Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress, Benares

[p. 685] INTRODUCTION

FELLOW-DELEGATES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the great, the signal honour, which you have conferred upon me by electing me to preside over your deliberations this year. As has been said by more than one of my predecessors, the Presidentship of the Congress is the highest distinction, which it is in the power of our countrymen to bestow upon any one; and proud indeed is that moment in an Indian's life, when he receives at your hands this most conspicuous mark of your confidence and your favour. As I, however, stand before you to-day, it is not so much the honour of the position, great as that is, as the responsibility which it imposes upon me that occupies my thoughts. When I was first invited nearly four months ago to accept this office, we were able to see on the horizon only the small cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Since then the sky has been overcast and for some time a storm has been raging; and it is with rocks ahead and angry waves beating around that I am called upon to take charge of the vessel of the Congress. Even the stoutest heart among us may well own to a feeling of anxiety in such a situation. Let us, however, humbly trust that in this holy city of Benares, the Divine guidance, on which we may securely throw ourselves, will not fail us, and that the united wisdom and patriotism of the delegates assembled will enable the Congress to emerge from the present crisis with unimpaired and even enhanced prestige and usefulness.

[p. 686] THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES

Gentlemen, our first duty to-day is to offer our most loyal and dutiful welcome to Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales on the occasion of this their first visit to India. The Throne in England is above all parties—beyond all controversies. It is the permanent seat of the majesty, the honour and the beneficence of the British Empire. And in offering our homage to its illustrious occupants and their heirs and representatives, we not only perform a loyal duty, but also express the gratitude of our hearts for all that is noble and high-minded in England's connection with India. The late Queen-Empress, again, was known, within the limits of her constitutional position, to exercise during her reign her vast influence in favour of a policy of justice and sympathy towards the Indian people. We can never forget that the great Proclamation of 1858, on which we take our stand so largely in our constitutional struggle, was not only in spirit but also in substance her own declaration of the principles, on which India was to be governed. The present King-Emperor has announced his resolve to walk in the footsteps of his mother, and we have no doubt that the Prince of Wales is animated by the same desire to see a policy of righteousness pursued towards India. We rejoice that His Royal Highness and his noble consort have come out amongst us to acquaint themselves personally with the ancient civilization of this country and its present condition. The Congress earnestly and respectfully wishes Their Royal Highnesses a most successful tour through India, and it humbly trusts that the knowledge they will acquire and the recollections they will carry back with them will constitute a fresh bond of sympathy and attachment between the Royal family in England and the Princes and Peoples of this country.

THE NEW VICEROY

The Congress also offers a most cordial and respectful welcome to Their Excellencies Lord and Lady Minto. The new Viceroy assumes the responsibilities of his office at a critical juncture. The temper of the people, so sorely tried [p. 687] during the last three years, calls for the exercise of wise and statesmanlike conciliation on the part of those who are in authority, if further estrangement between the rulers and the ruled is to be prevented. I earnestly trust that such conciliation will be forthcoming. Meanwhile special responsibility rests upon all to see to it that the immediate task that confronts His Excellency is not made more difficult than it already is. The difficulties of the situation are not of Lord Minto's creating, and he has a right to expect the co-operation of both the officials and the public in his endeavours to terminate a state of tension, which has already produced deplorable results and which cannot be prolonged without serious detriment to the best interests of the country.

LORD CURZON'S ADMINISTRATION

Gentlemen, how true it is that to everything there is an end! Thus even the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon has come to a close! For seven long years, all eyes had constantly to turn to one masterful figure in the land,—now in admiration, now in astonishment, more often in anger and in pain, till at last it has become difficult to realize that a change has really come. For a parallel to such an administration, we must, I think, go back to the times of Aurangzeb in the history of our own country. There we find the same attempt at a rule excessively centralized and intensely personal, the same strenuous purpose, the same overpowering consciousness of duty, the same marvellous capacity for work, the same sense of loneliness, the same persistence in a policy of distrust and repression, resulting in bitter exasperation all round. I think even the most devoted admirer of Lord Curzon cannot claim that he has strengthened the foundations of British rule in India. In some respects, His Lordship will always be recognized as one of the greatest Englishmen that ever came out to this country. His wonderful intellectual gifts, his brilliant powers of expression, his phenomenal energy, his boundless enthusiasm for work,—these will ever be a theme of just and unstinted praise. But the gods are jealous, and amidst such lavish endowments, they [p. 688] withheld from him a sympathetic imagination, without which no man can ever understand an alien people; and it is a sad truth that to the end of his administration Lord Curzon did not really understand the people of India. This was at the root of his many inconsistencies and made him a perpetual puzzle to most men. And thus the man, who professed in all sincerity, before he assumed the reins of office, his great anxiety to show the utmost deference to the feelings and even the prejudices of those over whom he was set to rule, ended by denouncing in unmeasured terms not only the present generation of Indians but also their remote ancestors and even the ideals of their race, which they cherish above everything else; he, who, in the early part of his administration, publicly warned the official classes that "official wisdom is not so transcendent as to be superior to the stimulus and guidance" of public opinion and who declared that in the present state of India "the opinion of the educated classes is one which it is not statesmanship to ignore or to despise", ended by trampling more systematically upon that opinion than any of his predecessors, and claiming for his own judgment and that of his official colleagues a virtual character of infallibility. The fact is that Lord Curzon came to India with certain fixed ideas. To him India was a country, where the Englishman was to monopolise for all time all power and talk all the while of duty. The Indian's only business was to be governed, and it was a sacrilege on his part to have any other aspiration. In his scheme of things there was no room for the educated classes of the country; and having failed to amuse them for any length of time by an empty show of taking them into his confidence, he proceeded in the end to repress them. Even in his last farewell speech at the Byculla Club in Bombay, India exists only as a scene of the Englishman's labours, with the toiling millions of the country—80 per cent. of the population—in the background. The remaining 20 per cent., for aught they are worth, might as well be gently swept into the sea! Had Lord Curzon been less self-centred, had he had more humility in his nature, he might perhaps have discovered his mistake before it was [p. 689] too late. This would probably have enabled him to avoid giving so much offence and causing so much pain as he unhappily did during the last two years, but I doubt if the main current of his administration would even then have flowed in another channel. Lord Curzon's highest ideal of statesmanship is efficiency of administration. He does not believe in what Mr. Gladstone used to call the principle of liberty as a factor of human progress. He has no sympathy with popular aspirations, and when he finds them among a subject people, he thinks he is rendering their country a service by trying to put them down. Thus in his Byculla Club speech he actually stated that he had not offered political concessions to the people of India, because he "did not regard it as wisdom or statesmanship in the interests of India itself to do so"! Taking Lord Curzon at his highest, we find him engaged in a herculean attempt to strengthen the Englishman's monopoly of power in India and stem the tide of popular agitation and discontent by rousing the members of the bureaucracy to a sense of duty similar to his own and raising the standard of administrative efficiency all round. The attempt has failed as it was bound to fail. Never was discontent in India more acute and widespread than when the late Viceroy laid down the reins of office; and as regards the bureaucratic monopoly of power, I think we are sensibly nearer the time when it will be successfully assailed.

