Page:A Nation in Making.djvu/272

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 sensa- tional 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 despo- tism and those of revolution culminating in the enthronement of Bolshevism. The theme would be beyond the scope of these remi- niscences; but I was in hopes of obtaining from Lord Morley a reconsideration of the cases of some of those who had been depor- ted. 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 de- portees 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 con- fidence, 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