A Nation in Making/Chapter 27

​27

My Visit to England in 1909

I must now go back to the year 1909, beyond which I have travelled. Early in 1909, I was invited to attend the Imperial Press Conference which was to meet in London in the June following. It was to be a gathering of the representatives of the Press throughout the Empire. I was the only member of the Indian (as distinguished from the Anglo-Indian) Press who was asked to join the Conference. The invitation was made by Mr. Lovat Fraser, formerly of the Times of India, and at the time on the staff of The Times. It was an honour done to me, and I felt it as such; but there were difficulties in my way. The administration of the Ripon College was then being organized under the new University Regulations. The College had just passed through a serious crisis in connexion with the affiliation of its Law Department. There was a time when it seemed as if the Law Department, which was the largest in Bengal, would be disaffiliated. Thanks, however, to the powerful intervention of Sir Edward Baker, and the readiness of the college authorities to comply with the requirements of the University, these difficulties were overcome; and, while every law college in Bengal, with the exception of less than half a dozen, was disaffiliated, the Law Department of the Ripon College was allowed to retain its status and position.

We were not, however, quite out of the wood yet, and I sought the advice of Sir Edward Baker. He advised me to accept the invitation, assuring me that during my absence no harm would come to the college. A similar assurance was given to me by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjea, who then ruled the University with undisputed sway. I had thus the satisfaction of feeling pretty ​sure, before I left for England, that the Law Department would be safe. For, at a meeting of the Syndicate to which I was invited, I discussed the constitution of the college with the members of the Syndicate, and everything was satisfactorily settled. I was thus enabled to leave for England about the middle of May, free from the anxieties which my absence from India would otherwise have caused.

My lot in life made me a great traveller, but I never liked the idea of leaving home for a distant journey. The comforts and associations of home always possessed an overwhelming fascination for me. In 1897, when I went to England to give evidence before the Welby Commission, I begged Lord Welby, the President of the Commission, to dismiss me as early as possible. He very courteously complied with my request, and I hurried back to India, although my colleagues stayed on for the celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, which was to take place in a few weeks' time. Pageants and shows never possessed any attraction for me, and I was glad to get back to my home and my work.

I left home on May 15, and arrived in London on June 3. It was nearly midnight when the train steamed into Victoria Station, and my old and esteemed friend, Mr. H. E. A. Cotton, was on the platform waiting for me with a motor ready to take me to the Waldorf Hotel, where the Press delegates were accommodated. He would not leave me till he saw me comfortably lodged in my room.

And here a word about Mr. Cotton. Mr. Cotton is now President of the Bengal Legislative Council, the duties of which, under existing conditions, have become anxious and troublesome, but which he is conducting, according to all accounts, with ability, tact and firmness that have won him praise and admiration. His experience as a member of the House of Commons and his familiarity with English public life have been a valuable help to him in the performance of his present arduous task, and when, on the death of Nawab Sir Shamsul Huda, late President of the Bengal Legislative Council, Mr. Cotton was suggested as his successor, I warmly supported the proposal. His father and myself had been friends for a period of over forty years, and in my public life I received valuable advice and guidance from him. After his retirement from India in the early nineties of the last century, we used to correspond every week on questions of public importance.

The first function of the Press Conference took place on the following evening, when Lord Burnham, proprietor of the Daily ​Telegraph, a venerable old man of eighty, but still retaining something of the fire and the fervour of early life, and Lord Rosebery, the greatest of living English orators, welcomed us in suitable speeches at a great banquet given in honour of the Press delegates. I sat at table with Mr. Nevinson and Mr. Gardiner of the Daily News, and altogether it was a most enjoyable function.

Our deliberations commenced almost immediately. The first meeting of the Conference was held on June 7, and the subject discussed was the reduction of cable rates. A resolution declaring that facilities for telegraphic communication should be cheapened and improved was adopted, and a committee was appointed. Dr. (now Sir) Stanley Reed proposed the committee, and it was unanimously carried. I supported the resolution, on the ground that accurate news regarding the situation in India, especially in view of the developments that were then taking place, should be readily available to the British public, and cheap cable rates would materially promote that object.

At the second day's sitting the subject discussed was the Press and the Empire. Mr. McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, presided. The debate turned mainly upon the question of naval defence. I made up my mind to leave the Conference, as I had a meeting of the British Committee of the Congress to attend, when quite unexpectedly and without any occasion for it, Lord Cromer threw out a challenge, addressed almost personally to me, asking whether the anarchical developments which had then taken place were not helped by the irresponsible utterances of a certain section of the Indian Press. I heard the challenge with regret and astonishment. It seemed to be so utterly irrelevant; but for me there was no escape. The invitation was almost of a personal kind, for I was the only representative of the Indian section of the Press; and to keep quiet and say nothing would be to acquiesce in the insinuation. I made up my mind to reply; I collected my thoughts and sent up my name to the Chairman as one who intended to speak. I was called to the table at once. It was a short speech and I give the full text of it:

It is not for me to speak of the effect that the speech produced upon the meeting. When I said that I would not enter into a political controversy, but would exercise the self-restraint of the East, the ​House came down with uproarious applause. Sir Hugh Graham, the doyen of the Canadian Press, who was present at the Confer- ence, said to me afterwards that it was a 'model of a debating speech'. Another member of the Press Conference remarked that 'Mr. Banerjea wiped the floor with Lord Cromer'. It was generally felt that the retort was merited and I was glad that I had the oppor- tunity of vindicating the Indian Press before the assembled journalists of the Empire.

