The superiority of the Punjab, on which Sir Michael O'Dwyer so
vehemently insisted the other day, is an artificial superiority, created
by the British system and policy; and the poor recruitment elsewhere, on
which he laid offensive insistence, is due to the same system and
policy, which largely eliminated Bengalis, Madrasis and Mahrattas from
the army. In Bengal, however, the martial type has been revived, chiefly
in consequence of what the Bengalis felt to be the intolerable insult of
the high-handed Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon.

On this Gopal Krishna Gokhale said:

Bengal's heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and
uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all
India.... All India owes a deep debt of gratitude to Bengal.

The spirit evoked showed itself in the youth of Bengal by a practical
revolt, led by the elders, while it was confined to Swadeshi and
Boycott, and rushing on, when it broke away from their authority, into
conspiracy, assassination and dacoity: as had happened in similar
revolts with Young Italy, in the days of Mazzini, and with Young Russia
in the days of Stepniak and Kropotkin. The results of their despair,
necessarily met by the halter and penal servitude, had to be faced by
Lord Hardinge and Lord Carmichael during the present War. Other results,
happy instead of disastrous in their nature, was the development of grit
and endurance of a high character, shown in the courage of the Bengal
lads in the serious floods that have laid parts of the Province deep
under water, and in their compassion and self-sacrifice in the relief of
famine. Their services in the present War--the Ambulance Corps and the
replacement of its _materiel_ when the ship carrying it sank, with the