“You can at times,” he wrote, “successfully appeal to the humanity and benevolence of individuals, but to hope for justice and benevolence from a nation is hoping against hope. The rule of a foreign democracy is, in this respect the most dangerous. The democracy is swayed by so many diverse interests that it is impossible to expect anything like unanimity or even a preponderance of opinion in dealing justly with a subject race, because justice to a subject race often clashes with the interest of some class of the ruling democracy. Whenever an attempt is made to do justice to the subject race, that class rises up, raises a storm, and prevents the Government from doing the right thing. Look at the history of the cotton duties in India, and every one will see the truth of this. How many times has the Government of India been overruled in the matter, simply because the Home Government cannot afford to risk the opposition of Lancashire and incur its displeasure!”[65] He returned to India convinced that the political as well as the social salvation of the country rested only with the Indian peoples themselves. As to means, he looked to anything that would promote political knowledge, courage, and self-reliance. At one time he seems to have contemplated a kind of Teaching Order, something like Mr. Gokhale’s “Servants of India.” “Where are the political thinkers of the country,” he cried, “whose sole thought by day and night, sleeping or waking, would be how to initiate and carry on the struggle for freedom? Where are the political Sanyasis (wandering friars) whose sole work in life would be the preaching of the gospel of freedom? Were are the Vaishyas of the movement who will make money only for the struggle: who will live poorly and modestly and save every farthing for the sacred cause?... Where are the people who will raise agitation for political rights and liberty to the dignity of a Church and will live and die for the same?”[66] He believed that the only way to win the consideration of England for reforms was to prove the determination and self-reliance of the Indians themselves. “The British are not a spiritual people,” he said. “They are either a fighting race or a commercial nation. It would be throwing pearls before swine to appeal to them in the name of the higher morality or justice or on ethical grounds. They are a self-reliant, haughty people, who can appreciate self-respect and self-reliance even in their opponents.”[67] In a yielding disposition, a false prudence, a distrust of enthusiasm and energy, he found the real dangers of the Indian temperament.