all friends in the India office emphasised Ritchie &apos;s humanity , the revelation that anyone in his position could spare time and thought for the younger members of the office , his continual kindness , generosity and public spirit , together with social pre-eminence as one of the very few witty Englishmen ; while the Indian press dwelt on the load of personal additional responsibility , due to the Secretary of state &apos;s illness ( in March 1911 he had a fainting fit and was ordered two months &apos; rest ) and to his leadership of the House of Lords , which broke down the permanent under Secretary ; and observed too that Ritchie was more human , genial and considerate than his reticent and aloof predecessor , Lord Kilbracken . there is a true story , connected with another branch of the service , regarding an official , who , having represented his country abroad for some ten years in an obscure post in a distant country , came home on leave and , summoning all his courage in the hope of getting a transfer , telephoned to the head of his department and said : this is H.M representative in - , to which the head of the department replied : Christ ! and hung up the receiver . in this delicate art of handling subordinates , Ritchie adopted a different method . a high-spirited young Indian political officer , Terence Keyes , brother of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes , V.C , and uncle of Colonel Geoffrey Keyes , V.C , came home on furlough from the north-east frontier and expounded to Ritchie some local objections to the frontier policy of the government . a few days later Ritchie was infuriated to find the same objections , obviously communicated by Keyes in his nai&quot;ve inexperience , and lapped up with delight by the Treasury , in a letter supporting some financial objections of their own . at a subsequent reception at the India office Ritchie pitched into the Treasury officials present for what he called their Chinese methods , and then into Keyes , whom he nevertheless invited to a talk at the office , later repeating the invitation several times in writing , until Keyes eventually came , and Ritchie was able to explain that , though it did not matter to him personally , he realised the feelings of young officials home from India about old buffers like himself , and had been afraid he had put a young fellow on a wrong path . Keyes left the office , not only reconciled to his drubbing , but convinced that Ritchie was the only Englishman never resident in India who understood the east , and was the best government official in his experience . an account may also be given of Ritchie &apos;s opinions of high officials , for few of whom he cherished unbounded regard . for Kilbracken indeed he had great admiration , but considered that he was timid when it came to the crux . of Kitchener he used to say with humorous exaggeration : one can do nothing with him . one must shoot him . he added : there are two or three people like that in our office . one can do nothing with them . one must shoot them . but he would have spared Lord Morley , for Lady Minto recalled how , when her husband was Viceroy , Ritchie once said to her , with a twinkle in his eyes , there will always be a few people who will know that it &apos;s Lord Minto who keeps Lord Morley in order - he was found very cranky and not level-headed by Lord Hardinge , the next Viceroy . of Lloyd George , on the day after his Mansion House speech of 21 July 1911 , in which he gravely warned Germany that England would be no mere spectator in the development of the Agadir affair , Ritchie said , with amused contempt : he is so happy - he has at last been allowed to talk about something important . since his Eton days he had known Lord Curzon , who had always been one of his admirers . to a colleague Curzon wrote far back in 1892 : Ritchie &apos;s knowledge and experience are unrivalled in the office . his great ability and judgment enable him to take a large share of responsibility , and in all parliamentary points ( questions , debates , etc ) he is a better adviser than anyone here . in 1909 , on Ritchie &apos;s appointment to the head of the office , Curzon wrote : hurrah . so at last you have climbed to the dizzy but inevitable spot . it is good for you , but better for the India office , and best of all for India itself . and he assured Lady Ritchie , after her husband &apos;s death , that his good relations with Ritchie were never affected by his difficulties with the India office when Viceroy of India , and a few days later , in order to defend before the House of Lords the purchase of large amounts of sterling for the government of India through Messrs Samuel Montagu and company instead of through the bank of England , he pointed out that the financial experts had been fortunate enough to obtain , through the whole transaction , the advice and concurrence of a gentleman of whom they all so deeply deplored the loss - he meant his friend Sir Richmond Ritchie , the late permanent under Secretary at the India office . on his appointment as Viceroy Curzon had offered to Ritchie the post of his political Secretary , but Ritchie had declined , not reciprocating Curzon &apos;s admiration . before leaving for India , Curzon came to Ritchie &apos;s room at the India office , very affectionate and cordial , as the latter wrote at the time , but in bad spirits and rather doubtful about his health . we had a solemn farewell . existence officially will certainly be nicer with him safe in the far distance . years later , on 14 July 1911 , the Pop centenary dinner was held at Eton . Curzon went , but Ritchie was too busy . a week later , passing down the High Street at Eton , he paused to look at a photograph of the dinner , at which Curzon could be seen at the end of the top table delivering a speech . he looks very well there , was Ritchie &apos;s sole comment . not too close . as government documents covering the last fifty years are not public , no full account can be given of Ritchie &apos;s actual achievements at the India office , but the dictionary of national biography observed that , although the part which he played in the