palliative. Indian Labour is peculiarly unable to afford the expensive luxury of the strike, save as the last and only effective weapon. British Labour is not so magnificently wealthy that it can afford to leave Indian Labour disorganised and inert before the astute international exploiter who would ruthlessly use the cheap labour of India to lower the hard won standards of life in the West.

A Commission has recently been sent from the Labour Party to examine the state of Ireland. Is it too much to ask the Labour Party to do its utmost to send a similar friendly Commission to India as soon as possible?- February 20, 1920.

XXVII

THE LEADER GONE

SO Bal Gangadhar Tilak has left us. Faithful to the end to the cause of the India whom he served, he has passed beyond the dust and heat of battle; whilst it is for foe, friend and admirer alike to gaze in mournful contemplation and sad reverie at the labours of that mighty personality.

To those of, us who knew him the wonder has been that he could have endured for so long, that his frail form could have survived the cruel buffetings of an evil and perverse generation. His will and his determination to be of service was his mainstay and the source of his great fortitude. It carried him through periods of imprisonment, of harassing litigious persecution, of cruel misrepresentation and of baffling, but never frustrating, disappointment. His life story is, in a large measure, the story of India's aspiration to become free and it had much in common with other great liberators and patriots.

His personality was a pleasing, gentle and gracious one. When he first came to England it was very difficult to realise that this slight, unassuming, elderly gentleman was the man who had placed

Anglo-India in a nightmare of fear and disquietude. He suggested rather the sedate recluse of academic groves, not the noisy clamour of the forum. In committee work he gave the impression at first of a certain unobservant dreaminess, if one may say so, of almost a lack of interest in the momentary momentousness of the business passing. His detachment was heightened by the physical infirmity of hearing from which he suffered. But let the moment arise, and some incisive remark, some word pregnant with lucid wisdom, would cut across the drifting talk like a searchlight above flowing waters. It was at such moments that one learned to apprehend and appreciate the mentality of one of the subtlest intellects to which deep-browed India has ever given birth. Nor were his objectives merely those of the immediate future. Every remark would indicate that his vision and prevision flew far ahead of the existing moment and situation and that everything was surveyed at a glance by that powerful mind. There was very little that escaped those half-closed eyes and that inwardly

gaze.

courtesy and savoir faire were very noticein an Indian, and his whole manner a

n

ch to whatever was rough and uncouth

among his environment. He was a most patient, attentive and uninterrupting listener, which was perhaps one of the secrets of his great talent for diplomacy. Almost without contention Tilak could bring his opponents, if not quite to his point of view, at least obviously and appreciably nearer. Again and again he won people round in spite of themselves. On no occasion was this more marked than when he appeared as the representative of the Home Rule League before the Joint Select Committee which sat upon the Government of India Bill last year. This came not many months after his rebuff in the Chirol case and when its result was still having a very prejudical effect upon his reputation in certain political circles of the type from which the members of this Committee were drawn. A breezing atmosphere prevailed when Tilak took his seat in the chair of the witness. But as he quietly proceeded, first an understanding seemed to begin between himself and Lord Selborne, and then the circle widened until all the Committee became obviously more interested and sympathetic, until by the time his statements had concluded much ice had been melted, much prejudice removed, and barriers partly broken away. There was certainly a marked diminution in

unfriendly reference to him after this hearing. At the last Congress his diplomatic powers again made themselves felt. Not so saintly as Mr. Gandhi, not so implacable as some at the other end of the range, Mr. Tilak exercised his talents for welding the apparently disparate and separate into a homogeneous working combination as far as was humanly possible.

His oratory was simple, homely and covincing, illustrated constantly by little touches of Indian folk lore and proverbial wisdom. Its effects on vast masses was irresistible. In England his speeches produced one most valuable effect. If this moderation be what officialdom in India persecutes, and this man be an extremist there, then what must be the real state of affairs?-was undoubtedly the state of mind to which he brought even his most critical hearers. Perhaps Mr. Tilak did more for the cause of Indian Self-Government by coming here and placing himself under the observation of British people than was at the time realised. Here was the execrated villain, visible in the flesh. What was not visible, nor demonstrable at all in his presence, was conglomeration of evil qualities freely attributed to him before his personal arrival.

But above all, and beyond all his subsidiary