Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/737

 THE ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE.

��[A Deputation headed by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya watted on His Excellency the Viceroy at Cal- cutta on December 21 and requested His Excellency to call a Round Table Conference of representatives of people of all shades of opinion with a view to bring about a final settlement. Lord Reading replied at some length and defined the attitude of the Government. He regretted that " it in impossible even to consider the n n- vening of a' conference if agitation in open and avowed defiance of law is meanuhile /o be continued." Mr. Gcwdht's refusal to call off the hartal in connection with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales* visit to Calcutta on Decem- ber 24, apparently stiffened the attitude of the Govern- ment. Interviewed by the Associated Press, Mr, Gandhi made the following statement regarding the Viceroy's reply to the Deputation : ]

I must confess that I have read the Viceregal utterance with deep pain. I was totally unprepared for what I must respectfully call his mischievous misrepresentation of the attitude of the Congress and the Khilafat organisations in connection with the visit of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Every reso- lution passed by either organisation and every speaker has laid the greatest stress upon the fact that there was no question of showing the slightest ill-will against the Prince or exposing him to any affront. The boycott was purely a question of principle and directed against what we have held to be unscrupulous methods of bureaucracy. I have always held, as I hold even now,

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