Kumartuli Speech* BABU Aurobindo Ghose rose amidst loud cheers and said that when he consented to attend the meeting, he never thought that he would make any speech. In fact, he was asked by the organisers of the meeting simply to be present there. He was told that it would be sufficient if he came and took his seat there. Now he found his name among the speakers. The Chairman of the meeting, whose invitation was always an order, had called upon him to speak. two reasons FOR silence He had two reasons as to why he ought not to speak. The first was that since he was again at liberty to address his countrymen he had made a good many speeches and he had

Facts and Opinions Volume I - Oct. 9, 1909 - Number 16 The Apostasy of the National Council We have received an open letter from some teachers of the Rangpur National school in which they warn the President of the National Council of Education of the evil effects likely to ensue from the recent National Risley Circular and protest strongly against the policy underlying it. For reasons of space we are unable to publish the letter. The signatories point out that the movement took its birth in the boycott movement and was from the first, closely associated with it in nature and sympathy, that the participation of young men in the national awakeni

APPENDIX -I The following two notes appearing in the 5th and 26th issues of the Karmayogin are given as Appendix -I since they are not editorial comments. Appendix Ourselves In our third issue we wrote "On account of the inconvenience of the printing press there has been some irregularity in the publication of the second and the third issues of the paper. With a view to remove this difficulty we are making better arrangements for printing the paper. The next issue of Karmayogin will be published on Saturday the 17th instant instead of on Saturday the 10th." The publication of the next issue was, consequently, delayed. We are glad to be in a positio

Facts and Opinions Volume I - Sept. 25, 1909 - Number 14 The Convention President The nomination of Sir Pherozshah Mehta as the President of the three men's Convention at Lahore is not an event that is of any direct interest to Nationalists. Just as the three tailors of Tooley Street represented themselves as the British public, so the three egregious mediocrities of the Punjab pose as the people of their province and, in defiance of the great weight of opinion among the leading men and the still stronger force of feeling among the people against the holding of a Convention Congress at Lahore, are inviting the representatives of the Modera

National Education FROM the beginning of the national movement, in spite of its enthusiasm, force, innate greatness, a defect has made itself apparent, a fatality of insufficient effectiveness has pursued it, which showed that there was a serious flaw somewhere in this brilliant opening of a new era. The nature of that flaw has been made manifest by the period of trial in which, for a time, the real force which made for success has been temporarily withdrawn, so that the weaknesses still inherent in the nation might be discovered and removed. The great flaw was the attempt to combine the new with the old, to subject the conduct of the resurgence of India to the aged, t

The Hindu Sabha an INDICATION of the immense changes which are coming over our country, is the sudden leaping into being of new movements and organisations which are, by their very existence, evidence of revolutions in public feeling and omens of the future. The dead bones live indeed and the long sleep of the ages is broken. The Moslem League was indicative of much, the Hindu Sabha is indicative of yet more. The Nationalist Party, while in entire disagreement with the immediate objects and spirit of the league, welcomed its birth as a sign of renovated political life in the Mahomedan community. But the Mahomedan community was always coherent, united and separately self-c

Facts and Opinions Volume I - Sept. 18, 1909 - Number 13 The Two Programmes There could hardly be a more striking contrast than the pronounced dissimilarity between the resolutions passed at the Hughly Provincial Conference under the pressure of the Moderate leaders' threat to dissociate themselves from the proceedings if the Pabna resolutions were reaffirmed and the resolutions passed at the enthusiastic and successful District Conference held last Saturday and Sunday in the Surma Valley. They are severally the reaffirmation of two different programmes, the advanced Moderate programme of a section of opinion in West Bengal supported by Faridpur in

Bengal and the Congress THE dissensions in the Congress have been a severe test of the capacity of the Indian people to act politically under modern conditions. The first necessary element of democratic politics is difference of opinion, robust, frank, avowed, firmly and passionately held, and the first test of political capacity in a democratic nation is to bear these differences of opinion, however strong and even vehement, without disruption. In a monarchy differences of opinion are either stifled by an all-powerful absolute will or subordinated and kept in check by the supreme kingly arbiter; in an aristocracy the jealousy of a close body discourages

Facts and Opinions Volume I - August 7, 1909 - Number 7 The Police Bill The Police Bill has passed the Committee and next week, it is rumoured, will be made law. It is a provision for giving absolute power to the Police Commissioner and his underlings. It is true that the power is limited in time in certain respects, but so long as it lasts it is arbitrary, absolute, without checks and, practically, without appeal. We hear that the present Police Commissioner resents any proposal to put a check on his absolute power as a personal insult. If so, he is in good company, for he only follows the example of that great philosopher and democratic statesman,

The Assassination of Prince Ito A GREAT man has fallen, perhaps the greatest force in the field of political action that the nineteenth century produced, the maker of Japan, the conqueror of Russia, the mighty one who first asserted Asia's superiority over Europe in Europe's own field of glory and changed in a few years the world's future. Some would say that such a death for such a man was a tragedy. We hold otherwise. Even such a death should such a man have died, in harness, fighting for his country's expansion and greatness, by the swift death in action, which, our scriptures tell us, carry the hero's soul straight to the felicity of heaven. The man who in