e suitable for circulation as printed minutes. But
gradually many of them took courage and showed that they could speak
easily and simply, and quite as effectively as most of the Indian
members.

Indeed, one of the best speeches of this kind was that delivered on the
last day but one of the Session by Mr. P.C. Lyon, a nominated member for
Eastern Bengals, in reply to the fervid oration of Mr. Bupendranath Bose
on the threadbare topic of Partition. On this, as on other occasions,
the florid style of eloquence cultivated by the leaders of the Indian
National Congress fell distinctly flat in the calmer atmosphere of the
Council-room, as indeed Mr. Gokhale warned some of his friends it was
bound to do. During the last two days discussion was allowed somewhat
needlessly under the new rules, to roam at large over all manner of
irrelevant subjects, but on this occasion it served at least one useful
purpose. If it were not that the Bengalee politician has no other
grievance to substitute for it, the question of the Partition of Bengal
should, one would think, have received its _quietus_, for two excellent
speeches, delivered with much simple force by Maulvi Syed Shams ul Huda,
Mahomedan member for Eastern Bengal, and by Mr. Mazhar-ul-Haq, another
Mahomedan who sits for Bengal, completed the discomfiture which poor Mr.
Bose had already experienced at Mr. Lyon's hands.

Needless to say that amongst the Indian members it was the politician,
and especially the more "advanced" politician, who figured most
prominently in the discussions. The more conservative Indians were
usually content to listen, with more or less visible signs of weariness,
to the facile and sometimes painfully long-winded eloquence of their
colleagues. When they did intervene, however, their speeches were
usually short and none the less effective. In most of the divisions that
were taken they supported the Government, and in no single instance was
the Government majority hard pressed. The minority in support of any
resolution resisted by Government never reached 20, and generally
fluctuated somewhere between 16 and 20. The only resolution which would
have certainly combined all the native members in support of it was Mr.
Gokhale's resolution with regard to the position of British Indians in
South Africa, but, as it was accepted by Government, it was passed _nem.
con._ without a division.

That in these circumstances the official members who are at the same
tim