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The note was circulated among the different Governments. With the exception of the Governments of Assam and of the Central Provinces, they were all against the proposal.

There is only one other matter to which I should like to make a passing allusion, as indicating the many-sided activities of our Deputation in London. We waited in deputation on Mr. Montagu in connexion with the question of the status and treatment of Indians in the Colonies. Mr. Polak, that indefatigable friend of the Indians in the Overseas Dominions, organized the Deputation. I was the nominal spokesman; he read the statement, which was drawn up by him; and among our European friends present were Sir John Rees and Sir William Meyer. I need hardly add that Mr. Montagu returned a sympathetic reply.

While in England I was asked to preside over a meeting of the Mohamedan residents in connexion with the Khilafat question, for I entirely sympathized with the demand of the Indian Moha- medans for its settlement, on lines in conformity with the declara- tion of the Prime Minister (Mr. Lloyd George). This has now, to a great extent, been achieved, thanks to the insistence of the Government of India backed by public opinion in India and rein- forced by the military triumphs of Kemal Pasha.

In 1919 I had often to be at the India Office in connexion with my work. I found the atmosphere of the India Office very different now from what it was in my early days, say in 1874 or 1897. Within the precincts of that temple of bureaucracy, quite a new spirit seemed to move, charged with the invigorating breath of democracy. I felt, though certainly in a less degree than I did in Writers' Buildings when I was a Minister, that somehow or other the place seemed to be our own. It had been Indianized in spirit, if not in personnel. Everybody seemed willing to serve and to oblige. Dark skin was not a disqualification, but a passport. The stiffness of the bureaucratic mien was not there. Mr. Bhupendra Nath Basu was probably the central force in bringing about this transformation, aided by the masterful personality of Mr. Montagu and the new spirit which the Reforms had generated. Mr. Basu's room was the rendezvous of the Indians, their baitakkhana (an untranslatable word). An Indian having any business at Whitehall or in the neighbourhood would tumble into his room, stay for a few minutes, and relieve the strain of London life by a quiet chat with its occupant, who was all things to all men in the best sense—ready to advise and to assist. My relations with him were closer