How can I ask you who have perhaps never left your country except for
some pleasant trips on the Continent, to put yourself in my position, if
possible, for a moment only, and imagine how I long to kiss the soil,
with which are mixed the bones of my mother and other forbears; how I
miss the loving embrace of my beloved father, the sweet, expectant,
imploring eyes of my widowed daughter, the devoted look of my wife and
the kindly affectionate hand-shake of good and devoted friends. Nor can
you realize how an Indian loves his country. How can you, of dark,
sombre, fog ridden and misty climes, who are born of a chill atmosphere,
of treacherously changing weather, who count hours of sunshine and
months of darkness and fog and rain and snow and sleet, enter into the
feelings of one whose country is a perpetual sunshine, and where
universal light reigns--a country where weather is neither treacherous
nor continually and rapidly changing, where beautiful dawns, starry
nights, moonlit fields, resplendent waters, snow-clad hills and joyous
rivers constantly and unremittingly fill one's mind with the sublimity,
grandeur and beauty of nature; where one needs no stimulants to make him
feel lighter and happier. An Indian needs no alcohol to forget his
troubles. He has only to go to the Himalaya, or to the banks of Ganga,
Brahmputra, Sindh or their numerous tributaries by which the land is
blessed and fertilized. Oh, no! It is impossible for you to understand
how passionately an Indian loves his country. He would rather starve in
India than be a ruler of men in a foreign climate. For him, India is the
land of Gods--the _Deva Bhumi_ of his forefathers. It is the land of
knowledge, of faith, of beatitude--the _Gnan Bhumi_, the _Dharma Bhumi_
and the _Punni-Bhumi_ of the ancient Aryas. It is the land of the Vedas
and of the heroes--the _Veda Bhumi_ and the _Vir Bhumi_ of his
ancestors. Yes, to him, it is the land of lands, the only place where he
wishes to live, and more so, where he wishes to die. For a Hindu to die
anywhere but in India, is as if he had been damned to hell. He shudders
at the idea. To him, it is unthinkable. You may call it foolish,
unpractical, sentimental and unprogressive; but there it is--a mighty
fact of life into which no foreigner can penetrate.
Every Englishman loves his country, its darkness, its fog, its sleet and
rain nothwithstanding. Who does not love his country and who does not
say:
Home, kindred, friends and country--these
Are ties with which we never part;
From clime to clime, o'er land and seas,
We bear them in our heart;
But, oh! 'tis hard to feel resigned,
When they must all be left behind!
--J. MONTGOMERY.
If then, an Indian decides to be an exile, voluntarily and maybe for
life, he only does so either under a grave sense of duty or of danger.
The duty lies in speaking _the truth_ about political conditions in
India and the danger in being effectively prevented from doing so if he
remains there. No Indian can speak the _whole truth_ while in India. The
criminal laws of your Government--your Penal and Criminal Codes,
Seditious Meetings and Conspiracy Acts, and Press Laws, your tribunals
presided over by your own people unaided by jurors--effectively gag his
mouth.
All honor to those who, though they cannot speak the whole truth, yet
keep the fire burning in India and do as much as considerations of
policy and expediency permit. If they do not speak the _whole truth_,
they have at least the consolation of being at home, in the heart of
their family and surrounded by their dear ones. For a political exile,
however, there is nothing else to do, unless he has to carry on a fight
for his living also, in which case he will divide his time between the
two, that of earning bread and crying for justice for his country.
Happily I have been comparatively free from much anxiety about the
first. The only justification for my condition of exile, then, is that I
continue to speak the truth about conditions in India and draw the
attention of the world to them.
