imim^\\ i'i 
 
 ) ' 
 
 :ii. X, 
 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DS 480.5.H81 
 
 Amrltsar and our duty to India, 
 
 3 1924 021 024 751 
 
 Strata, Siew Invtt 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021024751 
 
AMRITSAR AND OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
BOOKS ON INDIA 
 
 (« The Story of the Nation!.") 
 
 BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 By R. W. Frazer, LL.D. With 30 Illustra- 
 Eions and Maps. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 BUDDHIST INDIA. 
 
 By T. W. Rhys Davids. With 57 Illustra- 
 tions and Maps. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 VEDIC INDIA. 
 
 By Z£naide a. Ragozbh. With 36 Illustra- 
 tions and Maps. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 Send for a prospectus of the 
 "Story of tie Nations" Series, 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD., LONDON, W.C. 
 
Un the left i.s a British sentry with fixed bayonet 
 
 Froad'^pieci. 
 
A MR I TSAR 
 
 AND 
 
 OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 BY 
 
 B. G. HORNIMAN 
 
 WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD 
 LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE 
 
First Published 19S0 
 
 {All rights reserved) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ... - 7 
 
 PART I 
 
 CAUSES OF UNREST 
 
 OHAPTBR 
 
 I. India's sacrifices and sufferings in the war 17 
 
 II. war loan and recruiting methods - - 23 
 
 III. POLITICAL repression - - - - 28 
 
 IV. THE gloom of 1919 - - - - S5 
 
 PART II 
 THE ROWLATT BILLS AND THE AGITATION 
 
 V. ORIGIN OF THE ROWLATT LEGISLATION - - 41 
 
 VI. THE "black'" bills - - - - 50 
 
 VII. A PEACEFUL AGITATION - - - 68 
 
 PART III 
 
 THE DISTURBANCES AND THEIR CAUSE 
 
 VIII. AMRITSAK .... 85 
 
 IX. THE AMKITSAB, MASSACRE - - - 93 
 
 X. LAHORE — GUJEANWALA KASUR - - 99 
 
 5 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE SIX WEEKS' TERROR 
 
 CHAFTBK PAOB 
 
 XI. WAS MARTIAL LAW JUSTIFIED? - - - 109 
 
 XII. DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR - - 116 
 
 XIII. THE "physician" FROM BECHUANALAND - 131 
 
 XIV. HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED AND MACHINE- 
 
 GUNNED ..... 142 
 
 XV. o'brien, doveton, and bosworth-smith . 150 
 
 PART V 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 XVI. the duty OF the BRITISH PEOPLE - - 165 
 
AMRITSAR AND OUR DUTY 
 TO INDIA 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 No event within living memory, probably, has 
 made so deep and painful an impression on the 
 mind of the public in this country as what has 
 become known as the Amritsar Massacre. This 
 is not surprising, for the event itself is without 
 parallel. The British mind was shocked by, and 
 indignant at, the Congo atrocities and the 
 frightful deeds perpetrated by the Germans in 
 France and Belgium — to mention two out- 
 standing instances. But it was a new experience 
 to learn of revolting atrocities committed by 
 British officers, and to learn of them at first 
 hand from the mouths of the perpetrators 
 themselves, in frank, brutal, and often boastful, 
 language. The relation by General Dyer of the 
 manner and circumstances in which he performed 
 what he conceived to be a " horrible duty," and 
 
 7 
 
8 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 the further horrifying admissions by him and 
 other British officers, who administered Martial 
 Law in the Punjab in April, May, and June of 
 last year, leave us under no obligation to suspend 
 judgment on deeds which no cause or provoca- 
 tion could justify or excuse in the minds of decent 
 men and women. On the contrary, the sugges- 
 tion that the investigations of the Hunter 
 Committee might result in the finding of such 
 justification or excuse — which seems to find 
 support from no less a person than the Secretary 
 of State for India — requires to be countered and 
 repudiated at the outset. 
 
 It is impossible to believe that the people of 
 England could ever be persuaded that a British 
 General was justified in, or could be excused for, 
 marching up to a great crowd of unarmed and 
 wholly defenceless people and, without a word of 
 warning or order to disperse, shooting them 
 down until his ammunition was exhausted and 
 then leaving them without medical aid ; or that 
 justification could be shown for indiscriminate 
 and promiscuous bombing of unarmed civilian 
 crowds from aeroplanes, or forcing all and sundry 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 to crawl through a street as an act of retaliation, 
 or public floggings, or enclosing suspects in a 
 public cage — to mention only a few of the 
 measures carried out by the men who adminis- 
 tered Martial Law in the Punjab. But it is 
 possible that issues may be obscured, and the 
 attention of an ill-informed public diverted by 
 misleading, exaggerated, and wholly false repre- 
 sentations as to the degree of danger in the 
 situation with which the men who did these 
 things had to deal. It is desirable, therefore, that 
 the public should be placed in possession of the 
 essential facts. To this end, it is the purpose of 
 this book to explain the situation which produced 
 the disturbances that led to the establishment of 
 Martial Law in the Punjab last year, as well as 
 the causes which produced the situation. It is the 
 more desirable because the Hunter Committee 
 was conducting an inquiry that was inadequate 
 and one-sided, and, by the terms of reference, was 
 precluded from examining and reporting on one 
 of the most important factors — the responsibility 
 for, and participation in, wrongdoing of the 
 Government of India, which gave a blank cheque 
 
10 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 to Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Gover- 
 nor of the Punjab, and did everything needful 
 to supply the deficiencies of his own limited 
 authority. 
 
 As regards the first defect, the Hunter Com- 
 mittee has, except in Delhi and Ahmedabad, 
 heard only the evidence of officials, and a few 
 other witnesses put forward by the Government 
 to support the official case, A mass of evidence 
 was carefully prepared, after months of investiga- 
 tion, by a committee appointed for the purpose 
 by the Indian National Congress. This involved, 
 however, the production of political leaders and 
 others, who were, at the time, in gaol, undergoing 
 sentences imposed by Martial Law Courts. 
 These men naturally refused to give evidence 
 unless they were allowed to be present to hear 
 the evidence given against them, and to have the 
 right to cross-examine the official witnesses, 
 either by counsel or otherwise — counsel for the 
 Government, it may be mentioned, have been 
 present throughout with free right of examina- 
 tion of all witnesses. The Government of India 
 refused this request, and would only allow the 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 release of these men for the period of their own 
 evidence in each case. The Hunter Committee, 
 when asked to exercise its authority in the matter, 
 refused to intervene. In these circumstances, 
 the persons concerned very properly declined 
 to give evidence, and the Committee of the 
 Congress decided to boycott the inquiry. Since 
 then, many of these nlen have been released 
 under the terms of the King's Proclamation for a 
 general amnesty, and the offer was again made, 
 according to a Renter's telegram, for their 
 evidence to be given, but the Hunter Committee 
 replied that the opportunity for so doing had 
 passed. 
 
 Without entering into the merits of this 
 controversy, it will be agreed that an inquiry 
 which lacks the presentation of the people's side 
 of the case cannot be regarded, in a matter of 
 such extreme gravity, as adequate or satis- 
 factory. 
 
 As to the other defect, the matter is clear. 
 The Hunter Committee was appointed by the 
 Government of India, and it is to report to the 
 Government of India ; and its composition in- 
 
12 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 eludes representatives of the Government, both 
 civil and military. The responsibility of the 
 Government of India in this matter, as well 
 as that of the Secretary of State, in view of all 
 that has been revealed and all that was for so 
 long concealed, is obviously a matter for public 
 inquiry, and that can only be done by a Com- 
 mission of a wholly impartial kind appointed by 
 Parliament. We owe it as much to ourselves 
 as to the people who have suiFered these great 
 wrongs that responsibility should be fixed and 
 accounted for in every quarter, from the highest 
 to the lowest. British honour and good faith are 
 gravely imperilled in India to-day. Whether 
 they survive or whether they are to be accounted 
 as naught is the grave question with which 
 the British people are faced. On the answer 
 depends whether our relations in the future with 
 a people bitterly aggrieved are to be good or 
 evil. 
 
