§ EARL PEEL had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether they can make a statement on the recent disturbances and illegal activities in India; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I desire in the words of my Notice, to ask the Government whether they can make a statement on the recent disturbances and illegal activities in India. I had hoped that it would not be necessary for me to bring this matter before your Lordships. I put down this Motion a month ago, and I postponed it for a fortnight. I had hoped that the position in India would be such by now that it would hardly be necessary for me to ask the noble Earl opposite (Earl Russell) to make a statement. Unfortunately, the clouds have not yet lifted. We have had the advantage of discussion in another place. The discussion in another place necessarily ranged over a far wider field than perhaps I shall do this evening. I wish rather, if I may, to concentrate the attention of your Lordships on the disturbances and illegal activities, and only to discuss such points as I think are directly connected with them.
§ But before I embark upon this investigation, may I make an allusion to two matters? I do not suppose we may have another opportunity for some weeks of discussion on Indian subjects, and I should like, in a word or two, to express my regret that the present head of the India Office, Sir Arthur Hirtzel, after thirty-six years, is leaving his work. I owe a great deal to that gentleman. I have been very closely indeed associated with him, and I know that not only is he a civil servant of the finest type, but he is a man, too, of very sane, very 1142 strong and very firm judgment, and, if I may say so, a character of very fine quality indeed. I know how many able men there are in that office, but I know, too, that his services and advice will be greatly missed. May I also make a reference, if I may be allowed to do so, to the death of a distinguished ruler in India, the Maharajah of Udaipur? I had the opportunity, only a few months ago, of visiting him, receiving his hospitality, and being struck by the charm of his manners and his old-world grace. Reference has been made to the fact that he was a sportsman, and I recollect I was sitting in a machan with him when, at the age of eighty-four, he was shooting tiger and panther, and I can remember the keenness and zest with which the old gentleman addressed himself to the sport even at that advanced age.
§ Perhaps I ought now to say not only what I want to do this evening, but what I do not want to do. I do not wish at this stage to raise any of those great constitutional questions with reference to India which we may soon have to discuss. We stand firmly by the Act of 1919, and by the limitations and conditions imposed by that Act. But I wish to pass aside, if I may, constitutional questions. We shall soon have Sir John Simon's Report before us, and we shall have, I am afraid, endless opportunities of discussing it. A great deal of time must be spent in considering these grave questions in a very few months from now. May I say in passing that I think it would be very much better if, in regard to Indian matters, we were not perpetually engaged in discussing constitutional politics, and if we could address ourselves rather more to those questions of economics and hygiene which are so necessary in the present condition of India?
§ We have to admit that these disturbances and troubles, outrages and riots and murders, have caused very much perturbation and trouble in the minds of many people in this country, and I regret to say that even from day to day fresh occasions of violence seem to arise. In the Press only this morning we see accounts of troubles at Rangoon, Bombay and other places, showing that this era of disturbance has not yet, as many of us had hoped, come to an end. The noble Earl knows that we get a very good picture of different incidents in the 1143 newspapers, but we should like to have, with all the official weight behind it, the Government's view of the whole picture, and the range and extent of the seriousness which they attach to these events. Everybody knows that we have already granted a very large degree of self-government to India. Everybody knows also how many subjects have been transferred in the Provinces and are managed by Ministers, and what a very large proportion of the Services are manned by Indians, and we have had a very recent example—a painful one so far as Lancashire is concerned—of the extent to which the Indian Government is master in its own house in matters of finance and taxation.
§ Therefore the attacks of these seditionists—and I wish to make this point very clear—are not merely directed against the British Government. They are directed against their own countrymen who, in so large a measure, co-operate with us—Indians and Englishmen together—in the management and government of India. I would like to regard it from that point of view just as much as from the point of view of whether it is mainly an anti-British movement. All these disturbances, this picketing of the liquor shops, the attempt to boycott foreign cloth and so on, are not only bad things in themselves, but they are tending to raise that ever-present danger in India—communal disturbances and communal riots. I know that many have consoled themselves in the present difficulty by saying that the great community of the Moslems have generally held aloof from these riots and disturbances, or that they have in many cases, for instance, in the case of the Moslems of Sind, condemned, and severely condemned, the fomenters of these disturbances. These people have congratulated us that we have not to meet the processions of nine or ten years ago, when the Khalifate disturbances were at their height., and when, through our relations with Turkey, there were outrages and disturbances during the short-lived union between Moslems and Hindus.
§ I should suggest, also, there is a grave danger, if you get the communities in this sense ranged against each other, of the rising again of those terrible communal disturbances. There is a danger 1144 because many of the Moslems, I understand, regard these meetings of the revolutionaries and the seditionists as being an attempt to set up in India a Hindu Raj from which they themselves might be largely excluded. On the other side, there is the danger that, if the communities tend to range themselves on opposite sides, all those moderate sections of Hindu opinion, which would naturally be supporting the Government, are more afraid of expressing their true opinions on this subject because they might be charged with, or anyhow come under the charge of, criticising the community to which they themselves belong. This is caused by the continuance of these disturbances, and what I would suggest is that the fullest support should be given to the Government in India not only to crush these disorders but to bring them to an end as rapidly as possible.
§ We have all seen and know what a tremendous strain is being thrown on the police and on officials by their long vigils and their exhausting labours, and we know; too, how the Army always dislikes being brought into civil disturbances. Yet it has been necessary to bring in the Army because of the numbers that are being employed in these civil disturbances. We have been able to congratulate ourselves also on the fact that these disturbances were largely confined to the towns. That does not seem very encouraging to those who live in this country, where 80 per cent. of the population live in the towns and 20 per cent. in the country districts, but where you have 80 per cent. living in country districts and 20 per cent. in the towns the picture takes on a very different tone. I would suggest that there is a danger, too, in this active, vigilant and constant propaganda that is going on not only in the towns but, as the noble Earl opposite knows, in the country districts as well. Full reliance has been placed, and there has been justification in placing full reliance, on the loyalty of the Army, but we must not forget that these men come from villages where propaganda is going on and it is difficult to suppose that they cannot be to some extent influenced by what goes on among their friends and relations in those villages.
§ I would like to ask this question: Are these disturbances isolated, sporadic disturbances or are they connected together 1145 by a general system, by some superior control? I think until a few weeks ago it was believed that they were to some extent sporadic and unconnected and that they sprang up in different towns where there were centres of disturbance. But I think that the later information that we have had from India shows that that may not be so. Indeed I do not think that in the opinion of the Government that is altogether so. May I refer to a Question answered in another place a few days ago, when it was said that every effort is being made by the Congress by means of propaganda of all kinds and by demonstrations to stimulate anti Government and racial feelings? Now that would seem to suggest that all these disturbances are organised perhaps from a common centre. We see, as it were, a sort of change of venue of disturbance moving from one class of illegality to another, now fomenting strikes, now organising salt raids, now arranging for picketing and the boycotting of foreign goods, or stirring up troubles for instance on the Frontier by such methods as the grossest misrepresentations of the Sarda Act.