But an additional reason has just been furnished to me by the morning
papers of March 15, 1917. It is said that your agents in India have
decided to raise a war loan of $500,000,000, equivalent to 1,500,000,000
Rupees of Indian money, and also, to make the floating of the loan easy,
your Government has agreed to increase the duty on cotton imports by 4%
_ad valorem_. This war loan, it is added, would be a "_free gift_" of
India to Great Britain! A free gift of $500,000,000 by starving,
poverty-stricken India, to rich, wealthy, mighty Great Britain! Could
anything be more astounding, more absurd and more tyrannical. The news
has stunned me. I know that David Lloyd George, the British war-lord of
1917, is not the same person who was the radical Chancellor of Exchequer
in the Liberal Government from 1908 to 1914, and who did magnificent
service to the British workingman by reducing his burdens and
alleviating his condition. I have been told that the said David Lloyd
George is dead and you, sir, are an entirely different person. The Lloyd
George of 1914 could not possibly have done the thing which you, sir, in
alliance with Curzons and Milners have just accomplished. The newspapers
say you are the same person; only you have changed. If so, the change is
not of opinion but of personality. Evidently the soul of the original
David Lloyd George has left the body to make room for an altogether
different soul. We Indians believe in the possibility of such a
metamorphosis taking place even in the lifetime of the same body! The
best part of the joke, however, in connection with the L100,000,000
transaction lies in the fact that you call it _a gift by India_--_a gift
indeed_. A gift like those given by Belgium to Germany. Is it not so,
Mr. George? You are a shrewd person, very well educated, clever in
diplomacy, well versed in tricks of speech and a master in statecraft;
but even you ought to know that this trick will not deceive any one--not
even the Indians who have been so often deceived by your predecessors in
business. By way of adding insult to injury, you profess to do "_an act
of justice_" to India by consenting to an increase of 4% on the duty
leviable on imports of cotton goods. You say it is necessary for the
success of the war loan of $500,000,000; but do you think that the
Indians are so devoid of knowledge of the ordinary rules of arithmetic
as not to understand what this "hitting below the belt" means to them?
Your additional duty would but bring only $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to
the Indian exchequer, if the imports of cotton do not undergo a
decrease. Your Government in India estimates it at L1,000,000 sterling.
The interest at 5-1/2% amounts to $27,500,000. Your Government in India
estimates an annual charge of L6,000,000 sterling. Where is the balance
to come from except from the famished Indian _ryot_? Is that how you
show your love for democracy, for the people at large, for the
workingman? Your representatives in India and outside, are proclaiming
to the world that India is the most lightly taxed country in the world,
withholding the fact that the average income of an Indian is only L2 a
year, of which he pays 7 shillings toward taxes. That was before the new
taxes were imposed.
Your publicists circulate another lie, viz., that India pays no tribute,
while they know that from 20 to 40 millions sterling are remitted to
England every year, out of which only a portion represents interest on
loans made to India for the building of railways which your countrymen
have used in developing their trade, and the remainder is the profit you
make out of India. Then you cite the figures of trade in support of your
theory that India is prosperous under British rule, but you forget that
that trade benefits your country more than it benefits India, if at all.
We send you food and raw materials at cheapest prices, making ourselves
liable to "famines." You pay us in articles of luxury, of flimsy value,
at the highest prices. The balance of trade is always in your favor. We
toil and sweat, and your countrymen enjoy the profit. All the paying
industries, railways, tea, jute, half of the cotton industry, etc., are
in the hands of your countrymen. Theirs are the insurance companies,
banks, railways and ships that profit by their trade. The railway rates
discriminate against native industries and internal trade. Your
countrymen get the plum-pudding, while our people cannot have even two
meals of the coarsest food every day. When there is famine, millions
die. Of late, your "scientific" methods of famine relief have succeeded
in controlling mortality figures in famine days. The method by which you
do this is genuinely scientific. Most of the deaths are charged to
epidemics and disease; no one notices, however, that the havoc caused by
disease is due to lack of nourishment and consequent low vitality.
God-fearing Englishmen have cried themselves hoarse over the situation.
The misery of the Indian masses has been pictured by their powerful pens
in pathetic and soul-stirring words, but you and your colleagues still
continue to ignore what they have said. New methods are every day being
invented to exploit us. New departments with fat salaries for Englishmen
are being multiplied. The public debt is being piled up. While hundreds
of millions are spent on railways, nothing has been done to develop
local industries. The country is suffering from lack of capital (cash
and credit). (See Sir D. M. Hamilton's article in the _Calcutta Review_
for July, 1916.) Every honest inquirer who makes inquiries on the spot
and does not depend on the reports of your officials, finds and reports
that the condition of the masses is the most pitiable (see the article
by Mr. Manohar Lal in the _Allahabad Economic Journal_ for April, 1916,
and also the paper by Mr. Patro, of Madras, read in a meeting presided
over by the Governor of Madras). For the latest British testimony on the
point, see an article on Indian Industrial Development by Mr. Moreland,
C.S.I., C.I.E., in the _Quarterly Review_ for April, 1917, in the course
of which he remarks: "It is a matter of common knowledge that the
standard of life in India is undesirably low; that while the masses of
the people are provided with the bare necessities of life of a bare
existence [Are they?--L. R.] they are in far too many cases badly housed
and badly clothed, badly doctored and badly taught, often overworked and
often underfed; and that the present income, even if it were equitably
distributed, would not suffice to provide the population with even the
most indispensable elements of a reasonable life."
