Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/105

Rh not, will you sell your things away only to avoid the supposed wrath of subordinate Government officers? Can you not be bold, even when in the grip of death?" This terrible unmanliness shocked him most. "We can stand any number of famines," he said "but what shall we do, with sheepish people?" "Had such a famine broken out in England and had the Prime Minister been as apathetic as is Lord Elgin, his Government would have, in less than a week, tumbled down like ninepins." He deplored and condemned food-riots. "Why loot the Bazars", he used to say "go to the Collector and tell him to give you work and food. That is his duty."

Really speaking the Government ought He have hailed the vigorous co-operation of Mr. Tilak. He was making useful and constructive suggestions to them, through the memorials of the Sarvajanik Sabha and the columns of the Kesari and the Mahratta. But it was evident that the heaven-born Bureaucrats disliked the splendid growth of organisation under Mr. Tilak 's inspiring guidance, because the 'new spirit' meant inconvenience to them. They found the plastic clay hardening into rock. The people were firm, not militant; law abiding, not aggressive, still the authorities deemed it necessary to put down the New Spirit.

The first attempt in this direction was made at a village Khattalwad (Dec. 13, 1896) where Prof. Sathe, of the Maharashtra College, Poona, specially sent by Mr. Tilak for propaganda work, had the unique honour and opportunity of delivering a lecture in the presence of the Assistant Collector and a posse of soldiers. This evidently was an attempt to reduce the morale of the