A job half-finished

Lahore, Sunday, October 5, 1924

THE Unity Conference, which opened at Delhi on September 26, concluded its sittings on Thursday after a week’s deliberations. The problem that it had taken upon itself to solve was the most difficult and delicate that any similar body had ever attempted to tackle, and the manner in which many, if not most, of its members approached the task and the great work it did during the week were such as it might well be proud of. Whether that work will live in history, it is too early to say. It will, among other things, depend upon the spirit in which the country will accept the decisions arrived at by the conference, and the tact, wisdom and courage which the members of the conference themselves will show when the question before them is not merely that of passing resolutions but of carrying them out. But history will bear them this attestation that they have shrunk from no labour and have been guilty of no prevarication. The mere strenuousness of the work has beaten the record of all public bodies in the country with the single exception of the Congress, and there has been no session of the Congress itself at which either the Subjects Committee or any other body of delegates had to work harder or more assiduously or more devotedly for so long a time at a stretch as this committee of the conference had to do. It is easy enough to pick holes. We have ourselves had to do so, and in one most vital respect shall have to do it presently again. But let us fully, frankly and unreservedly acknowledge the good the conference had done before we proceed to say what more it might and ought to have done.