Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/122

Allan Octavian Hume the people demonstrated against the Partition of Bengal. On the contrary, the Indian Press is unanimous in support of the Bill, and public meetings in its favour have been held in all parts of the country. The official obstruction discloses what seems to have been an unsound mental condition among the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors v^ho were consulted. On the one hand, in their reports, they claim to know the mind of the people better than the people themselves; on the other hand, they show little effective sympathy with the "heart-felt wish" of King George, who desired to see "spread over the land a net-work of schools and colleges." The official majority in the Viceroy's Council has been employed to destroy Mr. Gokhale's Bill, which followed the most approved methods of dispelling illiteracy among the masses, and would have laid a solid foundation for social reform.

These letters (Appendices II and III) are also valuable as illustrating Mr. Hume's power of adaptation. For it will be remembered that in his great scheme of national regeneration, the original idea was to give the first place to social reform. But his logical mind soon grasped the fact that in India social legislation was not practicable, except with the help of representative institutions. He therefore abandoned his original intention, and, to use his own phrase, devoted his life to political reform. And his foresight has been justified by events. For although, in the Viceroy's Council, Mr. Gokhale's Bill was killed by a mechanical majority, the force of argument was altogether with its supporters, and the spirit evinced in the debate is a bright augury for future progress. 108