Every day we had business meetings supplemented by parties. It was one continuous round of work, enlivened by festivities. The English are not a demonstrative people, but they are truly hospit- able, and they show their cordiality to their guests in ways that are not to be mistaken. At Sheffield every one of us was presented with a knife, the kind of work for which Sheffield is noted, and at Dempster, after we had inspected the motor works, we were asked to take with us a handsome pocket-book as a souvenir of our visit. At the dinner and luncheon tables the talk was frank, cordial, and free from reserve and restraint. At the luncheon given to us at All Souls' College, Oxford, the Regius Professor of Greek of the University (Professor Gilbert Murray), who was sitting next to me, said of Lord Curzon, who presided and spoke, 'Here is a man who could set off the most trifling commonplaces in the most superb ornaments of language.'

Visiting England after twelve years I could not help noticing some of the changes that had taken place. One thing that struck me was that both teetotalism and vegetarianism were making head- way, and, what was still more remarkable, as in the case of all social movements, their indirect influence upon the consumption of meat and alcohol was appreciable. But let me proceed with my narrative.

On the fourth day of the Conference Lord Morley was in the chair, and the subject of discussion was 'Journalism and Litera- ture'. I spoke at that meeting, and Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M. P., who followed me, paid me a high compliment. I think it was Lord Morley who at that Conference described Literature as an art, and Journalism as an industry. We were invited to Aldershot and witnessed a review of fourteen thousand troops. I was here intro- duced to Lord Haldane, who was then Secretary of State for War and had come down from London to receive the Press delegates. I had a short conversation with him in which I referred to the Partition and the great grievance it was to the people of Bengal. ​He heard me out and finished by saying, 'Why doesn't Morley upset it?' That indeed was the feeling of every English politician of any note whom I met in the course of this visit.

I returned home with the impression that no public man who had any influence in the country liked the Partition, they were all against it, and that if we persevered it was bound to be upset. I saw Lord Courtney, who was a great friend of Lord Morley, and Mr. Winston Churchill in company with Mr. Mackarness, that staunch and redoubtable friend whose service to India at a critical time we have not sufficiently asknowledged. The impression left on my mind was that they were convinced that we had a great grievance and both promised to speak to Lord Morley. At Manchester I had an interview with Mr. C. P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian. His sympathies were all with us. I pressed him to write in the columns of the Manchester Guardian, but his difficulty was that Lord Morley was a Liberal leader, and above all a Lancashire man.

Our work in London being over, we started on our provincial tour on June 14. We went by special train to Coventry, where we inspected the motor works to which I have already referred, and then we proceeded by motor to Warwick Castle where we were entertained at lunch by the Earl and Countess of Warwick. The Countess welcomed us in a fine speech, ringing with the inspiration that belongs to the old castle, so full of the stirring traditions associated with the name and fame of the great Kingmaker. She reminded us that, where we sat and had our lunch, equipped with the arms and the military emblems of the middle ages, was the hall in which the Barons deliberated and from where they sallied forth on their military expeditions under the leadership of the King- maker.

As I write these lines in my quiet residence in the suburbs of Ranchi, amid the deathlike stillness of a summer afternoon, I recall with vividness the sonorous strains of her something more than womanly voice, repeating the glories of the Warwick family, in a speech that left little or nothing to be wished for, in point of force or dignity of expression. The picturesque situation of the castle, overlooking a wide tract of woody country, almost forest- like in the beauty of its landscape, deepened the impression of medieval times, and of medieval strife and conflict, which the speech awakened.

From Warwick Castle we motored to Oxford, stopping at ​Stratford-on-Avon, and alighting in front of Shakespeare's house. We entered it as a place of pilgrimage. I had seen the house and its memorials, the room where Shakespeare was born, the inscriptions of Dickens and of Byron some forty years back, in 1871, while I was yet a student in London. I saw nothing new except that an oil-painting of Shakespeare had been added; and that the birthplace of the great dramatist now possessed a Shakespeare Theatre, which did not exist forty years before. At the house itself we were welcomed by the Mayor in his robes of office, and one of our delegates made a reply. All this did not take more than ten minutes, and the function was performed in the little garden attached to the house.

