ment to the foregoing objects, the attainment of the system of self-government suitable to India." This particular ideal was only adopted after a heated discussion. It was said that if Sir Edward Grey remained arbiter of Britain's foreign policy, the Muslim status in Asia would be swallowed up by Russia.

The revolutionists were now quieter, but were still busy in secret places. In December when the Viceroy and Lady Hardinge, mounted on an elephant, were entering the new capital in state, a bomb was thrown which wounded His Excellency very seriously and killed an attendant. The firm and courageous behaviour of the Viceroy and Vicereine excited general admiration. The late Lady Hardinge had already earned widespread esteem and regard. Her death in England, three years later, was universally mourned.

The assassin was not arrested; and revolutionary societies continued to assert their presence in Bengal by intermittent criminal activities. But their sympathisers had fallen into much disrepute and exercised no influence over the general course of political affairs. The business of the new Councils progressed smoothly and well, although not without the occasional racial friction inseparable from all such bodies.1 Politicians generally were seeking vaguely for the establishment of a parliamentary system; but all sober thinkers were fully conscious of the advance made by India under Crown government, an advance clearly illustrated by some passages of a farewell speech by a notable Lieutenant-Governor in March 1912:

"When I first became acquainted with this country" (in 1877), said Sir John Hewett," she had hardly taken her place in the community of nations; the steamers between India and England, and between England and her colonies, were far less frequent and much slower than at present. For every postal article then sent to or received from the United Kingdom or foreign countries forty-two are now despatched or received; for every telegram received from or sent to countries beyond the continent of India three are now received or sent. The aggregate value of the external trade of the country was £84,000,000 sterling; it is now £270,000,000. The mileage of railways in India was then 7,320; it had reached by March 1911, 32,400. Last year over 370,000,000 persons travelled as

1 See Morley's Recollections, vol. ii, p. 340.

2 G.C.S.I., now M.P.

In the financial year 1920-1 the figure was 37,000.

passengers on the railways, and over 65,000,000 tons of goods were moved on them.1

"The post offices are four and a half times as numerous as they were, and letter-boxes nine times as numerous. Between seven and eight articles now pass through the post for one that did then. No less than £30,500,000 sterling were last year remitted by money order. There are five and a half times as many miles of telegraph wires as there were, twelve times as many telegraph offices, and nearly ten times as many telegrams are despatched every day.

"In this province (the United Provinces) there are now thirty-six miles of railway and three miles of metalled road for each mile of either kind that existed then. The cultivated area has increased by nearly 6,000,000 acres-an advance of nearly 12 per cent. The canals are now irrigating an area 55 per cent. greater than they did. Except in Bundelkhand and in districts of the Benares division, where the land is permanently settled, the value of land has risen by 100 to 150 per

cent.

"Lawlessness has been much reduced. A peacefully disposed person can live his life with infinitely less danger of being exposed to tyranny and wrong, though, probably amongst the less advanced members of the community, regard for the sanctity of human life is hardly greater than it was a generation ago. The number of institutions coming within the ken of the Department of Public Instruction has increased by 50 per cent.; and the pupils attending them by 114 per cent. With the spread of literacy there has come increased activity in printing and publishing: nearly three publications are published for every one, and the number of newspapers in circulation has doubled.

"Medical relief has become much more general and popular. There are nearly three dispensaries for every one that there was a generation ago, and there are between four and five times as many patients."

The Lieutenant-Governor went on to comment on the advances made in municipal government and continued:

"In rural areas wages have risen greatly, and the improvement in the condition of the ordinary labourer was demonstrated conclusively during the famine operations of 1908. I have seen in Europe-I have seen in Great Britain—individuals

1 In 1920-1 the figures were 560,000,000 and 87,000,000.

In 1907-8 severe failure of the rains and destruction of crops had been successfully met and countered in the United Provinces.

and whole communities, the members of which, considering the terrible extremes of cold and damp that they have to endure for such long periods at a time, are infinitely worse off not only than the ordinary cultivators but than the ordinary farm labourers in a typical village in this or any other part of India.

