activity. It is the Government that is to stop its aggravatingly offensive activity aimed not at violence but a lawful, disciplined, stern but absoluely non- violent agitation. It is for the Government of India and for it alone to bring about a peaceful atmosphere, if it so desires. It has hurled a bomb shell in the midst of material rendered inflammable by its own action and wonders that the material is still not inflammable enough to explode. The immediate issue is not now the redress of the three wrongs ; the immediate issue is the right of holding public meetings and the right of forming associations for peaceful purpose. And in vindicating this right we are fighting the battle not merely on behalf of non-co-operators but we are fighting the battle for all schools of politics. It is the condition of any organic growth, and I see in the Viceregal pronouncement an insistence upon submission to a contrary doctrine which an erstwhile exponent of the law of liberty has seen fit to lay down upon finding himself in an atmosphere where there is little regard for law and order on the part of those very men who are supposed to be custodians of law and order. I have only to point to the unprovoked assaults being committed not in isolated cases, not in one place, but in Bengal, in the Punjab, in Delhi and in the United Provinces. I have no doubt that as repression goes on in its mad career, the reign of terrorism will ever take the whole of this unhappy land. But whether the campaign is conducted on civilised or uncivilised liney, so far as I can see, there is only one way open to non-co operators, indeed I contend, even to the people of India. On this question of the right of holding public meetings and forming associations there can be no yielding. We
�� �
