THE METHODS OF BENGALI AGITATION.
[To TIM EDITOR OP Tel " SPECTATOR:1
Sur,—The Bengal Provincial Conference, an appanage of the " Congress," is holding its annual meeting at Berhampore, in the district of Murshidabad. Most of the Bengali leaders have come, and the Conference is composed of some six hundred delegates from the various Bengali-speaking districts. I had intended being present at the Conference to hear the views of the " other side," but, as rumours of considerable dissension reached me, I thought it better to send for a worthy Bengali friend to ascertain whether I should go and when. My friend came to me almost in tears, and in a few words told me that be was ashamed of his people, and that I should gain neither profit nor pleasure at the Conference. He farther confessed to me that the wrangling between the extremists and the moderates had made the entire proceedings a farce; that the stormy petrel who leads the former, Bairn Bepin Chandra Pal, had adopted methods of which his sympathisers in England must indeed be proud. It is a fact that this man Las brought to the Conference no fewer than one hundred and fifty delegates to aid and abet him. The ages of these would-be rulers of India range from thirteen to eighteen ! There are actually among them children under the age of fourteen! It is interesting and amusing to observe the apathy of the artisan and the cultivator to all these so-called Parliamentary proceedings. It is equally interesting to con- trast the peace which reigns in Berhampore, thanks to the tact of the local Magistrate, with what took place last year at Barisal. In fact, the whole business is being very rightly ignored by European and Indian alike. It would indeed have been a revelation of the methods of Bengali agitation, and of the "state of unrest" in Bengal, to certain Members of Parliament had they happened to be present in Berhampore
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