in the rest of the country. So far the Nationalist party was united. The elder people, who had been born and bred and had lived in a different atmosphere, were not in full accord with the younger party and remonstrated with the latter, when they indulged in intemperate language. Some people in other provinces did not quite approve of the whole¬ sale boycott, inaugurated and declared by the Bengalees, but otherwise the nation was united, and the best mind of the nation was rather gratified at the turn things had taken.
Lord Minto. With the advent of Lord Minto (in 1905), however, things began to assume a different shape. The first serious difference in the Nationalist party occurred over the presidentship of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 1906, but an actual split was avoided by a clever and diplomatic move of the leaders of the new moderate party, who obtained the consent of Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji[1] to accept the presidentship, if offered to him. The Congress session of 1906 was rather an uproarious session, but eventually the spirit of compromise and conciliation prevailed and the so-called extremists practically gained all their points so far as the principle of them was concerned.
But it was clear, even to a superficial observer, that a split was inevitable; Lord Minto had succeeded Lord Curzon as Viceroy, and a visible change was coming in the policy of the Government. Lord Curzon was for a policy of repression; Minto
- ↑ A leader universally respected and loved by all classes of people throughout India. See frontispiece.
