HC Deb 17 March 1910 vol 15 c510
Mr. O'GRADY

asked the Under Secretary of State for India whether Lala Lal Chand, of Lahore, has been convicted and sentenced to a long term of rigorous imprisonment for selling Hindustani translations of Mr. William Jennings Bryan's pamphlet on "British Rule in India" and of two chapters from Professor Seeley's "Expansion of England "?

Mr. MONTAGU

Lala Lal Chand and a number of other persons were prosecuted under the orders of the Punjab Government for carrying on an agency for the production and dissemination of seditious literature. Among the publications of this agency was a garbled translation of Mr. Bryan's "British Rule in India," containing alterations and interpolations. The Secretary of State has no information regarding any translation of portions of Professor Seeley's "Expansion of England," nor has he as yet heard the result of these trials.

Mr. REES

May I ask the Under-Secretary whether he is aware that Mr. Bryan's pamphlet was itself a compendium of all the stock, stale, and oft-refuted calumnies against British rule collected from the seditious section of the native Press?

Mr. MONTAGU

I do not think that arises; the pamphlet in question was not a translation of Mr. Bryan's pamphlet.