ad put in the forefront of the fray that the greatest
capital was made. Whilst the politicians themselves prudently remained
for the most part in Calcutta, making high-sounding speeches and writing
inflammatory articles, or were careful in their own overt demonstrations
not to overstep the extreme bounds of legality, they showered telegrams
and letters of congratulation on the young "martyrs" who had been duly
castigated.

The leaders of the movement had also another string to their bow which
they used with considerable effect. Never before had there been such
close contact between Indian politicians and certain groups of English
politicians. Lord Curzon's fall and the extremely injudicious
references to Partition made by Mr. Brodrick, the then Secretary of
State, in the correspondence published after the resignation of the
Viceroy, had from the first given a great stimulus to the anti-Partition
campaign, Mr. Brodrick's remarks led the Bengalees to form a very
exaggerated estimate of the personal part played by Lord Curzon in the
question of Partition, and they not unnaturally concluded that, if the
Secretary of State had merely sanctioned the Partition in order to
humour the Viceroy, he might easily be induced to reconsider the matter
when once Lord Curzon had been got out of the way. Their hopes in that
quarter were, it is true, very soon dashed, but only to be strung up
again to the highest pitch of expectancy when the Conservative
Government fell from power, and was replaced by a Liberal
Administration, with Mr. John Morley at the India Office and an
overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, in which the Radical
element was very strongly represented. Several of the leading Radical
organs in England had for a long time past joined hands with the
Bengalee Press in denouncing Lord Curzon and all his works, and, most
fiercely of all, the Partition of Bengal. The Bengalee politicians,
moreover, not only had the active sympathy of a large section of Radical
opinion at home, but they had in the House itself the constant
co-operation of a small but energetic group of members, who constituted
themselves into an "Indian party," and were ever ready to act as the
spokesmen of Indian discontent. Some of them were of that earnest type
of self-righteousness which loves to smell out unrighteousness in their
fellow countrymen, especially in those who are serving their country
abroad; some were hypnotized by the old shibboleths