One claim Lord Curzon advanced in his farewell speech at Bombay, which it is necessary to examine a little. He told his hearers, as he had done once before—on the occasion of the last Budget—that even if he had incurred the hostility of educated Indians, the masses would be grateful to him for what he had done for them. This attempt to distinguish between the interests of the educated classes and those of the bulk of their countrymen is a favourite device with those who seek to repress the legitimate aspirations of our people. It is significant that Lord Curzon had never resorted to it till he had finally broken with the educated classes. We know of course that the distinction is unreal and ridiculous, and we know also that most of [p. 690] those who use it as a convenient means to disparage the educated classes cannot themselves really believe in it. Lord Curzon mentions the reduction of the salt duty, the writing off of famine arrears, the increased grants to primary education and to irrigation, the attempt at Police Reform as measures on which he bases his claim. The suggestion here is that he adopted these measures for the good of the masses in spite of the opposition—at any rate, the indifference—of the educated classes when the plain fact is that it was the Congress that had been urging these measures year after year on the attention of Government and that it was only after years of persistent agitation that it was able to move the Government in the desired direction. Four years ago, when, with a surplus of seven crores or nearly five millions sterling in hand, the Government of India did not remit any taxation, and I ventured to complain of this in Council and to urge an immediate reduction of the salt duty, I well remember how Lord Curzon sneered at those who “talked glibly” of the burdens of the masses and of the necessity of lowering the salt tax as a measure of relief! Lord Curzon was fortunate in coming to India when the currency legislation of Lord Lansdowne and Sir David Barbour had succeeded in artificially raising the rupee to its present level, thereby enabling the Government of India to save about four millions sterling a year on its Home Remittances. This, with the recovery of the opium revenue, placed huge surpluses at Lord Curzon’s disposal throughout his administration, and he never knew a moment of that financial stress and anxiety, which his predecessors had to face for a series of years. Considering how large these surpluses have been, I do not think the relief given by Lord Curzon to the taxpayers of the country has by any means been liberal. He himself estimated last March the total amount of this relief at 7 millions sterling. He did not mention that during the same time he had taken from the taxpayers 33 millions sterling over and above the requirements of the Government. Again, how paltry is the relief given by the reduction of the salt duty and the writing off of famine arrears, compared with the enormous injury [p. 691] done to the mass of our people by the artificial raising of the value of the rupee, which led to a heavy immediate depreciation of their small savings in silver and which makes a grievous addition to their permanent burdens by indirectly enhancing their assessments and increasing their debts to the money-lender, as prices adjust themselves to the new rupee! Much has been made of Lord Curzon's increased grants to primary education. Considering how little the State does in India for the education of the masses, it would have been astonishing, if with such surpluses Lord Curzon had not made any addition to the educational expenditure of the country. But if he has given a quarter of a million more to education, he has given five millions a year more to the Army; and with reckless profusion he has increased the salaries of European officials in many departments and has created several new posts for them. "A spirit of expenditure," to use an expression of Mr. Gladstone's, has been abroad in all directions during his time, and he has never practised the old-fashioned virtue of economy, with which the real interests of the people are bound up. Of course, a ruler cannot labour as devotedly as Lord Curzon has done for seven years for increased efficiency without removing or mitigating important administrative evils; but that is quite different from a claim to champion the special interests of the masses, as against their natural leaders and spokesmen, the educated classes of the community.

PARTITION OF BENGAL

Gentlemen, the question that is uppermost in the minds of us all at this moment is the Partition of Bengal. A cruel wrong has been inflicted on our Bengalee brethren, and the whole country has been stirred to its deepest depths in sorrow and resentment, as had never been the case before. The scheme of partition, concocted in the dark and carried out in the face of the fiercest opposition that any Government measure has encountered during the last half-a century, will always stand as a complete illustration of the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule—its utter contempt for public opinion, its arrogant pretensions [p. 692] to superior wisdom, its reckless disregard of the most cherished feelings of the people, the mockery of an appeal to its sense of justice, its cool preference of Service interests to those of the governed. Lord Curzon and his advisers—if he ever had any advisers—could never allege that they had no means of judging of the depth of public feeling in the matter. All that could possibly have been done by way of a respectful representation of the views of the people had been done. As soon as it was known that a partition of some sort was contemplated, meeting after meeting of protest was held, till over five hundred public meetings in all parts of the Province had proclaimed in no uncertain voice that the attempt to dismember a compact and homogeneous province, to which the people were passionately attached and of which they were justly proud, was deeply resented and would be resisted to the uttermost. Memorials to the same effect poured in upon the Viceroy. The Secretary of State for India was implored to withhold his sanction to the proposed measure. The intervention of the British House of Commons was sought first by a monster petition, signed by sixty thousand people, and later by means of a debate on the subject raised in the House by our ever-watchful friend, Mr. Herbert Roberts. All proved unavailing. The Viceroy had made up his mind. The officials under him had expressed approval. What business had the people to have an opinion of their own and to stand in the way? To add insult to injury, Lord Curzon described the opposition to his measure as "manufactured"—an opposition in which all classes of Indians, high and low, uneducated and educated, Hindus and Mahomedans had joined, an opposition than which nothing more intense, nothing more wide-spread, nothing more spontaneous had been seen in this country in the whole course of our political agitation! Let it be remembered that when the late Viceroy cast this stigma on those who were ranged against his proposals, not a single public pronouncement in favour of those proposals had been made by any section of the community; and that foremost among opponents of the measure were men like Sir Jotindra Mohan Tagore and Sir Gurudas Banerji, Raja [p. 693] Peary Mohan Mukherji and Dr. Rash Behary Ghose, the Maharajas of Mymensingh and Kassimbazar,—men who keep themselves aloof from ordinary political agitation and never say a word calculated in any way to embarrass the authorities, and who came forward to oppose publicly the Partition project only from an overpowering sense of the necessity of their doing what they could to avert a dreaded calamity. If the opinions of even such men are to be brushed aside with contempt, if all Indians are to be treated as no better than dumb-driven cattle, if men, whom any other country would delight to honour, are to be thus made to realize the utter humiliation and helplessness of their position in their own land, then all I can say is "Good-bye to all hope of co-operating in any way with the bureaucracy in the interests of the people!" I can conceive of no graver indictment of British Rule than that such a state of things should be possible after a hundred years of that rule.

