The recent history of Argentina is an instance of a country in which, as subsequent events have proved, the plea for lavish capital expenditure was perfectly justifiable, but in which, nevertheless, the over-haste shown in incurring heavy liabilities led to much temporary inconvenience and even disaster.  But on the whole it may be said that where all the general conditions are favourable, and point conclusively to the possibility and probability of fairly rapid economic development, a bold financial policy may and should be adopted, even although it may not be easy to prove beforehand by very exact calculations that any special project under consideration will be directly remunerative.  Egyptian finance is a case in point.  At a time when the country was in the throes of bankruptcy, a fresh loan of L1,000,000 was, to the dismay of the conventional financiers, contracted, the proceeds of which were spent on irrigation works.  So also the construction of the Assouan dam, which cost nearly double the sum originally estimated, was taken in hand at a moment when a liability of a wholly unknown amount on account of the war in the Soudan was hanging over the head of the Egyptian Treasury.  In both of these cases subsequent events amply justified the financial audacity which had been shown.  In the case of Burma there appears to be no doubt as to the wealth of the province or its capacity for further development.  In view of all the circumstances of the case the amount of twelve millions, which is apparently all that has been spent on railway construction since 1869, would certainly appear to be rather a niggardly sum.  In spite, therefore, of the very unnecessary warmth with which Sir George Scott has urged his views, it is to be hoped that his plea for the adoption of a somewhat bolder financial policy in the direction of expenditure on railways, and still more on feeder roads, will receive from the India Office, with whom the matter really rests, the attention which it would certainly appear to deserve.  The case of public buildings, of which Burma apparently stands much in need, is different.  They cannot, strictly speaking, be said to be remunerative, and should almost, if not quite, invariably be paid for out of revenue.

[Footnote 87:  Burma under British Rule.  By Joseph Dautremer.  London:  T. Fisher Unwin. 15s.]

XVII

A PSEUDO-HERO OF THE REVOLUTION[88]

"The Spectator,” July 5, 1913

If it be a fact, as Carlyle said, that “History is the essence of innumerable biographies,” it is very necessary that the biographies from which that essence is extracted should be true.  It was probably a profound want of confidence in the accuracy of biographical writing that led Horace Walpole to beg for “anything but history, for history must be false.”  Modern industry and research, ferreting in the less frequented bypaths of history, have exposed many fictions, and have often led to