On this day...100 years ago
Lahore, Tuesday, December 2, 1924
AT last, the Governor of Bengal has seen fit to give a direct and categorical reply to Mr CR Das. The occasion was not ill-chosen. St Andrew’s Dinner in Calcutta cannot, of course, be compared with the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London, but in the one case, as in the other, the occasion has again and again been availed of by the chief guests for making pronouncements of considerable interest and importance to the public. Lord Lytton’s speech, though it enunciated no new policy, was no bad addition to the list. The theme of the speech was the most burning of all Indian topics at the present time, and the man whose views on this subject His Excellency took it upon himself to controvert is the accredited leader of the most powerful political party in India today. When, however, we turn from the importance of the subject and the occasion to the nature of the speech, we are bound to confess to a feeling of disappointment. The most plausible part of the speech is that in which His Excellency attempts to answer the allegation of Mr Das that the government, while accepting his diagnosis of the situation, refused to apply his remedy; and it is unhappily also the least convincing part of the speech. “The reason why I do not accept Mr Das’ remedy,” said His Excellency, true to the parable in the Bible, quoted by him in an earlier part of the speech, of the husbandman among whose good crops the enemy sowed tares during the night, “because he is not my gardener, and has no responsibility for the consequences of his advice”.
