Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/213

 sedition. True to the traditions of a Bureaucrat Mr. Hatch the Collector-Magistrate of Poona did not bother himself about the exaggerations of the Prosecution. He admitted the evidence of a man who had not made the translations of Mr. Tilak's speeches ; because, as the Public Prosecutor himself explained, the man who made the translations originally was a man who in the opinion of the prosecution would not be a good witness to be submitted to the skilful cross-examination of Mr. Jinnah (a wonderfully strange and just reason indeed!). He relied entirely upon the reports of short hand-writers who had told the court point blank that it was impossible they could make mistakes and especially upon a portion of the report which was all confusing. He admitted that Mr. Tilak had distinguished between the Bureaucracy and the Government and yet read into the speech as a matter of general impression a dishonest attack on the British Government. For purposes of law he relied upon the Judgment of Justice Stratchey who defined disaffection as absence of affection and whose judgment in this respect was long exploded by judicial announcements. It does not require great prophetic insight now to