What is forgotten in England by the uncompromising champions of the freedom of the Press is that in a country like ours, with its party system fully represented in the public Press, even the newspapers which either party may consider most mischievous find their corrective in the newspapers of the other party.
In India that is not the case.

There is no healthy play of public opinion.

The classes whose confidence in the British _Raj_ is still unshaken are practically unrepresented in the Press, which is mostly in the hands of the intellectuals, of whom the majority are drifting into increasing estrangement, while the minority are generally too timid to try to stem the flowing tide.

Nor, if the "moderates" in Bengal were overawed by the violence of the new creed, can the whole blame be laid upon their shoulders when one remembers how little was being done by Government, and how ineffective that little was to check this incendiarism.

Though there were many Press prosecutions, and action was repeatedly taken against the _Yugantar_ in respect of particular articles, the limited powers possessed by Government were totally inadequate, and it was not till the Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act was passed in June, 1908, that the _Yugantar_ was suppressed.