We have endeavoured on another page to tell briefly the
story of this great struggle, which may alter for years the character of the Indian Government and the direction of its energies. In insisting that the new Member of Council, whose work is to be limited to the control of military supply, should be a nominee of his own, Lord Curzon may have com- mitted a Constitutional blunder; but on the broader question he was unquestionably in the right, and we do not doubt that in other circumstances the mistake would have been courteously corrected and passed over. The Government, however, as is clear from the despatches, were out of touch with Lord Curzon, who has the foible and the merit of strong confidence in his own judgment, and who has given great offence in certain quarters by ranking India decisively among those dependencies of the Empire which defend Free-trade. It is, of course, expected that Lord Minto will strongly support Lord Kitchener ; but the military party may in that be making a mistake. The consistent history of eighty years shows that no Viceroy of India bas been able to tolerate an " independent " Commander-in-Chief, and that no Commander-in-Chief who thought himself as strong as the
Viceroy has been able to abstain from giving orders which involve policy as well as discipline and organisation. When the Viceroy ceases to control policy, such administrative anarchy supervenes as even the present Government will find itself wholly unable to defend or endure.
