The most interesting passage in the speech was that in
which Lord Irwin met the criticism by ;the followers of Congress that he could, if he had wished, have brought the recent peace negotiations between Mr. Gandhi and Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru to a successful conclusion: What is in fact being whispered is that Mr. Gandhi and the Nehrus would have been content with "private assur- ances" from the Viceroy about the Constitutional issue, as they quite appreciated the difficulty of his satisfying them "publicly." Lord Irwin treated this criticism with scorn. He said that he had never lent himself to such a method of diplomacy and never' would. Private assurances would have been quite incompatible with the freedom of the Round Table Conference and disloyal to all those parties in India which had supported the , Government. He was obliged, therefore, to take the reply of the Congress leaders "at its face value" and not as something which could have one value in secret and another in public. Textually, the reply offered "no basis of discussion." He had accordingly said so. The responsi- bility for failure lay not on him but upon Congress.
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