Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/73

 bers (and the creation of similar Councils for the North-West Provinces and Oudh, and also for the Punjab) essential; and holds that all Budgets should be referred to those Councils for consideration, their members being moreover empowered to interpellate the Executive in regard to all branches of the administration; and that a Standing Committee of the House of Commons should be constituted to receive and consider any formal protest that may be recorded by majorities of such Councils against the exercise by the Executive of the power which would be vested in it, of over-ruling the decisions of such majorities." This is the resolution of which Mr. Hume said that it "indicated the very essence of the great task which the people of India, at last a nation, one and indivisible henceforth and for ever, was soberly and deliberately girding up their loins to undertake." The struggle lasted long; and ultimately this prayer for popular representation was granted by Lord Morley's reforms of 1909. But what a world of misunderstanding and suffering, of affections alienated and passions aroused, of secret conspiracy, and outrage, and Russian methods of repression, might have been avoided if the Administration had been wise in time, and listened long ago to the counsels respectfully tendered by a friendly and law-abiding people!

But here it must be noted that, although the Congress movement has always been looked on with undisguised hostility by that section of officials who are in permanent antagonism to the educated and independent classes, this disfavour has not, as a rule, extended to the higher authorities. This was especially the case at the outset. Indeed, in initiating the national movement, Mr. Hume took counsel with the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin; and whereas he was himself disposed to begin his reform propaganda on the social side, it was apparently by Lord