held on the 1st of January,
1903, to proclaim formally the coronation of King Edward VII.,
Emperor of India, and Lord Curzon, with remarkable success, carried
out his plan to make the occasion one of extraordinary splendor.
It brought together for the first time all of the native princes
of India, who, in the presence of each other, renewed their pledges
of loyalty and offered their homage to the throne. No spectacle
of greater pomp and splendor has ever been witnessed in Europe or
Asia or any other part of the world since the days of the Moguls.
The peacock throne could not be recovered for the occasion, but
Lord and Lady Curzon sat upon the platform where it formerly
stood, and there received the ruling chiefs, nobles and princes
from all the states and provinces of India. Lord Curzon has been
criticised severely in certain quarters for the "barbaric splendor
and barbaric extravagance of this celebration," but people familiar
with the political situation in India and the temper of the native
princes have not doubted for a moment the wisdom which inspired
it and the importance of its consequences. The oriental mind
is impressed more by splendor than by any other influence, and
has profound respect for ceremonials. The Emperor of India, by
the durbar, recognized those racial peculiarities, and not only
gratified them but made himself a real personality to the native
chiefs instead of an abstract proposition. It has given the British
power a position that it never held before; it swept away jealousies
and brought together ruling princes who had never seen each other
until then. It broke down what Lord Curzon calls "the water-tight
compartment system of India."

"Each province," he says, "each native state, is more or less
shut off by solid bulkheads from its neighbors. The spread of
railways and the relaxation of social restrictions are tending
to break them down, but they are still very strong. Princes who
live in the south have rarely ever in their lives seen or visited
the states of the north. Perhaps among the latter are chiefs who
have rarely ever left their homes. It cannot but be a good thing
that they should meet and get to know each other and exchange ideas.
To the East there is nothing strange, but something familiar and
even sacred," continued Lord Curzon, "in the practice that brings
sovereigns together with their people in ceremonies of solemnity.
Every sovereign in India did it in the old days; every chie