Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1028

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976
MONTAGU—MONTANA

with the result that the forces were withdrawn from a most dangerous position without appreciable loss under his general superintendence. His great services on this occasion were recognized by his being given the G.C.M.G., and then, having accomplished what was required in the Near East, he returned to the western front to succeed Sir Douglas Haig in command of the I. Army. He served in that capacity until Oct. 1916, when he was selected to be commander-in-chief in India, with the rank of full general.

In his new sphere of responsibility Sir Charles Monro proved himself to be a military administrator of the foremost rank. By untiring energy and skilful organization he succeeded in adding substantially to the strength of the native army, in creating a number of fresh regiments, and in greatly developing the non-combatant and hospital services on progressive lines. The consequence was that he was enabled to dispatch considerable and badly needed reinforcements to Mesopotamia and to Egypt and Palestine; the triumphs gained by General Allenby in Syria after he had been obliged to send off a large part of his army to the western front in the spring of 1918, were indeed in no small measure due to the work that had been accom- plished by the commander-in-chief in India. Monro received the G.C.B. and he remained in India until 1920, when he returned to England.

MONTAGU, EDWIN SAMUEL (1879- ), English politician, second son of the 1st Lord Swaythling, was born Feb. 6 1879 and educated at Clifton, at the City of London School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he was president of the Union and acquired a considerable reputation for ability; and when he entered Parliament in 1906, at the age of 27, as Liberal member for the Chesterton division of Cambridgeshire, he was chosen by Mr. Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, as his parliamentary secretary, and continued in that position when his chief succeeded to the premiership. Early in 1910 he was appointed Under-Secretary for India, at a time when Lord Morley's tenure of the Secretaryship of State for India was drawing to a close. He remained in the post, under Lord Crewe as Lord Morley's successor, till 1914; and so made his first official acquaintance with India under the influence of Lord Morley's reforms and Lord Crewe's Durbar changes of 1911. As both his chiefs were in the Lords, he was the spokesman of the office in the Commons, and he acquitted himself well. That he might equip himself the more completely for his duties, he took the unusual course of visiting India in person. In his Indian budget speech of 1913 he remarked with true insight that the watchword of the future was cooperation between the Government and the governed in India; the difficulty was that in India men of the 2oth century lived side by side with men of the 5th. At the beginning of 1914 he was promoted to the responsible post of financial secretary to the Treasury, in which capacity he was of material assistance in the financial improvisation which had to be effected in the early days of the war. Early in the next year he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but when the first Coalition Ministry was formed he returned to his former post at the Treasury. Thence he was promoted, in the summer of 1916, to the headship of the office of Munitions and a seat on the War Committee of the Cabinet, on Mr. Lloyd George's succession to the Secretaryship of State for War. But when Mr. Asquith's Ministry fell he retired from office along with that minister's principal colleagues. The next summer, however, on Mr. Austen Chamberlain's resignation owing to the Mesopotamia report, he returned to the India Office as Secretary of State and began a tenure of that post which will always be memorable in Indian annals. It was felt that the wholehearted manner in which India, her princes and peoples, had flung themselves into the Imperial quarrel with Germany demanded a reconsideration of the relations between her and England. The new Secretary of State visited India in the following winter for the second time, and held prolonged conferences with the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, the leading members of the Indian civil service, ruling princes, and native politicians, and along with the Viceroy received deputations and memoranda from all classes. Ultimately in July 1918 there was published an elaborate report, drawn up and signed by the Viceroy as well as by the Secretary of State, recommending a series of constitutional reforms which should give the Indian peoples a large and real share in their own government. The report was received so cordially in the House of Commons that Mr. Montagu was able to claim at the end of the debate as "a remarkable fact" that all speakers admitted the principle of self-government for India. In India itself opinion was more divided, both among the English and among the Indians; but there was a large moderate section among both which welcomed the proposed reforms. In Dec. 1919 he had the satisfaction of passing the Government of India bill, embodying the recommendations of the report, through Parliament, and on its third reading he described it as a step in the discharge of our trusteeship for India; the ultimate justification of our rule would be in the capacity of the Indian peoples to govern themselves. When the new councils were established and beginning to work, he strongly set his face against any meddling with their proceedings by questions and answers in Parliament. When Lord Reading, the Lord Chief Justice of England, also a Jew, was appointed Viceroy of India in 1921, there was some public criticism, and it was suggested that Mr. Montagu might be moved to another office; but no change took place. He married in 1915 Beatrice Venetia, youngest daughter of the 4th Baron Sheffield.

MONTANA (see 18.752). In 1920 Montana had a pop. of 548,889, an increase of 172,836 or 46% during the decade. The urban pop. was 172,011 or 31-3%, the rural 376,878 or 68-7%. In 1910 the ratio was 35-5% urban and 64-5% rural. The rela- tive increase of rural pop. over urban was due largely to the immigration of an agricultural pop., particularly to the eastern part of the state. The total number of foreign-born whites in 1920 was 93,620. In 1920 there were 12 cities with a pop. of 5,000 or more, of which 6 had over 10,000. These 6, with their increase in the preceding decade, were as follows:

1920

1910

Increase per cent

Butte . . Great Falls Billings Missoula Helena Anaconda

41,611 24,121 15,100 12,668 12,037 11,668

39-165 13,948 10,031 12,869 12,515 10,134

6-2

72-9 50-5 -1-6 -3-8 I5-I

In 1910 Montana had 28 counties, in 1920 54. In 1920 only 16 counties had cities of more than 2,500 population. Most of the new counties have been formed in the eastern part of the state by the division of the large counties of Teton, Chouteau, Valley, Dawson, Custer, and Rosebud.

Agriculture and Irrigation. By the census of 1920 there were 57,677 farms in Montana with an aggregate of 35,070,656 ac., of which 11,007,278 ac. were improved. This contrasts with 26,214 farms, containing 13,545,603 ac., of which 3,640,309 ac. were improved in 1910. The value of all farm property in 1920 was $985,961,308 as compared with $347,828,770 in 1910. Of the improved land only about 4,000,000 ac. were under cultivation and the remainder was used for pasture or allowed to lie fallow. More than 3,000,000 ac. were planted to wheat and hay. In 1919 the value of all crops was placed at $69,975,185. For the lo-year period 1909-18 the average yield per ac. was 21-8 bus. for wheat, 40-6 bus. for oats and 140 bus. for potatoes. Farms reporting land with drainage in 1920 numbered 756, or 1-3% of total; farms needing drainage numbered 1,728, or 3%. Approximately 1,700,000 ac. were under irrigation, but projects were under way to irrigate about 30,000,000 ac. of tillable land of Montana, of which about 7,000,000 ac. are capable of being irrigated. Of the area covered by these projects about 1,000,000 ac. were included in seven great Federal reclamation districts, the total outlay on which was estimated at $16,000,000. Under the Carey Land Act the state has undertaken to irrigate 162,285 acres. About half of this land was under irrigation in 1920, and about 25,000 ac. were open to settlement. In 1921 there were no large bodies of irrigable land such as would attract the attention of the Federal Government or of capital under the Carey Act, and further development of irrigation must be by small units. In 1919 the Legislature provided for a State Irrigation Commission to advise and assist in the development of irrigation in districts where the farmers wish to carry on such projects. In 1920 the Commission estimated that under this law a beginning had been made to bring 200,000 ac. under