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system had no place in the original Bill as introduced by me (though it was recognized in Lord Sinha's Bill of 1917, which I had deli- berately omitted), that I fought tooth and nail against it, and that I agreed to admit it as temporary provision in order to avoid giving it a permanent place in the municipal law. Strangely enough, as Nemesis would have it, the Swarajist party in their Hindu-Moslem Pact proposed to extend this very system to all the municipalities in Bengal, which are one hundred and sixteen in number. They want Hindu-Mosiem unity, and they propose to accomplish it by dividing the municipalities into water-tight compartments, thus effectually preventing them from acting together in the exercise of their electoral rights. They have started by making appointments in the Corporation based on the communal principle, which all Indian nationalists condemn as fatal to the development of Indian nationhood.

However that may be, the Calcutta Municipal Act represents the realization of one of the dreams of my life. When I introduced it in November, 1921, I said:

'These were my last words on September 27, 1899. Twenty-two years have come and gone. I expressed the hope and I ventured to indulge in the prediction that the inestimable boon of Local Self-government would within a measurable distance of time be restored to the city of my birth. The time has come. The day has arrived. I have lived to see it. I thank God on my knees. I will not cry Nunc dimittis, for I feel that my work in life is not yet over. But I claim that the faith that was in me (and which still glows with an inextinguishable flame) has been justified by the proceedings of to-day. May that faith penetrate among the millions of my countrymen and inspire them with the patience and the passion to work on constitutional lines, without disturbance, without dislocation of the existing social and political machinery, for the attainment of that free- dom which has been guaranteed to us by our Sovereign and the Parlia- ment of the United Kingdom, and which under the Providence of God is our destined inheritance in the evolution of the human race.'

And let me in this place quote the concluding words of my speech when I moved that the Bill be passed:

'To me, Sir, the Bill affords a matter for personal solace and gratification. To me, it means the fulfilment of one of the dreams of my life. Ever since 1899, I have lived in the hope of witnessing the re-birth of my native city, robed in the mantle of freedom. I thank God that it has been vouch- safed to me to have had some share in achieving this consummation. I have

endeavoured to embody in this Bill the principles which I preached and