Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/88

 Sound education is what is wanted to enable the Musselmans to do justice to themselves. And to provide this, their leaders at the present day have been working, both by their scheme for a Moslem University, and by supporting Mr. Gokhale's Bill in the Viceroy's Council for free and compulsory elementary education. May they prosper in their patriotic labours ; and find en- couragement from the sympathy of so trusty a friend as Mr. Hume, and from his warm expression of regard and gratitude !

It is not necessary to go at any length into other minor points raised by Sir A. Colvin. With regard to his objection, that the Congress had no right to claim to be representative of the people of India, Mr. Hume pointed out that in Great Britain the Mother of Parliaments represented directly only a small fraction of the people, and that less than lo per cent, of the population took part in the parliamentary elections, even in such ad- vanced constituencies as the City and County of Aberdeen. He might also, without unfairness, have referred to the doings of the Free and Independent electors of Weymouth, who not so long ago had sent to the Imperial Parliament two "representatives " of the English people. He claimed that the Congress repre- sented the culture and intelligence of the country, a claim which was afterwards confirmed, in part at least, by Lord Lansdowne, when he said that the Congress represented ^' the more advanced Liberal party." As regards the suggestion that the Congress should devote itself to social in preference to political reform, Mr. Hume referred to the declared objects of the great movement of which the Congress formed only a part. The movement sought the regeneration of India on all lines, spiritual, moral, social, and political. The Congress was directed to national and political objects desired by all classes in