§ Up to now arrests which have been made have been arrests of the leaders in these different disturbances. We have seen Mrs. Naidu, Mr. Tyabji and Jawaharlal Nehru arrested. One after another these leaders are arrested and put into prison. It would seem to indicate a panel of leaders. As soon as one leader is arrested someone else is placed in a position of leadership. That might seem to be almost an endless process. If it be true that these disturbances are really organised from a common centre and if indeed, as is suggested in this information, these working Committees of Congress are Actually sitting together and organising from a common centre these disturbances, I would suggest to the Government whether the time has not come not merely to arrest the leaders in different districts, but to strike at the centre of the disturbances in these Congress Committees.
§ EARL PEELThat is one suggestion I was going to make. I would remind your Lordships, if it is necessary to remind you, of the new example we have had of the old truism, as I might almost call it, 1146 in the Government of India of the necessity for strong control and constant vigilance and watchfulness on the part of the rulers of India. How quickly these disorders spring up, how easily disturbances arise as soon as for a moment that strong hand of the ruler is raised! May I give two instances out of those which have recently occurred? I happened to be in Calcutta not long ago and the question was being discussed of allowing to lapse the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act. That had been enacted for five years. Those who were discussing it suggested that as no action had been taken under it for some time there seemed no reason why it should be re-enacted. But I heard a different story in other Provinces to the west. There I was told that owing to the existence of this Act in Bengal many of the more ruffianly persons and conspirators had been driven into the Western Provinces and had been very unwelcome inhabitants of those Provinces. It was decided, however, that even though this Ordinance might not be re-enacted, nevertheless it should be indicated that it would be re-enacted if necessary. As the Secretary of State himself has told us, it was only nine days after that Ordinance had lapsed that it became essential, owing to the disturbances, to re-enact it.
The other case to which I wish to refer is the trouble we recently had on the North-West Frontier. When you move up and down that Frontier, when you see the numbers of troops and the aeroplanes, the armed frontier constabulary and the different forms of police and scouts you may be inclined to think that this tremendous machinery of control and repression is unnecessary in an area so apparently peaceful. Yet what do we see? The moment there is any relaxation of authority, the moment this propaganda spreads, you have one of these tribesmen, with his following of 500 or 600 men, advancing and a general idea spreads along the whole Frontier that troubles are in the air and that opportunity for loot is to be given. I think these are two rather signal instances showing the extent to which firm control, and not only firm control but organisation of that control, must be kept and maintained in strong hands.
Another point on which I would like to ask a question of the noble Earl is 1147 as to the question of propaganda in India. Of course we all know that the Government have passed a very strong Press Act, and I can certainly say from my experience that a Press Act is most essential. Nobody can imagine who has not studied some of these papers in the vernacular Press the vileness and constancy and continuity of misrepresentation and falsehoods in that Press. I know the difficulties of Government propaganda and I have often discussed that subject with those concerned. We are always told that if you have Government propaganda it soon loses force because it is known to be Government propaganda. Nevertheless, I still maintain the view that if more efforts were made continually to set out the Government's view of the action they have taken, whether it was actually believed or not in certain districts, law-abiding persons would be able to know what they had really done. Perhaps this is to some extent opposed, if not to the principle, at least to the habits of our rulers in India and of civil servants in general. Civil servants are accustomed to administer their own offices and not, perhaps, to consider the exact effect of their actions upon the outside world. We have seen that in this country.
I think every honest citizen admits that the last Government was a very fine Government. Why did that Government fall? We were told that it fell simply because it had not been active enough in advertising its own virtues and achievements. I do not bring a similar charge against the present Government. I think perhaps the ratio is inverse in their case. At the same time it is difficult to expect that civil servants will be as active as politicians in understanding the value of propaganda or of bringing home to the people whom they rule the excellence of their own achievements in legislation or administration. I really would suggest to the noble Earl opposite that he might again take up that subject of making it clear to the people, whether by wireless propaganda or through the newspapers or what not, what the Government's view is and the Government's side of what has been done, so as to give answers to these misrepresentations that are pouring out in every newspaper that is still allowed to circulate in India.
1148 The next point upon which I should like a few words from the noble Earl is this. We have had a picture—fortunately a cheerful one—from the Secretary of State in another place of the state of trade and business in India in the last few years. I think he congratulated India on the fact that their surplus exports had been something like £58,000,000 in the last year, and he described what had gone on in the matter of finance, the balancing of the Budget and so on in the last three or four years. That is very satisfactory, but I should like to know something, if the noble Earl can tell us, about the condition of business now. After all, these facts and figures and pictures deal with the years that are passed, when, if I may say so, others were in control. Personally I do not get very satisfactory pictures of what is going on in India in the matter of trade and business, and I should be very glad if the noble Earl could give us a true picture of the state of business in that country and, if possible, tell us how far he considers that the check to business was due to these illegal activities, boycotts and so on, and how far to the general slump in trade.
I should be very glad if he could answer a further question. I am quite sure that a great deal of this sedition and revolution is indigenous to India itself, but at the same time it bears on its features a great many resemblances to the activities of the Communist International. I have studied and read the speeches of many of these leaders in India and I have been struck by the extraordinary resemblance in phrase, tone and expression to the articles that appear in the Moscow Press. Perhaps this may be rather a delicate subject for me to broach with the noble Earl, but no doubt he has information, and I would ask him, not to disclose any information that he thinks it improper to disclose, but to tell us the extent to which the activities of the seditionists and revolutionaries in India are assisted by money, co-operation or the actual participation of trained revolutionaries in the campaign of disturbance and sedition that is going on in India. I shall be very much obliged if the noble Earl can give us some information on that point.
I have two other observations to make which I think are relevant to this matter. The first regards the bearing of these 1149 disturbances upon the coming Conference. It has been suggested that these riots and organised sedition are intended to discredit the Conference which, as we all know, is to be called by His Majesty's Government. Incidentally—although I cannot say that I expect to get an answer on this point—the noble Earl may be able to tell us something about the composition of that Conference and whether the Government of India have arrived at any decision as to its numbers or terms of reference. I shall be very glad if the noble Earl can give us that information. I submit to your Lordships that that is an entirely inadequate description of the aims of these persons. They are not only seditionists but also revolutionaries, and their aim is not merely to discredit the coming Conference but definitely to work for the separation of this country from India and the destruction of the British connection.
That element has always been present since the reforms started. I am speaking of the reforms of 1919. Noble Lords will remember that those early Councils were boycotted by the Swarajists. They refused to take part. By not taking part in the Councils that were set up, they wanted to prove, I suppose, to the world at large their capacity for administration and self-government. Then the tune changed and they entered the Councils, but with the definite idea, as they stated, of breaking down those Councils from within. In fact I think one might say that, if only these gentlemen had expended one half the energy that they put into trying to destroy constitutional government in India towards advancing it, India would be much further advanced than she is now on the path of constitutional government. Everybody knows the result upon their minds of the famous Declaration of the Viceroy. Quite a short time after the Declaration was made they came to him and advanced still further impossible demands which they were well aware that the Viceroy could not possibly grant. After that we had those terrible scenes in the Lahore Congress, when fortunately the Congress split and the extremists went off in the direction of complete independence for India.
