Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/613

 1920 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 605 We must forgo the satisfaction of writing on the contents of Part III of this volume, The Act of Union and its Results, though from its very nature it may attract the interest of the greatest number of readers. It is a long cry from the proclamations by which King James I sought to prevent his countrymen and their ' siflElications ' from crossing the Tweed, to the compliments which in 1758 (but not after 1760) Horace Walpole showered upon ' the most accomplished nation in Europe '. His senti- ments were not, as he observed, unforgetful of the disservice of the Scottish members towards his father ; and it needs no superior impartiality to allow that when the Scottish whigs went with the government, they also went with king and nation. But the parliamentary union between the two nations was achieved because of the permanent advantages which it brought to both without destroying what they severally desired to preserve. This result Cromwell was by the circumstances of his victory over Scotland hindered from achieving ; that they achieved it, as the admirable epilogue to this volume shows, is the imperishable title to fame of the statesmen who drafted the act of 1707. A. W. Ward. Dupleiac and Clive ; the Beginning of Empire. By Henry Dodwell. (London : Methuen, 1920.) The problems of world-empire in modern history have been worked out upon different materials and by differing methods. In one land the main factor was savage, semi-nomadic tribes ; in another a population of European settlers, as in Canada and South Africa ; in a third, such as Mexico or East India, native states based upon centuries of civilization. And the methods are broadly two, state-control and private, venture, the strict, monopolist regulations of an absolute ruler or the experimental arrangements of a trading society : between these extremes lie all the variations. Britain came late to the starting-point, but ran a great course partly because she had observed the errors of those who led ; still more because she relied on national habits of co-operation and local government. In the East, France was already firmly planted when Dutch monopoly of the islands drove English traders to the mainland. Both France and England used the same machinery of chartered companies, and there seemed ample room for both in developing the trade of India. Dupleix will be for ever remembered as the man who half-unconsciously took the first step from the path of trade to that of conquest. That Clive watched him take it, observed the line he traced and the snares that entangled him, and was thus able to follow without falling, is the main thesis of Mr. Dodwell's book. His account of Dupleix's rise to the position of deputy governor of the southern Deccan is probably the last word on the subject, based as it is on a critical examination of earlier accounts in the light of new material drawn from the records at Madras, in the French archives, and in the India Office and the British Museum. The reasons for Dupleix's failure to leave any solid achievement are, in Mr. Dodwell's view, threefold. His new policy of utilizing the rivalry of native states involved his Company in the risks and cost of continual