A careful study of the Reports on Prices and Wages discloses that the
real living wage in the case of the vast bulk of agricultural laborers
has considerably diminished, and this in spite of the absurd conclusion
of the Prices Commission appointed by your Government a few years ago.
No one knows better than you, Mr. David Lloyd George, that big buildings
in cities, mostly owned by foreign capitalists exploiting the country;
big trade carried on by foreign exporters and importers; railway mileage
and receipts of Government revenue do not mean prosperity. Even the
importation of treasure secured by capitalists in payment for exports
does not indicate better conditions of the masses. If the masses are so
prosperous, as your officers say, why cannot you tax the people for
purposes of education and sanitation? Why is the death rate so high
(over 30 per thousand)? Why can't you force the local bodies to spend
money on education and sanitation? Why do your finance ministers say
that there is no room for further taxes? Most of your agents in India
know the real condition of the people but they have to conceal it from
the British public as well as the world, as that enables them and their
kin to continue in the enjoyment of that power which means so much to
them.
In reply, you might well ask, why then is India loyal? Why do the people
put up with all this? Why don't they rebel? Because they have been
emasculated, and emasculated so completely, that they are absolutely
helpless against your organized brigandage. They are weak, ignorant and
incompetent. Sixty-four years ago they were not so helpless. But now
they are completely demoralized and penniless. Your system has ground
them into dust. They cannot even protect themselves from wild beasts.
You have completely disarmed them. No Indian can possess a firearm
except under a license from your magistrates, which is only rarely
granted. You have completely hypnotized them by your professions of
disinterested liberalism and altruism. The truth has, after all, dawned
on them that you are the worst harpies they ever have had and if they
could they would overthrow you without a scruple. You know that you are
safe in their helplessness. When the war came they deluded themselves
with the hope that in your hour of need you might accord them a better
treatment, but by this time they have found their mistake and have
concluded that, just as a lion may die of sheer exhaustion when attacked
by an enemy rather than willingly loosen his grip on his prey so long as
there is breath in his body, so a nation holding another in subjection
might endanger her own existence without loosening her grip on her
victim.
When the war broke out in August, 1914, I, with other Indian publicists,
thought that however badly you had treated us in the past we had nothing
to gain by German victory and the best thing, under the circumstances,
was for us to stand by you and establish our claim to better treatment.
The Princes and people of India therefore stood by you. You and your
colleagues have been singing their praises and extolling their loyalty,
but nothing has been done so far to give them even the elementary
political rights of a free people. Verily, we have had a deluge of fine
words but not an iota of deeds. On the other hand, you have imposed
fresh burdens on us. While doing an "act of justice" about the cotton
duties you have committed a wrong which wipes away the little good that
might otherwise have been expected to accrue therefrom. Your courts and
officers in India have taken away what little freedom the people enjoyed
before. In cases of alleged sedition the sentences inflicted have been
quite on a par with the doings of the Romanoffs in Russia. This time
even women have felt your steel.
You knew as well as anyone else does, how the German government has been
trying to win the good will of the Indians. It cannot be denied that the
temptation was alluring. If, then, we have withstood it, it was not
because we were in love with your Government in India, but on different
grounds. Personally, I do not believe that any liberty is worth having
which we cannot win ourselves, because liberty won by the aid of another
places us at the mercy of that other. European diplomacy is so crooked
that it is futile to place faith in the promises of any of them.
I would esteem German friendship as much as British or American or that
of the Japanese or the Chinese; I would gratefully accept any help
anybody would render in educating and fitting our young men for the
coming task, but I would not do anything that would cause useless
bloodshed in India. I am not afraid of blood. Blood will have to be shed
if we are to gain our freedom. I am not afraid of failures and defeats.
