Mr. Gopal Krishna Gokhale is one of the very few Indians whose name is known in England to a certain number of people outside the score or two that pay attention to Indian affairs. Born a Mahratta Brahman of the highest caste and of ordinary poverty in the small town of Kolhapur, he threw away the caste and retained the poverty. While a student at the Elphinstone College in Bombay, he came under the influence of Justice Ranade, also a Mahratta Brahman and judge of the High Court, famous already for social reform, and at that time combining with others to establish the National Congress, which held its first meeting in 1885. Mr. Gokhale had taken his degree the year before. Lord Ripon had just left the country, honoured and regretted among Indians as no other Viceroy has been, and the air was full of schemes for political emancipation under the favour and encouragement of British statesmen. Among the reformers of that time, when all were moderate, Ranade was distinguished for moderation, and when Mr. Gokhale in his student days chose him as his “guru,” or spiritual guide, he fixed for life his own characteristics of moderation, and a certain sweet reasonableness, not only of manner, but of aim. [Illustration: MR. GOKHALE AND SERVANTS OF INDIA. [_Face p. 34._ ] It is common to say of a dead politician that he was devoted heart and soul to the service of his country, and, happily, it is sometimes true, even though that devoted service has been crowned by honours, fame, and riches. But of Mr. Gokhale who is still alive, I would say that for every day of his manhood he has had no motive but his country’s service, from the day of his appointment on a salary of £60 a year as teacher of history and economics at the Fergusson College in Poona up to his retirement in 1902 on a pension of £20 a year, and onward through the last six years of labour, vilification, and heated controversy. Not a great speaker, and making no attempt at emotional eloquence at a time when oratory counted for much more in India than it does now—a man who has never even contemplated any popular arts except his own inevitable politeness, he has won his influence upon his country’s future simply by unreserved devotion and integrity of life. At a moment of intense excitement during the plague riots in Poona, when Mr. Rand and Lieut. Ayerst were shot by Damodar Chapekar and his brothers as they drove into the city from Government House (June 22, 1897), he, being then in England, published charges against the method of plague-observation by British soldiers, which on his return he discovered were not supported by the promised evidence, and he offered an open apology to Lord Sandhurst and the Army. Amidst an infuriated public opinion, which believed the charges to be not only true, but below the truth, few could have lived down such a retractation. But Mr. Gokhale lived it down.