Just as a painter's work is a picture, and not the mere outline for a picture; just as a sculptor's work is a statue, and not the mere sketch on paper for a statue; so, but even more thoroughly and emphatically, an architect's work is a building, and not the mere plan or view of a building. His productions, then, it is always in the power of others to influence to an extent beyond that to which the productions of most other artists can be influenced; and this fact will have its weight in any criticism of architecture that means to be fair and just. It is easy to illustrate this from Wren's own practice. Nothing in his parish churches, perhaps, impresses common observers more unpleasantly than the pewing. The worshippers are boxed up in rooms within a room; the height and heaviness and discomfort of the pews are proverbial; and for all these things Wren popularly gets the blame. Yet he is so far from deserving it, that in the before-quoted letter of 1708 he records his earnest wish to have had benches instead of pews; "but," he says, "there is no stemming the tide of profit, nor the advantage of the pew-keepers."

We have seen in Wren, then, a designer of the modern period who was yet a true artist; a man who mastered his style, instead of being mastered by it-to whom it was always a means and never an end. We have seen in him a so-called classicist whose deepest thoughts were all non-classic, whose towers are full of Gothic spirit, and his plans of eastern inventiveness. We have seen in him an architect deprived of nearly all aids to architecture, yet victorious; and a church-builder to whom precedent was nothing and novelty nothing, but reasonableness, expressiveness, and beauty, everything. Such was his work: what were his wages?

England treated Wren much as she treated Milton; and the price paid for St. Paul's is only worthy to be named with that given for "Paradise Lost." The pamphleteers reviled him from their garrets; the great Sir Vistos of the period, who had dabbled in building, and thought themselves better architects than Wren by at least thirty thousand a year, maligned him when living, and perhaps slandered him when dead. The salary he received would by itself hardly have kept him alive to do his work, and half of it was stopped for years by Act of Parliament, "thereby to encourage him," so the clause runs, "to finish the same with the utmost diligence and expedition." It is the sort of encouragement which in this country artists of all kinds have frequently met with; but Wren's achievements had been so great that it was ultimately felt he deserved something more. He was therefore turned out of the Crown surveyorship after more than fifty years' service, without pension or thanks; and his appointment given to one Benson, who is deservedly immortalized in the "Dunciad."

Wren did not complain; he had done his work, and that was

VOL. XLVI.

enough for him. He was perhaps happier at last in not having been a "successful man," for the successful man "has his good things now." His triumphs, such as they were, had never turned his head; his ideal was always beyond them. He seems to have been one of those men who, while others are praising their work as it is, are at heart regretting that is not what they meant it to be, and whose greatest achievements therefore gain less credit with the world than the lowest failures of the empty, the boastful, and the self-satisfied. For a time, and perhaps a long time, people take both classes at their own valuation. Still, a victory is a victory, and a failure is a failure; and when the thinker and the talker have both passed away, the difference between their doings gradually discloses itself. Then it is too late to acknowledge it; the time for rewarding desert is over. But it is not for reward that the best work is done; it was not for reward that Wren did his.

JAMES CUBITT.

PARLIAMENT AND THE FOREIGN

POLICY OF INDIA.

I

CONTRIBUTED to the February number of this REVIEW a paper

under the title "Parliament and the Government of India," which gave rise to considerable discussion. The paper was an argument in favour of a more efficient, direct, and continuous control by Parliament over the conduct of affairs in India than is possible under the dual form of Government which obtains at present. The means by which I proposed to bring about this more direct and efficient control were the abolition of the Indian Council, and the substitution in its stead of a Standing Committee of the House of Commons, from which the official element would be absolutely excluded, which would have authority to call for all Indian papers without exception, and to raise debates on any question of Indian policy. I have no reason to complain of the tone in which these propositions were criticized, both in London and in the provinces; but what struck me most in the comments elicited by my paper was the diversity of views held by writers in regard to the manner in which our Indian possessions are administered. Much has happened even within the last few months to deepen my conviction of the urgent and immediate need of my proposal; and this fact, as well as some of the adverse comment which it has met with, is my apology for recurring to the subject. To argue in favour of a direct and efficient Parliamentary control over the affairs of India appears to me, I must confess, equivalent to arguing for the right of the British people to control the destinies of the United Kingdom. Our Indian Empire constitutes the pivot on which the whole of our Foreign Policy revolves. So intimate is now the connection between the Indian Peninsula and the continent of Europe that any great European State has it in its power by an aggressive foreign policy, if not actually to imperil the peace of India, at least greatly to disturb our equanimity with regard to it. And under the existing

