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the sophisms which were administered to us. But we have thrown off that spell and if the impatient idealists of the Nationalist party had done nothing else for their country this would be sufficient justification for their existence that they have mnade a clean sweep of all this garbage and purified the intellect and the morale of the nation. It is enough if the capacity is there in the race and if we can show by our action that it is not dead. This we have shown by organised succesful and national action under circums
tances of unprecedented difficulty. If the success is now jeopardised, it is because of the temporary revival of the weaknesses of our nineteenth century politics and the desire to fall back into safe and easy methods in spite of their unfruitfullness.
creates.
Public Disorder and Unfitness.
That is a weakness which is not shared by the whole nation, but is only temporarily suffered because a situation of unprecedented difficulty has been created in which it was not easy to see our way and in the silence that was unfortunately allowed to fall on the country and deepen the uncertainty, the forces et reaction found their opportunity. A caso remarkable for its sequel In times of difliculty to stop still happened at Edinburgh when a faithfor a long time is a cardinal error, healer attempted to speak against the best way is to move slowly for- Medicine and the undergraduates ward, warily watching each step but forced their way in, attacked and never faltering. Action solves the wounded the police, smashed all the difficulties which action chairs, hurled a ruined piano, from Inaction can only paralyse and slay. the platforin and hooted the discreetly absent orator in his hotel and challenged him to come out with his speech. On complaint the Chancellor of the University declared his approval of this riot and in a court of law the students were acquitted on the plea of justification. It may well be said that such a view of what is permissible in political life ought not to be introduced into India, but it is the worst hypocrisy for the citizens of a country where such things not only happen but are tolerated and sometimes approved by public opinion, to turn up the whites of their eyes at Indian disorderimess and argue from it to the uress of the race for democratic politics. And it must be remembered that are things happen on the Conument, free fights occurring even in augus. legislatores, yet it has not ben made an argument for the English people going over to the Continent to govern the unfit and inferior European races.
A favourite device of the opponents of progress is to point to the frequent ebullitions of tumult and excitement which have recently found their way into our political life and argue from them to
unfitness.
our
KARMAYOGIN.
turbance the worst things of that kind which have happened in India occurred at Surat when Sj Surendranath Banorji was refused a hearing and on the next day when Mr Tilak was threatened on the platform by the sticks and chairs of Surat loyalists and the Mahratta delegates charged and after a free fight cleared the platfrom. The refusal to hear a speaker by dint of continuous clamour, hisses and outeries is of such frequent occurrence in England that it would indeed be a strange argument which would infer from such occurrences the unfitness of the English race for self-government. Wo may instance the University meeting at which Mr Balfour was once refused a hearing and at the end of an inaudible speech two undergraduates dressed as girls danced up to the platform and gracefully offered the conservative statesman a garland of shoes which was smilingly accepted. As for the storming of platforms and turning out of the speakers and organisers, that also is a recognised and not altogether infrequent possibility of political life in England.
In the mouths of our own counof this argument trymen the use
arises partly from political prejudice but still more from inexperience of political life and the unexamined acceptance of Anglo-Indian sophistries. But in the mouths of English-. man this kind of language cannot be free from the charge of hypocrisy. They kaow well of the much worse things that are done in political life, the west and accepted as an italicature of party excitemente rough horsepiny of public ucetings which is a familiar featur of excited tin:es in England, would not be tolerated by the more self-diciplined Indian people. As for really serious dis
THE HUGHLY
CONFERENCE. The chances of politics are Power whose workings do not reveal reality the hidden guidance of a themselves easily even to the most practised eye. It is difficult therefore o say whether the successful conclusion of the Provincial Conforence at Hugh. without the often threatened breach between the parties, will really result in the furtherance of the object for which the Nationalists consented to waive the reaffirmation of the policy fromulated at Pabna and refrained from using the preponderance which the general sentiment of the great. majority of the delegates gave them counting of heads, as is the rule in at Hughly. If things go by the democratic politics, the Nationalist sentiment commands the greater part of Bengal. But in leaders of recognised weight, established reputation and political standing the party is necessarily inferior to the Moderates, both because it is a younger force very recently emerged and because its leaders have been scattered by a repression which has ained at the tall heads of the party. There is also a large body of sentiment in the Mofussil which is Nationalist at heart but does not always venture to be Nationalist in action because of the difficulties in the way of the Nationalist programme and the respect due to the elder leaders. On the other hand among the young men who command the future, Moderatism is dead and what takes its place is a Nationalism which loves rather to act than to think, because it has not yet accustomed itself to the atmosphere of strenuous spirit of Nationalism and its objects political thought. In fact the aethods, though preferred, are not are becoming universal but its always adhered to and its thought has not everywhere penetrated be low the surface.
The possibility or otherwise or united action was the governing thought throughout the Conference. The tendency to broak to pieces wax very prominent in the first day's fostered by proceedings and was certain incidents slight in themselves but each of which was in the exist ing state of feeling a quite possible pretext for disruption. It was from an observation of the proceedings
