certain aptitudes in Council and in committee; and had O been brought into contact with vital issues. But wellorganised parties (except for the Swarajist, which was les almost entirely Hindu and held together by hostility to the British connexion) were non-existent; the interplay e of personal factors was incessant; and the formation of stable combinations was impeded by the cross-divisions of race, religion, and interest.

The Muddiman Committee's report and annexures by were reviewed by the Secretary of State in the House d of Lords on July 7, 1925. Lord Birkenhead considered that the existing constitution must be given a further trial. It could not be reconsidered until the responsible leaders of Indian thought gave evidence of a sincere desire to make the best of it. It had been the habit of - Swarajist statesmen to deduce in anticipation that no reconstitution framed in the West could be suitable for the people of India. If, then, our critics in that country were of opinion that they could succeed where they said that we had failed, let them produce a constitution which carries behind it a fair measure of general agreement among the peoples of India.' Such a constitution would be most carefully examined by the Government of India, by himself, and by the statutory commission which would be appointed later on. No such constitution has been produced from that day to this. But the offer is still open.

Mr Coatman's extremely interesting narrative of Indian affairs in 1926-27 claims that extremist politics have weakened and that the representative bodies created by the Act of 1919 have strengthened their hold on public esteem. He states, however, that political groups or parties have as a rule no policy except oneopposition to the Government' (p. 106). They have no economic, social, or even any definite political programme to which they give their loyalty and sustained effort. Mr Coatman's personal experiences have presumably been confined to the Central Legislature. He quotes a passage from a speech in the Legislative Assembly by the late Sir Alexander Muddiman, then Home Member, which clearly illustrates the degree to which the government has been forced back on to the use of its reserve powers, but warns the politicians that

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in weakening the government they also weaken themselves. It would be difficult to imagine more telling confirmation of the soundness of this warning than is to W be found in two appreciations of the situation from a political point of view which appeared in the Indian newspapers of October 1927. On the 10th of the month Pandit Ikbal Narain Gurtu, President of the United Provinces social conference of National Liberals, bitterly bewailed the growing hatred born of mistrust and suspicion between the educated sections of the two communities (Hindu and Muhammadan) who were fighting for posts and power and were influencing the masses for political ends.' The educated classes felt that in the intercommunal struggle for posts and power into which they had plunged themselves headlong, they would strengthen their hands if they could succeed in carrying the bulk of their communities with them. In pursuance of this policy furious attempts had been and were being made to arouse the masses, and a propaganda of a raging and tearing character had been set on foot. The motives which moved the educated classes did not move the masses who did not yet hanker after government posts or care so much for 'supremacy of power in the realm.' But their religious susceptibilities could be aroused and liberty had been taken with them with impunity here and there. The whole address, which of course ascribed blame to the usual scapegoat, government and its officials, was a remarkably frank description of the state of politics. On the 20th of the month Dr M. A. Ansari, President of the Indian National Congress, said in a statement to the Press that the recent coldblooded murders in the Punjab and United Provinces humiliated and enraged him beyond measure. The country was drifting into a bottomless pit by communal forces.' He held that both Hindus and Mussulmans were hopelessly disintegrated and divided amongst themselves. In the following month the Secretary of State for India advised Parliament to appoint the Simon Commission. The situation that resulted is still fluid. Another Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Harcourt Butler is examining the treaty relations of the ruling princes to the paramount power.

Sir Walter Lawrence, who writes with long experience

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of Indian States and intimate knowledge of Indian character, has no faith in the present path to Swaraj. We look too much,' he says, 'from Western windows and ignore the strange strong Eastern light.' The Indian respects tradition. The fighting races have strong views fon discipline and authority, and would be up in a moment if the British withdrew from the country. He is in favour of some extensions of the system of Native States. Mr Coatman, on the other hand, considers that the Government of India Act of 1919, and the rules made under its authority, are capable of becoming 'the taproot of a great growth of constitutional practice and privilege suited to the needs and expressing the character of the Indian people.'

