was impossible to satisfy it; yet it might be dangerous to strangle it by force. It was impossible to revive the Vernacular Press Act of Lord Lytton. It was impossible to stifle political life which had sprung up in the atmosphere created by Lord Ripon’s policy, and which was making a rather precocious growth. The more it was opposed, ridiculed and despised, the more it thrived. So he decided to guide it and to make it as innocuous as it could be without rousing the suspicions of those who were to be the tools.
PART II.THE BIRTH OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL
CONGRESS
Indian National Congress an English Product. It is an undisputed historical fact, that the idea of the Indian National Congress was a product of Lord Dufferin’s brain; that he suggested it to Mr. Hume,[1] and that the latter undertook to work it out. We have no means of knowing whether Mr. Hume communicated the fact to all the Indian leaders who joined hands with him in organising it, but in all probability he told some of them. It leaked out, however, in Lord Dufferin’s lifetime, was published in the press, brought to his notice and never denied by him. Nor did Mr. Hume, who died only in 1912, ever deny it. It has since been admitted to be true by his biographer, another veteran Congress leader, Sir William Wedderburn.[2] Sir William
