Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/270

 the Liberal League was started at Calcutta under the presidency of the Hon'ble Mr. Surendranath Banerjea, The circulars sent by the Secretaries of the League all over Bengal, calling upon people to be fully prepared to study the forthcoming report " impartially and without any prejudice " and to accept the scheme even when it fell short of our expectations, prove beyond all doubt that many of the Moderates had determined to secede from the Congress even before the publication of the Report. In their beggarly impatience to get something without any risk, they decided to abandon the Congress, for they fully anticipated what the reception of the Report would be. Instead of calling upon the Nation to stand up, firm and strong, these Moderates began to send round mysterious whispers; and for the sake of a few crumbs of Self-Government they were willing to dis- card that unity which in spite of occasional tension, had prevailed since 1915, in the politics of the country. It was in this atmosphere of secrecy and conspiracy on the one hand and suspicion and distrust on the other that the Report, long awaited was published (July 1918).

The distrust with which the generality of the people looked to the publication of the Report was due to a number of significant events of which the nth hour cancellation of the passports of Mr. Tilak and his col- leagues was not the least important. It was daily becom- ing clearer and clearer that a reactionary element was at work, both here and in England and that it was useless to expect a satisfactory settlement of our grievances so long as these reactionaries were allowed to run amuck. People had expected that Mr. Montague would attend