What I am going to suggest to the noble Earl is that it is really too late and quite useless to attempt any conciliatory action with these gentlemen. 1150 They have stated quite clearly that they deny our right to legislate for them. They repudiate the Act of 1919, they repudiate the Conference and they deny altogether our claim to deal with India. In those circumstances, of what value could these gentlemen be at the Conference, and under what circumstances could they come to it? They have declared that they repudiate any right on our part or on the part of Parliament to decide what the future Constitution of India is to be. It is obvious that they can hardly, with any sort of self-respect and without throwing over their opinions, come to that Conference. Besides, too, at that Conference they would be absolutely useless, for all they would try to do would be to endeavour to wreck any chance the Conference had of coming to unanimous or successful resolutions. Although I am free to admit that is a difficulty, because of the desirability of getting all the different elements representing Indian points of view at the Conference, I cannot say that I envy the task of the Viceroy who has to make the selection. Nevertheless, although I feel that the absence of these gentlemen will leave the Conference incomplete, it is useless to try to persuade these gentlemen, who are out to promote a system of sedition and revolution, which the Government must use every effort to crush.
I would only say that I want the noble Earl opposite to make the freest possible statement that he can make with regard to the present situation. After all, on the eve of the publication of the Report of the Sir John Simon Commission, and on the eve of the consideration of this great question by the people of this country, I think I am free to say that the people of this country ought to be informed most fully and frankly by His Majesty's Government of the situation which His Majesty's Government have to meet in India at the present time. We have a splendid record in India. I am not ashamed for anyone to study it. It is open to the whole world to consider and study, and I think we are entitled to know the exact and precise facts of the situation now.
This is the last word with which I wish to trouble your Lordships before other speakers address you. I should like to express our sympathy with all our officials in India, from the Viceroy downwards, who are engaged in this anxious 1151 and troublesome situation. It is very difficult really to appreciate the extent of the continuous strain which is being laid upon them, and I should like specially, if I may, to say one word of sympathy with the police, who, as your Lordships know, are acting constantly under these isolated conditions. They have not been very well considered, and in fact their treatment by many of the Councils in the Provinces has been most discreditable. They have been denied opportunities for improvement in living, pay, etc., and it is a great tribute to them that they have shown such loyalty and courage during the tremendous and fiery ordeal through which they have passed during the last few months. I ask the noble Earl to do what he can to give us a very full and very frank statement on these grave disturbances and seditious happenings.
§ THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, the last purpose I have in mind in addressing your Lordships, particularly after the speech made by the noble Earl, is in any way to embarrass His Majesty's Government or the Government of India or the Viceroy. Indeed, I feel sure that all your Lordships will agree that at this critical juncture, when the Viceroy and the Government in India are engaged in suppressing the disorder, riots, and illegal activities taking place in various parts of India, we should give our fullest support to those engaged in the administration of India in times of such difficulty. I desire to say for myself that whatever criticism there may have been in some quarters, whatever desire there may be in some quarters now to criticise the Viceroy, I give him my unqualified support. I think it is only right that he should have the fullest confidence not only of the Government but of all in this country who are anxious to see our great Empire in India maintained at the full height of its well being.
I shall occupy your Lordships' time for but a few minutes, because, having formed the view that it is at this moment more desirable to support than to offer criticism, I shall not refer to anything that is past, nor shall I attempt to discuss what may be the outcome of the present agitation, or the result of the publication of the Report of the Simon Commission. It really is impossible for 1152 us in this House or elsewhere in the country to discuss the question of possible constitutional progress or reform when we have a Commission, appointed by the late Government, which has been labouring incessantly for over two and a half years, has just signed its Report—we are all anxious to see it—and has had opportunity, certainly not vouchsafed to any of us, of hearing all the evidence brought before it and making investigations, even in quarters where there was opposition. The Commissioners have pursued their investigations with the utmost desire to inform Parliament and the country of the situation as they saw it, and are making recommendations which seems to them wise and opportune.
I leave all those questions without further observation. I am content, and indeed I think I am bound, as we all are, to await the publication of the Report of the Simon Commission before dealing with any of these very important problems. The situation at the moment is an anxious one. I hope His Majesty's Government, and the noble and learned Earl who is about to reply, will give us all the information they can. It is essential that in this country we should know the facts, and that nothing should be kept back save what may be absolutely necessary in the public interest. We are dealing with a very serious situation. Disorder, sedition, riots, bloodshed are not unknown, but we have at this moment what is to my mind the most serious aspect of these forms of activities—civil disobedience. When I was in India it was threatened and there was some attempt. I am not making any comparison, or attempting to suggest what should have been done at an earlier moment. I am pointing out this, that while at that moment a bridge had been thrown across the chasm which divided Hindu from Moslem, and to that extent the position was more serious because the Moslems joined with the Hindus in the demonstrations against the Government in 1921 and 1922, that bridge, frail as it was, has disappeared. It led to discussions about the protection to be given to minorities, into which I do not now enter. But that bridge does not exist. The situation is in that respect better. I would venture to say also that in the earlier years to which I have referred the opposition in Congress to Mr. 1153 Gandhi was very feeble, if it existed at all. There is perhaps more difference of view in India at the present moment among various political Parties than there was then.
What is new, and in my view serious, is that the definite organisation of civil disobedience has been set up. The continued demonstrations of that kind have the effect of sapping the influence of the Government and undermining their authority. One may of course be drawing inferences on somewhat slender evidence, but as I survey the whole situation in India and see the disturbances that have occurred in Bombay, Sholapur, Calcutta, Chittagong, Madras, and elsewhere, the position is a serious one. You have also the disturbances in Peshawar, always a very dangerous place. These were perhaps the most serious of all the disturbances, so far as I can judge. They arose in a Moslem centre, and resulted in no sense from tribal trouble, but because of agitation against the Government. It has been said that it was largely due to the agitation about the Sarda Act, which had been misrepresented among the Moslems—an Act introduced for the purpose of raising the age for marriage and doing away with child marriage, a measure which mostly affected Hindus, but in some form or other was thought to have been directed against, or to have had some evil influence on, the Moslems. So in Peshawar you had this trouble. Again, in the last few days we have had the riots and the killing of Burmans and Indians. That has nothing to do with the Government. It is purely a matter between themselves. The Government is in no sense responsible. To my mind all these phenomena, all these outbreaks of violence show that the authority of the Government, which ought to be supreme and unquestioned, has been undermined by agitation, sedition and propaganda.
I am not in the slightest degree suggesting blame upon anybody. It is a very difficult problem for the Viceroy. He lives in a sense in two different atmospheres. He must always have before him, of course, the vast problem of dealing with a population of 320 million people, of whom 250 millions are in British India. He has to deal with all the reports that come to him from those various places, and he has in the end 1154 the responsibility for those matters. At the same time he has to keep his attention constantly focussed upon the atmosphere here. He is responsible to Parliament and to the Secretary of State, and he has to steer his course according to the views of His Majesty's Government. In matters of supreme policy, though not in minor matters, he must be in agreement with them. He has attempted, with the highest motives, the greatest sincerity and profound earnestness, to conciliate India so as to avoid the very difficulties which have arisen. Whether he is right or wrong I do not pause to enquire at this moment. He has acted with a far greater knowledge of the situation than at any rate I possess, or I think most of your Lordships can have. Having done that, having announced the round-table Conference when he went back to India, which was thought to be a great step in advance, he nevertheless had nothing but trouble to meet on all hands.