"In these remarks no attempt has been made to make anything like a complete comparison between the present and the past, but the facts that I have stated bear eloquent testimony to the silent revolution which is taking place in the conditions of life around us and to the steady progress that has been going on."

PART IV-FROM 1914

XX

1914-15

ON June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria was murdered at Sarajevo in the Austrian province of Bosnia. The tragedy attracted little notice in India, but was the prelude to a number of remarkable events which have altered profoundly the course of India's history. Pre-war British India has, like an unsubstantial pageant, faded. It has gone. Between us and it lies a gulf which this brief narrative can only imperfectly bridge.

As the climax of August 4 rapidly approached, India remained calm. The monsoon had begun well. Cultivators were busy in their fields. Trade, commerce and business progressed as usual. The surface of affairs was unvexed by any agitation. Relations with Afghanistan and the frontier tribes were good.

In Bengal revolutionary associations were waging a sullen, fitful, subterranean warfare on the Government and their richer fellow-countrymen. In Muslim circles there was some discontent because Great Britain had failed to support or assist Turkey during the struggles of the Balkan War. Nevertheless, when at last the great day of trial came, a striking unanimity disclosed itself among all classes in India which disagreeably surprised the enemies of England. An Indian revolutionary periodical, published in America, had prophesied in December 1913 that when war broke out between Germany and England, fortune would smile on nations ruined by British oppression. The auspicious hour must not pass without a rising in India. On March 6, 1914, the Berliner Tageblatt had published an article on "England's Indian Trouble," predicting that the day of reckoning for England would come far sooner than official negligence supposed. The writer took the gloomiest possible view of the British position in India, where, he said, secret societies of revolutionaries were being assisted from outside.

That there were secret societies of revolutionaries was true, but these were a very small section of the populace, even in the province most affected. The general sentiment of the country bore singular testimony to the real character of British rule. The quarrel, moreover, in which Britain took up arms, appealed to the warm Indian imagination; and when on August 8, 1914, the general officers commanding the Lahore and Meerut Divisions received orders to mobilise, the news was greeted by leaders of public opinion as well as by all ranks of the Army, with intense enthusiasm. The destination of the troops was unknown, but the general hope and expectation were that it would be France.

On September 8, 1914, the members of the Imperial Legislative Council met at Simla and listened to the reading of His Majesty's message by the Viceroy. They passed with eager unanimity a resolution of "unswerving loyalty and enthusiastic devotion to their King-Emperor and unflinching support to the British Government." They desired also to express the opinion "that the people of India, in addition to the military assistance now being afforded by India to the Empire, would wish to share in the heavy financial burden now imposed by the war on the United Kingdom," and requested the Government of India "to take this view into consideration, and thus to demonstrate the unity of India with the Empire." The resolution was by desire forwarded to His Majesty's Government. The speeches of the mover, Sir Gangadhar Chitnavis, and his numerous supporters breathed that spirit of sincerity and co-operation which alone can guarantee the future of India. "We know," said Sir Gangadhar, "that our present condition is due to the peace we have enjoyed under the British rule, that our very existence depends upon the continuation of that rule. We cannot, on this occasion, be mere onlookers. Along with our devotion and sympathy, the general idea is to make any contribution that may be required of us." "We aspire," said Mr. (now Sir) Surendranath Banerjee, a leading politician, "to colonial self-government, then we ought to emulate the example of the Colonials, and try to do what they are doing." The Viceroy, in winding up the debate, stated that practically all the ruling Chiefs had placed their military forces and the reserves of their States at the disposal of the Government.

Lord Hardinge's telegram of September 8, 1914, informed the Imperial Cabinet that the rulers of the Native States had "with one accord rallied to the defence of the Empire," offer