NATIONAL CONGRESS.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 765, 30 December 1908, Page 2

NATIONAL CONGRESS.

AN IMPORTANT GATHERING IN INDIA. "DEEPLY GRATEFUL." [BT ELECTBIO TELEGBAPB — uOtYRI9HT.j {.PEB PBESB ASSOCIATION.] Calcutta, December 29. The Indian National Congress has opened in Madras. Dis, Ghose, who was elected President, declared that the whole of India was deeply grateful to the efforts of Viscount Morley, secretary for India, who gave the oountry something like a constitutional Government. The Indians should now show themselves deserving of Britain's confidence. A colonial self-govern-ment was India's ideal, though it was very far distant. Dr. Ghose hoped that the repressive legislation would only be temporary, and he ridiculed the idea of shaking Britain's sovereignity by the exploding of a few flasks of picric acid and a few pounds of powder. The Mohammedan papers consider the reforms tantamount to political abandonment of the Mahommedans and favour the Hindus. The papers also condemn Viscount Morley' s action in disregarding the Earl of Minto's efforts to safeguard the Maihommedans.