It appeared to them that one clear legal mind in the community, coupled with a spotless character and wide experience, could make it impossible for them to be driven like cattle, or to be treated with contempt. It would also render impossible the continuance of that system of official corruption which had already commenced. The officials were afraid of Mr. Gandhi. They were all weaker, smaller men than he, and they knew it. It was natural that should resent his appearance upon the scene. But whether this was a true inference or not, the line of conduct which the officials pursued was unwise in the extreme.
The Indians trusted their counsellor implicitly, as they do still. They knew his value, and loved him. Any attempt to ignore or insult their leader made them the more suspicious of the officials: more determined to retain him in their midst. The result might easily have been foreseen. Hostility and folly on the one side, suspicion and dogged determination on the other, have developed slowly but surely into the state of civil war which humiliates the country to-day. If the government had been represented by gentlemen of courtesy and discrimination, who could appreciate the delicate work of
