This Government may be Radical, as people say, though there
are few signs of it, but it is certainly very official. A large deputation waited on Lord Hartington on Thursday, to com- plain of the Indian Press Act, the Indian Arms Act, the mode of admission of natives into the public service, and to advocate the admission of elected representatives into the Legislative Councils. Lord Hartington, in reply, promised consideration to all these representations, but observed that legislation could not be changed because there had been a change of Government, and that they must not weaken the responsibility of the Legislative Council by pressing for too sudden a reversal of an Act. All that is sound as regards general legislation, but not sound as regards an Act like the Vernacular Press Act, which was strictly a party Act, a section in the general programme of Indian Jingoism. If an Act of that kind is wise, Liberalism is false, and a Liberal party has, as such, no claim to power. Of course, when an engineer has been sitting on the safety-valve, to rise from it involves a change ; but still, a sane engineer would not go on sitting, because an insane one had begun the sitting.
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