The Times of Wednesday publishes from its Calcutta corre- spondent
some account of the organisations which are, or are supposed to be, combating sedition in Bengal. These organisations have come into existence as a result of the Press Act, and the suggestion of the "Viceroy that Europeans and Indians should combine in their common interest to suppress A wirchy. The most important of the schemes contemplated co-operation between the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and various Indian bodies, including the Indian Association, of which Mr. Surendranath Banerjee is secretary. The correspondent says :—" But after some negotiation Mr. Banerjee and his friends withdrew, and, warned by the release of the deported prisoners of the vacillating temper of the Government, the Chamber of Commerce felt it useless to promise to support bold measures on the part of a Government which had wantonly deprived the country of the protective effect of Regulation III. of 1818. Some kind of vigilance committee has, however, been formed in which European and Indian commercial men are associated, but no one cherishes the delusion that any practical results will follow." The difficulties, no doubt, are enormous, and the Government may even have proposed an impossible thing, but at all events the restoration of the deported prisoners to their country is an accomplished fact, and we fear that if all attempts at co-operation with Indians are made in the spirit of this correspondent the probability of failure would become a certainty.
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