[Sir M. Durand, Life of Sir George White, 1915].
Soon after Elgin’s arrival, India had entered upon a cycle of lean years. The monsoon rains of 1895 were deficient and those of 1896 failed almost completely. Then followed the most intense and severe famine that had been known under British rule. By the spring of 1897 over four million people were receiving relief, and the mortality was extremely heavy. Moreover, in the autumn of 1896, bubonic plague was detected in the Bombay slums. Carried into the interior of the Western Presidency by a trek of the mill hands, it spread thence to almost all parts of India, and has since been endemic. The preventive measures instituted were deeply resented in Western India, where sanguinary riots occurred and two officers were deliberately murdered. A school of revolutionary extremists now grew up [Report of Sedition Committee, 1918]; sedition trials had to be instituted, and the law on the subject was strengthened.
Elgin was hardly fitted to be at the helm in such stormy seas. A man with the driving power of John Lawrence might be careless of dress and deficient in the instinct for ceremonial without detriment to his prestige; Elgin, apart from his public spirit, his chivalry, and his high sense of duty, had little to counteract the handicaps of reserve of manner, habitual silence, a retiring disposition, a certain homeliness in his aspect and bearing, a curious dislike of riding and on public occasions even of driving, and a general inaptitude for social leadership. He neither looked the great part which he had accepted so reluctantly, nor trusted himself in it. Yet he gave proof of no small administrative capacity in such matters as railway extension and famine relief.
Returning home at the beginning of 1899, Elgin received the Garter. He promptly resumed his local work in Scotland and was re-elected convener of the Fife county council. In September 1902 he accepted the chairmanship of a royal commission to inquire into the military preparations for the South African War, and into allegations of extravagance and contractual fraud. He carried through the inquiry with such judgement and dispatch that a unanimous report, which suggested methods of home defence later embodied in the territorial system, was presented in the following July. In 1905 he was chairman of the important commission necessitated by the decision of the House of Lords in the appeal of the Free Church against the union of the two large non-established Presbyterian bodies in Scotland. The recommendations of the commission were embodied in an Act passed a few months later; and Lord Elgin became chairman of a second commission charged with giving detailed effect to the recommendations of the first. Subsequently, at the request of the founder, he became chairman of the Carnegie trust for the Scottish universities, and he held this office till his death. He was chancellor of the university of Aberdeen from 1914.
Elgin was selected for the colonial secretaryship when Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman formed his ministry on the eve of the great liberal victory of January 1906. He shared in the steps, such as the grant of full autonomy to the Transvaal, which led a few years later to the union of South Africa. His cautious temperament never responded with enthusiasm to certain aspects of radical thought on overseas problems. We have Lord Morley’s testimony [Recollections, 1917, ii, 207, 211] that Elgin was unsympathetic towards his proposals for Indian constitutional reforms. Moreover, Elgin publicly dissociated himself from the charges which had been brought against the unionist government at the general election with reference to the importation of Chinese labour for the Transvaal mines. Elgin was somewhat overshadowed by his brilliant under-secretary, Mr. Winston Churchill, whose speeches on departmental matters were as aggressive and stimulating as his own were cautious and pedestrian. So there was no great surprise when Mr. Asquith, on becoming prime minister in April 1908, did not include Elgin in the reconstituted Cabinet. Refusing the marquisate offered him, but avoiding any public indication of wounded pride, Elgin returned with zest to his first and deepest attachment to parochial, county, and Scottish affairs. In these at least he was not wavering or self-distrustful, and his devoted, useful service was recognized and appreciated on all hands.
In 1876 Elgin married Lady Constance Carnegie, daughter of the ninth Earl of Southesk, by whom he had six sons and five daughters; she died in 1909. His second wife, whom he married in 1913, was Gertrude Lilian, daughter of Commander William Sherbrooke, of Oxton Hall, Nottinghamshire, and widow of Captain Frederick Ogilvy, R.N. He died at his seat Broomhall, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, 18 January 1917. He was survived by
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