Failures and defeats are sometimes the necessary steps to victory. I do
not believe in peace at any price; nor pacificism at any cost. I do not
believe that "they also serve who only stand and wait." I am for a manly
assertion of our rights, even though blood may have to be spilled in
asserting or defending them; yet I would consider it highly improper to
encourage bloodshed where there is not a ghost of a chance of success.
That, in my eyes, is sheer lunacy and I have never made a secret of it.
So I protested against my people attempting to stir up revolt in India,
under the instigation of a foreign government. It was due to my horror
of useless bloodshed. I have no doubt that _agents provocateur_ played
an important part in instigating those whom your courts have found
guilty and sent to the gallows. I believe that the men who have been
sacrificed should have lived and worked for the movement for which they
have died. So that, in a nutshell, gives you my attitude towards foreign
help. Remember, please, sir, that I do not presume to pronounce any
judgment on those who think differently and have acted in the light of
their consciences. I simply state my opinion and my attitude.
This time the movement has failed. It was bound to fail. But the
experience which the Indians engaged in the cause have gained is not
lost. Next time, and who knows, the chance may come at no distant date,
they will profit by the experience thus gained. The world is not in love
with you, sir. There are a dozen peoples in the world who will be glad
to see your downfall and help in bringing it about. They will not
support the Indian Nationalist and the Indian Revolutionist openly, but
they will encourage him in every way they can, without bringing about
diplomatic complications. So the Indian will not be altogether
friendless when the next opportunity to strike comes. By that time the
country also will be better prepared to do something more definite and
more spectacular.
Under the circumstances, the question that I wish to put to you is:
"Would you do nothing to avert it?" It is in your power to act if you
will. The Indians are very easily satisfied. They abhor bloodshed. They
do not like revolution. They will gladly remain in the Empire, if
permitted to do so on terms of self-respect and honor. Their needs are
few. Their life is simple. They care more for spiritual values than for
worldly goods. They envy nobody's property. They have no ambition to
start on a career of exploitation. All they want is to be let to live
and think as they will. At present they are let _to exist_, but not to
live. More than 100 million are insufficiently fed. At least 60 millions
do not get two meals a day. More than 80% of the boys receive no
schooling, and more than 90% of the girls. They work and toil and sweat
primarily in the interests of the British capitalist and secondarily in
the interests of his Indian colleague. The latter only gets the leavings
of the former. The ships, the railways, the leading banking houses, the
big insurance offices, the tea plantations, one-half of the cotton
mills, about all the woollen mills, most of the paper mills, all jute
mills are owned by the former; a few by the latter. The profits of
agriculture are divided between your Government and the big landlords.
The pressure on land has reduced the size of the ryots' holdings, while
the number of mouths requiring food and the number of bodies requiring
clothing has increased.
Your Government encourages drinking, speculating and gambling in a way
never before conceived. If you have any pity in your heart, sir; if you
are a good father and a good husband, I would beseech you to devote but
an hour's time to the wages tables printed by your Government in their
Report on Prices and Wages (1915). I give a few samples below:
In the district of Patna (Behar), the monthly wage of an able-bodied
agricultural laborer in the year 1907 was only R5.62 (say R6) equal to
8s. or $2. In 1873 it was from R3 to R4. Imagine the laborer having a
family of four and then conceive how he manages to live on this wage. In
Fyzabad (Oude) the monthly wage of an able-bodied agricultural laborer
was only R4 (5s. 4d. or $1.33) in 1905, the same as it was in 1873. In
1906 it is given as ranging from R1.87 to R4 a month. From 1873 to 1906
it was never more than R4 a month.
In Cawnpore (U. P.) it was R3.75 in 1873; R3 in 1892; less than 4 in
1896; from 3.44 to R5 in 1898 and from R3.69 to 7 in 1903; at which
figure it practically stayed up to 1906, the last year for which figures
are given in the report.
In Meerut (U. P.) it was R4.33 in 1906 as against R4.5 in 1873.
In Belgaun (Madras) it was R6.25 in 1912.
In Jubbulpore (C. P.) it was R5 in 1908.
In Raipur (C. P.) it was R5 in 1908.
In Bellary (Madras) it was R4.75 in 1907.
In Salem (Madras) it has never exceeded R3.67 since 1873.