momentous changes in Indian administration was confidential , it is believed that he was responsible for the strict adherence to recorded precedents which was an unexpected feature of Lord Morley &apos;s policy in all questions relating to internal affairs of native states . he was also closely connected with the negotiations with Tibet which followed the armed mission of Sir Francis Younghusband to Lhasa in 1903-4 , and with those which resulted in the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907 . the old India office files contain the draft and counterdraft of this convention in his own handwriting , from which still emanates the aroma of the tobacco which he had smoked over fifty years ago , poring day and night over these papers . this Anglo-Russian convention regulated the relations of Great Britain and Russia in Persia , removed the menace of Russian military operations against India , and initiated the entente with Russia which , together with the British entente with France , enabled Great Britain to face the German danger in 1914 . it was one of the landmarks and turning points in British diplomatic history at the beginning of the present century . in spite of very great difficulties due to the prevalent Russian anti-British feeling , and to sharp and violent political conflicts in Russian ruling circles , as well as to the weakness of the Russian government itself , the negotiations for this convention were carried out during 1906 and 1907 with the greatest skill and success in Russia by Sir Arthur Nicolson ( then British ambassador in St Petersburg , later Lord Carnock ) and in London by Sir Edward Grey ( then foreign Minister ) and Sir Charles Hardinge ( then permanent under Secretary of state at the foreign office , afterwards Lord Hardinge of Penshurst ) on behalf of the foreign office , and on behalf of the India office by Lord Morley ( then Secretary of state for India ) and Ritchie ( although then only head of the political and secret department of the India office ) . the government of India , which did not altogether approve , was left entirely out of account , and only the Prime Minister and Lord Ripon were kept informed , according to Sir Charles Hardinge &apos;s letter to Sir Arthur Nicolson of 10 July 1907 . this astonishing secrecy vis-&amp;agrave;-vis the government of India was due , according to a later letter of Valentine Chirol dated October 1907 , to Lord Morley &apos;s fears of Lord Kitchener ( then Commander-in-Chief India ) and the weakness and inefficiency of Lord Minto ( then Viceroy ) , whose ideas , as Lord Morley complained , involved a complete subversion of the policy of H.M.G . if one may accept Lord Hardinge &apos;s estimate of Lord Morley , mentioned above , it would seem hard to overestimate the role played by Ritchie , and one may wonder whether it was adequately rewarded by the award to him of a K.C.B in the summer of 1907 , the G.C.B being at the same time awarded to Nicolson in St Petersburg . later , after Ritchie &apos;s death , Hardinge , then Viceroy , wrote to Crewe : I was very much shocked to get your telegram today announcing the death of Ritchie . he was a man in whose judgment I have learned to have great confidence . during the five years that I was in the foreign office he and I worked together in very close conjunction , and he made things go very smoothly between the India office and the foreign office . I always looked upon him as one of my best friends and as a most loyal coadjutor . if he and I had not been on such good terms together , I think there might have been more difficulties in connection with the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian agreement . reference may also be allowed to Pope-Hennessy &apos;s recent biography of Lord Crewe , from which it emerges that from 1905 to 1910 , when Lord Minto was Viceroy and Lord Morley Secretary of state for India , even if very cranky and not level-headed , the power of the Secretary of state in London increased gradually but imperceptibly , so that by the end of Minto &apos;s rule the Secretary of state for India had more control over Indian affairs than had ever been the case before , and that after 1910 the Viceroy was Lord Hardinge who lacked Lord Minto &apos;s enterprise , and was in every way a more conventional and less imaginative man , while the Secretary of state was Lord Crewe , much absent from the India office on account of ill health and other duties in the House of Lords . Ritchie was permanent head of the India office during most of this time , and it is not surprising that Sir Mackenzie Chalmers ( see page 19 ) considered that it was only through Ritchie &apos;s great ability and devotion that the government of India was enabled to pull through the serious difficulties of those years ; that Sir Henry Dobbs ( see page 19 ) wrote that Ritchie had very great influence on affairs in India and saved the government from many mistakes ; that Sir J R Dunlop Smith ( see page 20 ) considered Ritchie &apos;s death a blow to India not easy to measure ; and that Lord Crewe himself ( see page 17 ) admitted that Ritchie could in no way be replaced . nevertheless , anybody able to wade through the enormous mass of correspondence between the India office and the foreign office , or between the former and the government of India during the vital busy years covering the Anglo-Russian convention , the Minto-Morley reforms and the Delhi Durbar , will be struck by the relatively small quantity of letters or memoranda from Ritchie . that was typical of how he worked . as he himself had once written to a young authoress : one never accomplishes anything outright , but as a result of one &apos;s exertions , things end by happening to a certain extent as one would wish . at the India office he worked through successive Secretaries of state and Viceroys , and they knew his value . to Lord George Hamilton Ritchie , then forty , was his right hand man , to Lord Morley he was the ablest man in the civil service , and Lord Crewe leaving for the Delhi Durbar in 1911 recommended the parliamentary under Secretary Montagu , who remained behind , in everything to consult Ritchie . 