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THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
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the supreme achievement of the revolutionaries. Throughout 1913 and 1914 the revolutionaries were active, and the scanty news that has filtered out from India during the war gives ample reason to think that they are very active now.

Within the last seven or eight years, the Government has tried every form of repression, and has also planned a programme of partial reconciliation, but they have so far failed to crush the extreme wing of the Nationalist party, the wing that believes in force and that has taken to all the methods of guerilla warfare against a foreign government based on force.

The country is in such circumstances now that every step which the Government takes to repress and crush the movement or to punish the offenders, strengthens the spirit of revolt, adds to the volume and intensity of the desire for revenge, adds to the number of those who are prepared to suffer or even die for the cause. From the classes, the movement has spread to the masses; from the non-fighting masses it is now gaining ground and winning adherents among the fighting classes. In 1907 the charge of tampering with the army, laid at the door of Lajpat Rai, was ridiculous. Perhaps there was a certain amount of disaffection among the Punjab regiments due to the Agrarian legislation undertaken by the Punjab Government, which deeply and detrimentally affected the classes from which the army was recruited. When the legislation objected to was vetoed, that cause of disaffection was removed; but since then fresh causes have affected