Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/307

 question was discussed in the last week of August during the Special Provincial Conference in Madras. His reply to the Manifesto against passive resistance is a masterly verdict delivered in a perfectly judicial frame of mind and would for a long time to come occupy a permanent place in the political master-pieces of talented Indians of age, experience, and a magnificent record of work on behalf of the Government and the people. Lord Chelmsford, apparently without a previous personal knowledge of Sir Subramanya Iyer, and not knowing that he had left the bed of an invalid to be at the interview, and when Sir Subramanyam had gone to submit his views on the Reform Scheme least suspecting that the interview would turn upon the letter, opened fire on this topic. He is reported to have done it in a spirited way, and Sir Subramaniem flashed back in an equally excited manner. In Sir Subramaniem's own words, it was "a stormy interview." Loud was the voice of both. Put on his defence, Sir Subramaniem came out of it caring only for his innermost convictions and making it plain to the Viceroy to what extent the Madras Government had gone wrong in their policy of alienating the