War Cabinet refused to allow the Deputation to sail at the last moment. In vain did Mr. Tilak appeal. Evidently the reactionary element in the Cabinet was powerful and Mr. Tilak had to rest content with a cable to the Premier suggesting that India could supply five to ten millions of men, if our youths were made to feel that they were not fighting to establish a principle abroad which was not applied to them in own motherland.
At the Delhi War Conference (April 1918) Mr. Tilak was not even invited ; at the Bombay War Conference (June 1918), though invited and asked to speak he was not allowed to continue, but had to stop after speaking only for a couple of minutes. Mr. Tilak wanted to show how recruiting could be made popular ; but as the Government had their own ideas in the matter, the Home Rulers were invited to the Conference only to hear an ill-advised homily delivered to them by His Excellency the Governor (Lord WiUingdon).
It will be thus seen that Mr. Tilak strenuously attempted to help the Government in their hour of need and trial; but his well-meant efforts met only with fail- ure and even rebuffs. But the irony of it all was that though Mr. Tilak had made attempts, which the blundering Bureaucracy frustrated, to encourager recruiting he was (August 1918) served with an order prohibiting him from lecturing without the previous permission of the District Magistrate ; and what was the reason ? Mr. Tilak, presiding at the annual Shivaji Festival {22nd June 1918) spoke in a way " calculated to dis- courage recruiting." Only a week before, Mr. Tilak had.