I desire to say that civil disobedience can never be tolerated. It strikes at the very heart of the Government. If it succeeds it is a vital blow, if it manages to survive it has dug the grave of Government in India. I have myself the strongest opinion that in all matters that relate to civil disobedience the Government must put forth all the weapons at its command in order to destroy it and to break it. It must not allow itself, it cannot allow itself to pander to it in any way. It may be easy in India, where the law is different from here, to pass over a seditious speech without enforcing the law. I have done it myself again and again, and other Viceroys have had to do the same. That is very different from dealing with a propaganda which is directed to active interference with the work of Government, which must in the end, if it succeeds, paralyse the Government and destroy it.
I agree with the suggestion of the noble Earl who opened the debate, so far as I followed it, that it is desirable to get at those who are responsible. I am in entire accord. These poor deluded Indians very often understand very little about it; they only have one side put before them, and they are thus roused to fury, particularly in these months which 1155 are the months of the hot weather before the monsoon, when we all know that the blood is hot and trouble may very easily be caused. Those are the people who ought to be protected. I submit to the Government that the only way effectively to deal with this problem is to go straight at those who are responsible for preaching the doctrine of civil disobedience and doing everything they can to induce the poor ignorant people to act like a rabble. That is what I suggest to the Government, and I hope it will have their support.
Something has been said by my noble friend about trade and business, and he referred to figures which have been given showing prosperity in recent years. Those figures are of little avail at the present day, as must be agreed by anyone who knows the situation. One has only to ask any business man connected with India what the situation now is, and he will tell you that it is seriously affected. I noticed that in the speech made by the Secretary of State he said, perhaps in another connection, that things have improved from January in the view of persons interested in finance, and who understood credit, because they have been able to float a loan and because the Indian Loan stood at a higher figure. I think that is a poor comparison if you wish to ascertain the facts. For the loan that was introduced six per cent. had to be paid in order that it should be floated. If you compare the figures it may be true to say that they are a little better now than in January, but the better comparison is to go back a couple of years and compare the figures at which Indian loans stood then. They were very nearly equal to those of the British Government. Compare them now—I am not saying who is to blame—and there is an indication of what the situation is. If this state of things is to continue Indian prosperity must, of course, go on decreasing very rapidly.
My hope is that something may be done by which we can restore order. After all, it is the primary, the elemental duty of Government to restore and to maintain order. It matters not to what Party the Government belongs. In this country, I think, at least we have this situation—that all Parties are of the same opinion about that. I believe that 1156 His Majesty's present Government are just as desirous and just as determined to restore and to maintain order as a Conservative or a Liberal Government would be in their place. I desire to give them every support in doing that. I only hope that in anything I may have said to-day, feeling so very strongly about this campaign of civil disobedience, I have not let fall one word which could be a reflection in the slightest degree upon the aims and aspirations of honourable Indians who take part in constitutional agitation. They are entitled, from their point of view, to take such attitude as they think right in order to secure for their country progress which we may think too fast but which they are perfectly justified in pressing upon us by constitutional methods.
Those who have been in India—I see in his place the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, who spent some time there on valuable agricultural investigations and made a very helpful Report—will agree with me, I am perfectly certain, that you cannot travel through the various Provinces of that country without coming into contact with numbers of men—I am speaking now of the educated classes with whom, perhaps, one comes into more direct contact because of the difficulty of language—whom you cannot meet without understanding their view and without sympathising to some extent with it. At the same time you may be perfectly satisfied in your own mind that they are seeking to go much too fast and that they must wait before their view can be made effective. Nevertheless, I desire to pay a tribute to those who are continuing by those means their efforts to make constitutional progress, who deprecate all illegal activities and are anxious that recourse should be had to proper methods. It is my impression that by far the great majority of the Indian people would be of this opinion and would like to have recourse to these means only.
May I say one word regarding the military and police? I have some knowledge of the difficulties encountered by those who are brought constantly into conflict with many thousands of people in narrow thoroughfares, where missiles are thrown by no- 1157 body knows who, where men may be injured at any moment and nobody knows who is the culprit, and where the strain upon the men is as severe as it can be. Whilst sympathising with them and endorsing what was said by my noble friend Lord Peel, I desire to add that the restraint which both military and police, officers and men, Indians and Europeans, have put upon themselves is most commendable and most exemplary. From all the reports that have been received they have had the greatest difficulties to meet and yet have managed to meet them in a way which has done credit to the Government that presides over them.
I conclude by begging the Government to tell us all that they can so that we may understand what is happening in India at the present moment and so that the people of this country, who have every reason to be proud of what has been done, who know something of the history of India, who looking back over 170 years may be able, it is true, to point to mistakes, nevertheless will be bound to admit, if they are honest and honourable, that Britain has given to India throughout that period not only peace but justice, fidelity to promises and prosperity so far as that could be achieved.
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLANDMy Lords, may I crave the indulgence of your Lordships on this the first occasion on which I have ventured to address you if I say a few words upon the subject about which the noble Earl, Lord Peel, is questioning the Government? May I associate myself most heartily with the tribute which the noble Marquess paid to the Viceroy in the very difficult position in which he finds himself? I doubt whether anyone who has not been through the ordeal of dealing with a situation of this kind in India can conceive of the difficulty of the position of those in authority in that country. Criticisms of the Viceroy on the ground that he has carried a policy of conciliation too far or that he has hesitated too long in striking at those who have exceeded the bounds of constitutional agitation in India, I think are most unfair. It is essential, of course, that order should be restored and respect for the law enforced, but that is not the only aspect of the question.
We have reached a very critical stage in the relations between this country and 1158 India. The Viceroy and the members of the Government of India are leading figures in a drama of historic importance and of world-wide interest. News of events in India is echoing daily round the whispering galleries of the world. The eyes of the people of two hemispheres are riveted upon the stage. It behoves us, therefore, to do nothing which could give any legitimate ground for the suggestion that in India we are acting arbitrarily or vindictively against the people of that, country. It behoves us to assure ourselves that when in due course we come to the bar of history for judgment we shall stand upon an unassailable foundation of justice and of moral right.
For that reason I think that the Viceroy was right when he agreed during last winter to receive Mr. Gandhi for the purpose of discussing the situation. If he had not done so it would have been immediately broadcasted to the world that out of consideration of his own prestige he had rejected the possibility of an honourable and amicable settlement of our difficulties. I have not the smallest doubt that it would have been sought to lay the responsibility upon him of bringing down upon the people of India all the horrors of civil strife. But if I think the Viceroy was right in that attitude, I did not expect for a moment that the magnanimity would evoke from Mr. Gandhi a similar response, for I am satisfied that Mr. Gandhi is himself so permeated with a false pride of race that he would rather wrest by force a crumb from the British than accept a loaf voluntarily offered.
