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Lahore Congress, 'the light and life of the Congress movement in this province (the Punjab)'. The burden and responsibility of the Congress arrangements had for the most part devolved upon him; and to his untiring and devoted energy and careful forethought much of the success of the Lahore Congress of 1900 was due. The death of such a man in the very prime of life, before he had emerged from his manhood, was an irreparable loss to the cause and the country, and cast a shadow over the approaching session of the Congress.

It is significant that a Bengalee pleader should have been elected Chairman of the Reception Committee at Lahore. It is evidence, if evidence were needed, of the good feeling between Bengalees and Punjabis. It disproves the calumny that the martial races hold in contempt the people of our province. Babu Kali Prosanna Roy was the Indian leader of the Punjab Bar, and was held in respect by Europeans and Indians alike, for his capacity as a lawyer, his public spirit as a citizen and the thorough probity and integrity of his life, public and private. The general impression at Lahore was that, but for his independence and his association with the Congress movement, which was distasteful to the local authorities, he would have been elevated to the Bench of the Punjab Chief Court.

The idiosyncrasies of the official temper vary in the different provinces. While association with Congress in some provinces was a disqualification for high judicial office, it was not held as such in others; and certainly not in Bombay or in Madras. The President of the Lahore Congress of 1900 was Mr. (afterwards Sir) Narayan Chandravarkar. He had already received his appointment as Judge of the High Court, in succession to the late lamented Mr. Justice Ranade, when he was invited to occupy the presidential chair of the Congress. He consulted the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Sir Lawrence Jenkins, who raised no objection. It was Sir Lawrence Jenkins who, as Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, offered a judgeship to Mr. Ashutosh Chaudhuri, a staunch Congressman, and persuaded him to accept it. Mr. Chandravarkar, after presiding over the Lahore Congress, joined his office as Judge of the Bombay High Court. His appointment as a High Court Judge was well known at the time when the Congress met. I was asked to propose him to the chair; and I said in moving the resolution that the presidential chair of the Congress had proved too often to be the royal road to the High Court Bench.

At the Lahore Congress I moved a resolution regretting the