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 arbitration on the Alaska Boundary in 1903; and he rapidly attained so considerable a practice that he was able to take silk in 1908. Meanwhile he had gone into politics, and was elected as an advanced Liberal for Walthamstow at the general election of 1906. At first, probably owing to his absorption in his legal work, he did not command nearly so much attention in Parliament as his Wadham contemporary and fellow-lawyer, Mr. F. E. Smith (afterwards Lord Birkenhead). But he gradually made his way, and was appointed by Mr. Asquith solicitor-general in 1910, and Attorney-General with a seat in the Cabinet in 1913. On the outbreak of war in 1914, his resignation, along with those of Lord Morley and Mr. Burns, was confidently expected; but he finally decided to remain with his chief and the bulk of his colleagues. When the first war Coalition Government was formed in May 1915, he was offered the lord chancellorship, but he declined the greatest prize of his profession as he preferred a political career in the Commons. Accordingly he accepted the home secretaryship, and gave up his legal practice, by means of which he had acquired a comfortable fortune. Early, however, in the following year, owing to his inability to accept the Government bill for compulsory military service, he resigned his office and led a fruitless opposition to the measure in the House; and then went out to the front in France as a major in the R.A.F. He subsequently resumed practice as a barrister, and immediately regained his position in the front rank of his profession. On the break between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, Sir John Simon adhered to the former. He lost his seat in Parliament at the general election in Dec. 1918, subsequently taking an active part in political work outside the House in the interests of the Independent Liberals. He was twice married in 1899 to Ethel M. Venables, who died in 1902, leaving a son and two daughters, and in 1917 to Kathleen Manning.

SIMS, WILLIAM SOWDEN (1858–), American naval officer, was born at Port Hope, Ont, Canada, Oct. 15 1858. In childhood he removed to Pennsylvania and was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1880. Then for eight years he served on board various ships in the N. Atlantic. During 1889–93 he was with the nautical school ship " Saratoga," and then was transferred to the Pacific Station, and later to the China Station. From 1897 to 1900 he was naval attache to the American embassy, first at Paris and afterwards at St. Petersburg. In 1900 he returned to the Pacific Station. Convinced of the inadequacy of American methods of target practice Lieutenant Sims wrote numerous letters to the Washington officials urging changes. Meeting with no response he finally addressed a per- sonal letter to President Roosevelt, which led to his recall to Washington. In the end he was enabled to arrange for a gun- nery test and proved his claims. In 1902 he was assigned to the Bureau of Navigation, serving for the next seven years as in- spector of target practice, which was remarkably improved under his guidance. Meanwhile in 1907 he was made commander and appointed naval aide to President Roosevelt. With this rank he was placed in charge of the battleship " Minnesota " in 1909. The following year, during a visit of the Atlantic Fleet to England, Commander Sims caused a stir by certain indiscreet remarks made at a dinner at the Guildhall, London, where he said: " Speaking for myself, I believe that if the time ever comes when the British Empire is menaced by an external enemy, you may count upon every man, every drop of blood, every ship, and every dollar of your kindred across the sea." A semi-official protest against this utterance was made at Washington by the German Government, which took offence at it, and there was some talk of Sims being dismissed from the service, but the incident ended in a severe reprimand from the Secretary of the Navy. In 1911 he was promoted captain and for two years was a member of the staff of the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. During 1913–5 he was in command of the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla and then returned to Newport as president of the Naval War College. When America entered the World War in April 1917 he was chosen to command American naval operations in Europe. In Jan. he had been promoted rear-admiral, and early in April, when war was imminent but before its formal declaration, he sailed in disguise to England in a merchant vessel. In May he was made vice-admiral. In 1916 he had urged construction of battle cruisers, arguing their supremacy over submarines as shown in the battle of Jutland. In his book The Victory at Sea (1920, in conjunction with Burton J. Hendrick) he shows how the convoy system, used in transporting 2,000,000 American troops, frustrated the sub- marines. In 1919 he criticised the manner in which naval honours had been awarded; in particular, he held that “the commanding officer of a vessel that is sunk by a submarine should not receive the same reward as the commanding officer of a vessel which sinks a submarine.” This criticism was obviously directed against the Secretary of the Navy for having decorated his own son-in-law, whose boat was sunk. He himself refused the D.S.M. In 1920 he made a formal report to the U.S. Senate, and charged the U.S. Naval Board with serious errors in the conduct of naval operations during the war. His English sympathies and his admiration for the British navy were openly expressed too openly for the liking of some of his critics.

SINCLAIR, MAY (–), English author, was born at Rock Ferry, Cheshire, and educated at the Ladies' College, Cheltenham. She began her career by writing verse and philosophical criticism. In 1895 she published her first short story, followed in 1896 by her first novel Audrey Craven. Mr. and Mrs. Neville Tyson appeared in 1898 and Two Sides of a Question in 1900. But it was not until she published The Divine Fire in 1904 that she became widely known. It was followed by The Helpmate (1907); Kitty Taitteur (1908); The Creators (1910); The Com- bined Maze (1913); The Three Sisters (1914); Tasker Jevons (1916); The Tree of Heaven (1917); Mary Olivier (1919) and The Romantic (1920), as well as one or two volumes of short stories. In A Defence of Idealism (1917) Miss Sinclair published acute criticisms of modern philosophic theories, and in a Journal of Impressions in Belgium (1915) she gave her experiences in the autumn of 1914 as a member of an advance field ambulance.

SINHA, SATYENDRA PRASSANO, (1864–), Indian statesman, was born of an ancient Kayastha family in the village of Raipur, Birbhum district, Bengal, in June 1864. Matriculating at 14 he held a scholarship at the Presidency College, Calcutta, and in 1881 came to London to join Lincoln's Inn, where he won many prizes and scholarships, and was called to the bar in June 1886. In practice at Calcutta he rapidly rose to a leading position, and was appointed standing counsel to the Government of India in 1903. He was the first Indian to be appointed advocate-general of Bengal (1908), and the first to become a member of the Government of India. He held the law portfolio from April 1909 to Nov. 1910, up to the retirement from the viceroyalty of Lord Minto, who testified to the success of what some English critics regarded as a dangerous experiment. Sinha resumed his lucrative practice at the bar, presided at the Indian National Congress session at Bombay in 1915, and was again appointed advocate-general of Bengal (1916). He and the Maharaja of Bikaner were the first Indians to participate in Empire deliberations in London, for in 1917 they jointly assisted the Secretary of State at the meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet, and were members of the Imperial War Conference. Sinha joined the Bengal Executive Council in the same year, but returned to England in 1918 as a member of the Imperial War Cabinet and Imperial War Conference. Immediately on getting back to India he was called to London and Paris as an Indian member of the Peace Conference. Knighted in 1915, in 1918 he was made K.C., a distinction not previously conferred upon a barrister of Indian birth or practice. When the Coalition Government was recast at the beginning of 1919 he established further records for an Indian by being appointed to the Ministry as Under-Secretary for India, and being raised to the peerage as Baron Sinha of Raipur. He was the second Indian to be sworn of the Privy Council. He skilfully conducted the Government of India Act, 1919, through the House of Lords, and when dyarchy was initiated at the close of 1920 was appointed governor of Bihar and Orissa, being the first Indian to preside over a British province.