I am sometimes asked whether Mr. Gandhi is sincere. He poses before the world as the apostle of peace, as the protagonist in a struggle in which the Hindu doctrine of non-violence is pitted against the doctrine that might is right, which is attributed by Mr. Gandhi and his supporters to the people of this country. It has been said of men that by their fruits ye should judge them. A good many years ago, when Mr. Gandhi was starting his campaign in favour of home rule for Indian people, he published a monograph based very largely on the teaching of Tolstoy, of whom he is an enthusiastic disciple, the object of which was to bring into hatred and contempt not merely British rule in India but the whole fabric of western civilisation. The medical 1159 practitioners of the West, the hospitals of the West, these things were singled out by him for special denunciation as evil things, and things, therefore, which no self-respecting Indian should demean himself by touching. Yet when Mr. Gandhi himself fell ill, when death stared him in the face, it was to this very science of the West that he turned, and it was to the skill of a British surgeon that he owed his life. When I am asked if Mr. Gandhi is sincere, I say, "Let the world judge."
But whether Mr. Gandhi be sincere or whether he be not sincere in his professions of his belief in non-violence, the results of his preaching are not open to doubt. He has gravely undermined the respect for law in India. He has remained wilfully blind to the fact that it is an essential basis of an organised society that the law should be voluntarily respected, and he is apparently oblivious of the fact that the necessity for enforcing respect for law, with which the Government of India are faced to-day, will inevitably present itself in future times to any Indian Government that may come into existence. Mr. Gandhi has sown the whirlwind. Who is it that is going to ride the storm? I think if Mr. Gandhi would ponder upon the threat which was recently made by the Mahomedans of Bengal against the Corporation of Calcutta, a body which is at the present time under the control of Mr. Gandhi's friends and supporters—a threat that they have made that they will enforce their demands against that body by the very methods which Mr. Gandhi is advocating against the British Government—that should give him pause.
The undermining of respect for law is not the only injury that Mr. Gandhi has done to India in his present campaign. At a time when all Parties in this country were ready to view in a spirit of sympathy and generosity any proposals put before them for a further advance of Indians along the road of self-government, he has succeeded in creating in the minds of a great many people in this country grave doubts as to the wisdom of any further concessions being made, and, indeed, in some quarters a demand for a drastic curtailment of the concessions which have been already granted. I do not agree with that demand. I think to put back the hands 1160 of the clock is wholly impracticable. If you were prepared to burn the Report of the Simon Commission before it is issued, to double or treble or quadruple your Army of occupation in India, and to govern India indefinitely under Martial Law, you might perhaps for a time put back the hands of the clock, but surely to do these things would be a grievous confession of failure, would display us to the world as a people bankrupt in statesmanship, and wholly unworthy of the high trust which has been placed by Providence upon us.
No, I conceive that the duty of the Government is to lend no ear to such counsels of despair, but to go forward steadily and firmly upon the path which has been marked out, not by this Government only, but by all Parties in this country, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, not allowing themselves to be stampeded by the violence of the agitation in India into making concessions which, upon a consideration of all the factors in the case, are deemed to be too great in the interests of the people of India themselves, or, on the other hand, refusing to make such concessions as the justice of the case may demand. But if that policy is to be successfully pursued, it is clear that the Government in this country and the Government in India must have both the will and the means wherewith to restore order and to ensure respect for the law, and it is precisely upon this point that anyone who has held high administrative office in India finds grounds for some anxiety at the present time.
I do not doubt the will of the Government of India to restore order and to enforce peace. The measures which they have already taken are proof of that. Nor for a moment would I cast any aspersions upon the loyalty of the Indian police. Indeed, knowing as I do from bitter personal experience the pressure which can be and is brought upon Indian police by the boycotting of their families and other measures of that kind, I am amazed at the stoutness which they have shown in carrying out their hateful and their difficult duties up to the present time. But the police force in India is a very slender instrument. In the whole of British India, a country more than twelve times as large as England, Scotland, and Wales, there are less than 200,000 Indian 1161 constables, one only on the average to every 1,250 of the population. In the Provinces the police force is organised on a district basis. The executive officer in the control of the police of a district is the district superintendent of police, and he, in collaboration with the district magistrate, is charged with the duty of maintaining order within his district.
Within the whole of this area of British India there are only some 260 districts. That means that there are only some 260 superintendents of police, or one to every million of the population. There is in Bengal a district—the district of Mymensingh—an area of six thousand square miles with a population of 4,500,000 of people. You can picture for yourselves the sort of task that devolves upon the district superintendent of police and his slender force in a district of that character when the forces of anarchy are let loose. So I say that if my reading of the situation in India at the present moment is correct, the Government of India will be faced in a steadily increasing degree with the necessity of employing troops, both European and Indian, for the performance of duties which are primarily police duties. Do the Government in India and the Government in this country accept that position? Are they satisfied, if they do that, that there are at the disposal of the authorities in India resources adequate for the purpose? If the noble Earl who is going to reply could give any assurance upon that point I should view the situation in India to-day, not with complacency, but certainly with less anxiety than I do at the present moment.
§ LORD LLOYDMy Lords, I only desire to say a few words to associate myself with the remarks that have fallen from my noble friend who opened this discussion and from noble Lords who have followed him. Like the noble Marquess who has just preceded me I welcome an opportunity, as one who had to deal in difficult days in 1919 and 1920 with a situation of gravity commensurate with this, of paying my tribute to the marvellous behaviour of the British and Indian police. I think that good will come out of this debate if only it is realised that Governments have done too little for the police in India. There have been deeds of real heroism in Bendi Bazaar and in Jacob's Circle in Bombay which vie with 1162 many done on more renowned battlefields. I do hope that the words which fall from us in this House may be of some encouragement and cheer to the officers and men in India who are carrying on so gallantly at the present time.
It seems to me that the real gravity of the situation in India lies fundamentally rather less in the actual disturbances of to-day than in the sinister causes of those disturbances. I listened in vain in another place two or three days ago to hear from the lips of the Secretary of State something as to what action the Government are taking in regard to subversive Communist propaganda which we all know perfectly well, and the Government know, is being so openly spread abroad throughout the East, and not only in India, by agencies of the Third International. It is hopeless to blind ourselves to what we know is going on encouraged by the Soviet. The great difference between the situation to-day and that with which we had to deal in 1922, for instance, is that in that year Mr. Gandhi's influence was important over the whole of India. His philosophy and creed were the leading elements in a movement which certainly affected the Hindus. If the same were true to-day, which it is not, his plan of campaign would of course have led to unpremeditated acts of violence, as they did at that time, but there would not have been armed raids of the character that we saw at Chittagong, where armed forces carried out a well-conceived raid with definite objects; nor should we have had such occurrences as at Sholapur, where plans of the most delicate and intricate character were made even to preparing for a skeleton Government locally to carry on.
I do feel that His Majesty's Government ought to tell us to-day how far they really consider that these movements which are going on are organised by the Third International. If I speak plainly on that question it is because I think the time has come for plain speaking on the subject of Soviet propaganda. The Government seem to be under the extraordinary illusion that they can toy with Soviet relations with this country and not feel the effects of it in the East. I have been nearly 27 years in the East on and off and I can assure His Majesty's Government that every 1163 action they take for recognition of the Soviet Government here has an immediate repercussion all over the East that is a weakening and a danger to our Government.