Gentlemen, I have carefully gone through all the papers which have been published by the Government on this subject of Partition. Three things have struck me forcibly—determination to dismember Bengal at all costs, an anxiety to promote the interests of Assam at the expense of Bengal, and a desire to suit everything to the interests and convenience of the Civil Service. It is not merely that a number of new prizes have been thrown into the lap of that Service—one Lieutenant-Governorship, two Memberships of the Board of Revenue, one Commissionership of a Division, several Secretaryships and Under-Secretaryships—but alternative schemes of readjustment have been rejected on the express ground that their adoption would be unpopular with members of the Service. Thus even if a reduction of the charge of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal had really become inevitable—a contention, which the greatest living authority on the subject, Sir Henry Cotton, who was Secretary to the Bengal Government under seven Lieutenant-Governors, does not admit—one would have thought that the most natural course to take was to separate Behar, Orissa and [p. 694] Chota Nagpur from Bengal and form them into a separate Province. This would have made the Western Province one of 30 millions in place of the Eastern. But this, says the Government of India, "would take from Bengal all its best districts and would make the Province universally unpopular". This was of course a fatal objection, for compared with the displeasure of the Civil Service, the trampling under foot of public opinion and the outraging of the deepest feelings of a whole people was a small matter! But one can see that administrative considerations were really only secondary in the determination of this question. The dismemberment of Bengal had become necessary, because in the view of the Government of India,

“it cannot be for the lasting good of any country or any people that public opinion or what passes for it should be manufactured by a comparatively small number of people at a single centre and should be disseminated thence for universal adoption, all other view being discouraged or suppressed.” “From every point of views,” the Government further states, “it appears to us desirable to encourage the growth of centres of independent opinion, local aspirations, local ideals and to preserve the growing intelligence and enterprise of Bengal from being cramped and stunted by the process of forcing it prematurely into a mould of rigid and sterile uniformity.”

You will see that this is only a paraphrase in Lord Curzon's most approved style, of the complaint of the people of Bengal that their fair Province has been dismembered to destroy their growing solidarity, check their national aspirations and weaken their power of co-operating for national ends, lessen the influence of their educated classes with their countrymen, and reduce the political importance of Calcutta. After this let no apologist of the late Viceroy pretend that the object of the partition was administrative convenience and not political repression!

Gentlemen, it is difficult to speak in terms of due restraint of Lord Curzon's conduct throughout this affair. Having published his earlier and smaller scheme for public criticism, it was his clear duty to publish similarly the later and larger scheme, which he afterwards substituted for it. [p. 695] But in consequence of the opposition which the first scheme encountered, he abandoned the idea of taking the public any more into his confidence and proceeded to work in the matter in the dark. For more than a year nothing further was heard of his intentions, and while he was silently elaborating the details of his measure, he allowed the impression to prevail that the Government had abandoned the Partition project. And in the end, when he had succeeded in securing the Secretary of State's sanction to the scheme, it was from Simla, where he and his official colleagues were beyond the reach of public opinion, that he sprang the final orders of Government upon an unprepared people. Then suddenly came his resignation. And the people permitted themselves for a while to hope that it would bring them at least a brief respite, especially as Mr. Brodrick had promised shortly before to present further papers on the subject to Parliament and that was understood to mean that the scheme would not be brought into operation till Parliament reassembled at the beginning of next year. Of course, after Lord Curzon's resignation, the only proper, the only dignified course for him was to take no step, which it was difficult to revoke and the consequences of which would have to be faced, not by him, but by his successor; he owed it to Lord Minto to give him an opportunity to examine the question for himself; he owed it to the Royal visitors not to plunge the largest Province of India into violent agitation and grief on the eve of their visit to it. But Lord Curzon was determined to partition Bengal before he left India and so he rushed the necessary legislation through the Legislative Council at Simla, which only the official members could attend, and enforced his orders on 16th October last—a day observed as one of universal mourning by all classes of people in Bengal. And now, while he himself has gone from India, what a sea of troubles he has bequeathed to his successor! Fortunately there are grounds to believe that Lord Minto will deal with the situation with tact, firmness, and sympathy, and it seems he has already pulled up to some extent Lord Curzon's favourite Lieutenant, the first ruler of the new Eastern province. Mr. Fuller has evidently cast to the [p. 696] winds all prudence, all restraints, all sense of responsibility. Even if a fraction of what the papers have been reporting be true, his extraordinary doing must receive the attention of the new Secretary of State for India and the House of Commons. There is no surer method of goading a docile people into a state of dangerous despair than the kind of hectoring and repression he has been attempting.

But, Gentlemen, as has been well said, even in things evil there is a soul of goodness, and the dark times, through which Bengal has passed and is passing, have not been without a message of bright hope for the future. The tremendous upheaval of popular feeling, which has taken place in Bengal in consequence of the partition, will constitute a landmark in the history of our national progress. For the first time since British rule began, all sections of the Indian community, without distinction of caste or creed, have been moved by a common impulse and without the stimulus of external pressure to act together in offering resistance to a common wrong. A wave of true national consciousness has swept over the Province, and at its touch old barriers have for the time, at any rate, been thrown down, personal jealousies have vanished, other controversies have been hushed! Bengal's heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all India, and her sufferings have not been endured in vain, when they have helped to draw closer all parts of the country in sympathy and in aspiration. A great rush and uprising of the waters, such as has been recently witnessed in Bengal, cannot take place without a little inundation over the banks here and there. These little excesses are inevitable, when large masses of men move spontaneously—especially when the movement is from darkness unto light, from bondage towards freedom—and they must not be allowed to disconcert us too much. The most outstanding fact of the situation is that the public life of this country has received an accession of strength of great importance, and for this all India owes a deep debt of gratitude to Bengal. Of course, the difficulties which [p. 697] confront the leaders of Bengal are enormous and perhaps they have only just begun. But I know there is no disposition to shrink from any responsibilities, and I have no doubt that whatever sacrifices are necessary will be cheerfully made. All India is at their back, and they will receive in the work that lies before them the cordial sympathy and assistance of the other Provinces. Any discredit, that is allowed to fall on them, affects us all. They on their side must not forget that the honour of all India is at present in their keeping.

