The next month was marked by a characteristic description of a simple incident by Calcutta correspondents to the English press. On September 5th MR. SURENDRA NATH BANERJEA, twice President of the National Congress and now editor of the _Bengalee_ newspaper in Calcutta, was honoured by a common Indian ceremony of “benediction” in a private house. It was an affair of an umbrella, a chaplet, garlands, and the recitation of verses from the Vedas. It is almost impossible for even a casual visitor to India to escape a score of very similar performances. Yet the correspondents on whom England chiefly depends for Indian news described this as a solemn CORONATION of Mr. Banerjea as India’s Emperor, as if to rouse the suspicions and rage of the English people into sensational panic. In the spring of 1907, local disturbances occurred in Eastern Bengal and the Punjab. Meetings to protest against the Partition had been continually held in Eastern Bengal, and in the first week of March the Nawab Salimulla of Dacca visited the small town of COMILLA in order to encourage counter-demonstrations on the part of the Mohammedans, over whom he claimed great influence. During his visit small riots took place between Hindu and Mohammedan crowds; a Mohammedan was killed and one or two Hindus. By one means or another, the report was circulated through the country that the Indian Government was favouring the Mohammedan population and would inflict no punishment for the looting of Hindu shops or the abduction of Hindu women, especially widows. Accordingly, shops were looted, Hindu widows abducted, and the cases of outrage upon women by gangs increased in number. In the third week of April further disturbances broke out at JAMALPUR, another small town in Eastern Bengal, where the Hindus, during a festival, were set upon by Mohammedan rowdies, who desecrated a temple and maintained panic in the district for the next few weeks. The troubles that arose in the PUNJAB, about the same time, were largely agricultural in origin. There had been a large increase in the land-assessment, together with a sudden rise in the irrigation rates, especially on the Bari-Doab canal. The Punjab Legislative Council had also brought forward a COLONIZATION BILL altering the agreements by which colonists held reclaimed land, especially in the Chenab Colony, under the Act of 1893. Many relations of these tenants were enlisted in Sikh and other Indian regiments, and ultimately Lord Minto withheld his consent from the Bill. The question of the irrigation dues was also postponed for a year.