on this year’s monsoon.  If the rains are good and the harvests abundant, the peasants, relieved for the time from the pressure of the economic struggle, will be less inclined to take—­even at his behest—­the risk of refusing payment of taxes.  Should there unfortunately be another bad season following on last year’s partial failure,[5] the temptation may prove irresistible if reinforced by the religious exaltation which Mr. Gandhi knows so well how to call forth.  Deep down, too, there is always the latent antagonism of all the irreconcilable elements in an ancient civilisation of which British rule no more than Mahomedan domination, and in still earlier times the spiritual revolt of Buddhism, has shaken the hold upon the Hindu masses.

By a strange fatality the confidence of the inarticulate millions upon which we have hitherto prided ourselves has been turned into bitterness and hatred hitherto unknown amongst large sections of them at the very moment when we have for the first time regained in a large measure the confidence of the intelligentsia, and we have to reckon with the possibility of popular disturbances which may call for strong action just when on broad grounds of policy any resort to force must be specially undesirable.  One of the retributions which always overtake such mistakes in the manner of employing force as were made two years ago in the Punjab is that the actual employment of force, however legitimate, becomes discredited.  The Government of India realises—­and no one probably more fully than Lord Reading after his visit to Amritsar—­that with the Punjab fresh in their memories, even Indian Moderates must require very strong evidence before they give any willing support to the employment of force, even if circumstances arise to make it inevitable for the mere maintenance of public order which no government can allow to be wantonly imperilled.  Such evidence is accumulating only too fast.  When the time comes for action, the existence of a responsible body of Indian opinion, constitutionally organised, and constitutionally represented in the new Legislatures, will give Government the moral backing and the moral courage which failed it with disastrous results in 1919.

It is sad to see a man of Mr. Gandhi’s immense power for good drifting into such deep waters.  Mr. Gokhale, who had given him his enthusiastic support in South Africa, warned him on his return to India that methods of agitation and passive resistance which were permissible there under great provocation, and had been used by him with considerable success, would be quite unwarranted in India where they would only lead to disaster.  Mr. Gokhale died soon afterwards and Mr. Gandhi has disregarded his advice.  At times he has given signs of profound discouragement and talked of retiring to the Himalayas to spend the rest of his days in meditation, as pious Hindus not infrequently do.  At times in a more worldly mood he seems to be playing for a crown of martyrdom, and