He had taken to public politics late, only when the pressure of Government upon the growing national feeling appeared to him dangerous. But the weight of his knowledge, and his influence as one of the representative Indian members on the Viceroy’s Legislative Council brought him quickly into notice, and in the previous December (1906) Calcutta had chosen him Chairman of the Reception Committee for the Congress, to which Dadabhai Naoroji had been brought from England as President to preserve the peace. Like all lawyers, he tended to moderation. He represented the spirit of the Congress as it had been established for more than twenty years—the spirit that had begun by hoping to win even Anglo-Indian consideration for its programme of reform, and, after abandoning that hope, still did not despair of influencing opinion in England, if only petitions and proposals could be heard. His danger was the danger of all students—of all whose life is spent among writings that usually appeal to reason, and not among men, with whom reason plays so small a part. When it comes to action, such students are likely either to distrust themselves, to hesitate between opposite courses, in both of which they perceive advantages, and in hesitation finally to submit their wills to far inferior intellects, out of a kind of awe towards men who have really done something. Or else they may show a childish impatience at disagreement, and suppose they have settled a controversy by ending it, like shutting a book with a bang. I thought the judicial hesitancy rather than impatience would be Dr. Ghose’s temptation, but I was wrong, for he had, in fact, recently displayed a very decisive vigour in joining with Mr. Gokhale in denouncing the Seditious Meetings Bill on the Viceroy’s Council.[50] So amid acclamation they travelled to the Congress—the President-Elect and the other leaders. On Christmas Day Surat was reached at last—a little old town on the west coast, between Baroda and Bombay, where early traders from England, France, Portugal, and Holland had built their “Factories,” soon after Akbar’s death. The crowd round the station was so tightly jammed that it was a long time before any one could leave the train.