LETTER III. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 

 SESSION, 1909 



CALCUTTA, April, 1909. 



THE Legislative Council Session ended on March 

 29th, and I have felt like a carp flung on the grass 

 to gasp out its life ever since. 



I promised to tell you how I got through my 

 first Session, and I will proceed to fulfil my promise. 



For me the two salient features of the last 

 Session of the " old style Council " have been the 

 detestable, but I fear unavoidable, repressive 

 legislation and the financial deficit inherited from 

 my predecessors. 



I feel sure that I shall soon learn to love India, 

 and I am reconciled to the severance of ties in 

 England, but I have already had one great and 

 disagreeable surprise. I have never in the past 

 studied Indian affairs, and I had no conception 

 that unrest and the poison of sedition had eaten 

 into a section of the Indian community. The 

 fact has become somewhat pronounced of late, and 

 I have been looking into the past. 



I find that last June, before I landed in India, 

 it was considered necessary to introduce a Bill in 

 the Legislative Council to enable the Government 

 of India to control explosives, and the Member for 

 Home Affairs, in giving his reasons for the measure, 

 stated : 



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