enlightenment. However incompatible with the maintenance of British rule
may be the propositions set forth by Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, they contain
no incitement to violence, no virulent diatribes against Englishmen. It
is in the Press rather than on the platform that Indian politicians,
whether "extreme" or merely "advanced" are apt to let themselves go.
They write down to the level of their larger audiences. So little has
hitherto been done to enlighten public opinion at home as to the gravity
of the evil which the recent Indian Press law has at last, though very
tardily, done something to repress that many Englishmen are still
apparently disposed to regard that measure as an oppressive, or at least
dubious, concession to bureaucratic impatience of criticism none the
less healthy for being sometimes excessive.[1] The following quotations,
taken from vernacular papers before the new Press law was enacted, will
serve to show what Lord Morley meant when he said, "You may put picric
acid in the ink and the pen just as much as in any steel bomb," and
again, "It is said that these incendiary articles are 'mere froth.' Yes,
they are froth, but froth stained with bloodshed." Even when they
contain no definite incitement to murder, no direct exhortation to
revolt, they will show how systematically, how persistently the wells of
Indian public opinion have been poisoned for years past by those who
claim to represent the intelligence and enlightenment of modern India.
Only too graphically also do they illustrate one of the most
unpleasantly characteristic features of the literature of Indian
unrest--namely, its insidious appeals to the Hindu Scriptures and the
Hindu deities, and its deliberate vilification of everything English.
Calumny and abuse, combined with a wealth of sacred imagery, supply the
place of any serious process of reasoning such as is displayed in Mr.
Pal's programme with all its uncompromising hostility.

In the first place, a few specimens of the hatred which animates the