“Many prominent Marwari[72] Firms have been absolutely ruined and a number of the biggest European import houses have had either to close down their piece goods branch or to put up with a very small business, where they previously had a large one. As for stocks in warehouses, they tend to grow larger, as Marwari and Indian buyers who had given forward orders, now state that they can not afford to take delivery. These facts are now so well known that it is idle to attempt to hide them. Indeed the time has come when all injuries inflicted on trade by boycott should be made fully known. There is no question of encouraging the boycotters, as they need no encouragement. But there is the question of thoroughly awakening the public at home and the Government of India to the fact that in boycott the enemies of the Ráj have found a most effective weapon for injuring British interests in the country.” The triumph of the boycotters was testified to by the following remarks of _The Englishman_, with which the article ended: “The question however is, what is the Government going to do about it? _Boycott must not be acquiesced in, or it will more surely ruin British connection with India than an armed revolution._” [The italics are ours.] _Government’s Reply._ In reply to this move on the part of the Bengalee leaders,--a move in which all Bengal was united, including the present moderates,--the Government started a crusade against the students whom the boycotters had enlisted in their service. The bureaucracy thought that the more active part of the propaganda was carried on by them. According to Mr. B. C. Pal, “the success of the boycott, especially in the earlier stages before the sentiment had time to settle down into the conscience and consciousness of the people, depended almost entirely upon picketing.” Mr. Pal assures us that “their method was uniformly intellectual and moral,” and that “there was no intimidation, no violence, no appeal to physical fear, none of the things that characterise picketing among the robuster people of the West.” The British, of course, do not accept this statement as true. But whatever its nature, the Government did not like picketing. They thought they could not stand by and let a movement of that kind gain strength. “Their first move was to make it penal for the young student population to participate in any way in the nationalist activities. Students who attended public meetings were threatened with various punishments to the extent even of expulsion from school, college, or university.”