Mr. Gandhi told newspaper correspondents that the Government were making
a great mistake if they thought that the manufacture of salt and the boycott of foreign cloth and of liquor were temporary political arguments. Indian Nationalists intended that these things should last permanently. " I am hungering for peace if it can be had with honour," he said, " but even if I stood alone I could not be a party to any peace which does not satisfactorily solve those three questions." That is a discouraging answer to the Viceroy's advances. It is a bad business dealing with a leader who is at the mercy of a mania. Fortunately Mr. Gandhi, though extremely important, is not all-important. If enough Nationalists take the sensible view that India has now a glorious opportunity of constructing her freedom with the benevolent co-operation of Great Britain, the Congress Party may begin -to disintegrate. We should then see the steady growth in strength of those who stand for a rational evolution.
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