Majorities and Minorities

IN a speech at the Bradlaugh Hall meeting, Hon. Babu Surendranath Banerjea said he was not afraid of being in a minority, that he had been in a minority on many occasions in the past and that it had been his good fortune to seen the minority in every case grow in the course of time to be a substantial majority. As a statement of facts nothing could be truer. Nor have we anything but admiration for the man who, as we said the other day, has risked everything, popularity itself, which to a public man is the very breath of his life, to serve his country according to his convictions. But we must tell our distinguished countrymen and leader that if he is looking forward to the time when the minority will become the majority and the majority a minority, he is indulging in a vain hope. There are minorities and minorities, and that the only minorities that, in the course of time, become majorities, are minorities in advance of their time.

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