Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/274

 where. Unfortunately for them, their predictions have not proved true. So long as the spirit of forbearance and the spirit of give-and-take pervades in the Councils of the Congress such a fatal contingency is never likely to arise.

"We were told that the Congress was going to reject ihe whole scheme. I could never understand and have ne- ver understood what it meant. We are in the midst of our negotiations. If you reject the scheme you have done with it. What are you then going to tell the British people ? " That we reject the scheme ?" I think that we have learnt enough of poHtics to know that it is absurd to take such a position. Fortunately for all, we have been able to place before you a reasoned document, a resolution, which combines the wisdom of one party, I may say, the temperament of another party, and if you like to call it, I do not like to call it myself — the rashness of a third party.

"The Montague Report is a beautiful, very skilful and statesmanlike document. We asked for eight annas of Self-government; that report gives us one anna of Responsible Government and says that it is better than the eight annas of Self-Govemment. The whole Uterary skill of the Report lies in making us beheve that one morsel of Responsible Government is more than sufficient to satisfy our hunger for Self-government. We now plainly say to the Government, * we thank you for the one anna of Responsible Government but in the scheme we want to embody, not all that is embodied in the Congress-League scheme, the rails might be different but the carriages that carry passengers might be transferred from one rail to another. This is what