 As it is clear that the report of the Hunter 
 Committee cannot place the public in this country 
 in the possession of all the knowledge that is 
 essential to a full understanding of a matter of 
 
INTRODUCTION 18 
 
 which they are largely ignorant, I propose to set 
 before them as fairly and as briefly as I can in 
 the following pages : 
 
 1. Causes of Unrest. 
 
 The general causes, and, in particular, the 
 policy of the Government which produced 
 so great a ferment in India in the early part 
 of last year. 
 
 2. The Rowlatt Act Agitation. 
 
 An explanation of the Rowlatt Act and 
 the reasons for which it was regarded by 
 the people pf India with feelings of appre- 
 hension amounting to terror. 
 
 The obduracy and provocative policy 
 pursued by the Government of India in 
 forcing such hated legislation through the 
 Imperial Council, in the face of a united 
 national protest. 
 
 The aggressive measures adopted in the 
 Punjab which were the immediate cause 
 of the disturbances. 
 
14 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 3. The Reign of Terrob. 
 
 The horrors of Sir Michael O'Dwyer's 
 " Reign of Terror " during the administra- 
 tion of Martial Law, and his deliberate plan 
 of concealment carried out with the con- 
 nivance of the Government of India. 
 
 4. Responsibility. 
 
 The facts regarding the responsibiUty of : 
 
 1. The Secretary of State. 
 
 2. The Viceroy and the Government of 
 India. 
 
 3. Sir Michael O'Dwyer and his Martial 
 Law administrators. 
 
PARTI 
 CAUSES OF UNREST 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 INDIA'S SACRIFICES AND SUFFERINGS IN 
 THE WAR 
 
 No country suiFered economically more severel y 
 from the war than India. The poverty of her 
 people is perennial, and probably unparalleled 
 throughout the world. The bulk of the popula- 
 tion is agricultural. There are a few, compara- 
 tively speaking, large and wealthy landowners, 
 but the vast mass of this great agricultural 
 population consists of small peasant proprietors 
 and labourers who are permanently in debt, and 
 whose average income may be placed generously 
 at £2 per annum. The industrial and middle- 
 class population is not much better off. To take 
 a few figures at random, for these pages cannot 
 be filled with statistics, an idea of the chronic 
 condition of poverty that prevails can be gained 
 if it be mentioned that the pay of a clerk in 
 Bombay or Calcutta varies from about 27s. to 
 £10 a month ; a police-constable gets about 10s. 
 
 17 2 
 
18 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 a month ; the wages of mill-workers vary, in 
 Bombay, from 16s. to a Uttle over £3 a month, 
 and in Bengal from 12s. to £2 a month. Miners 
 are paid even less. In these people's lives luxury 
 and amusement are practically non-existent, their 
 living is a bare subsistence, they are without 
 many of what we regard as the necessities of 
 life, there is no margin to meet the stress of hard 
 times. They live in a permanent state of in- 
 debtedness. When people talk, as they often 
 do wickedly enough, of the " prosperity of India" 
 during the war, they ignore the fact that the 
 4 wealth is distributed among a small capitalistic 
 class, in which the foreign element plays a large 
 part. Prosperity has never assailed the patient 
 lives of the toiling masses, whose condition 
 of drudgery is such, that they are sufficiently 
 grateful if they get from day to day the bare 
 amount of simple food which enables them to 
 sustain their short lives, which end mostly at or 
 before middle age. It does not need a very 
 vivid imagination to reaUse how heavily the 
 burden of war fell upon a people whose economic 
 condition is so deplorable. 
 
