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The planters of course could not endure this. They took occasion to indulge in the most rapid and unbecoming attacks on Mr. Gandhi. One Mr. Irwin earned an unenviable notoriety by writing all sorts of scurrilous attacks touching personalities which have nothing to do with the subject of enquiry. Columns of such stuff appeared in the pages of the Pioneer: but Mr. Gandhi with a quiet humour replied in words which should have made the soul of Irwin penitent. The controversy on Mr. Gandhi’s dress and Mrs. Gandhi’s stall-keeping reveals the character of the two men, Mr. Irwin, fussy, vindictive, violent, ill-tempered, writhing like a wounded snake in anger and agony, and Mr. Gandhi secure in his righteousness, modest, quiet, strong and friendly with no malice and untainted by evil passions.

THE CONGRESS-LEAGUE SCHEME

By this time Mr. Gandhi had made the Guzerat Sabha a well-equipped organisation for effective social service. When in August 1917 it was announced that Mr. Montagu would be in India in connection with the scheme of Post-War Reforms, the Guzerat Sabha under the direction of Mr. Gandhi devised in November the admirable scheme of a monster petition in connection with the Congress League Scheme. The idea and the movement alike were opportune. Mr. Gandhi himself undertook the work in his province of Guzerat and carried it out with characteristic thoroughness. The suggestion was taken up by