Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/308

 confidence and attachment of men honored by their predecessors and esteemed by the people. It may probably be thought by some that Sir Subramaniya Iyer might have declined to enter into the topic on the ground that he was there to be interviewed on the Memorandums. But that would be liable to be considered not only grossly improper but taking refuge in a circumstance of an entirely technical kind, instead of saying what he had to say in vindication. His is not the nature to hold back, to prevaricate or make amends for what is right in a mood of enforced penitence suddenly convinced of the impropriety of a thing in the presence of high authority. Being incapable of any of these, he defended the step he had taken by a portrayal of the situation that had been created by the Government in Madras—with a warmth of feeling which he could not have helped and was partly due to the very commencement of the interview at a high temperature. "Lord Ampthill a man of innate sympathy with India and Indians, with an inborn freedom from racial assumption of any kind, with a sense of absolute fair play between country and country and man and man,