Government decisions might be reached in haphazard the fi fashion, and that 'there was no machinery enabling the great Government to weigh conflicting opinions and to arrive qu at reasoned conclusions.' In April 1885 there came his opportunity to take a personal part in reforms. He 'T became the first secretary of a small Standing Committee, th set up on the instigation of the Hon. Robert Meade of Col the Colonial Office, and composed of representatives of d the three departments' to deal with all defence corre-peria spondence. That proposal (by an Under-Secretary of the State), having 'wandered round the Departments and collected twelve sets of approving initials, was to prove the starting-point of important developments.' Lord Sydenham thus describes the small beginning of the great work of organising the Empire for war in which he had a hand.

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A note may here be suitably interposed on the influence of defence problems upon the development of the British Empire, and upon the growth of the existing spirit of nationality in the various communities for which that expression stands. Reference has been made above to historians, and to the materials available for their research work. It has always struck the writer as a curious phenomenon that, in the numerous educational conferences affecting the British Empire that have been held in London and elsewhere of late years, the subject of defence has been completely ignored. If less attention were paid to paper constitutions and agreements, and more to the underlying causes of which such documents are merely the interpretation, the subject of defence would loom more largely in the estimation of competent historians. We should then obtain a truer picture of Empire development. Much unexplored material for such study is collected in the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London. Researches therein tend to illustrate the thesis that no community which entrusts its defence entirely to others can possess a true spirit of national self-respect (a conclusion expressed by Mr Gladstone over sixty years ago *), and, to return to Lord Sydenham's book, we find that

'No community which is not primarily charged with the ordinary business of its own defence is really, or can be, in the full sense of the word, a free community.'

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the first Colonial Conference of 1887, from which such reat Empire developments have sprung, had its origin n questions of defence:

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'There were some large questions in the background, and n the autumn of 1885 I tried to urge the pressing need of Colonial Conference. Mr Meade was sympathetic, as always, and I think that Sir Robert Herbert, a broad-minded Im perialist, was an early supporter of the idea; but there were engthen misgivings in some quarters. The necessity for personal discussion with Colonial (now Dominion) statesmen doubtless appealed to many other minds at this time, and in the following year the invitations were sent out by Mr Stanhope on behalf of Lord Salisbury's second Administration.'

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Lord Sydenham served as Secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee from 1885 to 1892. An outstanding occurrence during that period was the appointment in lup 1888 of a Royal Commission, of which Lord Hartington was Chairman and Lord Sydenham a Secretary, 'to inquire into the Civil and Professional Administration of the Naval and Military Departments to each other and to the Treasury, and to report what changes in the existing system would tend to efficiency and economy in the Public Service.' After rejecting Lord Randolph t Churchill's proposals on the plea that they would ultimately approach closely to that of a Minister of Defence '-which idea they emphatically condemned— the members of the Commission stated that:

"There might be some advantage in the formation of a Naval and Military Council, which should probably be presided over by the Prime Minister. . In this Council also possibly might be included one or two officers of great reputation or experience who might not happen to hold any official appointment in the Admiralty or War Office at the time.

Although the functions of such a Council were set forth, the change for which Lord Sydenham was anxious received only that lukewarm support from the Commissioners. Such a tepid recommendation was hardly likely to carry much weight, and fourteen years were to elapse before such a Council came into existence as a live body. (No account is here taken of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, established in 1895, because

that body, lacking the impetus of a competent secretary, effected nothing whatever. Only those who lived in those times can appreciate the dead weight of apathy amongst those statesmen, who were charged with the conduct of public affairs, towards all defence problems.)

Judging from his description of his literary activities, Lord Sydenham must have realised at an early stage in his career that reforms, if resting upon a sound basis, can best be accelerated with the aid of the Press. It was probably this circumstance that caused a check to his own career, as in those days a reputation for skill with the pen was extremely harmful to the prospects of officers in the public service. Whether for that, or for other causes, such as jealousy of the powers of the Colonial Defence Committee as the only co-ordinating authority in defence matters, he was suddenly ordered back to the Royal Engineers to perform routine regimental duty at Malta, and nine years were to elapse before he could get back to the work for which he had striven to fit himself:

'In October, 1892, I was suddenly ordered to Malta. Latterly I had become aware of a growing hostility towards the Colonial Defence Committee, arising partly from departmental jealousy and partly from misunderstanding.'

