REPRESSIVE LEGISLATION n 



and Faridpore Districts. Only a few days ago 

 followed a dacoity of the gravest nature in Raita. 

 There is ample reason for believing that all of the 

 dacoities which I have mentioned were committed 

 by young men of the middle classes. On Septem- 

 ber 23rd a young man was convicted of sending a 

 bomb by post to the Magistrate of Nadia. On 

 November 7th the fourth attempt was made to 

 assassinate the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, on 

 this occasion with a revolver. On November Qth 

 the Native Sub-Inspector of Police, who had 

 arrested one of the Muzaffarpur murderers, was 

 shot dead in the streets of Calcutta. On Novem- 

 ber i3th the principal witness in a case against the 

 head of an association called the Anusilan Samiti 

 was murdered and decapitated near Dacca. 



I am afraid the necessity for the Bill has been 

 made out. The sad part of the whole business is 

 that the seditious and dangerous element is an 

 infinitesimal fraction of the Indian people, but the 

 misconduct looms large in the public mind, and 

 there arises a tendency to forget the wholly ad- 

 mirable conduct of the population as a whole. 



What has already struck me is the even temper 

 and fairness with which the Indian members deal 

 with what must be for them unpalatable legisla- 

 tion. It certainly is so to me, necessary though it 

 be, and it threatens to march hand in hand with 

 my financial anxieties, to which I shall now invite 

 your attention. 



I had been assured in London that I might 

 expect parity at the end of the year 1909-10, but 

 I had not been six weeks in Calcutta before I 

 found out that the year would pass out with a 



