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 390 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES

country, his impartiality, his spotless character, will always furnish India with an ideal servant of his coun- try. May God give him peace ! May He grant his family and the Nation the ability to bear the loss ' It is possible for us to immortalise him, by making his character our own, by copying his manner of service and by enthroning him for ever in our hearts. May the great soul of Dadabhai watch over our deliberations !

It is our duty to express our thanks to His Excel- lency the Viceroy for having announced the decision of the government of India to abolish what is known as the Vinyngam customs. This step should have been taken earlier. The nation was groaning under the weight of this impost. Many have lost their calling by reason of it. It has caused much suffering to many a woman. The decision has not yet been reduced to practice. It is to be hoped that it will soon be.

I have submitted through the Press my experiences about the hardships of third class railway travellers. They are, indeed, intolerable. The people of India are docile, they have received training in silent suffering. Thousands, therefore, put up with the hardships and they remain unredressed. There is merit in such suffer- ing But it must have its limits. Submission out of weakness is unmanliness, That we tamely put up With the hardships of railway travelling is probably proof of our umnanliness. These hardships are twofold. They are due to the remissness of railway administration as also that of the travelling-public The remedies are also, therefore, twofold. Where the railway administration is to blame, complaints should be addressed to it, even in Gujarati. The matter should be ventilated in the press. Where the public are to blame, the knowing travellers

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