How mindful the English people are of the memories of their great dead! In his own lifetime Shakespeare was not the towering and immortal figure that he now is—and even a prophet is not always honoured among his own people—, yet how scrupulously and reverentially the memorials of Shakespeare were preserved by his contemporaries. How different is all this in India! We worship our gods of clay and stone in the firm faith that the Divine Spirit dwells therein; but the living gods who move about us and amongst us, doing, daring, dying for the country, are nowhere in our estimation. We persecute them when necessary for our own ends, and we invoke the holy name of religion and love of country to conceal our spite. The great Ram Mohun Roy was outcasted by our ancestors; and it was only when death had obliterated personal jealousies and bitterness, and when we could view the Raja and his work in the cool, colourless atmosphere of reason and solid achievement, that we realized his worth and hastened to raise a memorial in his honour, in the place of his birth. A nation that does not know how to honour its heroes does not deserve to have them and will not have them.

From Shakespeare's birthplace we hurried on to Oxford in the dim and disappearing twilight. The country around, nature and men, were preparing for the welcome rest of the night. We too felt tired, despite the varied enjoyments of the day; and as I entered my room in the hotel, I felt that I had done a good day's work and had earned my rest. Our programme for the following day was cut and dried. It had all been arranged beforehand. I never saw an abler or more effective organizer than Sir Harry Brittain, who was looking after us and was our guide, philosopher and friend. Cease- less in his work by day and night, no one could perceive on his ​placid and immobile countenance the faintest trace of strain or worry. He organized the Conference. The conception was his. The execution was also his. He sketched out its programme, and he carried it through with an ability and devotion, tempered with a never-failing geniality which made him the most attractive personality in that historic gathering of the journalists of the Empire. It is now several years since we met, but the memory of his kindliness and readiness to serve must remain imprinted on the minds of the members of the Conference.

Our programme, as I have said, was ready, and we set to work. We began the day with a visit to New College, which was almost opposite our hotel. We inspected the college building, almost every nook and corner of it, the lecture-rooms, the common-room, the smoking-room, and even the wine-cellar. To an Indian educationist like myself, bred in the puritanic ideas of our educational system, I confess the sight of the smoking-room and the wine-cellar gave a shock. No Indian educational institution or hostel has either of these appurtenances. Smoking among our students we dislike and discourage, and drinking among them, even in moderation, we abhor. There may perhaps be nothing immoral, the feeling is perhaps not based upon reasoned judgment, but our educational ideas have their roots in the Brahminical system of old, which was rigidly austere in its character and ascetic in its complexion, and in its outlook upon men and affairs. Poverty, purity, total contempt of wordly luxuries, are the basal ideas which built up the ancient educational system of India, and moulded its culture and civilization. The Brahmin has an instinctive dislike of both smoking and drinking, though sometimes, in imitating the failings of a civilization not his own, he takes to both.

I have throughout my life been a non-smoker. Often my friend, the late Mr. Turnbull, one of the most genial of men, pressed me to have a smoke with him, without success. At last he had recourse to a dodge. He made me a present of a fine cigarette-holder 'which he had purchased at the Paris Exhibition. I could not refuse the gift, coming from a friend so kind and so courteous. Equipped with this beautiful cigarette-holder, I took to smoking. But the practice was short-lived. It lasted for three or four days. I could endure it no longer. I felt the stench through every pore of my body. I put away the cigarette-case then and for ever; and I felt greatly relieved when I learnt that a thievish servant of mine had stolen it.

​At Oxford we were treated to a luncheon in the Library of All Souls' College. Lord Curzon, as Chancellor of the University, received us in the garden of the College, and afterwards presided and spoke at the lunch. There was nothing very striking in the function or in the speech. From Oxford we proceeded to Sheffield, where we were entertained by the Mayor, and were taken round the works of Messrs. Vickers, Maxim & Co., the world-famous manu- facturers of arms. To me, and, I imagine, to most of the delegates, it was a bewildering sight. We gazed, we wondered—that was all. At Sheffield the suggestion was made that I should speak. I demur- red, and preferred to hold myself in reserve for Manchester. I think I was right in this decision.

We arrived at Manchester on June 18. At the entrance to my hotel there were my Indian friends, headed by Mr. Dube, a resi- dent of Northern India, to welcome me. They garlanded me and decked me with flowers, while some of my colleagues of the Press Conference looked with no little curiosity on this novel sight. Among the spectators was Mr. Mackenzie, the correspondent of the Daily Mail. As I noticed him I said, 'This is what you called my coronation in the Daily Mail. This is what is usually done every day to honoured friends in India.' He laughed; and I entered the hotel, making over my flowery appendages to Sir Harry Brittain for presentation to Lady Brittain.

