His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught yesterday performed the most important of the functions which comprised his mission and nothing brings out the true character of that mission more clearly than the message that he conveyed to the members of the Legislative Assembly from His Majesty the King-Emperor as well as the speech in which he amplified that message. We have time and again insisted that the object of the mission was the apotheosis of the Reforms and if tireless beating of the big drum could be accepted in evidence of accomplishment then has the Duke’s mission achieved its purpose. The people of India, outside that circle with whom Dukes and especially Royal Dukes are ipso facto on the righteous side, will view with a boredom not unmixed with amusement this last supreme effort in that gentle art of window-dressing which has attained such a tremendous development since the advent of a Premier and a Secretary of State who have been quick to realise the value of advertisement in politics. They know what the Reforms are worth and how far short they fail of what they consider their due and they refuse to be bamboozled into translating the magnificence of the bringer of the gift into the gift itself.
