If they did this, I do think that some way would be found out of the present difficulty, satisfactory to both sides. After all it is only a modest demand which the Indians are making, and it is difficult to believe that the Imperial Government can do nothing in the matter.

But gentlemen, this resolution does not merely confine itself to an appeal to the Imperial Government. It also appeals to the Government of India whose sympathies with us in this matter are well known. The four Colonies of South Africa are now united and they are jointly responsible for any further legislation in matters affecting Indians. Now from the Indian standpoint Natal is the vulnerable point of the Union, and we call upon the Government of India to strike at this point; for if ever retaliation is justified, it is justified in this case. Natal needs Indian labour-it imported about 8,000 indentured Indian labourers in 1905; 11,600 in 1906; over 6,000 in 1907, and over 3,000 last year. The recruitment takes place in this country under the authority of the Government of India, and by simply withdrawing the authority, the Government of India can stop this migration of Indian labour to Natal. The Government can very well say to South Africa, as Lord Curzon said to the Transvaal five years ago, you must treat free Indians throughout South Africa in a reasonable and satisfactory manner. Otherwise we will not help you any more with Indian labour. We respectfully call upon the Government of India to take up this attitude, not only for the sake of the Indians in the Transvaal but also for the Indians in Natal itself. For it was well known that Natal treats Indians in that Colony disgracefully. The condition of our indentured labourers there is not far removed from that of slavery. Indian traders are harassed in numberless ways. There is no provision whatever for the education of the children of free Indians beyond the primary stage, and none even for the primary education for the children of indentured labourers. And there are several other grievances of a similar nature. Last year Natal tried to pass two laws, one withdrawing the Municipal franchise from the Indians which they at present enjoy and the other intended to

eliminate the whole free Indian element from the Colony in the course of ten years. Fortunately both these laws were disallowed by the Imperial Government. Natal really deserves no consideration at our hands, and I earnestly trust that the Government of India will show no such consideration.

One word more and I have done. The root of our present troubles in the Colonies really lies in the fact that our status is not what it should be in our own country. Men who have no satisfactory status in their own land, cannot expect to have a satisfactory status elsewhere. Our struggle for equal treatment with Englishmen in the Empire must therefore be mainly carried on in India itself. Then again we must remember that it is bound to be a long and weary struggle. It will require again and again sacrifices and sufferings such as those of our Transvaal brethren, and it will bring up repeated failures before we achieve final success. But suffering, or no suffering, failure or success, we owe it to our motherland to carry on this struggle with stout hearts and full faith in the justice of our cause. And I for one have no doubt in my mind about the ultimate issue.

PART IV.

PERSONAL.

A. O. HUME.

[The following is the indirect version of a speech delivered by Prof. Gokhale at a public meeting held in 1894 in Poona in bidding farewell to Mr. A. O. Hume :—]

Mr. Gokhale began by saying that it was a high privilege to be asked to offer welcome to so eminent a benefactor of India as Mr. Hume, and the welcome that he offered was offered not only on behalf of the people of Poona, but in the name of the entire Deccan, representatives from the various districts of which had thought it their duty to be present on that occasion. It was impossible for him to adequately express how deeply grateful they all felt to Mr. Hume for the immense sacrifice of personal comfort and convenience at which he had snatched, in his indifferent state of health and after a very fatiguing journey, a few hours to gratify their dearly cherished wishes and honour their city with that visit. The speaker, however, wanted to say that no one was surprised at the trouble Mr. Hume had taken; because his conduct in that matter was only in keeping with that absolute disregard of self which had all along been the guiding principle of his life. Mr. Gokhale was aware that nothing was more repugnant to Mr. Hume than any demonstration or even an expression of the feelings by which he was regarded by the people of the country; but he would ask him to remember that, when the gratitude of the heart was deep and strong, it gave an irresistible impulse to the tongue to speak. And if, therefore, in what little he intended to say, he appeared not to act quite in accordance with

Mr. Hume's wishes, he trusted Mr. Hume would excuse him on the ground that what he wanted to say came straight from the heart and there was no art about it. Any one who compared the India of to-day with what she was seven or eight years ago, would at once realize the enormous nature of the services rendered by Mr. Hume to the country. All that the Indian National Congress had done during the seven years of its existence was principally Mr. Hume's work. What it was exactly that the Congress had achieved it was unnecessary for the speaker to state at length, first, because that question had been repeatedly dealt with in an infinitely abler and more eloquent manner than any he could ever hope to attempt, by successive Presidents of past Congresses, and secondly, to speak of that in the presence of the Father of the National Congress was something like holding up a candle-light to the face of the eternal and glorious source of all light. Mr. Gokhale, however, wanted briefly to refer to four results which were principally due to the Congress. First, the Congress had welded together all the influences in the country which were struggling, scattered, to create throughout India a sense of common nationality. The influences had not been created by the Congress. They had come into existence along with British rule in this country, and they had been tenderly nursed by the wise and largehearted policy of successive generations of statesmen, and notably that of the Marquis of Ripon. But although the influences were already in existence, it was reserved for the Congress to unite them together and produce a result owing to which the heart of Bombay throbbed to-day in unison with that of Bengal or Madras in matters of national welfare. The Congress had also made public opinion in India more enlightened and more influential. The movement had spread far and wide in the land a considerable knowledge of the main political questions, and the result was that public opinion was better informed now than before. It also carried more weight with Government and no more eloquent testimony on the point was required than the fact that Lord Lansdowne himself had recognised in the Congress the Liberal party of India.

Then owing to the Congress movement, the main political questions of the country were advancing, some slowly, some rapidly, but all of them advancing towards a state of satisfactory solution. And lastly, the Congress supplied a ready machinery to those English politicians who realized their vast responsibilities in connection with India and who were anxious to do their duty by the people of this country. One peculiarly glorious circumstance connected with British rule, according to Mr. Gokhale, was that this country had never lacked distinguished, disinterested advocates of her cause in England. The speaker mentioned the services rendered by Edmund Burke to this country a century ago, and said that it was for such services that the names of Bright and Fawcett—and, last but not least, Bradlaugh-had become household words with the people. The four results mentioned by the speaker were the work of the Congress and as such they were principally the work of Mr. Hume's hands; and surely it was not given to a single individual to achieve more. Mr. Hume's path, again, had not been smooth. He had to work amidst the repeated misunderstandings of well-meaning friends and the unscrupulous attacks of determined enemies. But as though those difficulties had not been sufficient, it had pleased Providence to send him more trying ordeals. In the space of the past two years a domestic affliction, sad and heavy at all times, but peculiarly sad and heavy in old age when the mind of man is rather conservative in its attachments, had rendered his home desolate and his hearth cheerless; while his public life was embittered by the sad and untimely loss of his best and most eminent co-worker in England and his most beloved and trusted collaborator in India. The difficulties and misfortunes mentioned by the speaker were more than sufficient to break the spirit of most men; but Mr. Hume continued, in spite of them all, to walk firmly and unshaken in the path of duty chosen by himself. When the people of India contemplated all that, naturally their hearts overflowed with feelings of gratitude and admiration and veneration and love. For Mr. Hume had enabled India, for the first time in her history, to breathe and feel like one nation by bringing together men of