There is another matter. Like the noble Marquess who spoke just now, I do not propose to touch upon the constitutional subject. I believe that until the Simon Commission's Report is published the less we say on these matters the better, but it is a truism, I think, to say that a plain and clear and well understood policy in times of disturbance and unrest is a powerful weapon always in the hands of the Government. It does seem to me that at this moment it is very difficult indeed for the peoples of India to understand exactly what His Majesty's Government are going to do. We were told by the Prime Minister last autumn that there was no change of policy. We were told by the Secretary of State a few days afterwards that there was a change of policy. The words which I think he used were that the first change that had been made was that of a change of spirit and that the second change was far more important, a change in policy, which in reality is the central object in India and of Indian opinion, and that is the Conference.
I wish to say only two or three words about the Conference. We can scarcely be surprised if there is a good deal of confusion on that question. Let us look back for a moment. First we see the Statutory Commission, which was quite properly set up to implement the policy laid down by the Montagu-Chelmsford Reform Act. That policy comprises both the machinery and the goal of constitutional reform. That is an important point. Then, in order to obtain views representative of Indian opinion, there was set up a Committee of Indian members of the Central and Provincial Councils. In addition to these two bodies the Government have now set up machinery for a round-table Conference. I should like to ask the noble Earl this question. If the purposes of that roundtable Conference are merely advisory, is it not a little difficult, both for us here and for the Indian peoples, to see why the Reports of those Committees of the representatives of the peoples of India mere not held sufficient. Why do you want fresh advice? Is there not 1164 some good reason for confusion of thought in that the Conference appears to be intended to carry out functions that are already performed?
I have had some evidence of the fact that many people in India are led to the conclusion that the Conference must be intended to have a new and wider function than those that have already been carried out by the machinery in operation. It does appear that you reach an inevitable dilemma: either the Conference is to be merely advisory, in which case it might seem to be superfluous; or it is to have an actual voice in the decision, in which case it is a departure from the present basis of policy which can only be described as being very important in all its implications for the future of the Indian Empire. I hope the noble Earl will make it clear to-day, so far as he can, exactly what the composition and functions of the round-table Conference are going to be.
As I have just said, I do not desire to enter into any discussion of the constitutional position, and if I refer to the Viceroy's Declaration it is only to remind your Lordships that one of the reasons given for that Declaration was the creation of a good atmosphere for the Report of the Statutory Commission. Perhaps I am not a good judge but I confess that I am always a little alarmed, from long experience, when Governments at Whitehall set themselves to create a good atmosphere in the East. I have seen so much of it. Serious concessions, perilous to our trade and prestige, have been made during the last two or three years in the Far East in order to create what is called a good atmosphere. I do not think that very much profit or good has come out of it. We have bartered away a great deal of our position nearer home in Egypt recently in order to create a good atmosphere. I do not know that we have reaped very much advantage out of it.
The noble Earl referred to propaganda. I would reply that I do not think you can set up any very effective machinery for propaganda in India. The best propaganda is the behaviour of the Government itself. That carries weight throughout India, from Comorin to Peshawar, in a few moments. Strong action or weak action is your only propaganda, and you 1165 need no other. Similarly it seems to me that the best atmosphere for the consideration of the Statutory Commission's Report will be created by the Government restoring law and order as rapidly as they can, and remembering that the masses of the people are more important to us than the consideration of any political views of a minority. I hope that His Majesty's Government will give us to-day some clear account of what they propose to do with regard to outside propaganda in India, because if that interference were disposed of and made clear to the world at large I believe that much trouble in the way of lawlessness and disorder in India would very rapidly disappear.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (EARL RUSSELL)My Lords, to answer the Question on the Paper I propose first to give your Lordships a short account of the course of the recent disorders. On March 12, your Lordships will recollect, Gandhi set out on his march to the sea, and nothing very much happened in connection with that march until he gave the signal to open defiance of the law by announcing that he had achieved his purpose of breaking the Salt Laws. That was on April 6. On April 7 at Sylhet, in Assam, a disorderly procession had to be dispersed by force. On April 11 the police in Bombay City were stoned and had to make four baton charges, and on April 12 bombs exploded in two Bombay suburban railway stations, fortunately doing little damage. On April 15, following on the conviction there of Sen Gupta and of Jawaharlal Nehru elsewhere there was further serious rioting in Calcutta. Tram drivers were stoned and tramcars burnt. The following day at Karachi a disorderly crowd broke into the city magistrate's court during the trial of six of the chief local leaders of civil disobedience and the police had to fire on the mob. On the night of April 18, at Chittagong in Bengal, there was an armed raid by from 60 to 100 revolutionaries on the police and railway armouries, in which seven persons were murdered and others wounded. On April 27, in Madras, there were serious riots in which the police were compelled to use firearms, while four days earlier there was a serious outbreak in Peshawar City, and on April 24, at Neela in Bengal, not far from Calcutta, 1166 the police were compelled to fire on rioters who resisted their interference with salt-making.
On May 6 there was a serious outbreak at Delhi, starting with attempts to picket the courts. The Deputy Commissioner and police superintendent were savagely attacked, and troops had to be called out. Later an attack was made on three police lorries and other police coming to their assistance were stoned. On the same day at Howrah, near Calcutta, a party of police who were endeavouring to stop interference with a light railway were stoned and had to fire in self-defence, and a magistrate and police superintendent were attacked by a crowd in their car at a ferry. On the same date also a body of some 500 volunteers attacked a railway police-station at Nadia, in Bengal, owing to the arrest of certain persons who had attacked a newsvendor. On May 7 began the outbreak at Sholapur, in the Bombay Presidency, which necessitated the control of the City by the military and the imposition of Martial Law.
On May 14, at Mymensingh in Bengal, a large hostile crowd attempted to prevent the delivery of excise liquor to vendors and, when their efforts appeared likely to fail, attacked the magistrate, the police and the excise staff with brickbats. Persuasions and warnings and charges by the police failed to secure the dispersal of the mob, which continued to make violent attacks and destroyed excise liquor to a considerable value. Eventually the police, under the orders of the magistrate, had to fire. Some forty Government servants, including the additional district magistrate, the superintendent of police and his assistant, received injuries and one assistant sub-inspector was stabbed. Fifty-three rioters were treated at the hospital of whom one has died. On May 15 began the massed raids on the salt depots at Dharasana, in the Surat district, and Wadala, near Bombay, and on May 21 there was violent resistance to the search of the Bombay Congress offices in consequence of the disregard of the magisterial order prohibiting the publication of a Congress bulletin. On May 18, in the Jhelum district in the Punjab, the police were compelled to fire on rioters at Kala. There were serious riots between Hindus and Mahomedans at Dacca on May 25 and at Rangoon on May 26. The Rangoon 1167 rioting has resulted in twenty-five deaths reported up to date, though more of the wounded rioters in hospital are expected to succumb to their injuries. Approximately 250 rioters have been treated as in-patients in hospital. These riots were referred to by the noble Earl who asked the Question. Both these riots were communal and not connected with n on-co-operation.
