concluded a contract with an English firm for the supply of 150,000 Enfields, to be converted to a system known as Green. The contractors were however unable to carry out the contract.

And competing with the commissions were the agents of préfets, departments and towns.

Summarising the work of the special commission d'armement' the historians say:

'One may regret the want of thought with which the commission or its representatives bought up arms, ammunition and matériel which could not be used in France. This matériel encumbered the magazines, the quays, the vessels, and often delayed the arrival of new arms impatiently awaited. It neglected moreover to keep its agents abroad acquainted with its general operations; consequently its representative in England, not knowing of the contracts made in America, made his own contracts there, thus entering into competition with the agent of the commission himself. The conversion of the firearms was the cause of enormous expenses and of no immediate use. The absence of financial control led to increased expense, "et favorisa les prévarications de quelques intermédiaires." Finally, the absence of competent persons prevented complete checking of deliveries, a checking which however the urgency of the requirements would not have given time to make.'

Contracts for clothing and equipment to the extent of 160 million francs were entered into in la Province alone, which had become a huge national workshop from one end to the other; 600,000 men are said to have eventually been provided for. Nevertheless want of proper clothing and equipment and of the most ordinary hospital necessaries was too often a painful feature during the operations.

As a final illustration of the French War Office departmental confusion may be given the cause of the well-known and disastrous deficiency of accurate maps in the armies of the second period. The topographical bureau was situated during peace-time in the capital. At Tours, and with much difficulty, were reproduced from inaccurate and old maps several thousands of only partially accurate maps for use in the armies. Tours communicated with invested Paris for assistance in the matter, but with no satisfactory result. Yet all this time the necessary topographical plant' lay unused in la Province herself at Brest, whither it had been transferred from Paris before the investment, Tours remaining ignorant and uninformed of the fact.

Turning now from matériel to personnel, the term 'A Nation ' in arms' is hardly fairly descriptive of the French during the

second period. 'A Nation risen against Invaders' approximates nearer to the facts given in much detail by the historians, but with which there is little space here to deal. Everywhere, whether for fighting or for administrative work, men were forthcoming in plenty, even in over-abundance; but they were novices at the work set them to do, and everywhere, in combatant and in non-combatant work alike, the controlling element, with previous experience and knowledge of the work, was too scanty for the purpose. The military history shows this as regards the fighters; as regards the nonfighters the accounts before us show the same. For instance, the Intendance was the controlling authority of several branches, and even as early as the 20th of September an appeal was made to ex-sous-préfets and councillors of prefectures to give their assistance; the non-commissioned officers were promoted; a decree of the 11th of November authorised the admission of foreigners; and finally on the 1st of December the divisional intendants were allowed to obtain the services of anyone who could help them. And, moreover, in all the ramifications of the administration with the combatant army things had got so out of joint that new arrangements and improvisation were a necessity.

Even the food supply to the combatants had to be on fresh lines. No proper organisation for the use of the railways in war had existed in peace; an attempt resulting in frequent serious failures was made to work them properly in this second war; the hospital arrangements and the care of the wounded and sick quite broke down. But magnificent was the effort of Gambetta's War Office. In the earlier days of the war there appears a message from Palikao, Minister of War, to the head of a department: Il [Palikao] ne se dissimule pas les difficultés 'd'exécution de cette mesure . . . mais il m'a chargé de vous 'dire de faire l'impossible.' This same spirit de faire l'im'possible' shows itself in many of the decrees and orders of the Delegation. Cordially do we concur in the views of the historians:

'C'est avec une légitime fierté que l'on peut évoquer d'abord la grandeur de l'effort accompli, puis l'importance des résultats obtenus. Alors que, dans l'esprit de beaucoup, toute résistance était vaine, durant cinq mois des soldats improvisés surent tenir tête à des armées régulières, déjà pénétrées de la force morale que donne la victoire.'

And it was 'la Province' by her labours and her sacrifices that enabled them so to do.

ART. X.-THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.

1. The Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devonshire. By BERNARD HOLLAND, C.B. 2 vols. London: Longmans and Co. 1911.

ORD HARTINGTON is one of the most disinterested men 'L° 'who ever lived.' So spoke the Prime Minister-Lord Salisbury-at Liverpool in January 1888. And now, nearly a quarter of a century afterwards, Mr. Bernard Holland in an important work lays before us the whole political career of the eighth Duke of Devonshire. Men will of course differ, according to their political sympathies, in commending or condemning the line of conduct which on many important occasions the late Duke felt it to be his duty to pursue. But their verdict, unless we are greatly mistaken, will be absolutely unanimous that the language of Lord Salisbury at Liverpool was no more than the truth.

