Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/85

 we put them in a milder shape than they themselves do ; we tell them that * the English Government is superior to all other governments in the world, for its fundamental principle is to shape its policy according to the wishes of the people.' We tell them emphatically that it is not the individual governors or officials who are to blame for the shortcomings of the administration, but the system, the form of that administration ; and we further show them how, by loyal and constitutional efforts, they can secure the amelioration of that system, and a remedy for many of the evils they have to contend against." This is the answer to the charge of exciting hatred against the Government and the officials.

Next, as to the risk of a counter-agitation, dividing the country into two hostile camps. On this point it is not now necessary to recall the personal incidents of the op- position to the Congress raised by Sir Syed Ahmed and his friends. Mr. Hume considered that this opposition was not important, and he held that, excluding an inap- preciable fraction, the whole culture and intelligence of the country was favourable to the Congress. And he dealt somewhat severely with the anti-Congress party, which he said was made up of a small knot of Anglo- Indians, mostly officials, supported by a section of the Anglo-Indian Press; ^^ a few Indian fossils, honest, but wanting in understanding ; a few men who in their hearts hate British rule, or are secretly in the employ of Eng- land's enemies " ; and a certain number of " time-servers, men not really in their hearts opposed to the Congress, but who have taken up the work of opposition to it, be- cause it has seemed to them that this will ' pay.' " Further he maintained that the Congress, instead of dividing, was uniting, was binding in harmonious co-operation, men who previously scarcely met except to quarrel and even to fight ; and he instanced the case of Salem, till recently