Another Familiar Platitude.

ANOTHER familiar platitude was that the powers under the Bills would not be used unless the Government of India, in the first instance, and the Local Governments later on, had been convinced of the indispensables of their use. Unhappily for this view the time is past when the people had an excess of faith in the infallibility of either the Local Governments or the Government of India. Their motives may be the purest, but they have so frequently erred and have displayed so lamentable a readiness to err on the side of extravagance in the exercise of all powers affecting the liberty of individuals and classes that the country is not prepared to trust them with say, power in excess of what is absolutely needed, not to speak of the extraordinary powers they are so anxious to assume by the proposed measures. Let the Government take note of this temper of public mind.