Lord Irwin has evidently behaved like the commander of an
army who, although he knows that he has force at his disposal immensely superior to that of his enemy, wants to agree to conditions of peace which will not be wounding. The greatest military leaders in history have understood the value of such settlements, and those who have not understood it have generally been leaders of the second class. Lord Irwin is in substance making a truce to end a war ; he is therefore absolutely right to avoid grinding conditions. If this be admitted, it must also be admitted that he could have dealt with nobody but Mr. Gandhi, who has the mind and heart of Congress in his keeping. But in what way precisely was it wise to deal with Mr. Gandhi ? Obviously if the condition of settlement by consent was postulated, Mr. Gandhi had to be treated, not as the representative of an inferior cause, but as the symbol of that new era of equal part- nership in the Empire which was in effect promised at the Round Table Conference.
