tariff in the Morley-Minto scheme of representation made some of the Indian Moslems actually believe that they were in a position to dominate British foreign policy, but the cool reception they met with when they tried a year or two ago to interfere in matters Persian, and recently with reference to the Balkan War, should go a great way towards disabusing their minds of the idea of their own importance, and convince them that as long as Britannia rules the waves she is not to be dictated to by the Moslem or anyone else, though just at present it may suit her best to be neutral. Without any reference to European politics, the Indian aspect of the question in itself justifies the King's proclamation of neutrality. Any other attitude would have been misunderstood by the Indian Moslems, who all over India are now busily engaged in raising subscriptions for the wounded Turks and offering prayers in hundreds of mosques for the victory of the Sultan's

arms.

My argument is by no means the permanent incapacity of the British to move without consulting the Moslem in India. Far from it. The unpreparedness of England to interfere in the Balkans is only temporary, and is due more than anything else to her two short-sighted bids for popularity-the Moslem preference in the Morley-Minto scheme, and the transfer of the Indian capital to a Moslem centre. The British now have to restore the equilibrium as it was in the closing years of last century. Once they have done this, they will be able to move which way they please as far as Turkey is concerned. But what British diplomatists should aim at is to be prepared; to have the Hindu ready on their side, and not to have to conciliate him when the Turks have forced a critical situation upon England.

Far-sighted British statesmen always kept in view the following three important facts, which make the position of the Hindu peculiar (1) Though many Englishmen have fallen victims to Moslem fanaticism, a murder of an Englishman by a Hindu from ' religious' motives is absolutely unknown. (2) In their endeavours to save the souls of African negroes and Indian Bhils there will always be friction between the Cross and the Crescent, for both are proselytising faiths, whereas Hinduism would refuse to take a convert even if anyone like Mrs. Besant, who has spent twenty years in holy Benares and actually preached Hinduism, wished to enter its fold. (3) No Hindu is a permanent resident in any foreign country, so England's difficulties with foreign Powers over the Hindu are reduced to a minimum. With regard to the Moslem, these three great causes of friction are always existent. Hindu unrest is a lesser evil than Moslem unrest, because the former cannot become so complicated as the latter. Therefore British authorities should guard against hasty appli

cation of a remedy which might later prove worse than the disease. There are many thousands of Mahomedans in the Native Army, and there are the fanatic Moslem tribes of the North-Western Frontier, where occasionally a few mullahs preach jihad, the holy war' of Islam, and give no end of trouble to the Government. With the Persian revolution almost touching the Indian frontiers and putting a strain on the Indian Army resources, any additional burden placed on the Indian executive to suppress Moslem rebellions in all parts of India would perhaps be more of a responsibility than the Viceroy at this juncture would care to add to his already existing burden.

The power of religion in politics is evident from history. During the pre-Christian era Hindu Imperialists made use of their religion for purposes of political assimilation. Greek political life was influenced by religion through the Oracles, and the Apollo at Delphi often regulated the balance of power by mysterious prophecies. Alexander Severus wished to erect a temple to Christ on the Capitol of Rome, and Hadrian scattered places of worship to unknown gods broadcast through his wide dominions." " The Jews recognised little difference between the Church and the State. Similarly the dominion of the Popes was both spiritual and temporal. Sir Alfred Lyall speaks of how both Christianity and Mahomedanism made religion a vital element in politics." The Moslems, therefore, are not the only people with whom religion is an important factor in the political life of the State. But in the case of the Indian Moslem matters are more complicated than usual, owing to his allegiance to a foreign ruler, the Sultan of Turkey, the head of his faith. Considerations of space make it impossible here to discuss how the Khalifa regulates Moslem patriotism, unlike the Christian Church which blends itself with geographical patriotism. To the Moslem mind the intense emotional force in the word Khalifa embraces both personal and dynastic loyalty. In that word lies buried the subconscious influence of centuries. I have lived in Hyderabad for years and have argued cases civil, criminal, and revenue, under the laws of the Koran, in courts in which not a single word of English was spoken, and which were presided over by learned Moslem judges; and though myself a Hindu I have had the honour of representing the Moslem Government of the Nizam in his Highness's own courts. I was also for years the editor of a newspaper at Hyderabad in which Moslem politics and Moslem religion were often discussed by distinguished followers of Islam. I therefore know that to the millions of Indian Moslems the word Khalifa acts as a charm Ancient and Modern Imperialism, by the Earl of Cromer, p. 92. • Race and Religion, by Sir Alfred Lyall, p. 14.

which carries with it an immediate stimulus of affection for the Turkish cause, and a corresponding disaffection towards all infidels which perhaps no other word or phrase can conjure up. The word Khalifa has greater psychological effect on the Moslems than any phrase like Bismarck's 'political egoism' or Mazzini's 'pact of humanity' could have on Western nations.

