ing opinions were
allowed. It is to the honour and highest interest of the Congress that
this stage has now been passed and the healthy rivalry of parties is
felt and heard in Congress councils. It is to be regretted that at the
last Congress meeting, in Surat, these two parties--the Moderates and
the Extremists--came into bitter conflict. It was largely due to the
past supineness of the Moderates who permitted the other party (which
is a small but noisy minority) to resort to bluster in order to force
their pet and bitter schemes of disorder upon the Congress. When,
ultimately, the Moderates determined to exercise the rights of the
majority, the others resorted to force and caused the Congress to be
suspended in disorder, thus revealing the sad spectacle of the present
incapacity of the leaders of the people to govern themselves and the
country.

This is, however, perhaps the best thing that could have happened for
the highest interest of the Congress itself. The two parties are now
clearly defined--the one seeking, through constitutional agitation,
self-government on colonial lines, like Canada; the other determined
to overthrow the government of the foreigner and to establish its own
upon the ruins. And agitation in this behalf is to be conducted in
every possible way, constitutional or otherwise.

The Moderates are now thoroughly roused and have driven out from their
councils the irreconcilables and fire-eaters, and can now work with
more harmony and success for the attainment of their wiser plans and
more reasonable aims.

A few years ago, the State ignored, when it did not ridicule, the
National Congress. To-day none recognizes its power more than does the
government.

And it is most suggestive and instructive to see this body, of fully
three thousand men, gathered together from all parts of this great
peninsula--men who represent peoples that speak more than four
hundred languages and dialects! They conduct their sessions in
English, which is the only universal tongue of the country. And a
purer English is hardly spoken in any deliberative or legislative body
in any other land; and some of the addresses are delivered with a
force, and are adorned with a logic and a rhetoric, which are truly
eloquent. Verily, the weapon of popular power, though largely used
against the government, is the best compliment possible to the State
which has created it.

The Press also has marvellously grown in power and in dignit