Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/442

 from August to September 1881, Law acted as consul at St. Petersburg. In 1883 he declined the offer of a post which the war office was asked by King Leopold II to fill in the Belgian service in Central Africa [see, Suppl. II.] and he accepted the managership of the Globe Telephone Company in London. That company was then fighting the United Telephone Company. Law pushed through a scheme of amalgamation in the interests of the shareholders in 1884, and thereby abolished his own post. Volunteering for duty in the Sudan in 1885, he served with the commissariat and transport staff of the guards' brigade. He received the medal and clasp and the Khedive's bronze star, was mentioned in despatches, and promoted to the rank of major (June 1886). He was meanwhile recalled to England for work in the army intelligence department in connection with troubles with Russia over the Penjdeh incident on the Afghan frontier.

After visiting Manchuria to develop the services of the Amur River Navigation Company, he was associated with Colonel E. J. Saunderson [q. v. Suppl. II] in the anti-home rule campaign of the Irish Loyal and Political Union. Of inventive mind, he patented a machine for setting up type at a distance by the transmission of electric impulses, and a flying machine, the precursor of the aeroplane.

In January 1888 Law was posted to St. Petersburg as commercial and financial attache for Russia, Persia, and the Asiatic provinces of Turkey. He rendered valuable service to the English ambassador, Sir R. Morier [q. v.]. After visiting Persia in the course of 1888, he was attached next summer to Nasiruddin, Shah of Persia, on his visit to England. In 1890 he acted as British delegate for negotiation of a commercial treaty with Turkey. In 1892 he went to Greece to make an exhaustive inquiry into the financial situation there, his report appearing early in 1893. In March 1894 he was promoted to a commercial secretaryship in the diplomatic service. After a riding tour all through Asiatic Turkey he reported on railway development there in October 1895, and was the first to suggest British association with Germany in the Baghdad railway and British control of the section from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf ; that policy he advocated to the end of his life.

In December 1896 Law was transferred as commercial secretary to Vienna with supervision of Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Greece, and the Balkan States. In that capacity he, with Mr. (now Sir Francis) Elliot, British minister at Sofia, negotiated a commercial treaty with Bulgaria in the winter of 1896-7. He represented Great Britain at Constantinople on the international committee for determining the indemnity payable by Greece after her war with Turkey in 1897. His influence helped to keep the amount within reasonable limits, and in the autumn he served at Athens on the international commission for the due payment of the indemnity and the regulation of Greek finance.

When the international financial commission of Greek finance was founded in 1898, Law was unanimously elected president. He devised an ingenious system of consolidation of revenues, which rendered the international commission acceptable and useful to Greece, and he won a high place in the affections of the people throughout the country. While engaged on the business he was created a K.C.M.G. in May 1898, and given the rank of resident minister in the diplomatic service. He declined the Grand Cross of the Grecian Order of the Saviour and other foreign decorations. At the close of 1898 he went to Constantinople to represent British, Belgian, and Dutch bondholders on the council of the Ottoman debt.

In March 1900 Law went out to India as finance member of the government and took wide views of his responsibilities. He lost no time in completing the currency reform begun in 1893, setting aside the large profits from rupee coinage to form a gold standard reserve fund as a guarantee for stability of exchange. A great famine was afflicting the country when he took office, but a period of prosperity followed, and notwithstanding the cost of the many administrative improvements which Lord Curzon effected. Law was able to write off heavy arrears of land revenue and to make the first serious reduction of taxation for twenty years. The limit of income-tax exemption was raised from Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 per annum, and the salt tax — the burden of which upon the masses had been a subject of perennial criticism of government — was reduced from Rs. 2.8 as. (equivalent to 3s. 4d.) to Rs. 2 per maund. In the budget of 1905-6, promulgated after Law left office, but for the framing of which he was mainly responsible, the salt tax underwent a further reduction of 8 as., and the district boards (roughly corresponding to the English county councils) received a material