ature met for the first time to give collective expression to the
feelings of the people of India, called for statesmanship. The
King-Emperor's message impressed them with a sense of the great
responsibilities and great opportunities arising for them out of the
far-reaching rights conferred upon them. The personal appeal with which
the Duke of Connaught accompanied the delivery of the Royal message went
far to dispel "the shadow of Amritsar," which had, in his own apt
phrase, "lengthened over the face of India" and threatened even to
darken their own path. For on no subject had Indian feeling been more
unanimous during the elections all over the country than in regard to
the Punjab tragedy. None had been more persistently exploited by the
"Non-co-operationists" to point their jibes at the "slave-mentality" of
candidates and electors who were merely the willing dupes of a "Satanic"
Government. On no subject did the Assembly feel itself under a greater
obligation to give expression to the unanimous sentiments of the people
it represented--all the greater indeed in that opportunity of expression
had been denied to the old Legislative Council. It was the acid test to
which the sincerity and the whole value of the reforms were put. The
atmosphere of the Assembly was never again so tense as when the crucial
debate was opened by one of the ablest of the younger members of the
Moderate party, Mr. Jamnadas Dwarkadas, from Bombay, on the
administration of martial law in the Punjab in 1919. He asked the
Government (1) to declare its adhesion to the principle of equal
partnership for Indian and European in the British Empire; (2) to
express regret that martial law in the Punjab violated this fundamental
principle; (3) to administer deterrent punishment to officers guilty of
an improper exercise of their powers including the withdrawal of their
pensions; (4) to assure itself that adequate compensation is awarded to
those who lost their relatives at the Jallianwala Bagh and elsewhere.
The speaker moved his Resolution with great firmness and power but also
with great self-restraint. Most of the Indian speeches in support of it
were conceived in much the same spirit, though now and again one got a
glimpse of angrier passions just beneath the surface. Happily the
Government of India responded for the first time with the frankness and
generosity which, had it displayed them in a much earlier stage in its
handling of the Punjab troubles, wo