the capital of the Bengalee "nation." The Universities Act of
1904, it was alleged, had been the first attempt on the part of a
masterful Viceroy to reduce their influence by curtailing their control
of higher education. Partition was a further attempt to hamper their
activities by cutting half the "nation" adrift from its "intellectual"
capital. This was a cry well calculated to appeal to many "moderates,"
whom the merely political aspects of the question would have left
relatively unmoved and it certainly proved effective, for in Calcutta
feeling ran very strong. Whilst "monster" demonstrations were organized
in Calcutta and in the principal towns of the _mofussil_, the wildest
reports were sedulously disseminated amongst the rural population.
Partition was meant to pave the way for undoing the Permanent Settlement
which governs the Land Revenue in Bengal, and, once the Permanent
Settlement out of the way, Government would screw up the land tax. As
for the creation of the new province, it was intended to facilitate the
compulsory emigration of the people from the plains, who would be driven
to work on the Englishmen's tea plantations in the far-off jungles of
Assam. Reports of this kind were well calculated to alarm both the
_Zemindars_, who had waxed fat on the Permanent Settlement, and the
credulous _rayats_, whose labour is indispensable to the _zemindar_
squirarchy. In the towns, on the other hand, the masses were told that
Partition was an insult to the "terrible goddess" Kali, the most popular
of all Hindu deities in Bengal, and, in order to popularize the protest
amongst the small townsfolk, amongst artisans and petty traders, the cry
of _Swadeshi_ was coupled with that of _Bande Mataram_.

The spirit of revolt against Western political authority had been for
some time past spreading to the domain of economics. _Swadeshi_ in
itself and so far as it means the intelligent encouragement of
indigenous is perfectly legitimate, and in this sense the Government of
India had practised _Swadeshi_ long before it was taken up for purposes
of political agitation by those who look upon it primarily as an
economic weapon against their rulers. It was now to receive a formidable
development. _Swadeshi_ must strike at the flinty heart of the British
people by cutting off the demand for British manufactured goods and
substituting in their place the products of native labour. At the first
great meeting held at the Calcutta Town Ha