At Manchester I was selected to speak at a luncheon at the Town Hall presided over by the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor proposed the toast of 'The Imperial Press', coupling it with my name. I have taken the liberty of printing this speech in an appendix because in that speech I tried to voice, as effectively as I could, our aspirations for self-government as 'the cement of the Empire'. the strongest guarantec of Imperial unity, and the most powerful bulwark against the machinations of the enemies of England. We are now within measurable distance of the fulfilment of that for which I then ventured to plead. For the beginnings of responsible government have been inaugurated, which I hope, notwithstanding the clouds that now darkly frown, will, in the fulness of time, make India an equal partner in the British Commonwealth. In the last sentence of my peroration, I said:

This was said in 1909, and when in 1914 we stood face to face with the most formidable combination that had ever been formed against the Empire, our rulers discovered that in a prosperous and contented India, secured by the inauguration of responsible government, lay one of the strongest guarantees of Imperial unity and strength. If the truth had been earlier recognized and practised, our man-power and money-power would have been even more freely available in the service of the Empire.

The speech was received with warmth and even enthusiasm by the audience; and a Press delegate sitting next to me said as I resumed my seat, 'If there are two hundred men like you in India, Mr. Banerjea, self-government ought to be granted tomorrow. I said, 'There are twice two hundred men like me in India.' The function being over, as I was leaving the hall, the caretaker came up to me and said, "Will you, sir, write down your name in this book?' And as I was writing he said to me, 'Sir, let me tell you this, that such a speech has not been delivered in this hall since it was built.' It may have been the language of high-pitched admiration, but it certainly represented the feelings of the man, for he spoke with evident warmth and sincerity.

The Manchester Press, whose representatives were all present at the function, wrote in appreciative terms. The Manchester Courier, an organ of Conservative opinion and not always very friendly to Indian aspirations, said of the speech: 'It was the most dramatic incident of the Press delegates' visit to Manchester. . .. On the Manchester citizens whom the Lord Mayor had invited to meet the guests, the effect of the speech was almost electrical. To find them- selves addressed in their own language by a native of India with a fluency that must have been the envy of all present, and with the impassioned utterance that only a born orator can attain, was an experience that happens only once in a lifetime.'

I left Manchester almost immediately after the function as I had to attend a dinner party in London at the house of Mr. (afterwards ​Sir William) Byles, M.P. I arrived late for the dinner; but it was a pleasure to have made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Byles—such good friends of India were they. The Press delegates returned to London the same day and on June 19 we were at Windsor Castle to witness the presentation of colours to the Territorials by His Majesty the King. On the terrace where we were stationed I met Mr. Ameer Ali. There was a bleak, cold, east wind blowing, and Mr. Ameer Ali, who was dressed in Windsor uniform with the badge of a Companion of the Indian Empire on his breast, was almost shivering with cold. His first words on approaching me were, 'You are very wise, Mr. Banerjea, to have put on that overcoat. I said to him, 'I never part with it if I can help it in the fickle and changeable climate of England.' My absolute immunity from colds and coughs during my stay of over two months in England was evidence that I acted wisely. On one occasion, when I had gone on a visit to Lord Midleton (Mr. Brodrick, who, as Secretary of State, had sanctioned the Partition of Bengal) his lordship came up with me to open the door. He looked hard at my overcoat, which he helped me to put on. I noted the significance of his look, and I said, 'My Lord, your climate is fickle and treacherous, and, though it is a bright day, I thought there was no harm in being extra cautious.' Lord Midleton laughed approvingly and closed the door after me.

The visit to Windsor was followed by a deputation that waited upon Mr. Asquith on the question of cable rates. I was a member of the Deputation. There were the usual speeches; but Mr. Asquith gave no pledge of any kind. This was the last function at which I was present as a member of the Press Conference.

When I went to England, as a member of the Press Conference, I did not forget the promise I had made or the responsibility I had imposed upon myself in connexion with the Partition of Bengal. On the eve of my leaving for England the Indian Association held an afternoon party in my honour, to which my colleague, Mr. Everard Digby, was invited, and I assured my friends in the speech I made that, next to my duties as a member of the Press Conference, the modification of the Partition of Bengal would claim my atten- tion. I now applied myself to this work. The members of the Con- ference having finished their work in England, were now to proceed on tour to Scotland. I told Sir Harry Brittain that I must now be permitted to withdraw from the Conference. I left the Waldorf Hotel and engaged a suite of rooms at Clement's Inn, the head​quarters of the Suffragist movement, with which of course I had no concern. I occupied these rooms with Mr. Kedarnath Das Gupta of Chittagong, who, let me here record, did me most useful service in helping me to move about London. He is a permanent resident and knows every corner of the great city, and was my companion in my numerous visits to persons and places.

The first function at which I spoke, and in which the Partition of Bengal was the burden of my theme, was a dinner in my honour organized by a committee of Indian residents, of which Mr. Parekh was the chairman. The dinner was held at the Westminister Palace Hotel and among the guests were many Members of Parliament, including Sir Henry Cotton, Mr. Mackarness and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald. The gathering was in one sense a unique one, consisting of representatives from all parts of India and of its varied creeds. But it was not merely an Indian demonstration. It was in truth a convention of the English friends of India assembled to hear an Indian public man engaged in one of the keenest political struggles of his generation. As might have been expected, there was the deepest sympathy and appreciation of the work done by my colleagues and myself in the fight that we carried on for the modification of the Partition.

