The Nagpur Imbroglio IT IS difficult to get authentic and undisputed news of the Nagpur imbroglio, but if report is to be believed, there is a better chance than before of a satisfactory working compromise. It is in every way desirable that the present difficulties should be smoothed over if that can be done without any sacrifice to essential principle, and for any such compromise it is essential for both sides to recognise that while they may and should fight stubbornly for their principles both outside and inside the Congress, yet the National Assembly itself is not the monopoly of either. A great deal of clamour has been raised by the Moderates of Nagpur

The Foundations of Nationality MR. N. N. Ghose of the Indian Nation has some name in this country as an educated and even a learned man. He himself does not conceal his opinion that he is almost if not quite the only well-educated man in India and is perpetually asking the acknowledged exponents of public opinion on the Nationalist side what educational qualifications they possess which would justify them in advising or instructing their countrymen in politics. At one time it is the conductors of Bande Mataram who are put to the question; at another it is so able a political thinker and orator as Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal whose speeches and writings

The Old Year THERE are periods in the history of the world when the unseen Power that guides its destinies seems to be filled with a consuming passion for change and a strong impatience of the old. The Great Mother, the Adya Shakti, has resolved to take the nations into Her hand and shape them anew. These are periods of rapid destruction and energetic creation, filled with the sound of cannon and the trampling of armies, the crash of great downfalls, and the turmoil of swift and violent revolutions; the world is thrown into the smelting pot and comes out in a new shape and with new features. They are periods when the wisdom of the wise is confounded and the prudence of the

Work and speech WE often hear that the time for speeches has gone by and action, silent, strenuous, sacrificing action is all that is necessary at the present moment. Denunciation of speeches has almost passed into a fashion and to rescue at least a certain class of speeches from undeserved contempt is a duty we owe to the speakers and the country they are serving no less by their speech than by other kinds of activity. Those who happen to be in any kind of touch with the people will agree with us when we say that there is no consensus of opinion even amongst the educated section as to the wisdom of pursuing a great and bold ideal or our capacity of making the lea

The Comilla Incident THE Comilla affair remains, after everybody has said his say, obscured by the usual tangle of contradictions. The Hindu version presents a number of allegations, — specific, detailed and categorical — of attacks on Hindus, making up in the mass a serious picture of a mofussil town given over for days to an outbreak of brutal lawlessness on the part of one section of the Mahomedan community, a Magistrate quiescent and sympathetically tolerant of the rioters, and the final resort by the Hindu community to drastic measures of self-defence on the continued refusal of British authority to do its duty as the guardian of law and order. A Mahomedan repo

Reasons of Secession WE HAVE now placed all the facts of the Midnapur Conference before the public and the reasons which made a Nationalist secession inevitable are sufficiently obvious. The Loyalist legend that the Nationalists came prepared to break up the Conference by force, but were either baffled, say some authorities, by the "mingled tact and firmness" of Mr. K. B. Dutt, or overawed, say others, by the presence of the President's bureaucratic friends and allies, and in their rage and disappointment seceded and held a separate meeting, is too contemptible a lie to be treated seriously. "Why should they secede? What was the necessity of a second Conference?" ask

Oligarchy or Democracy? APART from questions of aim and method, a fruitful source of discord between the two parties has been the divergence of views with regard to the spirit of the Congress, whether it is to be the Congress of the few or the Congress of the many. This divergence has been chiefly operative in bringing about struggles over the election of the President and his method of conducting the proceedings, over the selection of the Subjects Committee and the rights of the delegates to express their opinion and use every means to make it operative. One side demands implicit obedience to the authority of the President and a small circle of leaders, the other

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Volume I of the SRI AUROBINDO BIRTH CENTENARY LIBRARY is a compilation of Sri Aurobindo's political writings and speeches of the period 1890 to May 1908. Concerned principally with India's freedom from British rule and the means of attaining it, they cover also the resurgence of Asiatic countries, the necessity of their emergence as representatives of spiritual culture, and other historical and contemporary events or issues. Sri Aurobindo's preoccupation with India's freedom and renaissance began in his student days at Cambridge where he gave speeches at meetings of the Indian Majlis. Only a few incomplete notes on this subject are

The New Faith THE political struggle in India is entering on a new phase; and now that the Nationalists have been given a foretaste of its persecuting ability, the bureaucracy is making an awkward attempt to patch up a reconciliation with the Moderate leaders. The olive branch has been already held out; Lala Lajpat Rai and Sirdar Ajit Singh have been released, and vague rumours of other conciliatory measures are in the air. Press prosecutions, deportations and police hooliganism have done their work. It is now fondly believed that Nationalism is crushed and what remains is but to exchange a complimentary smile with Moderate politicians and swear eternal peace and goo

From Phantom to Reality THE action of the omnipotent and irresponsible executive in obstructing District Conferences alike in the proclaimed and unproclaimed areas of Bengal ought to carry home to every mind, however persistent in self-deception, the absurdity of vaunting the rights and privileges of a subject people. There is a taunt writ large over these ukases and it is this: "Fools and self-deceivers who think that rights can be held as the gift of a superior! Nothing is a right till it has been purchased by sacrifices as great as the aspiration is high. You were allowed to speak and pass resolutions so long as speeches and resolutions were all; but now that y