* * * * Lord Reading has laid down the
Governor-Generalship of India and -Lord Irwin has taken it up. We confess that we doubted the wisdom of Lord Reading's appoint inent, but he steadily dissipated those doubts, just as he had previously overcome by hard work and acute intelli- gence the difficulties of other unexpected labours. He had originally other intentions than of going to the Bar or into political life. Yet he became Attorney-General and Lord Chief -Justice. He could !never have foreseen -himself as His Majesty's Am- bassador at Washington, where his race and religion were less likely to help him than even in India. Yet, he was an invaluable Ambassador, and his services to the Empire .of India have been quite admirable : the more so because ,the difficulties have been unprecedentedly great through the last five years. Religious, economic and social agita- tions and a frontier war. combined to threaten order and security on all sides. Financial conditions after the War and several bad seasons added to the darkness of the out-. look, but in every direction there has been steady im- ,provement.
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