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the tour of a Bengalee lecturer, lecturing in English in Upper India, assumed the character of a triumphal progress; and at the present moment the name of Surendra Nath Banerjea excites as much enthusiasm among the rising generation of Multan as in Dacca.’
The All-India Memorial on the Civil Service question was addressed to the House of Commons. It was a memorial that sought to obtain a modification of the orders of the Secretary of State for India, by raising the limit of age for the open competitive examination to twenty-two years, the maximum limit now in force, and it contained a further prayer for simultaneous examinations in India as well as in England. The Memorial might have been despatched by post to the House of Commons as had been done in similar cases in the past. But a new idea had taken possession of the public mind. We had brought all India upon the same platform upon a public question that concerned the entire educated community; and we felt that so unique a demonstration should find its suitable expression through the voice of an Indian representative explaining to British audiences this pressing grievance of his countrymen. I was asked to be our delegate to England. I had to decline it for reasons that were apparent on the surface. In England, in view of my antecedents, my advocacy for the wider employment of my countrymen in a service from which I had been removed, would be liable to misconstruction. The choice of the Indian Association fell upon Mr. Lalmohan Ghose, and Mr. Lalmohan Ghose’s phenomenal success in his mission fully justified the selection. His marvellous gifts of oratory were unknown to us, for he had never before taken to public life as a serious occupation; and when they were displayed in a manner that extorted the admiration of his audience, among whom was the greatest of living orators, John Bright, the revelation was a bewildering and an agreeable surprise. Carnot took credit for discovering Napoleon while the latter was yet an unknown young subaltern. The leaders of the Indian Association warmly congratulated themselves on having discovered one who was the first Indian to stand for Parliamentary honours, and who was destined to occupy a leading place in the ranks of our public life.
But a deputation to England was a costly affair. There were of course the prophets of evil who, Cassandra-like, told us that the money would be wasted and that the deputation would prove futile. Our success in the Civil Service agitation all over India had inspired