Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/521

 tact and other virtues that I venture to advise and urge yon to undertake a still greater campaign.

You have successfully demonstrated how you can resist Government with civility, and how you can retain your own respect without hurting theirs. I now place before you an opportunity of proving that you bear no hostility to Government in spite of your strenuous fight with them.

You are all Home Rulers, some of you are members of Home Rule Leagues. One meaning of Home rule is that we should become partners of the Empire. To-day we are a subject people We do not enjoy all the rights of Englishmen. We are not to-day partners of the Empire as are Canada, South Africa and Australia. We are a dependency. We want the rights of English- men, and we aspire to as much partners of the Empire as the Dominions overseas. We wish for the time when we may aspire to the Viceregal office. To bring such a state of things, we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is the ability to bear arms and to use them. As long as we have to look to the English- men for our defence, as long as we are not free from tha military, so long we cannot be regarded as equal partners with Englishmen. It, therefore, behoves us to learn the use of arms and to acquire the ability to defend ourselves. If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the Army.

There can be no friendship between the brave and the effeminate. We are regarded as a cowardly people. If we want to become free from that reproach, we should learn the use of arms."

Partnership in the Empire is our definite goal.

�� �