EARL RUSSELLYes, in both Dacca and Rangoon. I have so far received only the briefest official report of the disturbances in Bombay City on the night of the 26th, and the morning of the 27th, which resulted in the police again having to fire on the crowds, and I cannot supplement the Press reports on this matter. My latest information is that the situation there is now quiet, and that the casualties are estimated at four killed and thirty-six injured. The chief feature of the campaign against the Salt Laws during the last few days has been a change of tactics in the Bombay Presidency. Technical breaches of the law, which formed the plan of campaign at the start, have now been largely abandoned in favour of mass action. This has been tried at three places—Shiroda, in the south, Wadala, within a few miles of Bombay City, and Dharasana, in Gujarat. The tactics employed have been that large bodies of volunteers try to force their way by weight of numbers into salt works and to steal salt. During the early part of the week attempts on a comparatively small scale were made to obtain entry into the salt works at Wadala, but the number of volunteers in the Congress campaign continued to increase, and on the 21st a crowd estimated at well over 2,000 tried to force their way in. Thanks to the skill and endurance shown by the police, the attempts were unsuccessful, and the timely arrival of troops, by the moral effect of their presence, gave much-needed relief to the police. Apart from particular instances of violence during this phase of the campaign, of which there were several, it is obvious that attempts to force a passage by weight of numbers through a barbed wire fence cannot be described as non-violence.
I will now give your Lordships certain further details which my right hon. 1168 friend has received regarding the disturbance on the 25th at Gujar Garhi, near Mardan, in the Peshawar district, in the course of which a gallant police officer, Mr. Murphy, lost his life. Early that morning news had been received that six persons from the village of Takkar, two miles west of Takkibhai, whose arrest had been ordered, were walking into Mardan escorted by a crowd of volunteers and villagers. The Assistant Commissioner and assistant superintendent of police, with twenty-five police, who were later reinforced to bring their strength to seventy-five, armed with lathis, blocked the road near Gujar Garhi. Infantry were also there in support. The six persons whom it was intended to arrest surrendered themselves, but the crowd insisted in accompanying them to Mardan gaol. On being informed that this could not be allowed, the crowd settled down on the road and Mr. Murphy, the assistant superintendent of police, after riding through the crowd to investigate possibilities, returned to the Assistant Commissioner and suggested that he might be allowed to disperse the gathering by a charge.
The Assistant Commissioner warned the gathering to disperse, but they asked for time, as they had sent horsemen to Utmanzai for instructions. The crowd was again told to disperse, and after a further interval the police were ordered to charge. Mr. Murphy, who was unarmed, outstripped his men, and was lost in the crowd. The villagers by the roadside joined in with the crowd in throwing volleys of road metal and large stones. The police were driven back immediately through the troops, who advanced, and as the crowd scattered they found the body of Mr. Murphy, who had been murdered by the crowd. I may tell your Lordships that the nature of the injuries and bullet wounds showed that there was no question that it was a deliberate murder. The troops later advanced two miles up the road, but the crowd had scattered, damaging the telegraph lines as they went. The Assistant Commissioner then searched the village of Gujar Ghari and arrested twenty persons who were said to have been seen in the crowd.
Apart from this incident, the internal situation in the North-West Frontier Province had up to the end of last week 1169 showed some sign of improvement. In Peshawar City normal life is gradually being resumed, and the inhabitants of Kohat City have now generally resolved to abstain from further agitation, the position there being reported as normal. In Bannu City the situation is less satisfactory, but here also there was some improvement during the week. A favourable sign in the Province is that recruiting for additional police, which has been necessitated by the recent events, is proceeding briskly and recruits are coming forward freely. The chief weapon of the anti-Government agitators is now, as it has been all along in this area, the dissemination of false reports, but active steps are being taken to counter these. As your Lordships will be aware, the Government of India have appointed a Committee consisting of two High Court Judges, one of whom is a Mahomedan, to enquire into the disturbances at Peshawar on April 23, and the measures taken to deal with them. The Committee is now sitting and conducting its inquiry.
At the end of last week the Government of India were able to report that the tribal situation in the North-West Frontier was definitely easier. In the Malakand there has been some agitation in Panjkora, and movement of small parties of Utman Khel has been reported from the direction of Bajaur, but all other tribes are quiet. The Spinakawara Mullah, who has great influence with Utman Khel, has apparently decided to hold aloof. On the border of the Peshawar district Badshah Ciul, son of the Haji Turangzai, is still occupying his position, which was bombed at intervals during the week and casualties are believed to have been inflicted. As the presence of hostiles on the district border and the attempts to gather lashkars have disturbing effects on the district, an ultimatum has been delivered to the Halimzai Mohmands that if Haji himself does not withdraw within twenty-four hours action from the air will be taken against the villages where he had established himself. A reply has been received asking for extension of the time limit, as the matter is still under discussion between the Halimzai Mohmands and the Haji. Some Mohmands are reported to have joined the latter, but the tribe as a whole is staunch.
1170 It was mentioned in last week's report that there was an Afridi lashkar of about 500 at Gandao. This is inactive and will probably disperse. In Waziristan the action taken from the air against the Madda Khel villages in North Waziristan was immediately successful. Twenty Maliks, surendered themselves as hostages, and the terms to be imposed on the tribe for the unprovoked attack on Datta Khel Post will shortly be announced. In Sholapur, where Martial Law has been in force for some days, conditions are reported as fast becoming normal, and the Government hope that it may be shortly possible to discontinue Martial Law. So far as can be judged, it still remains true that the rural classes have been little affected, except in Gujarat, where the situation continues to give cause for anxiety, and broadly speaking, it also appears to be the case that there has been little or no participation by Moslems in actual disturbances, except, of course, in the North-West Frontier Province, where Mahomedans greatly predominate in the population, and where special efforts were made by the Congress organisations, by means largely of wilful misrepresentations of the effect and purpose of the Child Marriage Restraint Act recently passed by the Indian Legislature, to stir up hatred against the Government. For example, it has been said that all young Mahomedan girls will be medically examined by male doctors before marriage, and this palpably absurd statement has apparently been believed.
That, I think, sums up the general information to date as to the disturbances, and gives perhaps a general view of the picture for which the noble Earl asked. It is fair to say, as I have suggested, that the Moslems are not taking part in the civil disobedience movement in any real or extensive sense of the word, and that some of these disturbances were communal disturbances. The noble Earl also spoke of the loyalty of the Army, and I think other speakers mentioned it. I am glad to be able to assure your Lordships that so far as our information goes there is no question, and no doubt whatever, of the loyalty of the Indian Army. Their conduct has been quite exemplary, and I ought not to pass from the subject of these unfortunate incidents, and these riots, without echoing what has been said about the 1171 Indian police. The Indian police have had a time of difficulty which it is really hard to imagine. They have been exposed for hours together, they have been on duty until exhausted, and have frequently had to stand, pelted by brick-backs, insulted by the crowd, receiving wounds and not firing to protect themselves until absolutely the last moment has made it necessary.
In connection with any incident it cannot honestly be asserted that the Government of India have not shown the utmost limits of patience and forbearance in quelling any disturbance, or have ever resorted to force or the use of firearms until the conditions made it absolutely necessary. But, of course, as some of your Lordships have pointed out, exactly the opposite kind of story is circulated by Congress leaders, and your Lordships can hardly have a better example of that than the extraordinarily garbled, and indeed grossly untruthful, account of the events at Peshawar which was read by an hon. Member in the debate in another place on Monday.
