Page:The empire and the century.djvu/737

 There followed the succession of King Edward VII. as Emperor of India, the deferred Coronation, and His Majesty's illness; then in August, 1902, the Coronation in Westminster Abbey, attended by several of the ruling Chiefs; and, finally, the Durbar held at Delhi on January 1, 1908, to celebrate the Coronation.

The Durbar was an amplified and glorified edition of the Imperial assemblage of 1877. Lord Curzon followed, but greatly improved upon, the lines laid down by Lord Lytton, and that his Durbar was an enormous success was testified by the vast throng that attended it

To the Indian mind there was one 'little rift within the lute,' and that was the difficulty of differentiating between Royalty and Viceroyalty. 'Why did His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, the King-Emperor's brother, take a back seat on the dais? Why did not he hold the Durbar?' This was the popular view of the situation, though the initiated knew that the official programme had been drawn up with the utmost care and after deliberation over every detail; that it had been revised many times and finally approved by His Majesty, under whose mandate the Durbar was held by the Viceroy. His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught attended 'by order of His Majesty' and had no official responsibility: but who of those who were present can forget the Duke's reception by the assembled multitude when, with his Royal Consort, he drove up to take his seat on the daïs and to wait for the Viceroy's arrival? 'There is Royalty&apos; was the feeling of all who rose to greet the King-Emperor's brother.

During the course of Lord Curzon's speech in the Durbar it was part of His Excellency's duty to deliver the message from the King-Emperor to his Indian subjects; this the Viceroy did with much dignity and deepest reverence—standing with bared head as he read the words written by His Majesty. But to some of those who were present it seemed that a great opportunity was lost. 'How much better it would have been,' said they, 'if the Duke of Connaught had read the