PRICE OF EMPIRE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18400, 5 June 1925, Page 9

PRICE OF EMPIRE.

SACRIFICE AND TEARS.

LATE LORD CI'RZON'S BOOK.

(i>t cAßi.r.—r?r,sS association —ecrTßioirr.l (AUSTRALIAN AND S.l. CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

LONDON. Juno 3

Some iiu-eresting disclosures and poignant passages arc contained in the late Marquess Curzon's •'British Government in India." just published by Cassell and Co.. Ltd.

Lord Cupzon, discussing Lord Kitchener's supreme ambition to become Viceroy, says that Lord Morley refused, on tho grounds of political expediency, to (rive him the post because he was p. soldier. Elsewhere it is mentioned that Karl Rosobery wished Earl Cromor to be Viceroy, but the latter declined five vears of exile.

In this connexion Lord Cur/on refers to tho sacrifices which Viceroys make. Many lost their wives as a result of the climate. He says:—-'Over the vice-regal throne hangs not only a canopy of .broidared gold, but a mist of human team."

In this there is perhaps a reference to Lord Curzon's loss of his own wife. In another passage he writes:—"l think the majority of those who suffered thought tho price worth while, but lot their countrymen realise that they paid it. and remember that the founda-tion-stones of the Empire which they vaunt so loudly have not merely boon laid in the pride of glory, but have been cemented with the hearts' blood of stricken men and women. "Equallv would I say to Ministers who sit in state in Downing street, ofiicials who rule and overrule from \Vlutehall, and legislators at Westminster who are most ready with criticism and most glib with censure, that they might derive profitable lessons from history, and learn that the government of India i, not a pastime, but an ordeal -t a pageant alone, but as often_a pain.