THE BOOKMAN

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 15

THE BOOKMAN

"Ui« Onteal of a Diplomat." By Onstantin Nabokoff. London: Duckworth and 00.

M. NaJbokoff was at first Counsellor of the Russian Embassy in London. (1915----17), and latter OhaTgo d'Affairs. He had the misfortune (as it turned out) to be promoted from being Consul-General at Calcutta to the Embassy in London. He became very fond of India, whence he had boeSn transferred* from Washington. While in India, M. Nabokoff saw much of the groundlessness for British suepicions of Russian penetration in the East .as towards India. The geographical and ethnological ignorance of some of the highest functionaries in the Russian Foreign Office Mfae wnaziag. For example, M. Nabokoff in 1913 acquainted! his superiors with the fact that one of ttie members of the Anglo-Chinese Thibetan Conference was British. Ag«nt in Sikkim. This was read by the Russian Foreign Office as : "One of-the. British delegates is Mir. Sikkimin." There wa« apparently no knowledge of Sikkim as a country. On the other hand, th-e British, Government is shown by M. Nabokoff to have been much in the dark about Russia's "designs oh India." There were, apparently no designs. He was long enough in India to become convinced of the benefitSence of British role there for he writes :—

"I am not quite certainthat the departure from the wise methods of the nineteenth century which the British Raj ie now making deserves to be described as the height of insight and-statesman-ship." Of the eagerness of the Indian soldiers to take part in the Great War, .Mr. Nabokoff was a witness. He was in Calcutta wheli 1 war broke otlt.

"The' Viceroy told me (ho writes) about three weeks after waif was declared that he intended to send 200,000 native troops, to be replaced by Terri» torials from Home. What happened was this : ' There was not a single regiment in India, British or native, but was not eager to go to the front. It is no ex^ aggeration 'to say that there woe a regnj tor scramble between these regiments to 'get there' fh'sfc." The response by all the native-Erinces was equally tic,, all showing in a practical fashionhow great "was" the beneficent rule of the British Raj. And now? Let Mr. Nabokoff himself epeak :

The future destinies of Hindustan and of the British Raj are shrouded in mystery, It is a mystery the clearing of which can never ceaee to fascinate the' mind of anyone who has \ been in contact, however superficial,' ■ with this 'other -world.' Thewar has about great changes in the mutual relations between the British and the natives of India, more especi- \ ally in the Army. The idea of selfdetermination, so blindly professed by obstinate doctrinaires like President Wilson, and supplied by. politicians Without any practical knowledge of the world outside Whitehall, immediately threatens the very exiotenoe of the

British .Empire. Ireland, Egpt. India Bite already clamouring for Wt-deter-mutation/ and will scon be clamouring more loudly. If race and nation- ' ality. are accepted 1 as sufficient grounds for separate and independent Statehood, there can be no, reasonable excuse for the presence in India of the British Tilling caste and,, of British guardianship of the Indian Principals Dies. If Esthoiiia, why not Hyderabad? As I ihave already said, , Great Britain has accomplished in- Hindustan the greatest miracle of jmcificalion and civilisation. The question is how long th« conscious, and intelligent classes and the apathetic, - ignorant irtasses of India will continue to prefer the- eontlrtuatiott and consummation of this miracle of political independence and self-determination. British statesmen nowadays never miss ■ the opportunity of alluding to 'dismembered Russia' and 'the late Empire.' May the British Raj survive the dangers Which, owing to the war and the policy of Russia's former, friends, have overwhelmed for the tim« being my unhappy country."

M. Nabokoff reportedl himself in. London to tiio late Count Benckeudorff. The wax had been waging for seventeen moiitihsi Men talked of th<e "Rw&sdari Steam Roller." But there were, even then, sinister influences at work'in 'Baissidtt high quarters, and to these influences, with shocking incompetency on the part of the Government, the Ts;ir and his family owe their tragic .eliding-, and the'swarm of Bolshevik vultures their prey. The Allied nations were act,, as be shows, entirely free from bl'ame 1,On their part there was sympathy, there were men and money, too, at Russia's disposal; bttt lamentable ignorance of Russian conditions, and much costfy vacillation. German diuplicity, combined] with Russian treachery, working hand' in hand, were behind the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. It is to foe inferred that M. Nabokoif has not lost hopein a united and prospeJwis Russia, a«d the ftrpulston 6f the Bolshepvdk oligarchy. Russiai's blight is jtolitids, but the people, as a, whole, are worthy, as" M. Nabokoff chows, of British, or even Allied), assi^tiance in freeing themselves of the bloodithirsty tyranny under which they are groaning. The "ordeal" thronghi which, he passed' in London was the want Of official recognition and support from th« British Government, and* the terrible uneortairity prevalent in all Russia.

After 11th November, 1915, and) all thro-ug-h 1919, the British Government caxriedi .out the policy (towards Russia) that was dictated by tlte extremist section of the Labour andi Socialisb

Parties towards Ireland; writes M. Nabokoff of fchii most intfereefc ing story of political intrigue inbothi Russia atod Britain.