Yet other English authorities on Indian affairs asserted that the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals were sound and must be enacted into law if the gravest perils were to be averted. Such were the opinions of men like Lionel Curtis[203] and Sir Valentine Chirol, who stated: "It is of the utmost importance that there should be no unnecessary delay. We have had object-lessons enough as to the danger of procrastination, and in India as elsewhere time is on the side of the troublemakers.... We cannot hope to reconcile Indian Extremism. What we can hope to do is to free from its insidious influence all that is best in Indian public life by opening up a larger field of useful activity."[204] As a matter of fact, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was accepted as the basis of discussion by the British Parliament, and at the close of the year 1919 its recommendations were formally embodied in law. Unfortunately, during the eighteen months which elapsed between the publication of the report and its legal enactment, the situation in India had darkened. Militant unrest had again raised its head, and India was more disturbed than it had been since 1909. For this there were several reasons. In the first place, all those nationalist elements who were dissatisfied with the report began coquetting with the revolutionary irreconcilables and encouraging them to fresh terrorism, perhaps in the hope of stampeding the British Parliament into wider concessions than the report had contemplated. But there were other causes of a more general nature. The year 1918 was a black one for India. The world-wide influenza epidemic hit India particularly hard, millions of persons being carried off by the grim plague. Furthermore, India was cursed with drought, the crops failed, and the spectre of famine stalked through the land. The year 1919 saw an even worse drought, involving an almost record famine. By the late summer it was estimated that millions of persons had died of hunger, with millions more on the verge of starvation. And on top of all came an Afghan war, throwing the north-west border into tumult and further unsettling the already restless Mohammedan element.