It must not be forgotten that within the last twelve months. the Indian Moslems have received from the British two rather hard knocks, and that it will be some time before their heartburning on that account will cease. The Re-partition of Bengal, after Lord Morley's repeated assurance that the Partition by Lord Curzon was a 'settled fact,' has shaken the faith of the Indian Moslem in the British word, and the recent decision of the Government of India against granting powers to the proposed Moslem University in regard to the affiliation of colleges is much resented by them. Hence an open attack on their Khalifa just now would have created trouble.

The future policy of British statesmen should therefore be to devise checks, balances, and counterpoises against Pan-Islam in India, by proper adjustment of the Hindu element to Imperial requirements, so that in an emergency suddenly created by a political situation in Europe, England could cease to be neutral, and thus prevent a European conflagration. For, as Kossuth said, neutrality as a lasting principle is an evidence of weakness. S. M. MITRA.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake

to return unaccepted MSS.

THE CHURCH AND THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION

THE Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes is the latest, but in all possibility not the last, of many attempts to deal with the most difficult and delicate subject of modern social ethics. It marks a stage, if no more than a stage, in the secular antagonism between the Christian ideal of Holy Matrimony and the passions or frailties of human nature. It cannot be rightly understood without some reference to the historical treatment of marriage and divorce among the nations of Europe generally, and especially in England, during the nineteen centuries of Christianity.

That the State is entitled and compelled to concern itself with marriage as a social problem is an axiom admitted by all modern publicists. It cannot leave citizens free to contract and dissolve their marriages at will; it must in the interests of public morals, and, indeed, of public order, appoint some limits to the unfettered possibility of contracting or dissolving marriages. 3 z

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Where no matrimonial laws exist, the State degenerates into sheer barbarism; it cannot, in fact, be called a State at all. No less, however, is it admitted by all believers in such a Divine revelation as the Christian, or by persons who, without being believers, yet acknowledge the just claim of a religious faith which professes to be a revelation, that the Church is, or necessarily regards herself as being, the custodian of certain moral and ecclesiastical principles which affect the personal and domestic lives, and pre-eminently the matrimonial relations, of her members. If, then, the Church upon the authority of her Founder, or upon such authority as she derives from Him, chooses to define certain laws of marriage, her will is binding upon her members, and the State cannot, or can only in extreme instances, fight against it.

The matrimonial law, then, lies within the province of the Church as well as of the State. Nowhere, perhaps, was Jesus Christ more conspicuously a Reformer than in the sphere of the domestic life; nowhere has He conferred a more signal and lasting benefit on human society than in His teaching of the sanctity which attaches to Holy Matrimony. The student of ancient and recent history, who knows what were the conditions of society as regards domestic life in the Roman world when Christianity was born, or what are its conditions to-day in the lands which do not yet acknowledge the spiritual sovereignty of Jesus Christ, can hardly fail to acknowledge that it is the sanctity of marriage which is the chief discriminating feature between Christian and non-Christian communities.

It may be worth while to quote a few sentences from the chapter in which the historian of the Romans under the Empire describes how marriage had come to be degraded and polluted among the Romans in the first century before the Christian Era. After relating the practical abandonment of marriage among Roman citizens in favour of a life which was nominally a state of celibacy, but practically a state of unrestrained and unabashed licentiousness, he adds:

The results of this vicious indulgence were more depraving than the vice itself. The unmarried Roman, thus cohabiting with a freed woman or slave, became the father of a bastard brood, against whom the gates of the city were shut. His pride was wounded in the tenderest part; his loyalty to the commonwealth was shaken. He chose rather to abandon the wretched offspring of his amours, than to breed them up as a reproach to himself, and see them sink below the rank in which their father was born. In the absence of all true religious feeling, the possession of children was the surest pledge to the State of the public morality of her citizens. By the renunciation of marriage, which it became the fashion to avow and boast, public confidence was shaken to its centre. On the other hand, the women themselves, insulted by the neglect of the other sex, and exasperated at the inferiority of their position, revenged themselves by holding the institution