I do not know where the information has been derived from that I have given up the last two stages of non-co-operation.  What I have said is that they are a distant goal.  I abide by it.  I admit that all the stages are fraught with some danger, but the last two are fraught with the greatest—­the last most of all.  The stages have been fixed with a view to running the least possible risk.  The last two stages will not be taken up unless the committee has attained sufficient control over the people to warrant the beliefs that the laying down of arms or suspension of taxes will, humanly speaking, be free from an outbreak of violence on the part of the people.  I do entertain the belief that it is possible for the people to attain the discipline necessary for taking the two steps.  When once they realise that violence is totally unnecessary to bend an unwilling government to their will and that the result can be obtained with certainty by dignified non-co-operation, they will cease to think of violence even by way of retaliation.  The fact is that hitherto we have not attempted to take concerted and disciplined action from the masses.  Some day, if we are to become truly a self-governing nation, that attempt has to be made.  The present, in my opinion, is a propitious movement.  Every Indian feels the insult to the Punjab as a personal wrong, every Mussalman resents the wrong done to the Khilafat.  There is therefore a favourable atmosphere for expecting cohesive and restrained movement on the part of the masses.

So far as response is concerned, I agree with the Editor that the quickest and the largest response is to be expected in the matter of suspension of payment of taxes, but as I have said so long as the masses are not educated to appreciate the value of non-violence even whilst their holding are being sold, so long must it be difficult to take up the last stage into any appreciable extent.

I agree too that a sudden withdrawal of the military and the police will be a disaster if we have not acquired the ability to protect ourselves against robbers and thieves.  But I suggest that when we are ready to call out the military and the police on an extensive scale we would find ourselves in a position to defend ourselves.  If the police and the military resign from patriotic motives, I would certainly expect them to perform the same duty as national volunteers, not has hirelings but as willing protectors of the life and liberty of their countrymen.  The movement of non-co-operation is one of automatic adjustment.  If the Government schools are emptied, I would certainly expect national schools to come into being.  If the lawyers as a whole suspended practice, they would devise arbitration courts and the nation will have expeditions and cheaper method of setting private disputes and awarding punishment to the wrong-doer.  I may add that the Khilafat Committee is fully alive to the difficulty of the task and is taking all the necessary steps to meet the contingencies as they arise.