“But that ideal also,” he went on, “is far ahead of us—perhaps generations ahead. What we aim at doing now is to bring pressure on the bureaucracy; to make it feel that all is not well. Of late the attitude of our British officials has greatly changed for the worse. They no longer speak of educating us up to freedom, as the great Englishmen like Elphinstone did in the past. They appear to agree with the _Times_ that our education in subjects like English history must be checked, because it is dangerous for ‘natives’ to learn anything about freedom. Your present statesmen seem to take the old Roman Empire as their ideal, and even in that they follow the modern school of Oxford historians, who trace the fall of the Empire to the concession of citizenship to the provinces. “I know the worst that you can say about the Russian bureaucracy; but even that bureaucracy does, according to its lights, seek to maintain the honour and prosperity of Russia, because Russia is its own country. Our bureaucracy administers a country not its own for the sake of a country far away, entirely different in character and interests. Our bureaucracy is despotic, alien, and absentee.” Mr. Tilak then referred to the well-known complaints brought against our Administration by nearly all students of Indian economics—the “drain” of some £30,000,000 to £35,000,000 a year to England in the shape of various payments from an impoverished country; the ruin of Indian trades and manufactures, first by duties against her exports, and now by customs dues within her own borders, deliberately imposed for the advantage of British, Austrian, and American firms; the reduction of very nearly the whole population to a subsistence on a starving agriculture; and the unexplained increase of malaria, famine, and plague. “The immediate question for us,” he continued, “is how we are to bring pressure on this bureaucracy, in which we have no effective representation, but are debarred from all except subordinate positions. It is only in our answer to that question that we differ from the so-called Moderates. They still hope to influence public opinion in England by sending deputations, supporting a newspaper, and pleading the justice of our cause. Both parties, of course, have long ago given up all hope of influencing Anglo-Indian opinion out here. But even in England we find most people ignorant and indifferent about India, and the influence of retired Anglo-Indians at home is perpetually against us. When Lord Cromer said the other day that India must be no party question, he meant that Liberals should support the bureaucracy as blindly as Tories. The history of the last year has proved to us how unexceptionably they fulfil that duty. “Under these disappointments we Extremists have determined on other methods. It is a matter of temperament, and the younger men are with us. Our motto is ‘Self-reliance, not Mendicancy.’