We will pass over the time that he spent in Malta, where the months passed slowly, and he felt keenly the sense of imprisonment in the little island, taking note only of an article which he wrote for the Nineteenth Century' in 1894 to oppose the policy of abandoning the Mediterranean, and of his comment thereon:

'The proposal to abandon the Mediterranean has not been revived, but mutatis mutandis, these causes apply to the recent opposition developed by the Socialist Party, with Liberal co-operation, to the creation of an adequate Naval base at Singapore, failing which the abandonment of the Pacific in certain circumstances would be entailed.'

In August of that year Lord Sydenham was offered, and accepted, the post of Superintendent of the Royal Carriage Factory in Woolwich Arsenal. While he was there, the war in South Africa was handled by an unreformed War Office.' During the course of that

war he served, in 1901, on a War Office Reorganisation Committee, of which some few of the recommendations were accepted, but these needed developing in 1904, with the aid of the Elgin Commission's report as a backing.

In 1901 he was called to the Governorship of Victoria, where he gained valuable experience of the mental attitude of the citizens of the great dominions, and:

'Two years of study in Australia changed my whole political outlook, and destroyed some cherished illusions. The faith of a Liberal was shattered, and the phrases which I had accepted as principles lost all actuality. I had seen democracy-considerably more advanced than that at home -in full operation, and my confident hopes of Government "by the people and for the people " faded away. It seemed to me that Government by popular assemblies, based on adult suffrage, must ultimately become impossible, and recent symptoms have only confirmed that impression.'

When Lord Sydenham left the Colonial Defence Committee in 1892, his friend Sir Robert Meade wrote that he knew well the disappointments thus suffered, but argued against retirement from the Service, on the plea that everything comes to him who waits. The waiting for an opportunity of promoting the object of the most congenial work of Lord Sydenham's career was to last for nearly twelve years. In November 1903 this telegram was received by him in Melbourne from Mr Balfour, then Prime Minister:

'It is most important to obtain your services on a Committee of three of which Lord Esher and Sir John Fisher are members to advise on the reorganisation of the War Office. This will involve your departure from Melbourne at the earliest possible moment. I greatly hope your reply will be favourable.'

Lord Sydenham repaired forthwith to London, taking home some strong views, 'among which a Council of Imperial Defence, the creation of a real General Staff, and drastic decentralisation were prominent.' The first section of the report, advocating a Defence Secretariat, a feature of the Committee of Imperial Defence to which its successful progress can be attributed, was sent to Mr Balfour on Jan. 11, 1904: The Army Council and the Committee of Imperial Defence, of which I was

appointed Secretary, were promptly set up, and the Esher Committee was retained in being for several weeks to give any advice that might be required.' Under the ægis of Mr Balfour, the Committee of Imperial Defence got quickly into working order, with the farreaching effect upon British Empire organisation and preparation for war that left its mark upon world history in subsequent years. Finis coronat opus. Lord Sydenham, who is now in his eightieth year, might well derive contentment from the achievement of that 'worthy end and expectation,' but in October 1907, at the age of well over fifty-nine, 'almost too old,' he writes, as I was to discover, for the physical strain which was sometimes inevitable,' he went to India as Governor of Bombay. There, during the years 1908-1909, he was to suffer bereavement and disappointment: the worst two years of my life, in which, following many months of anxiety, I lost my wife and only child.' His comments on Indian administration and on recent developments in the system of Government provide a valuable contribution to our knowledge of such matters. One passage is particularly illuminating :

'In these years I came to understand the Presidency machine of government, stretching down from the little executive Council of three, through Commissioners of divisions, collectors of districts, and mamlatdars of Talukas, to the village-the unit of real life of the Indian peoples. Of the hide-bound bureaucracy which voluble politicians professed to discover I found scarcely a trace. There

are no officials in the world less bureaucratic than the Indian Civil Servants, where this provision [constantly bringing in new blood from the districts] is insisted upon, and entrenched Secretariats, such as those at home and in France, should be impossible in India.'

After more years of hard work there, he returned to England in April 1913, where 'it was delightful to be back among old friends and to see the ever-fresh miracle of an English spring; but I seemed to find changes in national characteristics which were disturbing.' Praise for past work (Lord Curzon wrote that the way in which Lord Sydenham had pushed Bombay along, fought the battle of education, conciliated but led all parties, and