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2
KARMAYOGIN.
past rather than representative of any living force in the present. His interventions in politics have for many years past been of great rarity and, since the Calcutta Congress, had entirelyceased. It cannot therefore be said that his de mise leaves a gap in the ranks of our active workers. He was the survivor of a generation talented in politics rather than great, and, among them. he was one of the few who could lay claim to the possession of real genius. That genius was literary, oratorical and forensic rather than political but as these were gifts the which then commanded success in the political arena, he ought to have stood forward far ahend of the mass of his contempoaries. It was the lack of steadi
assembly as the slave of his whims 1s one which is foreign to free and democratic institutions, and would, if enforced, make all true discussion impossible and put in the hands of the party in possession of the official machinery an irresistible weapon for staffing the opinions of its opponents. It is a conception against which the Nationalist party have truggled from the beginning and will st uggle to the end The ruling of the President is final on all points of order, but only so long as he governs the proceedings of the body according to the recognised rules of debate. He cannot dictate the exclusion of resolutions or amendinents which do not seem to him rational or expedient, but must always has his action on reasons of procedure and not on reasons of state. The moment he asserts his Individual caprice or predilection, he lays himself open to an appeal to the whole asserably or even, in very extreme cases, to an impeachment of his action by a vote of censuro from the delegates. It has been erroneou ly alleged that the Speaker of the House of Commons ways the House with an absolute control. The Speaker is as much bound by the rules of the House as any member; he is the repository of the rules and administers an old and recognise procedure, claoorate and rigid in detail, which he canot transgress, nor has any Speaker been known to transgress it. Some have been suspected of adustering the rules, wherever they left discretion to the Speaker, with a partiality for one party, but even this has been rare, and it was always the rules of procedure that were administered, not personal whim or caprice. As the present Speaker pointed out recently in his evidence before a pubhe Commato, there is a recog nise i means by which the conduct of the Speker can be called in question by the use. It would be strause if it were otherwise. The fram of the British Constitution. jenly guarded every loophole by which autocracy might eat any part of the system, were not likely to leave such a gluing us feet of fivedom uncorrected, if it he ever existed. Mr Lalmohu: Ghose.
The death of Mr Lalmohun Ghose removes from the scene a distinguishelfare commemorative of the
countryman's views, we do not think the Statesman has quite caught the spirit of tho writer. Dr. Coomaraswamy is above all a lover of art and beauty and the ancient thought and greatness of India. but he is also, and as a result of this deep love and appreciation, an - dent Nationalist. Writing as an artist, he calls attention to the de based aesthetic ideas and tastes which the ugly and sordid commercialism of the West has introduer into the mind of a nation once distinguished for its superior beauty and grandeur of conception and for the extent to which it suffused the whole of life with the forces of the intellect and the spirit. He laments the persistence of a scryile imitation of English ideas, English methods, English machinery and production even in the new Nationalism. And he reminds his readers that nations carnot be made by poli tics and economics alone,but that aut also has a great and still unrecognised claim. The main drift of his writing is to censure the low mital tive un-Indian and bourgeois ideals of our national activity in the nineteenth century and to recall our minds to the cardinal fact that, if India is to arise and be great as a nation, it is not by imitating the methods and institutions of English politics and commerce, but by carrying her own civilisation, purified of the weaknesses that have overtaken it, to a much higher and mightier fulfilment than any that it has reached in the past. Our mission is to outdistance, lead and instruer Europe, not merely to imitate and learn from her. Dr Coomaraswamy speaks of art, but it is certain that culture would not exclude, and we know he does not exclude, thought. literature and religion from the forces that must uplift our nation and are necessrry to its future. To recover Indian thought, Indian character, Indian perceptions, Indian energy, Indian greatness, and to solve the problems that perOur contemporary, the Statesplex the world in an Indian spirit man, notices in an unusually selfand from the Indian standpoint. restrained art c'e the recent bro- this, in our view, is the mission chure republished by Dr. A. K. of Nationalisın. We agree with Dr marswamy from the Modern Coomaraswamy that an exclusive Review under the title, The Mes- preoccupation with politics and ecowe of the East." We have not nomics is likely to dwarf our the work before us but, frora our growth and prevent the flowering memory of the articles and our of originality and energy. Wo knowledge of our distinguished have to return to the fountain
of his wide
ness and persistence common enough in men of brilliant gifts, which kept him back in the race. His brother Mr. Manmohun Ghose, a much less variously and richly gifted intellect but a stronger character, commanded by the possession of these very qualities a much weightier influence and a more highly and widely honoured name. In eloquence we doubt whether any orator of the past or present generation has possessed the same felicity of style and charm of manner and elocution. Mr. Gokhale has something of the same debating gift, but it is marred by the dryness of his delivery and the colourlessness of his manner. Mr. Lalmohan Ghoso possessed the requisite warmth, glow and agreeableness of speech and manner without those defects of excoss and exaggeration which sometimes mar Ben gali oratory. We hope that his literary remains will be published, especially the translation of the Meghnad Badh, which, from such capable hands, ought to introduce favourably a Bengali masterpiece to a wider than Indian audience..
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
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