Motilal Nehru’s warning

IN the course of his speech at a public meeting at Cawnpore (Kanpur) on Saturday, Pandit Motilal Nehru issued a warning to the Government of India of which we sincerely hope the latter will take timely head. “We Swarajists,” he said, “have sailed as near the wind as we possibly could. We can sail no nearer, and are only waiting for a mandate from the Cawnpore Congress to abandon the perilous course and take again to familiar waters. I can tell you that I have the terms of that mandate very clear in my own mind. I shall ask for it and have no doubt that the Congress will give it. I may not at this stage tell you what those terms are, but there is no harm in telling you what they are not. They are not in the nature of the cooperation that their lordships (the Viceroy and the Secretary of State) desire. We know the consequences, and are ready for them.” To those who are conversant with the trend of Swarajist thought and the recent history of the Congress, these words can only mean that Nehru and his party will ask for a mandate from the Congress and the country for pursuing the old policy of non-cooperation with the Government inside and outside the Council. What particular form or forms this policy will take Nehru wisely refrained from telling his hearers and the public at this stage, but there is very little doubt that they will include a large dose of that consistent, uniform and continuous obstruction in the Council which the Swarajists have now abandoned all over the country and certainly in the Legislative Assembly, as well as preparing the country for a campaign of civil disobedience and non-payment of taxes on a limited scale.