But the qualities shown by the Assembly transcended mere matters of form. Mr. Whyte bore testimony at the close of the session to debates "well worthy to stand by the side of the best debates in the Imperial Parliament." It was no empty compliment, for they revealed the makings of real statesmanship, and the circumstances in which the Indian Legislature met for the first time to give collective expression to the feelings of the people of India, called for statesmanship. The King-Emperor's message impressed them with a sense of the great responsibilities and great opportunities arising for them out of the far-reaching rights conferred upon them. The personal appeal with which the Duke of Connaught accompanied the delivery of the Royal message went far to dispel "the shadow of Amritsar," which had, in his own apt phrase, "lengthened over the face of India" and threatened even to darken their own path. For on no subject had Indian feeling been more unanimous during the elections all over the country than in regard to the Punjab tragedy. None had been more persistently exploited by the "Non-co-operationists" to point their jibes at the "slave-mentality" of candidates and electors who were merely the willing dupes of a "Satanic" Government. On no subject did the Assembly feel itself under a greater obligation to give expression to the unanimous sentiments of the people it represented--all the greater indeed in that opportunity of expression had been denied to the old Legislative Council. It was the acid test to which the sincerity and the whole value of the reforms were put. The atmosphere of the Assembly was never again so tense as when the crucial debate was opened by one of the ablest of the younger members of the Moderate party, Mr. Jamnadas Dwarkadas, from Bombay, on the administration of martial law in the Punjab in 1919. He asked the Government (1) to declare its adhesion to the principle of equal partnership for Indian and European in the British Empire; (2) to express regret that martial law in the Punjab violated this fundamental principle; (3) to administer deterrent punishment to officers guilty of an improper exercise of their powers including the withdrawal of their pensions; (4) to assure itself that adequate compensation is awarded to those who lost their relatives at the Jallianwala Bagh and elsewhere. The speaker moved his Resolution with great firmness and power but also with great self-restraint. Most of the Indian speeches in support of it were conceived in much the same spirit, though now and again one got a glimpse of angrier passions just beneath the surface. Happily the Government of India responded for the first time with the frankness and generosity which, had it displayed them in a much earlier stage in its handling of the Punjab troubles, would have averted many of the worst consequences. By reprobating, either implicitly or explicitly, the worst abuses of martial law the Home member, Sir William Vincent, the