Lord Reading’s opportunity

LORD Reading has returned to India and has relieved Lord Lytton of the burden of Viceroyalty. He was away for only a short period, but that period has not been uneventful. In England, there were, first, a series of conversations between himself and the Secretary of State such as had never taken place between a Governor-General on leave and a Secretary of State since the commencement of British rule in India, then a statement by the Secretary of State in the House of Lords on those conversations, and lastly an Indian debate in the House of Commons in which both the conversations and the statement figured prominently. In India, the most active and progressive of all political parties, a party which had been consistently and unflinchingly in opposition to the government ever since its formation, was deprived by death of its foremost leader; and the occasion evoked a demonstration of national sorrow unparalleled in its volume, if not also in its intensity, not only in India but in any country in the world. While on the very day of Lord Reading’s return, public life in India was rendered still poorer by the death of another eminent leader who had shone brilliantly on India’s political firmament for half a century and had made many spaces in her destiny very luminous. It is too early yet to say what the precise effect of Sir Surendranath Banerjea’s death will be on our public life, but the death of CR Das has not only brought the Swarajists and the No-changers closer together, but has been chiefly instrumental in inducing the Mahatma to make an offer to the Swaraj party which may have far-reaching effects on India’s public life as a whole.