Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/80

 themselves." And then, in eloquent words, he pleaded for a logical continuity, on the part of the British nation, of the humane and enlightened educational policy of 1833 and 1854 : "It is the British Government in their noble enthusiasm for the emancipation of this great people—God's trust to them—from the fetters of ignorance, who by the broadcast dissemination of Western education and Western ideas of liberty, the rights of subjects, public spirit and patriotism, have let loose forces which, unless wisely guided and controlled, might, nay sooner or later certainly must, involve consequences which are too disastrous to contemplate. And it is precisely to limit and control these forces and direct them, while there is yet time, into channels along which they can flow auspiciously, bearing safely the argosies of progress and prosperity on their heaving waves, that this Congress movement was designed. The Government has, broadly speaking, never realized the vast proportions of the coming flood which is being engendered by the noble policy of which in 1833 Lord Macaulay was so prominent an exponent; and it is we of the Congress, who through good repute and ill repute, careless what men say of us if only haply God may bless our efforts, who standing between the country and the coming development, are labouring—labouring almost frantically—to provide in time channels through which this surging tide may flow, not to ravage and destroy but to fertilize and regenerate."

IV. Correspondence with Sir Auckland Colvin. The Allahabad speech, boldly justifying a propaganda addressed to the masses, on the model of the Anti-Corn-Law League, was certainly successful in compelling the serious attention of the authorities. But the new