THE SWADESHI MOVEMENT

Gentlemen, I will now say a few words on a movement which has spread so rapidly and has been hailed with so much enthusiasm all over the country during the last few months—the Swadeshi movement. It is necessary at the outset to distinguish it from another movement, started in Bengal, which has really given it such immense impetus—the boycott of British goods. We all know that when our Bengali brethren found that nothing would turn the late Viceroy from his purpose of partitioning Bengal, that all their protests in the Press and on the Platform, all their memorials to him, to the Secretary of State and to Parliament were unavailing, that the Government exercised its despotic strength to trample on their most cherished feelings and injure their dearest interests and that no protection against this of any kind was forthcoming from any quarter, they in their extremity resolved to have recourse to this boycott movement. This they did with a two-fold object—first as a demonstration of their deep resentment at the treatment they were receiving; and, secondly, to attract the attention of the people in England to their grievances, so that those who were in a position to call the Government of India to account might understand what was taking place in India. It was thus as a political weapon, used for a definite political purpose, that they had recourse to the boycott; and in the circumstances of their position they had every justification for the step they took. And I can tell you from personal experience that their action has proved immensely effective [p. 698] in drawing the attention of English people to the state of things in our country. But a weapon like this must be reserved only for extreme occasions. There are obvious risks involved in its failure, and it cannot be used with sufficient effectiveness unless there is an extraordinary upheaval of popular feeling behind it. It is bound to rouse angry passions on the other side, and no true well-wisher of his country will be responsible for provoking such passions, except under an overpowering sense of necessity. On an extreme occasion, of course, a boycotting demonstration is perfectly legitimate, but that occasion must be one to drive all classes, as in Bengal, to act with one impulse, and make all leaders sink their personal differences in the presence of a common danger. It is well to remember that the term "boycott" owing to its origin, has got unsavoury associations, and it conveys to the mind before everything else a vindictive desire to injure another. Such a desire on our part, as a normal feature of our relations with England, is of course out of the question. Moreover, if the boycott is confined to British goods only, it leaves us free to purchase the goods of other foreign countries and this does not help the Swadeshi movement in any way.

Gentlemen, the true Swadeshi movement is both a patriotic and an economic movement. The idea of Swadeshi or “one’s own country” is one of the noblest conceptions that have ever stirred the heart of humanity. As the poet asks—

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,—

This is my own, my native land!

The devotion to Motherland, which is enshrined in the highest Swadeshi, is an influence so profound and so passionate that its very thought thrills and its actual touch lifts one out of oneself. India needs to-day above everything else that the gospel of this devotion should be preached to high and low, to prince and to peasant, in town and in hamlet, till the service of Motherland becomes [p. 699] with us as overmastering a passion as it is in Japan. The Swadeshi movement, as it is ordinarily understood, presents one part of this gospel to the mass of our people in a form, which brings it within their comprehension. It turns their thoughts to their country, accustoms them to the idea of voluntarily making some sacrifice for her sake, enables them to take an intelligent interest in her economic development and teaches them the important lesson of co-operating with one another for a national end. All this is most valuable work, and those who undertake it are entitled to feel that they are engaged in a highly patriotic mission. But the movement on its material side is an economic one; and though self-denying ordinances, extensively entered into, must serve a valuable economic purpose, namely, to ensure a ready consumption of such articles as are produced in the country and to furnish a perpetual stimulus to production by keeping the demand for indigenous things largely in excess of the supply, the difficulties that surround the question economically are so great that they require the co-operation of every available agency to surmount them. The problem is indeed one of the first magnitude. Twelve years ago, the late Mr. Ranade remarked at an Industrial Conference held at Poona:

The political domination of one country by another attracts far more attention than the more formidable, though unfelt domination, which the capital, enterprise and skill of one country exercise over the trade and manufactures of another. This latter domination has an insidious influence, which paralizes the springs of all the varied activities, which together make up the life of a nation.

The question of production is a question of capital, enterprize and skill, and in all these factors, our deficiency at present is very great. Whoever can help in any one of these fields is, therefore, a worker in the Swadeshi cause and should be welcomed as such. Not by methods of exclusion but by those of comprehension, not by insisting on everyone working in the same part of the field but by leaving each one free to select his own corner, by attracting to the cause all who are likely to help and not [p. 700] alienating any who are already with us, are the difficulties of the problem likely to be overcome. Above all, let us see to it that there are no fresh divisions in the country in the name of Swadeshi. No greater perversion of its true spirit could be imagined than that.

Take the question of cotton piece-goods, of which we import at present over 22 millions sterling worth a year. This is by far the heaviest item among our imports and our present Swadeshi agitation is directed mainly towards producing as much of these goods in our own country as possible. I have consulted three of the best experts available in India on this subject—Mr. Bezanji of Nagpur, the right hand man of the late Mr. Tata in mill matters, the Hon. Mr. Vithaldas Damodardas, who has written an admirable paper on the cotton industry for the Industrial Conference and has kindly placed a copy of it at my disposal, and our friend Mr. Wacha. They are all agreed about the requirements and the difficulties of the situation. So far as cotton fabrics are concerned, even strict Free Traders should have nothing to say against the encouragement which the Swadeshi movement seeks to give to their manufacture in India. In the first place, many of the usual objections that may be urged against a system of State protection do not apply to helpful voluntary action on the part of consumers, such as the Swadeshi movement endeavours to promote. Moreover, the essence of Free Trade is that a commodity should be produced where the comparative cost of its production is the least and that it should be consumed where its relative value is the highest; and if accidental circumstances have thwarted such an adjustment in a given case, any agency which seeks to overcome the impediment works in the end in the interests of true Free Trade. Now everyone will admit that with cheap labour and cotton at her own door, India enjoys exceptional advantages for the manufacture of cotton goods; and if the Swadeshi movement helps her to regain her natural position in this respect—a position which she once occupied but out of which she has been driven by an extraordinary combination of [p. 701] circumstances—the movement works not against but in furtherance of true Free Trade. Even at present the cotton industry in India is an important one. It is the largest industry after agriculture in the country; it is also the only one—agriculture excepted—in which the Indians themselves have a substantial share. It is represented by a paid-up capital of about 17 crores of rupees or a little over 11 millions sterling, the number of mills being about 200, with five million spindles and fifty thousand power-looms. In addition to this, there are, according to the census of 1901, about a quarter of a million persons engaged in hand-loom weaving in the country. Our mills consume nearly 60 per cent. of the cotton produce of India and produce 58 crore lbs. of yarn. Of this quantity, Mr. Vithaldas tells us, about 23½ crore lbs. is exported to China and other foreign countries, about 13½ crores is used in our weaving mills, and about 19 crores is woven by hand-loom weavers, the remaining 2 crores going to the manufacture of rope and twine. In addition to this, 3 crore lbs. of yarn is imported from the United Kingdom and is consumed by the hand-looms. The hand-loom industry of the country thus absorbs, in spite of its hard struggles, about 22 crore lbs. of yarn, or nearly double the quantity woven by power-looms, and this is a most interesting and significant fact. The yarn used by the weaving mills produces about 55 crores of yards of cloth, of which about 14 crore yards is exported to foreign countries and about 41 crores is left for consumption in the country. If we put down the production of the hand-looms at about 90 crore yards, we have about 130 crore yards as the quantity of Swadeshi cloth consumed at present in India.

