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A NATION IN MAKING

safeguard was not followed. There was another equally important limitation prescribed by Lord Morley. On August 23, 1908, he said:

'He (an Anglo-Indian official) must have forgotten what I very expressly told him, that I would not sanction deportation except for a man of whom there was solid reason to believe that violent disorder was the direct and deliberately planned result of his actions.'

It is obvious that here again Lord Morley's instructions were not followed by the authorities out here. Had they been obeyed in spirit and essence, men like Krishna Kumar Mittra, Aswini Kumar Dutt, Satis Chunder Chatterjee, and Sachindra Prosad Bose and some others would not have been deported; for they were all strongly wedded to constitutional methods and never dreamt of doing anything which directly or indirectly was calculated to pro- duce 'violent disorder'. Under the gravest provocation, when attacked by the police, they never thought of retaliation, and sub- mitted to police violence without striking a blow. Here we have again a repetition of the old order of things so often observable in the remissness or the total disregard shown by the servants of the East India Company in carrying out the orders of the Court of Directors. Again and again they were told by the Court of Directors not to add to their ever-expanding dominions; but as often the temptation proved too strong and they violated the express orders of their masters; and their offences were condoned, for they helped to bring larger dividends to the shareholders and larger additions to their territories, and with them to the power and the prestige of the Company.

There are no such temptations now; possibly there are no glaring violations of orders proceeding from the India Office; but the old spirit of officialism impatient to have its own way is, I am afraid, still there. The control of a Secretary of State from a distance of ten thousand miles, despite the present facilities of communication, must be feeble. And the time has come or is in sight when the power and responsibility of the Secretary of State should be trans- ferred to the Government of India, subject to popular control, with the necessary safeguards for Imperial unity.

By instinct and by conviction Lord Morley was opposed to a policy of repression, but was driven to it by the overmastering pressure of circumstances, which, as Minister responsible for the Government of India, he could not resist. But the revolutionary