state of things, the great and exceeding mischief is that our easily excited apprehensions are never according to knowledge. So long as the Government of India continues to be withdrawn from the cognizance of Parliament, the policy which vitally affects the interests of both England and India will be secretly matured and will be known to the nation only in its effects. That in this respect there is no difference in the action of Liberal and Conservative Governments, a single illustration will suffice to show. A few weeks ago I asked a question in the House as to the construction of a railway to connect Quetta with the Indus. I inquired whether the statements that this work was about to be entered upon were correct, and whether the Government proposed to submit to the House their reason for entering upon this costly undertaking. The reply was that the subject would not come before the House, because the Quetta Railway was only a matter connected with "the extension of railway communication" in India. Technically this was doubtless correct; actually, in sanctioning this project, the Liberal Government have entered upon a policy, the ulterior development of which they will be powerless to control, and which may be fraught with far more formidable consequences to the people of this country than even the bombardment of Alexandria. This will seem a hard saying; but I think I am in a position to demonstrate its veracity to the satisfaction of the most unbelieving.

All Liberals at least will agree that one cause, perhaps the chief cause, of the overthrow of the late Conservative Government, was the disastrous policy which they had pursued in Afghanistan. When that policy was first disclosed to an unsuspecting nation, it was described as a short and easy method for the acquisition of a "scientific frontier" which should set our minds permanently at rest as to the aggressive projects of the Russians in Central Asia. The military operations were to consist of a military promenade, costing at the outside not more than a million and a quarter of money; and the revenues of India, under the skilful management of Lord Lytton and Sir John Strachey, were said to be able to furnish this amount without any extra demand upon the Indian taxpayer; while in return for this trifling trouble and expenditure we were to have a "scientific frontier" warranted impregnable against all attacks, and a "strong, friendly, and independent Afghanistan." We know what came of these cheerful predictions. "The result," wrote Lord Hartington to the Government of India, May 21, 1880, "of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an enormous force, and of the expenditure of large sums of money, has been the disintegration of the State which it was desired to see strong, friendly, and independent; the assumption of fresh and unwelcome liabilities in regard to one of its provinces (Kandahar),

and a condition of anarchy throughout the remainder of the country." This result was not considered satisfactory by a majority of the people of the United Kingdom. The Conservative Government was expelled from office, and a Cabinet installed in its place pledged, as all its supporters believed, to the prompt evacuation of Afghanistan and the disentanglement of the country from the "fresh and unwelcome liabilities" which had been wound round it by their predecessors in office.

I do not doubt that Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues, at the time of assuming office, were at one with the great body of those who put them in power, and were prepared to carry out the policy above indicated in the letter and in the spirit. The circumstances were exceptionally favourable for doing so. The leaders of the Afghan people who had fought against us with such signal courage and success at Sherpore, had made to our representative at Kabul a series of propositions, which, had they been accepted by the present Cabinet, would have gone far to obliterate the recollection of even the atrocious military executions which had signalized our occupation of Kabul, and the desolation and misery which we had spread over the whole country. These propositions were that Yakoub Khan should be released and restored to power over a united and independent Afghanistan; that the British resident to be established in the country should be of the Mahommedan religion; that the British troops should be withdrawn; and that "assistance should be given to the Ameer, seeing that the country had been desolated, and nothing of value is left, as the British authorities themselves are thoroughly aware." The importance attaching to the restitution of Yakoub Khan consisted in the fact, that to him alone, of all Afghans, was it possible for the two great sections of that people to recognize as their Sovereign without doing violence to their tribal prejudices, his father, Shere Ali, having belonged to the Douranee section, and his mother having been the daughter of a leading Ghilzye chief. Hence, while the Ghilzyes around Ghuznee and Jellalabad remained loyal to him, even after his deportation to India, it was in his name that Eyoub Khan made his memorable advance from Herat, defeating General Burrows at Maiwand, and laying siege to Kandahar. Lord Hartington was fully aware of the great importance of the return of Yakoub Khan to his people, and earnestly pressed it upon the Indian Government.

Obstacles to this course, in reason or equity, there were none. The deposition and removal of Yakoub Khan was, morally, one of the least defensible of our actions in Afghanistan, as politically, it was one of our most costly blunders. But when the choice is put before them of committing an injustice, or acknowledging an error, there is unhappily little to hope from the Indian Bureaucracy. The Cabinet weakly succumbed to their