The quantity of piece-goods imported from the United Kingdom and retained for use in the country is about 205 crore yards a year. Of the total cloth consumed, therefore, over one-third is at present Swadeshi. This is an encouraging feature of the situation. But the imported cloth is almost all superior in quality.

“While our mills,” Mr. Vithaldas says, “produce the coarser cloth say, from yarn up to 30’s count and in a few cases up to 40’s, the bulk of the imported cloth is of the finer quality, using yarn [p. 702] over 30's count. The Indian weaving mills are obliged to restrict themselves for the most part to weaving coarser cloth owing to the inferior quality of cotton now grown in the country."

It may be noted that even from existing cotton, hand-looms can, owing to their greater delicacy of handling the yarn, produce finer cloth than the power-looms. Fortunately owing to the exertions of the Agricultural Department of the Bombay Government—exertions for which it is entitled to the best thanks of the whole country—Egyptian cotton has just been successfully introduced into Sind, and this year a thousand bales of a quality equal to very good Egyptian have been produced. A much heavier crop is expected next year, and there is no doubt that its cultivation will rapidly extend. The main difficulty in the way of our manufacturing the quality of cloth that is at present imported is one of capital. Mr. Wacha estimates that if the whole quantity of 205 crore yards is to be produced by mills, the industry requires an additional capital of about 30 crores of rupees. Even if we propose to spread this over ten years, we should require an addition of 3 crores of rupees every year. Now if we turn to the Statistical Abstract of British India, we shall find that the total increase in the capital invested in cotton mills during the last ten years has been only about 3 crores—an amount that Mr. Wacha wants every year for ten years. The normal development of the mill industry is thus plainly unequal to the requirements of the situation. Moreover it is well to remember what Mr. Bezanji says—that the present millowners must not be expected to be very keen about the production of finer cloth, because its manufacture is much less paying than that of the coarser cloth. This is due to various causes, the principal one among them being that English capital, similarly invested, is satisfied with a smaller range of profits. Capital from other quarters must, therefore, be induced to come forward and undertake this business. If we again turn to the Statistical Abstract, we shall find that our people hold about 50 crores of rupees in Government Securities and about 11 crores in Postal Savings Banks. The private deposits stand at about 32 crores of rupees, but there are [p. 703] no means of ascertaining how much of the amount is held by Indians. Considering the extent of the country and the numbers of the population, these resources are, of course, extremely meagre. Still they might furnish some part of the capital needed. In this connection may I say that a special responsibility now rests in the matter on the Aristocracy of Bengal! And this not merely because the Swadeshi movement is being so vigorously advocated in their Province, but also because owing to the Permanent Settlement of Bengal they are enabled to enjoy resources, which in other parts of India are swept into the coffers of the State. If sufficient capital is forthcoming, Mr. Bezanji's patriotism may, I am sure, be relied on to secure for the undertaking whatever assistance his great capacity and unrivalled knowledge can give. It must, however, be admitted that capital will come forward only cautiously for this branch of the business. But the hand-looms are likely to prove of greater immediate service. Mr. Vithaldas looks forward to a great revival of the hand-loom industry in the country, and I cannot do better than quote what he says on this point in his paper:—

This village industry, he says, gives means of livelihood not only to an immense number of the weaver class but affords means of supplementing their income to agriculturists—the backbone of India—who usually employ themselves on hand-looms, when field work is unnecessary and also when, owing to famine drought or excessive rains, agricultural operations are not possible. Now the apparatus with which they work is nearly two centuries behind the times. Mr. Havell, Principal of the Calcutta School of Arts; Mr. Chatterton of the Madras School of Arts, and Mr. Churchill of Bangalore, along with many others, are doing yeoman's service by taking keen interest in the question of supplying economical and improved apparatus to the hand-loom weavers. Mr. Havell has pointed out that in preparing the warp our hand-loom weavers are incapable of winding more than two threads at a time, though the simplest mechanical device would enable them to treat 50 or 100 threads simultaneously. The latest European hand-loom, which successfully competes with the power-loom in Cairo and in many places in Europe, can turn out a maximum of 48 yards of common cloth in a day. Mr. Havell is satisfied that the greater portion of the imported cotton cloth can be made in the Indian hand-looms with great profit to the whole community. The question of the immediate revival of the hand-loom weaving industry on a commercial basis demands the most earnest attention of every [p. 704] well-wisher of India, and evidence gives promise of a successful issue to efforts put forward in this direction.

The outlook here is thus hopeful and cheering; only we must not fail to realise that the co-operation of all who can help—including the Government—is needed to overcome the difficulties that lie in the path.