INDIA'S SACRIFICES AND SUFFERINGS 19 
 
 The Government did nothing to lighten the 
 burden. They aggravated it in many ways. We 
 may pass over the egregious lectures which 
 officials, high and low, delighted in giving to 
 the people on their good fortune in being so far 
 removed from the actual theatres of war. The 
 fact remains that they felt the incidence of war 
 in their daily lives with a severity that would 
 not have been borne by a people less patient, 
 and accustomed to suffering. The expression, 
 used by Lord Hardinge, that India was " bled 
 white " in the early part of the war, applies to 
 her condition throughout the four and a half 
 years that it lasted. Enormous quantities of food- 
 stuffs, that would otherwise have been utilised 
 for home consumption, were continually sent 
 out of the country for the use of the armies in 
 the field, and every sort of commodity and raw 
 material that could be used for military purposes 
 was, of course, " controlled " in the interests of the 
 Government. Control of coal, wheat, hides, etc., 
 for Government purposes, was, for a long time, 
 the only kind of control set up and exercised. 
 Many scandals were connected with that, with 
 
20 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 which, however, we are not concerned for the 
 moment. It was not until very late in the day, 
 and after the pent-up sufferings of the people 
 had produced a food riot in Bombay, that the 
 Government at last yielded to the demand for 
 the control of rice and other commodities, in 
 which the most rampant profiteering had been 
 carried on at the expense of the people. And 
 this, when it came, was very incompetently 
 exercised, and not free from suspicion of corrup- 
 tion, with the result that it brought little relief 
 to the sufferers. Added to all this_ was the 
 slowness of Government and private employers 
 in yielding to the need for some commensurate 
 increase in the remuneration of their employees, 
 and the inadequacy of the increase when at last 
 they moved. In one direction, though, it is 
 interesting to note that the Bombay Government, 
 at least, acted with strength and decision. They 
 passed a drastic Rent Act, which, while it 
 was of undoubted benefit to the working and 
 middle classes, incidentally proved a boon to the 
 European community, official and non-ofl5cial, 
 in whose interests Governments in India can 
 
INDIANS SACRIFICES AND SUFFERINGS 21 
 
 always be persuaded to move promptly and 
 decisively. 
 
 But the Indian public bore it all very patiently. 
 They were enthusiastic for the war at the outset, 
 the cause stirred their imagination, and roused 
 their sympathy, in a sense which can only be 
 appreciated by those who can realise the senti- 
 ments towards oppressed peoples which must 
 animate a people who look to gain their own 
 freedom. And if enthusiasm is not exactly 
 the word to describe their sentiments as the 
 gigantic struggle dragged its weary length 
 from one disappointment to another, they never 
 wavered in the loyalty of their attitude to the 
 AlUes' cause. They believed the war was being 
 waged for the freedom of all, and the reiterated 
 declarations of one British statesman after another, 
 and the expressed idpals with which President 
 Wilson came into the war, encouraged them 
 in the high hope that their freedom as a full 
 partner in the Empire must inevitably follow 
 the winning of freedom for others by the help 
 of their sacrifices. So for the most part they 
 were uncomplaining. They kept up a steady 
 
22 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 agitation for their own claims, in the face of 
 the tendency to discourage those claims, and 
 even to repudiate them, on the part of those 
 representing British authority. But they sup- 
 ported the war by Colossal sacrifices, proportionate 
 to their own poverty. Enormous sums were 
 raised for hospitals, and the philanthropic side 
 of the war generally. A million and a half men 
 went to shed their blood on the battlefields of 
 Europe, Africa, and Asia, and even to fight 
 against the Turks, whose Sultan exercises spiritual 
 authority over so many of the Indian soldiers, 
 and whose allegiance to their temporal sovereign 
 was sustained by the solemn promises made 
 to them that their spiritual interests would not 
 be assailed, or allowed to suffer. There is little 
 margin for additional taxation of a people so 
 poor, but that imposed was borne without 
 complaint, and one loan after another was raised, 
 while in addition a free gift of a hundred million 
 sterling was made by the poorest to the richest 
 country in the world I 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WAR LOAN AND RECRUITING METHODS 
 
 The effort that was made might even have been 
 greater if the pohcy and methods pursued by 
 the Government had been less harsh, provocative, 
 and stupid. The Indian Defence Force Act, 
 which was passed for the conscription of 
 Europeans, and, secondly, to recruit battalions 
 from the educated Indian classes, was a failure in 
 the second object. It might have been a success 
 if the Government had not refused Indians access 
 to the commissioned ranks, and thus created a 
 prejudice against the proposal which could not 
 be overcome. Recruiting campaigns for the 
 regular Army might have been attended with a 
 far greater measure of success if they had not 
 been hopelessly officialised and conducted in 
 many instances, especially in the Punjab, by the 
 methods of the old English press-gangs in the 
 French wars. Popular leaders, some of whom 
 
