is could be done only by opening up to her too the road to
self-government. The Extremist at once pressed the argument to its
utmost consequences. The India for which he spoke was at that time, he
declared, still willing to accept the British connection on the same
terms as the Dominions, but she must be given Dominion Home Rule at
once--not merely as a goal to be slowly reached by carefully graduated
stages, but as an immediate concession to Indian sentiment, already more
than due to her for her share in the defence of the Empire during the
war.

In the Legislative Councils there had been a political truce by common
consent after the Government had undertaken to introduce no
controversial measures whilst the war was going on. But the war dragged
on much longer than had been generally anticipated. India, to whom it
brought after the first few months an immense accession of material
prosperity by creating a great demand for all her produce at rapidly
enhanced prices, was so sheltered from its real horrors, and the number
of Indians who had any personal ties with those actually fighting in far
off-lands was after all so small in proportion to the vast population,
that the keen edge of interest in its progress was gradually blunted,
and political speculations as to the position of India after the war
were unwittingly encouraged by the failure of Government to keep Indian
opinion concentrated on the magnitude of the struggle which still
threatened the very existence of the Empire. Circumstances, for which
the British lack of imagination as well as the ponderous machinery of
Indian administration was in some measure responsible, favoured, it must
be admitted, the revival of political agitation. Some three years
elapsed after India was promised a "new angle of vision" before there
was evidence to the Indian eye that anything was being done to redeem
that promise. Lord Hardinge had taken home with him one scheme of
reforms, and his successor, Lord Chelmsford, had set to work with his
Council on another one as soon as he reached Simla. But time passed and
all this travail bore no visible fruits. Outside events also gave rise
to suspicion. The rejection by the House of Lords of the proposed
creation of an Executive Council for the United Provinces caused
widespread irritation amongst even moderate Indians, and the rumours of
a scheme to hasten on Imperial federation and to give the self-governing
Dominions some share in the cont