The Government postal runners who carry mails at a trotting pace for
several miles a day, often making two trips in 24 hours, are paid the
following salaries in the different provinces of your Indian Empire:
Bengal 1913, R7.75 a month, $2.58
Behar and Orissa " 6.33 " 2.10
United Provinces " 6.25 " 2.08
Panjab and N.W.F " 7.75 " 2.58
Bombay " 7.5 " 2.35
Central Provinces " 7. " 2.33
Madras " 7.11 " 2.40
(The equivalents in dollars are approximate.)
Postmen who are supposed to be literate, received from R10 to R16 a
month (_i. e._, from $3.33 to $5.33 a month) in the different provinces
in 1913.
The scale of wages allowed to unskilled labor in the railway yards of
Mirzapore and Cawnpore (U. P.) is given between R5 to R6 per month
(_i. e._, less than $2.00). These are figures of 1914.
In the canal foundry and workshop at Roorkee (U. P.) the daily wage in
1916 was only 4 annas a day (_i. e._, 8 cents).
In the Cawnpore saddlery establishment, the bullock drivers, the
sweepers and the _Bhishties_ received only R5 and R6 a month (_i. e._,
less than 8s. or $2.00); the lascars from R6 to R7 (_i. e._, $2.00 to
$2.33).
In the woolen mills in Northern India unskilled labor was paid at R8.12
(_i. e._, less than $3.00) a month in 1914. These are the rates allowed
in big cities. For other big cities the rates may, in some cases, be
somewhat better, but in small rural towns and villages, they are
considerably less.
Does the Indian laborer, considering his standard of life, the size of
his family and the requirements of decency, get a living wage? I am sure
that a humane inquirer, not so much interested in the good name of the
Government as in truth, will have no hesitation in answering the
question in the negative. Any increase in wages has to be divided over
the average strength of a family, which will show how disproportionate
the increase in wages is to the increase in prices. In a family of five
with one or two earning hands the increase in wages is two-fold at the
most. While the increase in the cost of living by the increase in prices
is five-fold. Your Official Report writers always ignore this important
consideration. As for the housing conditions in which Indian workmen
live, let me present to you the following testimony from a recent issue
of the _Times of India_, Bombay (quoted in the London _Times_, June,
1917):
"It is no unusual sight to find fifteen or twenty persons, of
both sexes, lying huddled on the floor of a single room in a
stifling atmosphere and a vile stench. A single small window or
an open door gives the only ventilation. Furniture there is
none, beyond a few brass pots and some pegs. The sanitary
arrangements are unspeakable. Every noise and smell that occurs
in the neighborhood penetrates the crazy walls and floor and
disturbs the sleepers. The chawls are often so rickety that it
is a miracle that they do not collapse under their own weight.
They seem to be kept up like a house of cards, by the support of
their scarcely less rickety neighbors."
As for the Indian laborer getting any education or any leisure for art
or for the pursuit of taste, that is out of the question. The condition
of the small farmer or _ryot_ is even worse. Sir, if you are ever
inclined to study the actual conditions of life in India, do not rely
upon the "conclusions" of your officers as embodied in reports. Study
the facts, given in the reports, but disregard the conclusions. If you
seek the aid of an Indian Nationalist he may show you how the reports
are drawn up, and how dates and figures have been selected to suit
conclusions. Having been a lawyer most of your life you are well aware
of the magical properties of special pleading. In the hands of a
skillful apologist, the figures can be made to mean anything. Better
still, if you want to have a glimpse of conditions of life in India,
depute an honest man of the type of Mr. Nevinson to go to Indian
villages unaccompanied by officials, and see the things for himself; or
to the slums in towns. The slums of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Lahore,
Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Benares, will throw the slums of London and
New York far back into the shade. The latter are verily a paradise as
compared with the former. As to the villages, the less said the better.
The point is in fact conceded by all fair-minded English publicists.
