Indian speeches (1907-1909) | Page 6

in the Punjab. On the contrary, it rather looks as if there was a
deliberate heating of the public atmosphere preparatory to the agrarian
meeting at Rawalpindi on the 21st April, which gave rise to the
troubles. The Lieutenant-Governor visited twenty-seven out of
twenty-nine districts. He said the situation was serious, and it was
growing worse. In this agitation special attention, it is stated, has been
paid to the Sikhs, who, as the House is aware, are among the best
soldiers in India, and in the case of Lyallpur, to the military pensioners.
Special efforts have been made to secure their attendance at meetings to
enlist their sympathies and to inflame their passions. So far the active
agitation has been virtually confined to the districts in which the Sikh
element is predominant. Printed invitations and leaflets have been
principally addressed to villages held by Sikhs; and at a public meeting
at Ferozepore, at which disaffection was openly preached, the men of
the Sikh regiments stationed there were specially invited to attend, and
several hundreds of them acted upon the invitation. The Sikhs were told
that it was by their aid, and owing to their willingness to shoot down
their fellow countrymen in the Mutiny, that the Englishmen retained
their hold upon India. And then a particularly odious line of appeal was
adopted. It was asked, "How is it that the plague attacks the Indians and
not the Europeans?" "The Government," said these men, "have
mysterious means of spreading the plague; the Government spreads the
plague by poisoning the streams and wells." In some villages the
inhabitants have actually ceased to use the wells. I was informed only
the other day by an officer, who was in the Punjab at that moment, that
when visiting the settlements, he found the villagers disturbed in mind
on this point. He said to his men: "Open up your kits, and let them see

whether these horrible pills are in them." The men did as they were
ordered, but the suspicion was so great that people insisted upon the
glasses of the telescopes being unscrewed, in order to be quite sure that
there was no pill behind them.
See the emergency and the risk. Suppose a single native regiment had
sided with the rioters. It would have been absurd for us, knowing we
had got a weapon there at our hands by law--not an exceptional law,
but a standing law--and in the face of the risk of a conflagration, not to
use that weapon; and I for one have no apology whatever to offer for
using it. Nobody appreciates more intensely than I do the danger, the
mischief, and a thousand times in history the iniquity of what is called
"reason of State." I know all about that. It is full of mischief and full of
danger; but so is sedition, and we should have incurred criminal
responsibility if we had opposed the resort to this law.
I do not wish to detain the House with the story of events in Eastern
Bengal and Assam. They are of a different character from those in the
Punjab, and in consequence of these disturbances the Government of
India, with my approval, have issued an Ordinance, which I am sure the
House is familiar with, under the authority and in the terms of an Act of
Parliament. The course of events in Eastern Bengal appears to have
been mainly this--first, attempts to impose the boycott on Mahomedans
by force; secondly, complaints by Hindus if the local officials stop
them, and by Mahomedans if they do not try to stop them; thirdly,
retaliation by Mahomedans; fourthly, complaints by Hindus that the
local officials do not protect them from this retaliation; fifthly, general
lawlessness of the lower classes on both sides, encouraged by the
spectacle of the fighting among the higher classes; sixthly, more
complaints against the officials. The result of the Ordinance has been
that down to May 29th it had not been necessary to take action in any
one of these districts.
I noticed an ironical look on the part of the right hon. Gentleman when
I referred with perfect freedom to my assent to the resort to the weapon
we had in the law against sedition. I have had communications from
friends of mine that, in this assent, I am outraging the principles of a
lifetime. I should be ashamed if I detained the House more than two
minutes on anything so small as the consistency of my political life.
That can very well take care of itself. I began by saying that this is the

first time that British democracy in its full strength, as represented in
this House, is face to face with the enormous difficulties of Indian
Government. Some of my hon. friends look even more