There rang out, too, from that meeting a clear note of condemnation of the measures of repression that were for the first time employed to deal with political agitation. Punishment without trial is abhorrent to Englishmen, though it should take no harsher form than simple detention. Even Lord Morley, who sanctioned the deportations on the advice, apparently the insistent advice, of the men on the spot, disapproved of them in his heart of hearts, and was never, as would appear from his Recollections, reconciled to them. When referring to recent measures of legislation, I said in the course of my speech, 'Never was there a confession of a more hopeless failure. Where in the history of the world has repression been successful?' I was cheered to the echo.

Sir Henry Cotton, who followed me, said that 'if the growth of national feeling in India and of the sense of patriotism and enthusiasm for the motherland was due to any man, that man was Babu Surendranath Banerjea.' Mr. Keir Hardie, one of the best friends of India, whose premature death we all lament, spoke next. He said: 'Mr. Banerjea was one of the few, very few, whose personality was greater than his reputation.' Mr. Mackarness, one of the friends of India, whom we have lost by his translation to a Govern​ment appointment, said, that 'the speech was more than eloquent - it was statesmanlike.' Mr. Swift McNeill, an Irish Member of Parliament, whose zeal for the good of India never failed him, was the last speaker of the evening. He said: 'The Indians are happy in having such a leader as Mr. Surendranath Banerjea. I have heard many great speeches, but my heart has never been more profoundly touched than by the magnificent exposition of intellect and high character which Mr. Banerjea has brought to the discussion of these subjects.'

The public dinner was followed by a breakfast given by Sir William Wedderburn to which he invited a large number of Members of Parliament and others interested in the cause of Indian progress. Sir William Wedderburn is now lost to us. Mr. Allen Hume, Sir Henry Cotton and Sir William Wedderburn formed a band of devoted friends of India whose loss is irreparable and whose counsels would have been invaluable in the critical times through which we are now passing. No other Englishmen possessed the same measure of influence over the mind of educated India. For none showed such passionate love for India and such rare devotion to the cause of Indian progress; their lives were lives of self-dedication to the interests of the land of their love and of their adoption. When the history of these times comes to be written, to them will be assigned in varying degrees a high and honourable place among those who by their labours have contributed to upbuild the future of our nation's history. In the pantheon of our great men, these Englishmen will live surrounded by the veneration of distant generations. If they had been spared to us, what a wise and restraining influence would they not have exercised over the controversies now raging and splitting us into hostile camps! But it is idle to indulge in unavailing regrets.

Sir William Wedderburn had indeed a glimpse of the new order that was soon to be established. He had the supreme satisfaction, as he was nearing the end, of witnessing the partial success of that cause to which he had consecrated the evening of his life. He heard the message of August 20, 1917 promising responsible government to India. But he only heard it; for he died soon after when Mr. Montagu was about to start for India.

The fascination of Sir William Wedderburn's name and the delight that every Indian must feel in dwelling upon his loved memory has drawn me somewhat away from the point which I was discussing. Sir William Wedderburn's breakfast was a very success​ful function. Among Anglo-Indian Members of Parliament he was, I think, the most influential. The quiet assertiveness of his gentle and charming manners, the transparent sincerity of his purpose, the overwhelming power of deep conviction, which had its roots in his love for India and her peoples and his thorough mastery of Indian problems, lent to his advocacy a weight which was all but irresistible.

There was a brilliant gathering of Members of Parliament including the late Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald. I had of course to speak. I must say that I have never been reconciled to the English practice (I imagine it is also the European practice), of having to make speeches at festive functions. We Indians, when we are invited to a feast, go there to eat and to talk in a friendly and informal way with those whom we may happen to meet. The eating is the principal thing; the talking is a subsidiary adjunct. It is somewhat different in English public functions when there is a festive side to them. The talking is the most important thing, the eating is secondary. The result is that the dinner or the lunch is spoilt for those who have to speak. Their thoughts are centred upon the speech. The enjoyment of the dinner is gone. That is how these functions strike an Oriental. That these speeches are sometimes useful, I have no doubt. The Lord Mayor's Banquet would be shorn of much of its brilliancy and its public interest if the speeches were eliminated. I only say what has struck me. It is only a personal note, as the speeches that I have had to make at these festive functions interfered with my full and personal enjoyment of them. Nobody must imagine that speech-making costs nothing. No speech is worth listening to unless it has been thought over and carefully prepared. Demosthenes, the prince of orators for all time and countries, burnt his midnight oil in the preparation of those orations that captivated the imagination and moved the hearts of his Athenian audience.

In the speech at Sir William Wedderburn's breakfast I again spoke of the Partition and of the deportations.

Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Sir Henry Cotton followed, strongly denouncing the deportations. Mr. Allen Hume was also one of the speakers. His speech was brimful of personal recollections and kindly references to me. He said it was with very great pleasure and pride that he found himself permitted to take an active part in welcoming once more to the shores of England his old friend and tried comrade, Babu Surendranath Banerjea. It ​seemed to him but a few days since Mr. Mudholkar, Mr. Banerjea and himself were tramping throughout Great Britain, from Plymouth in the far south-west to Aberdeen in the north-east, everywhere pleading the cause of India, and asking the people to support a demand for those reforms in the administration, for the accomplishment of which they had all three been working for so many years. He would never forget that happy tramp; it was rendered happy, in the first place, by the apparent success of their crusade, for everywhere they were welcomed by huge audiences, which passed the strongest of resolutions in favour of the measures they advocated. But, above all, that campaign was made memorable by the unalterable good temper and amiability of their friend, and his readiness on every possible occasion to do all he could to assist them. He would never forget almost their last meeting, held at Aberdeen. It was late at night. The room was hot and stifling, and when they emerged into the cool, crystalline twilight of the North—one hardly recognized the beauty of the twilight down south—it caused them to loiter a little in one of the broad ways of the Granite City. He and Mr. Mudholkar began to discuss with a com- panion the probability of the resolutions passed at the meetings in the large provincial centres being effective in bringing about the reforms they were working for. But their friend Mr. Banerjea, with that eye to practical business which had always characterized him, closed the talk by saying, 'It is very late; we have to travel in the early morning; let us think about our supper.' (Laughter.) It was the clear eye and the practical nature of Mr. Banerjea which enabled him, even while eating his heart out in a prison cell, where one of their best men was now slowly dying, to carry on his great crusade with such success. (Cheers.) Since those days he (Mr. Hume) had been in constant touch with the work of their guest, and he had reason more and more to admire the tact, good temper and wisdom with which in putting forward the wrongs of his countrymen and the rights they ought to possess, he had abstained from saying or writing anything which would give his enemies an opportunity of putting in motion against him the miserable un- English laws which were associated with deportation. (Hear, hear.)

Allen Hume was not only a great organizer, but one of the most affectionate of men. With the shrewdness and the practical sense of the Scotchman he combined the generous warmth and the fiery impulsiveness of the Oriental. He loved his Indian friends: their welfare, personal and national, was the object of his keenest solici​tude and they repaid his love with compound interest. No English- man of his time excited deeper veneration or more unbounded enthusiasm among educated Indians than this ex-member of the Indian Civil Service, and it is worthy of note that among English- men the staunchest friends of the Congress movement in its early days were all members of the Indian Civil Service who had risen to distinction in that service. What precious opportunities the members of the Indian Civil Service had to win the affections and the regard of the people; and how seldom did they avail themselves of these opportunities to strengthen the bonds that should unite Indians and Englishmen in the ties of a common citizenship! But the angle of vision is now happily changing; and thoughtful Indians are hope- fully looking forward to the time when the enjoyment of equal civic rights may create new and stronger ties of unity than now exist.

The breakfast took place on June 24. In less than a week's time an event occurred which stirred India and England alike. On the night of July 1, at the anniversary meeting of the National Indian Association, Sir William Curzon-Wyllie, Political Aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, and Dr. Lalkaka were shot dead by a young Indian of the name of Dhingra. Almost at the time when this tragic event took place, we were being entertained at dinner as members of the Imperial Press Conference by Lord Strathcona. I had been invited to the anniversary of the National Indian Association, and at one time I had a mind to attend it. But, as it was getting late, I slipped off, and went to my rooms in Clements' Inn. The toasts were being proposed and speeches made, and, as I thought it would be very late for me, I quietly went away, leaving the party to enjoy their postprandial orations. My friend, Mr. K. N. Das Gupta, who was waiting to take me home, suggested that I might look in for a minute at the Imperial Institute and see how the function of the National Indian Association was going on; but I was tired and sleepy, and preferred my bed to the excitement of an evening party, little dreaming of the tragic happenings that were taking place about the very time when I was deciding as to whether I should abstain or attend.

On the following morning, July 2, almost immediately after I had finished my breakfast, a newspaper reporter called on me. He was the first to give me news of the tragic event. He said, 'Will you give me what particulars you can, of the assassination of Sir William Curzon-Wyllie?' I said in a vein of horrified astonishment, 'Assassination of Sir William Curzon-Wyllie! I know nothing at all about. ​it. This is the first time that I hear of it.' I added 'You seem to know more about it than I do.' He gave me the particulars, so far as he knew them, and he asked me if I knew who Dhingra was. I said that from the name it was clear that was not a Bengalee; but it was difficult to say what part of India he came from. The reporter got precious little from me for copy, except a clear expression of my own personal opinion and the sense of abhorrence that all India would feel at the terrible crime. Soon after, reporters, one after another, began to pour into my room, to the infinite disguest of the liftman, who said to a friend, 'The suffragettes are bad enough'—Clements' Inn where I was residing was their headquarters—'but this Indian (meaning me) is worse. He gives us a lot of trouble.'