OUR AIMS AND ASPIRATIONS

Gentlemen, this is the twenty-first session of the Indian National Congress. Year after year, since 1885, we have been assembling in these gatherings to give voice to our aspirations and to formulate our wants. When the movement was first inaugurated, we were under the influence of that remarkable outburst of enthusiasm for British Rule, which had been evoked in the country by the great Viceroyalty of the Marquis of Ripon. The best beloved of India's Viceroys was not content to offer mere lip-homage to the principle that righteousness alone exalteth a nation. He had dared to act on it in practice, and he had braved persecution at the hands of his own countrymen in India for its sake. Lord Ripon's noblest service to this country was that he greatly quickened the processes by which the consciousness of a national purpose comes to establish itself in the minds of a people. The Congress movement was the direct and immediate outcome of this realisation. It was started to focus and organize the patriotic forces that were working independently of one another in different parts of the country, so as to invest their work with a national character and to increase their general effectiveness. Hope at that time was warm and faith shone bright largely as a result of Lord Ripon's Viceroyalty, and those who started the Congress believed that by offering their criticism and urging their demands from a national platform, where they could speak in the name of all India, they would be able to secure a continuous improvement of the administration and a steady advance in the direction of the political emancipation of the people. Twenty years have since elapsed and during the time much has happened to chill that hope and dim that faith, but there can be no doubt that work of great value in our national life has [p. 705] already been accomplished. The minds of the people have been familiarized with the idea of a united India working for her salvation; a national public opinion has been created; close bonds of sympathy now knit together the different Provinces; caste and creed separations hamper less and less the pursuit of common aims; the dignity of a consciousness of a national existence has spread over the whole land. Our record of political concessions won is, no doubt, very meagre, but those that have been secured are of considerable value; some retrogression has been prevented; and if latterly we have been unable to stem the tide of reaction, the resistance we have offered, though it has failed of its avowed purpose, has substantially strengthened our public life. Our deliberations have extended over a very wide range of problems; public opinion in the country is, in consequence, better informed, and the Press is steadily growing in authority and usefulness. Above all, there is a general perception now of the goal towards which we have to strive and a wide recognition of the arduous character of the struggle and the immense sacrifices it requires.

The goal of the Congress is that India should be governed in the interests of the Indians themselves, and that in course of time a form of government should be attained in this country similar to what exists in the self-governing Colonies of the British Empire. For better, for worse, our destinies are now linked with those of England and the Congress freely recognises that whatever advance we seek must be within the Empire itself. That advance, moreover, can only be gradual, as at each stage of the progress it may be necessary for us to pass through a brief course of apprenticeship before we are enabled to go to the next one; for it is a reasonable proposition that the sense of responsibility, required for the proper exercise of the political institutions of the West, can be acquired by an Eastern people through practical training and experiment only. To admit this is not to express any agreement with those who usually oppose all attempts of reform on the plea that the people are not ready for it.

[p. 706] It is liberty alone, says Mr. Gladstone in words of profound wisdom, which fits men for liberty. This proposition, like every other in politics, has its bounds; but it is far safer than the counter doctrine: 'Wait till they are fit.'

While, therefore, we are prepared to allow that an advance towards our goal may be only by reasonably cautious steps, what we emphatically insist on is that the resources of the country should be primarily devoted to the work of qualifying the people by means of education and in other ways for such advance. Even the most bigoted champion of the existing system of administration will not pretend that this is in any degree the case at present. Our net revenue is about 44 millions sterling. Of this very nearly one-half is now eaten up by the Army. The Home Charges, exclusive of their military portion, absorb nearly one-third. These two between them account for about 34 millions out of 44. Then over three millions are paid to European officials in civil employ. This leaves only about 7 millions at the disposal of the Government to be applied to other purposes. Can any one, who realizes what this means, wonder that the Government spends only a miserable three-quarters of a million out of State Funds on the education of the people—primary, secondary and higher, all put together. Japan came under the influence of Western ideas only forty years ago, and yet already she is in a line with the most advanced nations of the West in matters of mass education, the State finding funds for the education of every child of school-going age. We have now been a hundred years under England's Rule, and yet to-day four villages out of every five are without a school-house and seven children out of eight are allowed to grow up in ignorance and in darkness! Militarism, Service interests and the interests of capitalists—all take precedence to-day of the true interests of the Indian people in the administration of the country. Things cannot be otherwise, for it is the government of the people of one country by the people of another, and this, as Mill points out, is bound to produce great evils. Now the Congress wants that all this should change and that India should be governed, first, and foremost, in [p. 707] the interests of the Indians themselves. This result will be achieved only in proportion as we obtain more and more voice in the government of our country. We are prepared to bear—and bear cheerfully—our fair share of the burdens of the Empire, of which we are now a part but we want to participate in the privileges also, and we object most strongly to being sacrificed, as at present, in order that others may prosper. Then the Congress asks for a redemption of those promises for the equal treatment of Indians and Englishmen in the government of this country which have been solemnly given us by the Sovereign and the Parliament of England. It is now three quarters of a century since the Parliament passed an Act, which, the Court of Directors pointed out, meant that there was to be no governing caste in India. The governing caste, however, is still as vigorous, as exclusive as ever. Twenty-five years later, the late Queen-Empress addressed a most memorable Proclamation to the Princes and Peoples of India. The circumstances connected with the issue of that Proclamation and its noble contents will always bear witness to the true greatness of that great Sovereign and will never cease to shed lustre on the English name. The Proclamation repeats the pledges contained in the Charter Act of 1833, and though an astounding attempt was made less than two years ago by the late Viceroy to explain away its solemn import, the plain meaning of the Royal message cannot be altered without attributing what is nothing less than an unworthy subterfuge to a Sovereign, the deep reverence for whose memory is an asset of the Empire. That the Charter Act of 1833 and the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 have created in the eyes of reactionary rulers a most inconvenient situation is clear from a blunt declaration, which another Viceroy of India, the late Lord Lytton, made in a confidential document, which has since seen the light of day. Speaking of our claims and expectations based on the pledges of the Sovereign and the Parliament, he wrote:—

We all know that these claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled. We have had to choose between prohibiting them (the natives of India) and cheating them and we have chosen [p. 708] the least straightforward course . . . . Since I am writing confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the Government of England and of India appear to me up to the present moment unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart the words of promise they had uttered to the ear.

We accept Lord Lytton as an unimpeachable authority on the conduct of the Government in evading the fulfilment of the pledges. We deny his claim to lay down that our “claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled”

Our whole future, it is needless to say, is bound up with this question of the relative position of the two races in this country. The domination of one race over another, especially when there is no great disparity between their intellectual endowment or their general civilization, inflicts great injury on the subject race in a thousand insidious ways. On the moral side, the present situation is steadily destroying our capacity for initiative and dwarfing us as men of action. On the material side, it has resulted in a fearful impoverishment of the people. For a hundred years and more now India has been for members of the dominant race, a country where fortunes were to be made to be taken out and spent elsewhere. As in Ireland, the evil of absentee landlordism has in the past aggravated racial domination of the English over the Irish, so in India what may be called absentee capitalism has been added to the racial ascendancy of Englishmen. A great and ruinous drain of wealth from the country has gone on for many years, the net excess of exports over imports (including treasure) during the last forty years amounting to no less than a thousand millions sterling. The steady rise in the death-rate of the country—from 24 per thousand, the average for 1882-84, to 30 per thousand, the average for 1892-94, and 34 per thousand, the present average—is a terrible and conclusive proof of this continuous impoverishment of the mass of our people. India's best interests—material and moral—no less than the honour of England, demand that the policy of equality [p. 709] for the two races promised by the Sovereign and by Parliament should be faithfully and courageously carried out.

