out the previous permission of the District Magistrate. The alleged reason was a speech supposed to discourage recruiting. Mr. Tilak was too busy with his legal and other work to attempt to speak in India. But the undertaking he was required to give as regards his silence in England was evidently very inconvenient. He had to give it which he did under protest. But the first thing he did in England was to get the undertaking cancelled. Nor was this very difficult. If Dr. Nair, who had given a similar undertaking could ^%t the per- mission of the British Cabinet to make speeches, why should not Mr. Tilak have the same ? Surely, what is sauce for goose is sauce for gander also. He did get the cancellation of the pledge, though of course, he was shrewd enough not to endanger his case in the Court by a too early appearance on the public platform. His failure in his suit against Sir Valentine Chirol was due largely to the prejudice created by the prohibition order of Lord Willingdon, the extemment orders from Delhi and Lahore, the untimely publication in England of the Rowlatt Report and by the pecuHarly perverted manner in which Sir Edward Carson made capital out of his two convictions for sedition. Whatever the reasons, the result was certainly disastrous not only to Mr. Tilak individually, but to his cause as well.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Tilak had already commenced his self-imposed task of reorganizing the British Congress Committee and the affairs of the India. Both the Committee and the newspaper owe their existence to the need felt, ever since the birth of the Congress, of educating the English public, whose ignorance about India was — and unfortunately still is — almost pheno-