Whatever may be the outcome of the Simon Commission, the real India will still stretch for endless distances beyond the council walls of Delhi, Simla, and provincial capitals. Among its multitudinous populations British rule, however repellent to the Nationalist ideals, has meant to the ordinary man justice, impartiality, the protection of the weak from the strong.* These are the blessings that he most desires. In the history of the past fourteen years certain broad facts stand out prominently. Never have such tremendous changes taken place in Asia within so short a period. Yet India has made her way first through the prolonged crisis of the great war, and then through the stormy years which 0 followed it with immunity from the ruinous calamities which have struck down two great Asiatic empires. The ship has swung with the tide, but the anchor has held. In March last, for the fourth year in succession, a surplus budget was declared. All this would have been impossible but for the general good sense of the kindly Indian people, for their willing response to the British direction and assistance which have been with them throughout. Attempts to spurn these, to thrust them aside, have largely recoiled on the heads of the promoters. The seeds of hatred and bitterness, so freely scattered, have yielded a crop unsatisfying to every one. This is evident; and it is clear that advance towards a successive parliamentary system can never lie through

* See Reports of Debates-Legislative Assembly-Feb. 16, 1926, p. 1336, also Punjab Legislative Council, March 14, 1928, pp. 745-46.

the incessant promotion of strife. If in this 20th century, India is to attain to a place among the nations worthy of her ancient name, it will be through the willingness of her leading men to accept English help and make fair allowance for England's dearly bought interests in their country. Solid progress too is essential in education and agriculture, two great causes to which Lord Curzon devoted untiring thought and labour. In both he pointed out paths of advance; but opposing advance are mighty obstacles which can be overcome only in an atmosphere of patient perseverance, of peace and good will. Unless this atmosphere can be secured India will be benefited by no constitution that the wit of man can devise. A fresh wind is needed to move her from that bank and shoal of time on to which she has politically drifted.

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H. VERNEY LOVETT.

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NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

Mr William J. Brittain, in his article, 'The Beginnings of Television,' in our April number, mentioned the growing opinion that television will develop by the use of electrons rather than along the mechanical lines being chiefly followed at present. Among the men of science who agree with this view is Mr Alan A. Campbell Swinton, F.R.S. As early as 1903 Mr Swinton made television experiments with electrons, using a selenium cell, sensitive to light, specially prepared for him by the late Prof. G. M. Minchin, F.R.S. In 1908 Mr. Swinton wrote a letter in Nature,' which was most likely the first published suggestion of the use of cathode-ray electrons, in place of mechanically moving material parts, both for transmitting and receiving in television. In 1911 he illustrated and detailed his scheme before the Rontgen Society of London; and before the Radio Society of Great Britain, in March 1924, Mr Swinton elaborated his suggestions, showing how modern wireless methods could be applied to his apparatus, so as to produce wireless television by means of electrons.

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SOME RECENT BOOKS.

Socialism, Fascism and Mussolini-An Ancient EpicSantiago-A.L. Smith-Johnsonian Gleanings-Trollope -Robespierre-Books on Art-Romans and BritonsMorals — Bi-Sexuality — African Jungle Life—' Blue Trousers'-'The Sacred Fire-Explaining Maeterlinck -English Literature.

C So much mere sentimentality has been blended with the Socialism of recent years-it began with the start of the Fabians in the 'eighties and Sir William Harcourt's casual, untrue assertion that 'We are all Socialists nowadays'-that it is time we looked steadily at the truth; especially since a Socialist Government has been in power and will shortly be making a bid for power again. Also we have seen in Russia the very brutal havoc wrought through the relentless application of Marxian ideas to the social life. No better clearance of the issue could have been made than is accomplished by Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw in 'A Survey of Socialism (Macmillan). This analytical, historical and critical examination of the various. Collectivist movements and assertions of principles launched on an unsettled world is careful, illuminating, searching, convincing, overwhelming; and also is fair to the opposite side. The only judgment in it that we question is the severe one on John Ball, whose protest, surely, is amply justified by the pictures drawn of the suffering peasants in the contemporaneous Piers Plowman.' His denunciation of the inequalities which cast their rags and starving into a greater hopelessness was natural to humanity, and far removed from the positive cruelty of the Communism which has ruined Russia and would ruin this country too, if the impossible happened and the nasty little people, its advocates, gained the whip hand. Space at present prevents more than this brief commendation of a brilliant and most valuable book. If it does not absolutely break the theorists of Socialism altogether-wilful obstinacy being in the life-blood of those gentlemen-it is final to those who are prepared to weigh duly the evidences of experience and history.