But of all material grievances—of all grievances other than the central crime of cutting a nationality in half—I think the Eastern Bengalis most fear their threatened separation from the Calcutta High Court. It is true that the blow has not yet fallen, but it is almost certain to fall, and the Government has refused to give any pledge against it. When I consulted Sir Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, upon this subject, he very kindly referred me to Sir Herbert Risley’s answer to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, which had from the first petitioned against the change.[40] In Sir Andrew Fraser’s opinion, “Lord Curzon’s Government there placed clearly on record their view that nothing less than a High Court could ever be established in the new province,” but he appears to me to have misread the document. In the main sections of his reply, Sir Herbert Risley carefully guards the Government three times over from making any guarantee as to the future. He states it as the Government’s opinion:— “That it is most unlikely that in the event of the existing judicial machinery being found inadequate for the service of the two provinces and of public opinion then demanding the establishment of a Chartered High Court, any tribunal occupying a position of less authority and influence would either be proposed by the Government of India or sanctioned by the Secretary of State.” But he refuses to bind the future Government either to maintain the present connection between Eastern Bengal and the Calcutta High Court, or to establish a new High Court at Dacca in its place. The fear of the Eastern Bengalis is that in place of a High Court, which is regarded throughout India as the embodiment of true British justice uncontaminated by Anglo-Indian prejudice and tradition, they may be put off with a Chief Court, in which the judges have been trained under the distorting influence of that prejudice and tradition. It is hard for us, accustomed to regard all our Courts as fairly equal in the dispensation of justice, to realize what that difference implies to Indians. But it is exactly parallel to the difference they recognize between most Anglo-Indians and the Englishman straight from home. FOOTNOTES: [36] See Introduction, p. 10 ff, and for the history of Eastern Bengal see Mr. Bradley Birt’s “Romance of an Eastern Capital,” _i.e._ Dacca. [37] See Introduction, p. 12. [38] See Introduction, p. 7 ff. [39] Sir Harvey Adamson’s speech at St. Andrew’s Dinner in Calcutta, 1907. [40] Proceedings of the Home Department, Simla, October 2, 1905. CHAPTER X SWADESHI AND THE VOLUNTEERS