of Connaught last winter to India for the express
purpose of representing the King-Emperor at the opening of the new
Councils in the three great Presidencies, and of delivering a Royal
Message of unprecedented import to the new Indian Legislature in the
Imperial capital, bore perhaps its happiest fruits in the personal
appeal, prompted by his old love and knowledge of the Indian people, in
which he sought to dispel "the shadow of Amritsar" that had "lengthened
over the face of India," and did in fact do much to dispel it. The
Prince of Wales is to follow this winter not only in the Duke's recent
footsteps, but, as heir to the Throne, in the footsteps of his royal
father and grandfather. Even if opinions are divided as to the political
expediency of his visit before the clouds that still overhang the Indian
horizon have been dispelled, we may rest assured that his personal
qualities will win for him too the affection and reverence which the
Indian people are traditionally and instinctively inclined to give to
those whom the gods have invested with the heaven-born attributes of
kingship.

That Indian co-operation will not fail us if we persevere in ensuing it,
not only in the letter of the great Statute of 1919 but in the spirit of
the King-Emperor's messages to his Indian people, is an assumption which
there is much to justify us in making. But, for the present, it cannot
be much more than an assumption. In support of it we can rely not only,
one may hope, on the continued support of large if inarticulate masses,
and of the old conservative interests that have been content to stand
aloof from all political agitation, but also on the fine rally of the
great majority of the politically minded classes in India whom
intellectual partnership has to some extent prepared for political
partnership. They still form, unfortunately, but a very small numerical
minority. But their influence cannot be measured by mere numbers. If it
grew in the past even when we were showing more impatience than
sympathy with its aspirations, it may be expected to grow still more
rapidly in future under new conditions that give it more recognition and
more encouragement. In all countries the impulse to progress has always
proceeded from small minorities, and in India the small but active
minority from which it has proceeded has been essentially of our own
making, since it owes to us all its conceptions of political freedom and
national unity and the v