Reporters' visits continued till a late hour of the evening, and were supplemented by those of Indian students who came in large numbers, soliciting my advice as to what should be done; for the situation was one of the utmost gravity. It was an Indian student who had murdered a high English official, and a countryman of his own who had rushed to his rescue. The wantonness of the crime gave a shock to English public feeling and created wide-spread indignation. Unless prompt steps were taken by the Indian students to disavow the crime and repudiate it in the most explicit terms, public indignation would spread from the individual student who had committed the deed to the class, and Indian students generally would be tarred with the same brush. It was necessary to save the situation by prompt and decisive action. Mr. D. C. Ghose and Mr. H. M. Bose, who were then in England studying for the Bar, took the lead in organizing a demonstration of students, which we decided should take place at once. The rooms of the New Reform Club were secured, and the meeting was to be held on the following day with myself as President. Fortunately for the Indian students, I had been invited by some journalistic friends to lunch with them the same day at the National Liberal Club. The tragedy of the preceding night was naturally the subject of discussion, and it was. decided that I should write a letter to the Press, which—or, at any rate, a substantial summary of it—was to be published through the Press agency in every newspaper in the country. The letter was drafted and before evening it was despatched over my signature to all newpapers throughout the United Kingdom. Thus the first step was taken towards meeting a situation that threatened a crisis.

The meeting at the New Reform Club was held on the following day. The room in which it was held was not large in the Indian ​sense; but it was filled with an eager and earnest audience. The Indian students mustered strong, among them being Mr. Savarker, who, at a meeting held for the same purpose the next day, created a scene by his opposition to the main resolution. No untoward event, however, occurred at our meeting. Everything passed off quietly; and my speech was, on the whole, well received by the British Press, with the exception of that portion of it in which I challenged the Prime Minister's assertion that there was a wide- spread conspiracy in India; the implication being that Dhingra belonged to this gang. The Times supported the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith), though the trial subsequently made it clear that Dhingra stood alone in this murderous deed, and had acted on his own impulse and initiative.

The murder of Sir William Curzon-Wyllie operated as a set-back to the Indian cause. My reading of the many political situations through which I have passed is that political crimes of the sensational order undoubtedly serve as a wide advertisement to political grievances, but they strengthen the Conservative elements in society, and operate in the long run as a bar to political progress. The same is true as regards the tactics of obstruction that are now being followed in our Legislative Councils. I will not refer to the history of Russian Nihilism and the measures of repression by which it was followed, the long-drawn conflict between the forces of despotism and those of revolution culminating in the enthronement of Bolshevism. The theme would be beyond the scope of these reminiscences; but I was in hopes of obtaining from Lord Morley a reconsideration of the cases of some of those who had been deported. I had especially in mind the orders passed against Krishna Kumar Mittra and Aswini Kumar Dutt. When I subsequently had an interview with him, I pleaded hard for their release, but pleaded in vain. A patient hearing was accorded; but it was not until the inauguration of the Morley-Minto Scheme of reform that the deportees were released.

In the meantime, my work, to the good effects of which, if not to its complete success, I had looked forward with some little confidence, was hampered by the assassination. I had been invited to speak at the Eighty Club, and at a full-dress debate on the Indian question at the forthcoming meeting of the Club. The club, which is an organization of the Liberal party, had fixed the day and had made the necessary arrangements for the meeting. The meeting indeed came off, and I spoke, but it was more or less a formal ​affair. A vote of condolence with Lady Curzon-Wyllie was passed; but the main issues upon which I had hoped to address the leaders of the Liberal party had to be left untouched. A golden opportunity was missed; the assassination of Sir William Curzon-Wyllie was responsible for it. The Chairman indeed said in bringing the proceedings to a close: 'We desire to do our utmost to further the cause of constitutional progress and development in India.' It took the British democracy ten years to make a substantial step in this direction, and possibly this would even then have been delayed, but for the war and the time-forces that it had helped to create.

The last speech of any importance that I delivered on this occasion was at Caxton Hall under the presidency of Sir Charles Dilke. Sir Charles Dilke was one of the foremost public men of his day, respected alike for the soundness of his views and his knowledge of the political situation outside Great Britain. He had a close insight into Indian affairs, combined with sympathy for Indian aspirations. It was a great thing to have got him to preside at our meeting. I spoke on the Partition of Bengal and the Morley-Minto Scheme. It may not be out of place here to reproduce what I said of the Morley-Minto Scheme in 1909, two years before the Despatch of the Government of India promising provincial autonomy, and eight years before the Parliamentary Message of responsible government. I said:

attention in my address in England in 1909 were the modification of the Partition of Bengal, and the introduction of Self-Government in India; and, from the manner of the reception accorded to them by British audiences, I was convinced that both were coming, that the Partition would be modified sooner or later, and that a feeling was spreading in England that India was rapidly growing ripe for some measure of self-government. After I had spoken in Manchester in reply to the toast, several members of the Imperial Press Con- ference, delegates from the Overseas Dominions, from Canada and Australia, said to me, 'Mr. Banerjea, if there are men like you in India, self-government should be conceded without delay.'