 23 
 
24 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 were actually clamouring for conscription, were 
 distrusted and ignored^ and recruiting committees 
 were composed, for the most part, of officials and 
 their nominees, who, in their turn, were distrusted 
 by the people. In the Punjab, and elsewhere, 
 the method adopted was to indent on each district 
 and village for the number of recruits that it was 
 considered it ought to produce, and then leave it 
 to the local officials to see that the complement 
 was forthcoming, using such methods of " pres- 
 sure and persuasion " * as they thought fit. Some 
 of the methods employed, such as trumped up 
 prosecutions and actual cruelties on the person, 
 to enforce recruitment have been revealed before 
 the Hunter Committee. But if a tithe of the 
 stories of oppression and cruelty that are related 
 in the bazaars and by people of standing were 
 true, it would form a severe indictment of Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer's Government. Popular leaders 
 advocated, and would have raised, a great citizen 
 
 * This was the phrase used by Lord WiUingdon's Gevern- 
 ment in description of methods of rank oppression, which 
 they held to be legitimate, in obtaining subscriptions for a 
 war loan. 
 
WAR LOAN AND RECRUITING METHODS 25 
 
 army. But that was too dangerous an expedient 
 for a Government that rules by force. 
 
 Nor were the methods employed to raise the 
 war loans less obnoxious. It must not be 
 assumed that coercive measures, which is the 
 proper English for Lord Willingdon's " pressure 
 and persuasion," were necessary. The loans 
 could have been raised as well by the reasonable 
 and productive methods of securing popular co- 
 operation. And it is only fair to say that in the 
 large cities, where the light of day prevails, this 
 was done to a considerable extent. But in the 
 country districts the " indent " system prevailed. 
 Local officials had to make returns of the lending 
 capacity of the areas in their charge, and 
 subordinates, feeUng that their reputation for 
 efficiency depended on results, entered with zest, 
 down to the police-constable, on the task of 
 extorting the highest amount that " pressure and 
 persuasion " could produce. AU over India one 
 heard the stories of this campaign of extortion 
 from people who could not affiard to pay. With- 
 out going to the Punjab, the story of what 
 occurred in a taluka in the Bombay Presidency 
 
26 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 may be quoted, for it includes the zoolum* both 
 of war loan and recruiting methods. Here the 
 local mamlatdar, or petty collector, followed 
 what appears to have been a not infrequent 
 practice of sending out summonses on official 
 printed forms, under the Land Revenue Code, 
 Calling upon people to appear before him " in 
 regard to the War Loan," Then he descended 
 on a village, summoned certain villagers to 
 appear before him, arbitrarily made out a list of 
 the amounts they were expected to pay, and then 
 closed the village well until such time as they 
 paid. That particular case was fully exposed. 
 But Lord Willingdon's Government, far from 
 being shocked, after a perfunctory investigation, 
 issued the communique condoning " pressure and 
 persuasion." 
 
 I'he following year the mamlatdar, having 
 received this meed of encouragement, followed 
 similar methods in obtaining recruits. Sum- 
 monses on this occasion were sent out on 
 printed forms under the " Recruiting Act," a 
 
 * The word is not fully translatable, but it means generally 
 oppression. 
 