THE BUREAUCRACY

Gentlemen, as I have already observed, the manner in which the Partition of Bengal has been carried out furnishes a striking illustration of the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule. Happily these features are not always so conspicuously in evidence. No one also denies that a large proportion of the members of the bureaucracy bring to their work a high level of ability, a keen sense of duty and a conscientious desire, within the limits of the restricted opportunities permitted by the predominance of other interests, to do what good they can to the people. It is the system that is really at fault—a system which relegates the interests of the people to a very subordinate place and which, by putting too much power into the hands of these men, impairs their sense of responsibility and develops in them a spirit of intolerance of criticism. I know many of these men are on their side constantly smarting under a sense of unfair condemnation by our countrymen. They fail to realize that if the criticism that is passed on their actions is sometimes ill-informed and even unjust, this is largely due to the veil of secrecy which carefully hides official proceedings from the view of the people in India. Moreover, theirs are at present all the privileges of the position, and they must bear without impatience or bitterness its few disadvantages. I have already said that our advance towards our goal can only be gradual. Meanwhile, there is a great deal of work to be done for the country in which officials and non-officials could join hands. A considerable part of the way we could both go together, but it can be only on terms consistent with the self-respect of either side. In old times, when British Rule was new and its higher standard and its more vigorous purposes excited general admiration, the Englishman's claim to a privileged position, even outside the sphere of official duties, was allowed to pass unchallenged. That is now no longer possible and those officials, who expect the Indians to approach them with [p. 710] bated breath and whispering humbleness—and the type is not confined to the new Eastern Province exclusively—not only make useful relations between the two sides impossible but do more harm to their own class than they imagine. In one respect the gulf between the official and educated classes of the country is bound to widen more and more every day. The latter now clearly see that the bureaucracy is growing frankly selfish and openly hostile to their national aspirations. It was not so in the past. In a most remarkable letter which I had the honour to receive while in England two months ago, from Mr. Hodgson Pratt—a great and venerated name among all lovers of peace—he tells us with what object Western education was introduced into this country.

Fifty years ago, writes Mr. Pratt, who in those days was a member of the Bengal Civil Service, while India was still under the government of the East India Company, it was considered both just and wise to introduce measures for national education on a liberal scale, with adequate provision, of schools colleges, and universities. This event was hailed with lively satisfaction by the native population as heralding a new era of social progress, and as satisfying the active intelligence of the Hindus. Now it must be observed that character of the teaching thus inaugurated by Englishmen would necessarily reflect the ideals which have for centuries prevailed among them. In other words, Indian youths would be brought up to admire our doctrines of political liberty, popular rights, and national independence; nor could it ever have been supposed that these lessons would fall upon deaf ears and cold hearts. On the contrary, the inevitable result of such teaching was clearly perceived by the Government of those days, and was regarded in a generous spirit. In support of this assertion I may mention that at the time of the inauguration of these measures I accompanied the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (Sir Frederick Halliday) on one of his winter tours through the province. Naturally he called the attention of those who attended the public meetings held by him to the new education policy, and he always took occasion to declare that the schools would promote one of the leading purposes of British Rule, which was to prepare the people for Self-Government. It certainly was not supposed that at any subsequent time a policy would be adopted which would disappoint the legitimate hopes thus created.

Now, however, that the time has come for the bureaucracy, to part with some of its power in favour of the [p. 711] educated classes, all kinds of excuses are brought forward to postpone what is no doubt regarded as the evil day. One favourite argument is that the educated classes are as yet only a very small fraction of the community. The hollowness of this plea was well exposed by the late Mr. George Yule in his address as President of our National Congress in 1888. Quoting Prof. Tharold Rogers, he pointed out that a hundred years ago, not one man in ten or one woman in twenty knew how to read and write in England. Going another century or two back, he added, the people of England, man and boy, high and low with the exception of a mere handful, were steeped in the grossest ignorance and yet there was a House of Commons. We have now in this country about 15 million people who can read and write, and about a million of these have come under the influence of some kind of English education. Moreover what we ask for at present is a voice in the government of the country, not for the whole population, but for such portion of it as has been qualified by education to discharge properly the responsibilities of such association. Another argument brought forward in favour of maintaining the present bureaucratic monopoly of power is that though the educated classes make a grievance of it, the mass of the people are quite indifferent in the matter. Now, in the first place, this is not true. However it may suit the interests of the officials to deny the fact, the educated classes are in the present circumstances of India the natural leaders of the people. Theirs is the vernacular press, the contents of which do not fail to reach the mass of our population; in a hundred ways they have access to the minds of the latter; and what the educated Indians think to-day, the rest of India thinks to-morrow. Moreover do the officials realize how their contention condemns their rule out of their own mouth? For it means that only so long as the people of India are kept in ignorance and their faculties are forced to lie dormant that they do not raise any objection to the present system of administration. The moment education quickens those faculties and clears their vision, they range themselves against a continuance of the system!

[p. 712] OUR IMMEDIATE DEMANDS

Gentlemen, a number of important questions will come up before you for discussion during the next two days, and following the practice of previous Congresses, you will no doubt record after due deliberation your views on them in the form of resolutions. This is of course necessary; but may I suggest that for purposes of effective agitation in the immediate future, we should now concentrate our main energies on certain selected portions of our programme? Speaking broadly, most of the reforms that we have been advocating may be grouped under four heads:—(1) Those which aim at securing for our people a larger and larger share in the administration and control of our affairs; these include a reform of our Legislative Councils, the appointment of Indians to the Secretary of State's Council and the Executive Councils in India, and a steady substitution of the Indian for the European agency in the public service of the country; (2) those which seek to improve the methods of administration, such as the separation of Judicial from Executive functions, Police reform, and so forth; (3) those which propose a readjustment of financial arrangements with the object of securing a reduction of the burdens of the taxpayers and a more efficient application of our resources; under this head come a reduction of military charges, the moderating of land-assessments and so forth; and (4) those which urge the adoption of measures calculated to improve the condition of the mass of the people; these include a vigorous extension of primary education, facilities for industrial and technical instruction, grants for improved sanitation, and a real attempt to deal with the alarming indebtedness of the peasantry. Now what I would most earnestly and respectfully suggest is that we would select from each group such reforms as may be immediately urged with the greatest effect and press them forward in this country and in England with all the energy we can command. In my humble opinion our immediate demands should be:—

