of that section for trying subtle writers and speaker and called for a mere stringent definition of sedition. They fell foul of Lord Sandhurst for not having vetoed the very recent election of Mr. Tilak to the Legislative Council. They feared*[1] "lest in proclaiming that disloyalty is no disqualification for nomination by Government, to places of honour. Government themselves should make good citizenship at a discount." Extracts from the Poona press were published and though the Anglo-Indian papers modestly said that it was for them to * "establish a direct connection between this wild teaching and that deplorable event" still, *"the atmosphere which such teaching must have created is precisely the atomsphere in which violence to individuals, hatred of Government and widespread contempt for law and authority would necessarily grow as in a forcing house."
The position of Mr. Tilak in the months immediately preceding the murder of Messrs. Rand and Ayerst was unenviable. His co-operation with the Bureaucracy had been bringing him slings from the vernacular papers belonging to the party led by Ranade and Gokhale. At the same time, every word of his speeches and writings was sifted and translated by an ever-watchful Government and the malicious Anglo-Indian Press. Some of his simplest and most innocent remarks excited undeserving suspicion. When on the occassion of the Shivaji Festival, he had simply defended Afzulkhan's assassination by Shivaji, he was considered to have preached political murder. When he said "No copper plate was given to Mlenchhas (Mahomedans) to
- ↑ * From the Times of India.