Then the noble Earl asked whether these incidents appeared to be connected, or whether they were under central control. Well, the Government of India can hardly say that they have perfectly definite evidence, but they have enough to give them a shrewd suspicion that there is organisation and direction from behind, that these are not sporadic riots of crowds, but that they are directed riots of crowds, and that there is a definite organisation behind them. Then I think it was the noble Earl who further asked: Is the Government prepared to arrest and to deal with the Congress Committees who incite to these acts? The only answer I can give him on that is that when proof is given that any person is behind these acts no doubt that person will be dealt with; but I cannot at the moment say that we have definite legal evidence or satisfactory evidence as to these things. But the Government of India take the view, which has been already expressed that civil disobedience is a denial of Government, and that civil disobedience must be suppressed, and those who foment it must be dealt with. The noble Earl twice used an expression which I wish to refer to in order to deprecate. He talked about crushing these 1172 outbursts. I do not like the word "crushing."
EARL RUSSELLWell, it depends upon what value you give to that word; but your Lordships must remember, as I think another speaker has already pointed out, that probably a very large number of these unruly crowds, and even of these infuriated and brutal mobs who take part in these riots, are really unfortunate and deluded people, who believe, and probably honestly believe, that they are helping the cause of their country in some mysterious way by these disturbances. It is difficult to feel that they are by any means in the same position as people who are consciously seditious and who consciously desire to destroy the Government. They are misled, and really I think one's feeling for them should be more a feeling of pity than the feeling of a desire to crush, in the sense of dealing with them in a vicious or hostile manner.
§ EARL PEELI think that is not quite a fair representation of what I said, because I pointed out that the way to do it was to get hold of the leaders, the organisers. That is what I meant by crushing sedition. I have sympathy with many of these unfortunate people.
EARL RUSSELLI am very glad to have elicited that explanation, because I am sure it may remove what possibly was a misapprehension. Naturally, the Government of India feel, as I think every member of your Lordships' House would feel, that the very last thing we would wish to do is to be compelled to shoot down our fellow subjects in India. That is a measure which a Government always takes with the utmost reluctance, and only when circumstances make it absolutely necessary, and I repeat that I think both the Viceroy and all the Commissioners of Police and the military have shown very great restraint and really infinite patience in dealing with this very difficult situation. We cannot honestly be accused, I think, of doing anything more than was necessary to preserve immediate law and order.
The very last object with which I refer to these outrages that have taken place is to incite any hostile feeling in your Lordships' minds or in this country 1173 against India as a whole, or against the Indians as a whole. What the exact psychological state of mind is which led to these demonstrations I find it personally very hard to understand. But, of course, the keeping of law and order, although it is a primary and essential function of Government—you might say it is elementary, and you must start with that: you cannot get on until you have peace and order in a community—is by no means ultimately the most important thing. The most important thing, the Government feel (and I hope your Lordships will agree with them) is to do what is possible to meet anything that is felt as a genuine grievance, and to make any advance that can properly be made. I think it is right to say in that connection that probably all the races in India, including the Moslems and the "untouchables," have a feeling that some advance in self-government would be appreciated, and is desired. They all have a feeling that they might want something, and what the Government desire to do, and the object of the round-table Conference that they propose to hold, is to enable the freest possible expression to be given to that feeling, from whatever quarter it comes, and whatever form it takes, and to ask all the various grades of opinion in India to meet together and to see what practicable proposals can emerge.
That seems to me to be the only proper and statesmanlike course you can offer them, and I should thing no fuller and franker offer has ever been made to any people who say that they want further advance or freedom. You offer them a full and unfettered opportunity of stating whatever it is their wish to do, and of proposing whatever it is they think can be proposed, and of discussing it. And I think that nobody could deny that, with the present Party in power, they would be discussing it with a sympathetic Government. That is the offer that is made, and it is to all of us a matter of very great grief indeed that that offer should be met by this civil disobedience campaign, which really does not deflect us from our purpose, but which does tend to make some of those who otherwise would be prepared to support some of their demands impatient, and which also, unfortunately, has the indirect result, when we take necessary repressive measures, 1174 of apparently alienating from us at the moment some of the more moderate opinion in India. As I say, I do not understand the psychology of it, and I cannot explain it.
Then, to answer a few more specific questions that were put, I was asked about Government propaganda. The Viceroy has made from time to time certain statements of policy and principles. Perhaps a day-to-day propaganda in the shape of a news sheet or wireless bulletin is what the noble Earl had in mind, and that might or might not be advantageous. But it is perfectly true that it would be known to be Government propaganda, and in the present hostile and suspicious attitude which the Congress people have succeeded in creating it is more than likely, I fear, that it might not be believed, because apparently what they are more ready to believe than the truth is that which is not the truth. But certainly the suggestion of the noble Earl will be remembered.
I was also asked a question as to whether Russia and Moscow were at the back of all this. Well, we always have the sinister figure of Russia in the background. We are quite used to hearing of Moscow, and we know perfectly well that the alleged, the avowed, determination of the Russian Government has, I think, always been to destroy other forms of Government in other countries. That, I think, has never been denied. But I can only say that when we are asked whether we have definite evidence that they are behind this movement in India the answer is that, so far as I know, we have not that evidence. Whether they are or are not behind it is a matter on which evidence later may be obtained, or on which people may have their own suspicions. But if I am asked whether we have definite evidence I can only answer that at present we have not.
The noble Earl also asked a question about the effects on trade—a perfectly legitimate question and one to which the answer is, of course, of importance. But I must point out to him what I think probably would occur to him.
EARL RUSSELLAnd the answer is, of course, that these outbreaks are so recent and this disturbed condition is so recent that it is impossible to give a real estimate of what the effect on trade will be at present. It is sufficiently obvious, of course, that disturbance of trade there must be when you have hartals going on, the compulsory closing of shops, riots in the streets, the boycott of foreign cloth and all that sort of thing. It is obvious that there must be disturbance of trade, but how great that disturbance is and what the figures are, clearly I think we would hardly be able to state for, perhaps, another year.
Then, the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, asked, and said that it was right at this moment, that nothing should be kept back. I can only say that so far as I know the Government have kept nothing back from the public of this country in this matter. I think we have given the country all the information we have, and I think we have taken them fully into our confidence as to the position. I really do not think there is anything kept back, and I hope that the noble Marquess himself does not think there is. I can only say that I know of nothing that has been kept back.
I have already spoken of the behaviour of the police and in conclusion I should like to ask your Lordships to agree with me that the Viceroy, who has been placed in a very difficult position, has behaved with immense patience—
EARL RUSSELLhas really kept his head in a sea of troubles, has done everything he possibly can to be conciliatory, and has done nothing that could at any time be regarded as provocative. I am glad to be able to make this public assurance that he has already been told that he has the complete, the full and the unstinted support of His Majesty's Government and, I am sure I am safe in saying, of your Lordships' House.
§ EARL PEELMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for his statement. I need not formally withdraw the Motion because I do not think I moved it.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe noble Earl did not actually move it.