We are on the eve of Mahatma Gandhi undertaking an important part of his programme by starting Civil Disobedience in a district in Surat. It is very difficult to offer any useful comment on this undertaking because beyond the general lines, his programme in its detail is not yet before the Country. We can only hope that the resistance to law will not be so undertaken as to be widely interpreted as a sort of charter for general lawlessness. That would be a catastrophe for which the country is not prepared. This seems also to be Mr. Gandhi's opinion, for he has very prudently circumscribed the practice of the resistance with very severe restrictions, involving a moral and economic preparation. To disobey specific orders of Government or their officials, which have no moral sanction behind them or are illegal in their inception, is a comparatively easy matter, fraught with no far-reaching harm to the community. The disobedience, in such a case commands the moral approval of the civilised community, and ends only by affecting the prestige of the promulgator of the order. But when a campaign is undertaken involving a wholesale and general defiance of order and authority, forces may arise, which, in the hands of inexperienced and enthusiastic associates or partisans, may reach extreme limits, involving the community in chaos, disorder and possibly violence. The country has had only a year's training in his (Mr. Gandhi) counsels of non-violent resistance--far too short a period for his countrymen to imbibe his spirit, in a manner worthy of his teaching. May we, therefore, hope that in launching on this undertaking he will seriously consider this aspect of the case? We shall of course, watch his experiment but with concern and solicitude, feeling secure in the hope, created by his magnificent personality, that in his hands the destinies of the country are perfectly safe. APPENDIX VII Extracts from the speech delivered by His Excellency Sir Harcourt Butler, Governor of the U. P. of Agra & Oudh, at the opening of the U. P. Legislative Council, _Lucknow, 22nd January, 1921_ Mr. President and Members of the Legislative Council, "Great efforts have been made to draw away young men from schools and colleges and to induce professional men to give up their careers. Great efforts have been made to prevent voters from going to the polls. But these efforts have met with little success. The elections have undoubtedly given the province a really representative legislative council. The chief opponents of the reforms have shown by word and act that their aim is not the ordered development of political institutions in India but the expulsions of Western civilization from India--a course involving the reversion to the condition of disorder, lawlessness and internecine strife such as prevailed in the unsettled times before the advent of British rule."