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views that he would vote against the motion; and on questioning him about it I found that my anticipation was correct.

We began the fight hopeless of success, but determined to make the best of a bad situation. Mr. Norton moved the Resolution in a speech of great power. The opposition was led by Lord Hugh Cecil. It devolved on me to reply to him. I had partly anticipated, and with accuracy, the line of argument he would follow, and I was prepared with facts and figures to meet him. Our educational backwardness was the deadliest arrow in his quiver. I pointed out in reply that the number of schools in England in 1821 was only 18,467 and the scholars 650,000, and it was not until 1881 that they reached the number of schools and scholars in India. And yet in 1881, England had full-fledged parliamentary institutions, and we were asking for much less. No reply was possible to this array of facts. Young Mr. McGhee, son of the Archbishop of York, a fine speaker, a chip of the old block, supported us in an eloquent speech, in the course of which he paid a high compliment to me. The division was taken, and to our great astonishment it was found that the majority of votes was on our side. The Resolution was declared carried. The vote was a memorable achievement of the Congress Deputation. It demonstrated that the Congress programme of reform was so moderate as to commend itself even to the most conservative section of the British public.

There was one passage in my speech at the Oxford Union which Mr. Norton, half in jest and half with a touch of friendly approval, was never tired of repeating. I may, perhaps, reproduce it here:

'The statement has been made in the course of this debate that the Indians before the advent of the English were a pack of barbarians or semi- barbarians; I believe that was the language that was used. Let me re- mind this House that they come—the Hindus of India, the race to which I have the honour to belong—(loud cheers)—they come from a great and ancient stock; that at a time when the ancestors of the most enlightened European nations were roaming in their native woods and forests, our fathers had founded great empires, established noble cities, and cultivated a system of ethics, a system of religion, and a noble language which at the present moment excites the admiration of the civilized world. (Loud cheers.) You have only to walk across the way, and place yourselves in the Bodleian library, to witness the ancient records of Indian industry, Indian culture, and Indian ethics; therefore it seems to me the remark is somewhat out of place. (Cheers.) If the remark was made to prejudice the claim which we have now the honour to put forward, to prejudice

our claim for representative institutions, never was it more misplaced, for