The war strengthened the gathering forces, and the national awakening which was stimulated by the anti-Partition and Swadeshi movements and the repressive measures that followed in their train made the demand for self-government in India more vocal and insistent, until it was no longer possible to ignore it. Almost on the eve of the Message of August 20, 1917, several heads of provinces tried this impossible feat; but all in vain. Canute-like, but without his humour, they essayed to roll back the rising tide. Canute-like they failed. Their efforts recoiled on themselves; and served only to add to the volume and intensity of the rising movement.

I should not be doing justice to myself or to my English visit on this occasion, if I did not refer to a small party held at Mr. Stead's house. It was a quiet, informal gathering in which there were no set speeches, no conventionalities, where every one opened his heart and spoke out his mind without fear or favour. The idea of the gathering was Mr. Stead's. He organized it and led its deliberations. Its aim was an informal discussion of the burning topics of Indian interest. All India remembers Mr. Stead's tragic death when the Titanic was lost in the Atlantic in 1912. Many were his admirers in India. His puritanic austerity, his hatred of modern abominations, his sympathy for human freedom, no matter whether the persons concerned lived on the banks of the Ganges or of the Neva, raised him above the common level of humanity and excited veneration wherever his name was pronounced. Twelve years have elapsed. The same feelings continue, though perhaps in a diminished degree, for time blunts the edge of even our sharpest sorrows.

The gathering was characteristic of the man—it was Mr. Stead all over—cosmopolitan in its breadth and comprehensiveness, and direct in its aims and utterances. There were present in that ​company, small though it was, Americans, Canadians, and Irish; and among Indians was Mr. Bepin Chunder Pal. Mr. Stead appeared in the room with a whip in his hand, which, I presume, was typical of the axe that was to fall in two minutes' time, and he wanted my dying message to the British public on behalf of the motherland. I must say that I was not prepared, even from the dramatic point of view, for so awful a doom and so solemn and historic a message. There was, however, no escape from the position. The whip was there. It was in the hands of one of the most inflexible of men, who knew how to wield it, either to rouse the sympathy or evoke the indignation of his fellows. I addressed myself to the task as best I could, not indeed without a shuddering fear, but behind it there was the sanguine hope of enlisting the sympathies and the active co-operation of those who guide and control the public opinion of large sections of their countrymen.

The appeal made to me to utter a dying message to the British public on behalf of my motherland stirred all that was most sensi- tive in me, and I threw myself heart and soul into it. The whip was the outer symbol; love was the inspiring principle; and the love of the great Englishman for India's freedom awakened in me a deep and sympathetic response, which I think was shared by my audience. I can do nothing better than quote it in his own words; for it will serve the double purpose of a faithful record of my message and all that transpired, and of a memorial of love for India and her people on the part of a great and philanthropic English- man:

Such is the gist of the conversation we had, as described by Mr. Stead himself. I said all this in 1909, three years before the ​Partition of Bengal was modified and on the lines I suggested in my message, and eight years before Mr. Montagu's announcement in August, 1917, promising Dominion status for India. A part of my message has already been fulfilled. I have dreamt many dreams in my life. Some of them have been realized. Others are awaiting the flux of time for their fulfilment. Among them I regard our admission into the British Commonwealth, as an equal partner with an equal status, as among the certainties of the future. Mr. Stead did me the honour of writing a personal note on myself in the Review of Reviews, as an introduction, which, with the reader's permission, I reproduce in this place:

I returned to India in August, 1909 and was welcomed home with cordiality and enthusiasm. My reception at the Howrah station was on a scale rivalling that accorded to Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji when he came to Calcutta to preside over the Congress of 1906, and it was followed by a Town Hall meeting, one of the most enthusiastic ever held in that historic hall. In my private conversations as well as in my public utterances, I emphasized what was with me a deliberate conviction—that the Partition was not to be regarded as a settled fact, despite Lord Morley's oft-repeated declarations to the contrary, and that there was a slowly growing feeling in England that some measure of self-government must be conceded to India.

​So far as the anti-Partition movement was concerned, it seemed to many, even to some of the stalwarts of our party, that ours was a lost cause and that I was leading a forlorn hope. But I never despaired, not the faintest ray of despondency ever crossed my mind. My never-failing optimism stood me in good stead. But I had also solid ground to tread upon. The great leaders of public opinion in England whom I had interviewed, belonging, I may add, to all parties, did not like the Partition of Bengal, and especially the manner in which it was carried out during its concluding stages. One of them said to me, 'Why does not Morley upset it?' It was really Lord Morley's great name and influence that propped it up; and I felt that if we continued the agitation for some time longer it was bound to go. The tide of circumstances soon began to roll in our favour. Everything comes to the man who knows how to wait. Patience and optimism are supreme qualities in public life. That has been my experience, and I bequeath it, with loving concern, to my countrymen.