Mr. Holland's two volumes amply prove that this personal disinterestedness did not proceed from any indifference as to the great political issues from time to time before the country. Lord Hartington was not one of those who persistently undervalue the importance of political measures or political principle. On the other hand he was assuredly no doctrinaire. He regarded measures and policy from a very practical standpoint. What consequences would result to the country from their adoption, was the principal question to which he always addressed himself. But he was not prepared, in arriving at his conclusions, to sweep aside all the experience and teaching of the past. It was because he took such a deep interest in the political questions which themselves were in controversy, and was so keenly convinced of their importance to the country, that he set so much less store than many other politicians on the mere ups and downs of the 'party game,' or on the promptings of personal ambition. His position, his character, and his ability combined to give him great influence with his countrymen; and no one could have felt more strongly than he did that he owed to the country such services as he had it in his power to render her.

Lord Hartington's political career was a very long one; and it is natural that the latter part of it, concerned with events within the personal recollection of most readers, should absorb more public attention than the story of his earlier years. Nevertheless his character and influence as a statesman were shown hardly less in the period when they told heavily

in maintaining the unity of the Liberal party in the pursuit of practical reform, than when they largely contributed to the defeat of that party in its later efforts to destroy the Union. From the formation of Mr. Gladstone's first Ministry the adherence of Lord Hartington to the Liberal party was an indispensable condition of its unity. The Government of 1868 achieved a splendid record of good work done. But, as happens to reforming Ministries, it became exceedingly unpopular. Lord Hartington, though occasionally much dissatisfied with the line of the Government-as, for instance, with regard to the unhappy Irish University Bill-set aside minor differences in order to promote union on the greater political issues of the day. If in the inevitable breach of 1886 he led the Dissentient Liberals,' it ought not to be forgotten that in preceding years it was his influence and his loyalty to the party that had been mainly instrumental in averting much earlier disruption.

There was in truth little of the old Tory spirit in Lord Hartington. He never took up or sympathised with a position of mere resistance to innovation, though determined to advance with caution. As a matter of fact, no one of the many administrations of which he was a member showed any disposition to oppose practical reform, still less towards any spirit of reaction. He by nature disliked the extremists of both parties; showing in this, perhaps, that lack of imagination which Mr. Holland considers is characteristic of the Whig mind. Imagination

an important element in the political character of a Gladstone and a Disraeli. But no one, according to Mr. Holland, could expect the pulse of a sober-minded Whig to beat with the same active vitality as the pulse of Radical or Tory. Mr. Holland would doubtless endorse Bagehot's view that Whiggism is far less a creed than a temperament.

Perhaps as long as there has been a political history in this country there have been certain men of a cool, moderate, resolute firmness, not gifted with high imagination, little prone to enthusiastic sentiment, heedless of large theories and speculations, careless of dreamy scepticism; with a clear view of the next step, and a wise intention to take it; a strong conviction that the elements of knowledge are true and a steady belief that the present world can, and should, be quietly improved. These are the Whigs.' *

Without brilliant endowments Lord Hartington possessed a singularly strong understanding and a masculine habit of

*Literary Studies' by Walter Bagehot.

mind, by virtue of which he always grasped the main elements of a political problem, declining to be swayed by the nonessential and adventitious considerations that seem to count for so much in party controversy. His second-class in the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge was obtained almost without any real reading; and the Vice-Chancellor declared at the time that had he so chosen he was fully capable of winning the highest honours. Sir Almeric Fitz Roy, who was the Duke's private secretary in later years, points out the advantage which his cool temperament gave him in dealing with controversies over which smaller men got over-excited.* 'He was never angry, though often bored. ... No man 'arrived at the substance of papers submitted to him more 'thoroughly—indeed his capacity to extract the essence of a 'Blue Book was phenomenal. . . . In receiving deputations 'he never put a question not pregnant with meaning, or made a comment not instinct with sense.' One of the best comments ever made on the character of the Duke's public speaking was that of Mr. Bryan, the unsuccessful candidate for the American Presidency and no mean judge of platform oratory. Nothing, he said, had ever reminded him so much of 'pile 'driving' as the Duke's method of forcing home his conclusions and his full meaning on his audience.

His first speech of importance in the House of Commons was in bringing forward in 1859, on behalf of the Liberal Opposition, that motion of want of confidence which ejected Lord Derby and placed in power Lord Palmerston for the rest of his life. Even then he showed how little he thought that the whole duty of an Opposition was to oppose, and how much he felt that a sense of responsibility ought not to be confined to the statesmen and party in power. It is more remarkable perhaps that in his next speech (May 1861) Lord Hartington on the much-vexed question of the paper duties was in agreement rather with Gladstone than with Palmerston. The House of Lords had refused the previous year to concur with the House of Commons in repealing the paper duty. The tax was therefore being levied, he said, 'upon 'the authority of a body which never had, and ought not to 'have, the control of the taxation of the country.' Gladstone was naturally much delighted with the young member's speech, and wrote his enthusiastic appreciation of it to his father. As for the speech of 1859, Gladstone declared that, having regard to the critical conditions of the time, it was the best he had ever heard in the House of Commons from a man of his age; and Lord Russell, also writing to the Duke of Devonshire, * Vol. ii. p. 274.

VOL. COXIV. NO. CCCCXXXVIII.

H H