_Military Measures against Boycotters._ After consultation with Lord Curzon, he resolved to use force. The first step taken was the despatch of a hundred Gurkha troops to Barisal, followed by a demand for the withdrawal of a circular issued by the local leaders advising the people of the legality of a peaceful boycott of British goods. It was evident that a refusal meant a physical conflict, which the leaders were yet anxious to avoid. So the leaders decided to withdraw and the governor was mollified. The Gurkhas are said to have committed numerous outrages on the people, but the leaders kept the latter under control, as they did not want the Government to get a handle to crush the movement by force. In April, 1906, the Provincial Conference, which was attended by the most prominent leaders of the two Bengals, was broken up by order of the Magistrate “almost at the point of the bayonet.” A procession of some 800 or 900 delegates from the different districts of the two provinces, “including almost every prominent leader in the country, was dispersed by the police, who made a free use of their quarterstaffs and broke more than one head under the very eyes of the District Superintendent of Police.” The people, however, did not retaliate. So far, they were determined not to use force even against force. With every display of force on the side of the Government, the nationalist movement gained ground in popularity and in strength, until the masses, the women and children, all were saturated with it. This was the birth of a new life in Bengal, which found its reflection in every phase of public activity, religious, social, economic, educational, or political. What was done in Bengal found its echo in the rest of the country. So far the Nationalist party was united. The elder people, who had been born and bred and had lived in a different atmosphere, were not in full accord with the younger party and remonstrated with the latter, when they indulged in intemperate language. Some people in other provinces did not quite approve of the wholesale boycott, inaugurated and declared by the Bengalees, but otherwise the nation was united, and the best mind of the nation was rather gratified at the turn things had taken. _Lord Minto._ With the advent of Lord Minto (in 1905), however, things began to assume a different shape. The first serious difference in the Nationalist party occurred over the presidentship of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 1906, but an actual split was avoided by a clever and diplomatic move of the leaders of the new moderate party, who obtained the consent of Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji[76] to accept the presidentship, if offered to him. The Congress session of 1906 was rather an uproarious session, but eventually the spirit of compromise and conciliation prevailed and the so-called extremists practically gained all their points so far as the principle of them was concerned.