Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/256

 to read the three speeches from beginning to end, quietly and attentively, remembering the arguments and remembering the poHtically ignorant audience to whom Mr. Tilak was addressing. I have so read these speeches, not once, but several times, and the impres- sion left on the mind is that, on the whole, despite cer- tain passages which are rightly objected to by the prosecution, the general effect would not probably and naturally be to cause disaffection, that is hostility or enmity or contempt "

Mr. Tilak's triumph was the triumph of the Home Kule cause. His enemies were crest-fallen. The Times of India, which immediately after the decision of the District Magistrate, had preached a homily to Mr. Tilak and poured out its venom in the " Politics in the Deccan " was compelled, knowing discretion to be the better part of valour, to unreservedly withdraw the re- marks. An attempt was made within a fortnight of the decision of the High Court to lure and terapt Mr. Tilak to disobey the District Police Act. At Gadag, •where Mr. Tilak had gone on private business, the Dis- trict Magistrate, finding that the people had assembled to do hirq honour, served upon him an order prohibiting him from delivering any harangue. This order was served not at the eleventh hour, but at he twelfth and a less astute or farsighted man than Mr. Tilak would have felt tempted to test its legality by breaking it. Mr. Tilak, however, refused to allow the District Magistrate to regain the ground which the Government had lost by their deba- cle in the Security Case. Ultimately, pansupari ^as given to Mr. Tilak at the meeting and the