New Viceroy

A tall Briton, whose air of habitual command betrayed his lineage, arrived last week at Bombay, India. Some weeks before he had taken leave of the King-Emperor at London, had left that monarch to endure his well known bronchial affliction amid the damp of England. At Bombay, the arriving Briton took the oath of allegiance as Viceroy of India, then he prepared to whirl inland to Delhi, the Imperial Capital. At Delhi, where the new Imperial city is rapidly being transformed by British architects into an earthly paradise, the stalwart Englishman will shortly begin to reign "in the name of the King." For five years he will be known as Lord Irwin, Viceroy and Governor General of India.

The Viceregal Court. In all but name, the splendors of Imperial Delhi eclipse those of London as the blazing Indian sun outshines the often sickly orb which rises and sets over England. At the durbars of the Viceroy attend Princes whose antiquity of lineage combined with wealth exceeds that of any other class of mortals. As the crown jewels of George V outshine those of other Occidental monarchs, so are they outshone by the trinkets of the Nizam* of Hyderabad, "the richest man on earth," a potentate privately possessed of five million acres of crown lands and tangible stores of gold and gems weighing several tons, a monarch who reigns with medieval absolutism over the largest native state in India, over 13 million souls.

Before the new Viceroy many another potentate must bow: the Maharaja of Mysore, known as the most progressive of Indian rulers; the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, better known as "Mr. A."; the Maharaja of Patiala, whose habit it is to attend European social functions literally swathed in pearls. . . . All these sovereigns, by a sublime irony, are now under the benevolent tutelage of a gentleman who was known until a month ago merely as the Rt. Hon. Edward Frederick Lindley Wood.

The Viceroy. As the son and heir of the aged Viscount Halifax (87-year-old Groom of the Bedchamber to Edward of Wales), Mr. E. F. L. Wood has need of his interim title "Lord Irwin" only during his viceroyship** or until his father dies. His choice as Viceroy is regarded as felicitous in the extreme, because his grandfather, the first Viscount Halifax, was raised to that estate for his success (as "Sir Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India") in completely reorganizing the government of India after it was taken over from the old East India Co. Since Sir Charles Wood won the enduring gratitude of the Indian reigning houses by relieving them of the exploitation of early British misrule, his grandson is automatically persona grata at Delhi.

The new Viceroy is, however, by no means a mere political heir who ascended his appointed throne last week. Since 1910, when he was 29, he has been consistently returned to the House of Commons as a Conservative; and following the War he began to serve in high official capacities. In 1921 he was made Parliamentary UnderSecretary for the Colonies; in 1922 President of the Board of Education; and, with the advent of the Baldwin Conservative Government, Minister of Agriculture, which he resigned to take the viceroy ship.

His friends remember him as a bookworm of athletic prowess at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford. His father, who is considered the foremost Anglo-Catholic of the day, is said to regard his son's equal devotion to that faith with satisfaction.

Indian Retrospect. Lord Irwin succeeds as Viceroy the former Lord Chief Justice of England, Rufus Daniel Isaacs, first Earl of Reading, son of the late Joseph Isaacs, a merchant in the city of London. Lord Reading is perhaps the classic example cited to prove that ability and application suffice to catapult the merest of commoners to the heights in this 20th Century.

To rehearse his brilliant legal career would be out of place though scarcely tedious. The fact of essential interest is that he went out to India five years ago and found it seething with unrest. As everyone knows, India is now, if not*** calm, at least much calmer. The little bourgeois from London marts has performed marvels of constructive statemanship:

He has very largely smoothed out the "non-co-operative movement," the boycott of British goods and British institutions fomented by "Mahatma" Gandhi, lawyer, "saint" and sage.

He has widened the liberties enjoyed by Indians in numerous fields, while at the same time winning them over in some measure to an enlightened endurance of British rule.

Lastly, Lord Reading has upheld that sharp yet intangible and often irrationally wielded sword: "British Justice." His crowning achievement in this respect was, of course, to force the abdication of the Maharaja of Indore (TIME, March 8) because that potentate had mistreated a dancing girl who, according to Indian tradition, was indisputably his to do with as he pleased.

*Full title: His Exalted Highness Asaf Jah, Muzaffar-ul-Mulk-Wal-Mumilak, Nizam-ul-Mulk, Nizam ud Daula Nawab Mir Sir Vsman Ali Khan Bahadur, Fateh Jung, Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Honorable Lieutenant General in the Army, Faithful Ally of the British Government.

**The Viceroy is, by custom, always a peer.

***During the week there occurred at Calcutta more serious riots than have taken place for some time. The immediate cause was typically oriental: the playing of music by a Hindu procession outside a Moslem mosque. Late despatches reported that the rioting Moslems and Hindus had mutually slain 35 of their number, injured 200.