Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/136

116 by your incessant appeals, the Government will be driven to concede what are clearly your rights.

"You meet in Congress; you glow with a momentary enthusiasm; you speak much and eloquently. But the Congress closes and every man of you goes off straightway on his private business! Years ago, I called on you to be up and doing; years ago, I warned you that 'Nations by themselves are made' and have you heeded these counsels? You have, indeed, ever eagerly clamoured for and vainly clutched at the Crown but how many of you will touch the cross even with your finger-tips?"

And what was the response Sir Pherozeshah gave to the above passionate appeal? Speaking as the Chairman of the Reception Committee of the 20th National Congress at Bombay, he said:—

"To those who decry the money spent upon the Congress as moneys wasted on a show and a tamasha, I would say, they are not men of real insight and true imagination If you realise it clearly and fully, there is no purpose more important, no mission more sacred than the one that the Congress fulfils in the three short days to which it confines its session We, delegates, representatives of this country, meet together, at the end of the year, to give voice to the public opinion.

But we are told that we have done this for long and we have done this in vain. I absolutely dispute both these propositions.... To estimate the position rightly, let me lay before you (my) confession of Faith. I am an inveterate, and a robust optimist. . . I accept British rule, as Ranade did, as a dispensation so won-