The Press Act of 1910, especially, seems to have really arrested the poisonous flow of printer's ink and with it the worst forms of crime to which it maddened the feverish blood of Bengal.

But some of those who are most intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the revolutionary movement hold strongly that none of these enactments had such an immediately sobering effect as the deportation of the nine prominent Bengalees who were arrested at the end of 1908.

Such a measure is, I know, very repugnant to British traditions and British sentiment, and in this particular instance it unfortunately included two men whose criminal guilt was subsequently believed not to be altogether beyond doubt, though it may well have been argued that by financing and administering a dangerous organization such as the _Anusilan Samiti_ they made themselves responsible for the deeds of its members.
Nevertheless, the deportation struck just at that type of agitator whose influence is most pernicious because it is most subtle, and whose responsibility is greatest because of his more experienced years and greater social position.

Such a measure, however, is only warranted in extreme circumstances and cannot be transformed into indefinite detention.

The grounds on which Government announced the release of these deportees last winter were even more unhappily chosen than the moment for the announcement, but the event seems so far to have justified Lord Minto's confidence, though one of the deported agitators, Pulin Bahari Das, of Dacca, has had to be rearrested and is now under trial at Dacca for conspiracy of a most serious character.