of
political dacoities, and especially the difficulty experienced in
securing legal evidence against them, are distinctly unfavourable
symptoms. There are many peaceful citizens who will give private
information as to the outrages committed by these bands, consisting
mainly of youths of respectable connexions, but that so few have the
courage to face terrorism by going into the witness-box shows that the
secret societies which inspire such terror have not yet been broken up.
The extent to which disaffection is rampant in the native Bar also
hampers the administration of justice, for whilst there is an eager
competition for earning political notoriety by an eloquent defence of
political prisoners, it is sometimes difficult to find pleaders who will
undertake to conduct prosecutions. On the other hand, it is all to the
good that many of those who were ready to coquet with sedition in its
earlier stages or who had not the moral courage to speak out against it
seem now to be taking heart, and in this respect the reforms embodied in
the Indian Councils Act have usefully supplemented the sobering effect
of repressive legislation. For one of the stock arguments of "advanced"
politicians has been the failure of the "moderates" to obtain any
recognition from Government, and the enlargement of the Legislative
Councils took the sting out of that taunt. Independently, however, of
the reforms, the extreme violence of language and of methods which had
come into vogue was bound to produce some reaction. Amongst the educated
classes, many respectable fathers of families, whatever their political
opinions may be, have taken fright at the growth of turbulence and
insubordination in schools and colleges, which were often carried into
the home circle; for when once the principle of authority has been
undermined the parent's authority cannot remain unshaken. In the same
way some even of the "advanced" leaders have been alarmed by the
development of secret societies which often attract young men of very
good connexions, and they have proposed to use for the detection and
suppression of dacoities the local bands of "national volunteers" whom
they formerly helped to organize for the purpose of enforcing the
boycott and stimulating unrest. How far, even if unreservedly exercised,
the influence of such men as Mr. Surendranath Banerjee will be as potent
for checking the mischief as it was for promoting it remains to be
seen. For the present also t