor would any one

"The Great Boer War." By A. Conan Doyle. (Smith Elder.) 7s. 6d.

who reads his pages imagine that the Boers expressly and repeatedly stated their readiness to abide by the provisions of the Convention of 1884. Neither does he seem to have understood the difference between Mr. Chamberlain's offer to refer immaterial questions to arbitration and his absolute refusal to permit arbitration on the question which alarmed the Transvaal Government. But although these are serious blemishes in a work which professes to explain how the war came about, they only need to be referred to in passing. The value of the book does not depend upon his account of the diplomatic negotiations; but it is to be found in the brilliant pictures of battles and Dr. Doyle's account of the war as he saw it, and finally in his admirable and outspoken criticism of the defects which the war revealed in our military administration and training.

The concluding chapter of his book, in which he sums up the conclusions at which he arrived as to the changes which should be made in our military system, I noticed at some length last month when they appeared in the Cornhill Magazine; and there is, therefore, no need now to do more than quote the following passage :

The slogging valour of the private, the careless dash of the regimental officer-these were our military assets-but seldom the care and foresight of our commanders. It is a thankless task to make such comments, but the one great lesson of the war has been that the army is too vital a thing to fall into the hands of a caste, and that it is a national duty for every man to speak fearlessly and freely what he believes to be the truth.

According to Dr. Doyle, Lord Roberts began extremely well in his repression of looting, and he declares that in the march of the army to Kroonstad the forces under Lord Roberts' immediate command were sternly forbidden to loot. It was as much as Tommy Atkins' life was worth even to steal a goose from the fields through which he marched. This fact, for which Dr. Doyle vouches as an eye-witness, only intensifies our regret that a commander who began so well should have fallen from grace so terribly. The contrast between Dr. Conan Doyle's description of the severity with which looting was forbidden up to Kroonstad is in melancholy contrast with the terrible picture of wholesale looting and systematic devastation of the country which took place as soon as our armies reached the Transvaal.

I take leave of this interesting and valuable book with the following brief quotation, describing the modern battle-field in these days of long range guns and smokeless powder :

No sign of the enemy could be seen, though the men were dropping fast. It is a weird and soul-shaking experience to advance over a sunlit and apparently a lonely country-side, with no slightest movement upon its broad face, while the path which you take is marked behind you by sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can only guess by the position of their wounds whence the shots came which struck them down. All round, like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the monotonous crackle and rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full of it, and no one can define exactly whence it comes. Far away on some hill upon the skyline there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin smoke to indicate whence the six men who have just all fallen together, as if it were some grim drill, have met their death. And somewhere else, up yonder among the boulders, there rises a horrible quacking, a dreadful monotonous hyæna laugh, which comes from the worst gun of all, the malignant one-pounder Maxim, the hateful" Pom-pom."

As a postscript I must add that Dr. Doyle will probably live to regret his choice of the title. A war waged by the undivided might of the British army against 40,000 burghers can hardly deserve to be described as "great," except, of course, from the point of view of the Boers.