The _Manchester Guardian_, only the other day, discussing the recent
increase in the cotton duties, questioned "the wisdom and justice" of
this L100,000,000 exaction from India and admitted that "the loss it
represents to an extremely poor population like that of India is very
much greater than the gain to England." Even the _Morning Post_, that
representative of Jingo Imperialism, recognizes the extreme poverty of
the masses of India. I will not quote the _Nation_ as you do not like
that journal. The moneyed classes of India, the Rajas and Maharajas, the
bankers and mill owners, the industrial corporations that will fill this
loan could not find a more profitable investment. They get 100 per cent.
stock for 95 and besides get from 5 to 5-1/2 per cent. interest, in some
cases free of income tax for thirty years to come. Upon whom will the
burden of interest fall? Neither on the lender nor on the borrower, but
mainly on the ryot and the laborer. Do you know, sir, that the average
price of salt (wholesale) in Lahore, Punjab, had risen from R1-9-7 a
maund in 1912-13 to R2-7-3 in 1916-17? But that in retail sale "the
average price of salt per maund (82 lbs.) had risen from R1-14-0 to
R5-0-0" (_Tribune_, Lahore, March, 1917). The fresh taxation imposed
since the war, which by this loan-cum-gift transaction of 100 million
sterling threatens to become permanent, has raised the prices of the
necessaries of life to an abnormal extent. The wages remain virtually
the same. Your Government which employs large numbers of laboring men in
railways, canals, and otherwise have not considered it necessary to
raise the wages of the workingmen. Will the private employer do
otherwise? I know from personal knowledge how frightfully the poor
Indian clerk is sweated in the offices of your Government in India on a
mere pittance. Can't you feel for the millions of those little ones
whose already scanty, insufficient food is still further reduced by the
fresh taxes imposed by your Government to find means to pay the war
budget and this permanent addition of L6,000,000 a year to their burden?
Don't you know, sir, that in India there are millions of widows (much
more than in any other country) who have to support their little ones by
their own toil and that every penny of additional taxation hits them
hard. The hardships and privations imposed in Europe by the war are
nothing as compared with what the Indian masses have been putting up
with, for the last fifty years or so. The fiscal policy of your
Government has ruined Indian industry. You know it as well as anyone
else. Did you notice the letter of Mr. G. W. Forrest in the London
_Times_ of March 14, 1917, wherein he admitted that "the tale of
England's dealing with Indian industry was one of littleness and
injustice," and that "by positive prohibition and heavy duties the
Indian textile trade in England was destroyed and our own trade was
fostered." You and your colleagues have used grandiloquent rhetoric in
your defense of the increase in the cotton duties in India and over your
concern for India and Indian industries, but you are mistaken if you
think that anyone in India is likely to be taken in by your hypocritical
professions. Pardon me, sir, I mean no insult when I say "hypocritical
professions." The practice is a part of a modern statesman's job. He has
to create a certain atmosphere before he can make his people believe
that what he does is the only correct thing to do.
Your cotton duties, sir, afford no relief to the Indian poor. It would
not have hurt me much, if you had forced or induced the Rajas and the
Maharajas, the bankers and the capitalists to contribute even more than
100 million pounds to the war expenses, as it is they who have grown
fat, if anyone in India has, under the British regime, but to force the
Indian ryot and the Indian wage earner to do it and to continue to pay
for it for years to come out of his scanty daily rations is the climax
of cruelty. Then the unkindest cut of all is that it should come from
you, whom we had associated with feelings of kindness, and pity, for the
poor and the workmen.
Your Government has called it a free and spontaneous gift of the people
of India! If the members of your cabinet, if the Secretary of State for
India, if the Governor General of India and his ministers of the
Executive Council, are the people of India, then truly you are right and
we wrong. If they are not the people of India, as they are not, then it
is a gift by yourself to yourself, of other peoples' money. Again, the
statement that the measure was unanimously approved of by the Indian
members of the council is a _diplomatic lie_. You know that the matter
was settled between your Cabinet as represented by the Secretary of
State for India and the Viceroy's Executive Council (which includes only
one Indian member nominated by you), before it was announced in the
Legislative Council. You know also, sir, and if you don't, you ought to,
that the Indian Legislative Council has no power under the law to make
any changes in the budget. The budget is entirely beyond their purview.
The members can only extol it or criticise it. They can propose
resolutions disapproving of some of its provisions which can amount to
nothing more than pious wishes even if passed. But the official majority
in the Council guarantees the defeat of any hostile resolutions by
non-official members. Re this loan-cum-gift transaction, the
non-official members of the Legislative Council put a seal on their
mouths because they thought it was useless to incur the risk of being
called disloyal for a matter which was reported to them as a _fait
accompli_ and which they could not in any way change or modify; yet two
of them did raise a sort of feeble protest.