Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/275

 we have tried to do and we have tried to satisfy all parties concerned and a very difficult task has been accomplished. The future way is clear and I hope that what we have done will be of material help in carrying on this fight to the end."

The moderation and good sense of the special session of the Congress disarmed all opposition and many of the seceders returned to the old camp at Delhi (December 1918) where, however, in the absence of Mr. Tilak, a variety of circumstances conspired to foment those dissensions which have, ever since, made Indian PoUtics such a hopeless tangle. Neither the rancour nor the differences bom of the Delhi Congress has been allayed or made up. On the contrary, the bitterness has been further intensified by succeeding events, — the passing of the Rowlatt Act in the teeth of Indian opposition^ the campaign of Civil Disobedience started by Mahatma Gandhi, the irresponsible acts of Government's agents, culminating in the shocking Punjab tragedy with all its long and interminable sequal. All this while, Mr. Tilak was a passive though deeply interested observer in distant London.

While Mr. Tilak was on his way to England, he was unanimously elected President of the Delhi Congress. This was the considered reply which the Nation gave to the prohibitionary order issued by Lord Willingdon. While the Bureaucracy lost no opportunity of discrediting him, our hero was the recipient of the highest honours at the disposal of his admiring country* men.