Page:Indian National Evolution.djvu/101

Rh by you to my address yesterday afternoon, I am desired to say that the Lieutenant-Governor and the members of his household could not possibly avail themselves of these tickets, since the orders of the Government of India definitely prohibit the presence of Government officials at such meetings."

This communication, which was read by the Anglo-Indian Press as a highly gratifying snub administered to the Congress, was over the signature of Mr. P. C. Lyon who was then the Private Secretary to Sir Charles Elliot and who in his subsequent distinguished career found much ampler and freer scope for associating his name with circulars and manifestoes which, though no longer extent, have acquired a historic fame. This strange correspondence formed the subject of a heated discussion in the Congress in course of which that level-headed typical Scotchman, Mr. George Yule, described it as the production of "some Dogberry clothed in a little brief authority" and characterized it as "a piece of gross insolence" offered to a body of men who were perhaps in no way inferior to any official in the land either in their honesty of purpose," or "devotion to the Queen." Mr. Yule visibly waxed red when he said from his place in the tribune, "any instructions, therefore, which carry on their face, as these instructions do in my judgment, an insinuation that we are unworthy to be visited by Government officials, I resent as an insult and I retort that in ail the qualities of manhood we are as good as they." A reference was made to H. E. the Viceroy who at once declared that the Belvidere interpretation of the order of Government of India was based upon a clear misapprehension, that in the opinion of Government the