Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/392

 He lacked personality and forcefulness. The influence of a strong-willed colleague was often responsible for his inconsistencies. Then we must not forget the dizzy height which he had ascended. Courted by Cabinet Ministers, trusted and flattered by the Bureaucracy^ Mr. Gokhale was in a pecuHar position during the eventful years of the anti-Partition movement. His own enthusiasm drew him in one direction, his Moderate associates to another, while the English and Anglo-Indian officials pulled him quite in a contrary direction ; and Mr. Gokhale's politics reveals the evident struggle to keep his balance between these contending forces.

With Mr. Tilak the case was different. As he never aspired to win the applause at once of the populace, of the Beuraucracy and the ministers at ' home ', his line of conduct during the eventful years just preceding his last and longest incarceration was uniformly consistent. There are those who sneer at his alliance with the Bengal measures and preach opinions, which, left to himself, he would never have done. One may reply this criticism by counter- criticism. The Moderates of Bengal and the Moderates of Bombay had a world of difference between them and though the Moderate leaders of Bombay had not the courage to oppose the resolution on National Education at Calcutta (Dec. 1906), still they did not hesitate to oppose that same resolution in the next Provincial Conference at Surat (May 1907). Is not this inconsistency ? When the Congress had passed resolutions on Swadeshi and Boycott, when the Hon. Mr. Gokhale himself was warmly advocating the cause of Bengal and the strong measures adopted there to
 * Extremists *, which, they argue, led him to adopt