LORD MIDLETON'S MEMORIES
Records and Reactions, 1856-1939. By the Earl of Midleton. (Murray. I2S. 6d.) AT the age of 82 Lord Midleton, as a politician, belongs largely to .a past generation. In irrationally selective memories he is associated with his membership of the narrow and distinguished circle of "The Souls "; his motion which caused the downfall of the Liberal Government in 1895; and the Brodrick forage-cap. In these memoirs he says disappoint- ingly little about the Souls, modestly little about the debate which resulted in a vote of censure on Campbell-Bannerman's Administration at the War Office, and he disclaims altogether credit for the Army headgear distinguished by his name.
That is of little consequence. In Records and Reactions most of the records are important and most of the reactions enter- taining. Lord Midleton was Secretary for War during the South African War after the first twelve months, Secretary for India during Curzon's stormy Viceroyalty ; and as a Southern Irish landlord deeply involved in Irish politics over a space of something like half a century. He claims to be joint-creator with Lord Selborne of the Committee of Imperial Defence, for when he was at the War Office in 1902 and Selborne at the Admiralty both declined to continue unless some body was created to to-ordinate their activities ; as a result, Balfour was prevailed on to bring the C.I.D. into being, with himself, as Prime Minister, its first chairman.
Buller, Curzon, and Esher, King Edward, and, of course, Arthur Balfour, are among the personalities on whom the memoirs throw instructive light. Balfour's aversion from written communications was well known, and in Lord Midle- ton's judgement it was just as well, for in one characteristic communication, in reply to a request for his opinion whether Lord Lansdowne should resign the Viceroyalty of India, A. J. B.'s apparently inexplicable advice was subsequently discovered to be due to his omission of the insignifi- cant but not immaterial word "not." A later Viceroy, Curzon, was an old Eton and Oxford friend of the author, but he was not the easier to handle for that. Lord Midleton, who was Secretary for India, observes drily that Curzon looked on that Minister as the Viceroy's representative at the Court of St. James's, and had not the slightest respect for the Cabinet's views on Indian affairs. He traces in detail the historic quarrel between Curzon and Kitchener—each of them men singularly incapable of working in effective co-operation with anyone— but does not disguise his own (admittedly debatable) opinion that Curzon's failure and resignation were due not primarily to that notorious episode, but to the "conviction of the whole Cabinet that, despite Curzon's ability and knowledge and service, his continuance in India in 1905 was a danger to the Empire."
On Lord Esher, whose diligent string-pulling must have been as unattractive to his colleagues as his record of it is attractive to posterity, Lord Midleton permits himself some not un- reasonably caustic observations. Thus in 1901, when the question of superseding Buller in the Aldershot Command was being discussed in cypher telegrams and secret conversa-
tions between the author (as Secretary for War), Lord Salis- bury (as Prime Minister), Mr. Balfour and Lord Roberts, "Esher's Secret Service' seised him of all that was known at Balmoral, including the King's views as telegraphed by me to the Prime Minister, and the reactions of the Cabinet Committee. He thought himself justified in disclosing to his second son, a cadet at Sandhurst, these intimate official details before any decision was given, or even the facts had been circulated to the Cabinet."
Lord Midleton's memoirs possess all the essential iirtues. They arc straightforward, human, unpretentious, and always more apt to minimise than to magnify the writer's part in great events. But many of the events are great enough to give the volume real historical value. H. W. H.
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