ay at any moment be frustrated by disturbing forces over which
the most peacefully disposed Viceroy has little or no control.

Peace and sound finance, which is inseparable from peace, have certainly
never been more essential to India than at the present juncture. For
without them the difficulty of solving the most absorbing and urgent of
the internal problems of India will be immeasurably enhanced. There is a
lull in the storm of unrest, but after the repeated disappointments to
which official optimism has been subjected within the last few years, he
would be a sanguine prophet who would venture to assert that this lull
presages a permanent return to more normal conditions. Has the creation
of a new political machinery which gives a vastly enlarged scope to the
activities of Indian constitutional reformers, definitely rallied the
waverers and restored courage and confidence to the representatives of
sober and law-abiding opinion, or will they continue to follow the lead
of impatient visionaries clamouring, as Lord Morley once put it, for the
moon which we cannot give them? Have the forces of aggressive
disaffection been actually disarmed by the so-called measures of
"repression," or have they merely been compelled for the time being to
cover their tracks and modify their tactics, until the relaxation of
official vigilance or the play of party politics in England or some
great international crisis opens up a fresh opportunity for militant
sedition? To these momentous questions the next five years will
doubtless go far to furnish a conclusive answer, and it will be
determined in no small measure by the statesmanship, patience, and
firmness which Lord Hardinge will bring to the discharge of the
constitutional functions assigned to him as Viceroy--i.e., as the
personal representative of the King Emperor, and as Governor-General in
Council--i.e., as the head of the Government of India.

I have attempted, however imperfectly, to trace to their sources some of
the chief currents and cross-currents of the great confused movement
which is stirring the stagnant waters of Indian life--the steady impact
of alien ideas on an ancient and obsolescent civilization; the more or
less imperfect assimilation of those ideas by the few; the dread and
resentment of them by those whose traditional ascendency they threaten;
the disintegration of old beliefs, and then again their aggressive
revival; the careless diffusion of an artificial syste