Page:A Nation in Making.djvu/332

personal regard and esteem for the late Governor of Bengal. The controversy was thrust upon us through no fault of ours. Scriptum manet—what is written endures and is remembered. Lord Ronald- shay had written a book on his Eastern travels, in which he referred in disparaging terms to the ethical code of Eastern nations. These reflections were very much on the lines of Lord Curzon's pro- nouncement on the character of Oriental nations that gave such offence to our people and was the subject of a Town Hall demon- stration under the presidency of the late Sir Rash Behari Ghose. To have in Bengal, at the head of our province, a statesman belong- ing to the same school was viewed with lively apprehension. The Press and the public bodies were alarmed. The matter was taken up by the Indian Association, and on its behalf I wired to Mr. Austen Chamberlain, who was then Secretary of State, asking him to cancel the appointment. It was a unique proposal made for the first time by any public body in India. But feeling ran high, and we viewed with concern the prospect of a renewal of the Curzon regime in our domestic and provincial concerns. I likewise wired and wrote to Sir William Wedderburn, the Nestor of Indian politi- cians, who was the guiding spirit of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress in London. Sir William placed himself in communication with the Secretary of State, and, if I remember rightly, with Lord Ronaldshay himself, and obtained from him a reassuring message which, I believe, was repeated in an address delivered by him at a meeting of the East Indian Association. The controversy should have ended here, but there are die-hards in every camp, and when feelings have been roused it is not always so easy to control or to restrain them. It was even suggested that we should hold a public demonstration. The idea was given up on my insistence, and the wisdom of this course was abundantly justified by subsequent events. The whole lesson of my public life has been that extremism, however captivating, does not pay in the long run; and that in politics, as Edmund Burke has observed, prudence is a sovereign virtue.

On March 31, 1917, Lord Carmichael's term of office expired and in the following month Lord Ronaldshay became Governor of Bengal. The message of August 20, 1917, had not yet come. But the signs and portents seemed to point to the near advent of a coming change. Coming events cast their shadows before, and, in replying to an address presented on December 23, 1916, by a deputation of the Indian Association, of which I was the spokes-