But the
hopes of the political reformers were short lived. The Duma still exists,
but its powers were closely restricted in 1907, and the franchise has been
narrowed, to secure an overwhelming preponderance of the wealthy, so that
it is altogether misleading to regard it as a popular assembly.

In Egypt and in India the Nationalist movements are directed to
self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some
years at an English University, or have been trained at the English Bar.
Residence in England, and a close study of British politics make the
educated Indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar to
those that are given to him in Great Britain. In England the Indian has all
the political rights of a British subject. He can vote for a member of
Parliament, he can even be a member of the House of Commons. On two
occasions in recent years, an Indian has been elected to Parliament: Mr.
Dadabhai Naoroji sat as Liberal M.P. for Finsbury, 1892-5; Sir M.M.
Bhownagree as a Conservative for Bethnal Green, 1895-1906. Back in his
native land, the Indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that
the British garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor permit
him the right of legislation. Hence with eyes directed to Western forms of
government, the Indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that rules his
land, and disaffected from the Imperial power. But so many are the nations
in India, and so poverty-stricken is the great multitude of its peasantry
that the Nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of the population,
and the millions of India live patiently and contentedly under the British
Crown. Nevertheless, the national movement grows steadily in numbers and in
influence, for it is difficult for those who, politically minded, have once
known political freedom, to resign themselves to political subjection.

In Egypt the Nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more
concentrated than in India and the racial divisions hinder its unity. Egypt
is nominally under the suzerainty of Turkey, though occupied by Great
Britain, and now that Turkey has set up a Constitution and a Parliament,
patriotic Egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking out by the
British authorities of every proposal for self-government.

As in India, so in Egypt: it is the men of education who are responsible
for the Nationalist movement. And in both countries it is the desire to
exp