Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/178

 cleared of all misconceptions and misrepresentation and reduced to their simplest elements, is a great work and one for which the country will, hereafter, I feel sure, be adequately grateful to you.

One thing is now certain — all the best and wisest men in this Empire, without distinction of race, creed or colour, are at one with you as regards the absolute necessity of the great Social Reforms which you advocate.

It is only as to your methods that differences of opinion and, I think, some, misconceptions exist.

You are believed generally to advocate coercive legislation which neither I myself nor, I believe, the majority of Indians are at all prepared to accept. But if I now rightly understand you, all you really look forward to is legislation of an enabling and permissive character. Now even for this the time does not seem to me to be altogether ripe, but I see no reason why, if the agitation be properly kept up and a conviction of the disadvantages of the existing system be steadily forced home to a larger and larger number of minds, something of the kind might not properly b< conceded in a few years.

This is how I view the question : If A chooses to marry widow, or to keep his sons unmarried to eighteen or twenty and his daughters unmarried till they are thirteen, or even fifteen, or seventeen, B, C and D must always be left at liberty to cut A in their individual and private capacities but this is a different thing from B, C, and D combining as a Pnnchayet, not merely to cut A, but to threaten E and F, who sympathize with A that if they do not straightway cut their friend A they will put them also out of caste.

That A's right of private judgment in such matters and h fortiori E's and F's should be protected by " enabling" legislation, appears to me to be by no means too much to hope for. I myself see no reason why when public opinion ripens on the subjects, the legislature should not prohibit Punchayeis from putting persons out of caste on these grounds, while leaving it free to every individual member of any community to cut or drop any or every other member