(1) A reform of our Legislative Councils, raising the proportion of elected members to one-half, requiring [p. 713] the Budgets to be formally passed by the Councils and empowering the members to bring forward amendments with safeguards for bringing the debates to a close in a reasonable time. The Presidents of the Council should have the power of veto. The Viceroy's Legislative Council consists at present of 25 members of whom only 5 are elected, one by the Chamber of Commerce of Calcutta—a body of Europeans—and the other four by four provinces. We must ask for the proportion of elected members to be now raised to 12. Of this number, two seats may be given, one to commerce and one to certain industries, and the remaining ten should be assigned to different provinces, two to each of the three older provinces, and one each to the remaining. And, to begin with, the right of members to move amendments may be confined to one amendment each. The two members for Commerce and Industries will generally be Europeans, and they will ordinarily vote with Government. Thus even if all the ten provincial members voted together, they would be only 10 out of 25. Ordinarily, they will not be able to carry a motion against the Government, but on exceptional occasions they may obtain the support of two or three men from the other side and then the moral effect of the situation will be considerable. In the Provincial Legislative Councils, we must have an increase in the number, each district of a province being empowered to send a member. The objection that these bodies will in that case be somewhat unwieldy is not entitled to much weight.

(2) The appointment of at least three Indians to the Secretary of State's Council to be returned one each by the three older provinces.

(3) The creation of Advisory Boards in all Districts throughout India, whom the heads of districts should be bound to consult in important matters of administration concerning the public before taking action. For the present their functions should be only advisory, the Collector or District Magistrate being at liberty to set aside their advice at their discretion. Half the members [p. 714] of a Board should be elected representatives of the different Talukas or Sub-Divisions of the District and the other half should consist of the principal District Officers and such non-official gentlemen as the head of the district may appoint. The Boards must not be confounded with what are known as District Local Boards. There is at present too much of what may be called Secretariat rule, with an excessive multiplication of central departments. District administration must be largely freed from this and reasonable opportunities afforded to the people concerned to influence its course before final decisions are arrived at. If such Boards are created, we may in course of time expect them to be entrusted with some real measure of control over the District administration. The late Mr. Ranade used to urge the importance of such Boards very strongly. If ever we are to have real Local Government in matters of general administration, the creation of these Boards will pave the way for it. One great evil of the present system of administration is its secrecy. This will be materially reduced, so far as District administration is concerned, by the step proposed.

(4) The recruitment of the Judicial Branch of the Indian Civil Service from the legal profession in India.

(5) The separation of Judicial and Executive functions.

(6) A reduction of Military expenditure.

(7) A large extension of primary education.

(8) Facilities for industrial and technical education.

(9) An experimental measure to deal with the indebtedness of the peasantry over a selected area.

I think, Gentlemen, if we now concentrate all our energies on some such programme, we may within a reasonable time see results which will not be altogether disappointing. One thing is clear. The present is a specially favourable juncture for such an effort. In our own country, there is sure to be a great rebound of public [p. 715] opinion after the repression to which it has been subjected during the last three years. And in England for the first time since the Congress movement began, the Liberal and Radical Party will come into real power. My recent visit to England, during which I enjoyed somewhat exceptional opportunities to judge of the situation, has satisfied me that a strong current has already set in there against that narrow and aggressive Imperialism which only the other day seemed to be carrying everything before it. The new Prime Minister is a tried and trusted friend of freedom. And as regards the new Secretary of State for India, what shall I say? Large numbers of educated men in this country feel towards Mr. Morley as towards a master, and the heart hopes and yet trembles as it had never hoped or trembled before. He the reverent student of Burke, the disciple of Mill, the friend and biographer of Gladstone—will he courageously apply their principles and his own to the government of this country, or will he, too, succumb to the influences of the India Office around him and thus cast a cruel blight on hopes which his own writings have done so much to foster? We shall see; but in any case his appointment as Secretary of State for India indicates how strongly favourable to our cause the attitude of the new Ministry is. Mr. Ellis, the new Under-Secretary of State for India, is openly known to be a friend of our aspirations. A more gratifying combination of circumstances could not be conceived, and it now rests with us to turn it to the best advantage we can for our Motherland.

CONCLUSION

Gentlemen, one word more and I have done. I have no wish to underrate the difficulties that lie in our path, but I am convinced more than ever that they are not insuperable. Moreover, the real moral interest of a struggle such as we are engaged in lies not so much in the particular readjustments of present institutions which we may succeed in securing, as in the strength that the conflict brings us to be a permanent part of ourselves. The whole life of a people, which is broader and deeper than what is touched by purely political institutions, [p. 716] is enriched even by failures, provided the effort has been all that it should be. For such enrichment the present struggle is invaluable.

The true end of our work, said Mr. Ranade nine years ago, is to renovate, to purify, and also to perfect the whole man by liberating his intellect, elevating his standard of duty and developing to the full all its powers. Till so renovated, purified and perfected, we can never hope to be what our ancestors once were—a chosen people, to whom great tasks were allotted and by whom great deeds were performed. Where this feeling animates the worker, it is a matter of comparative indifference in what particular direction it asserts itself and in what particular method it proceeds to work. With a liberated manhood, with buoyant hope, with a faith that never shirks duty, with a sense of justice that deals fairly by all, with unclouded intellect and powers fully cultivated, and, lastly, with a love that overleaps all bounds, renovated India will take her proper rank among the nations of the world, and be the master of the situation and of her own destiny. This is the goal to be reached—this is the Promised Land. Happy are they who see it in distant vision, happier those who are permitted to work and clear the way on to it, happiest they who live to see it with their eyes and tread upon the holy soil once more. Famine and pestilence, oppression and sorrow, will then be myths of the past, and the gods will then again descend to the earth and associate with men as they did in times which we now call mythical.

Gentlemen, I can add nothing that may be worthy of being placed by the side of these beautiful words. I will only call to your minds the words of another great teacher of humanity who asks us to keep our faith in spite of trying circumstances, and warns us against the presumption of despairing because we do not see the whole clearly before our eyes:—

Our times are in His hand

Who saith: 'A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.'