WAR LOAN AND RECRUITING METHODS 27 
 
 statute which had no existence except in his 
 ingenious brain, and men were taken by force. 
 The people's patience, under the two years' strain, 
 broke down when he seized the assistant priests 
 of a temple, had them forcibly shaved, and 
 proposed to hand them over to the recruiting 
 officer. An angry mob surrounded his bungalow, 
 and, after allowing his family to escape, burnt 
 it to the ground with him in it. That was a 
 direct outcome of the condonation of oppression, 
 and now the village has to pay a punitive police 
 tax, though several people were hanged or im- 
 prisoned for the crime. A great deal more 
 might be written to expose the scandals attending 
 these recruiting and war loan campaigns, but 
 the present object is served if enough has been 
 said to show the kind of harassment which the 
 Indian people bore with remarkable patience 
 throughout the war, ever looking to the end, 
 which was to bring them relief from these 
 oppressions and emancipation from their political 
 shackles. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 POLITICAL REPRESSION 
 
 Their troubles, however, were not confined 
 to their economic sufferings and these oppressive 
 and iniquitous methods of raising the sinews of 
 war. Public opinion was continually irritated 
 and provoked by the persistent endeavours to 
 repress legitimate political propaganda and 
 muzzle the Press. At the beginning of the war, 
 there was an appeal for the suspension of all 
 controversy, to which the Indian leaders cordially 
 responded and loyally conformed, untU it became 
 clear that this was to be a one-sided arrange- 
 ment. While demanding abstention from 
 political agitation by the public, and expecting to 
 be immune from criticism in the Legislative 
 Councils, the bureaucrats themselves carried 
 on " as usual " with the introduction of highly 
 controversial legislation, and in other ways. The 
 " no controversy " pact could hardly be expected 
 to last under these conditions, especially when 
 
 28 
 
POLITICAL REPRESSION 29 
 
 it was found that the war was not regarded as 
 a bar to the conduct of pohtical agitation in 
 England, and other parts of the Empire. Indians 
 began to wonder, when they found that the 
 self-governing Dominions were beginning to put 
 forward their claims for a voice in the supreme 
 councils of the Empire and a more definite 
 position in the Imperial scheme after the war, 
 what would become of India, the Cinderella of 
 the Empire, if they remained silent and waited 
 for their claim to be adjudged, and their reward 
 defined by others. And when Mrs. Besant uttered 
 a warning on the subject, and followed it by 
 launchiiig the Home Rule League campaign, 
 there was a wide and enthusiastic response. 
 Public apprehension as to the fate of India in 
 a post-war reconstruction of the Empire was 
 raised to a high pitch by the accidental discovery 
 of the amazing proposals of the Round Table 
 group, which were being formulated and discussed 
 by certain high officials and Mr. Lionel Curtis, 
 with the assistance of Sir Valentine Chirol. Mr. 
 Lionel Curtis went to India to study the condi- 
 tions of the country, in order to solve the problem 
 
30 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 of how India was to be fitted into the scheme 
 of an Imperial Commonwealth, and he was 
 actively assisted in his subterranean propaganda 
 by Sir James Meston,* then Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the limited Provinces, and Mr, Marris,t his 
 Inspector-General of Police. In a private letter 
 to Mr. Philip Kerr, then secretary of the Round 
 Table Conference, Mr. Lionel Curtis discussed 
 the possibility of India being made subordinate, 
 in her external and internal affairs, to an Imperial 
 Council, on which the self-governing Dominions 
 would be represented, but she would not. He 
 added that this would perhaps lead to bloodshed, 
 but if it were the right thing to do, that would 
 have to be faced. The writer stated in his letter 
 that the views expressed in it were generally 
 approved by " Meston, Marris and Chirol." Copies 
 of this letter, for circulation among the Round 
 Table Confederates, were actually printed in 
 the Government Press at Allahabad. One came 
 
 * Now Lord Meston. 
 
 t Now Sir James Marris. It is not without significance 
 that these two officials subsequently played a large part in 
 the moulding of the Montagu reforms, and that Mr. Lionel 
 Curtis was the inventor of Dyarchy. 
 
POLITICAL REPRESSION 31 
 
 into the hands of The Bombay Chronicle, which 
 promptly published it, and the echoes of the 
 sensation it caused have hardly yet died. Its 
 publication coincided with the sittings at Luck- 
 now in December, 1917, of the Indian National 
 Congress, and immensely strengthened the posi- 
 tion of those who were urging that Indians must 
 agitate for their rights, war or no war, and gave 
 a great impetus to the Home Rule movement 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Lord Chelmsford and his Government, and 
 the Provincial Governments, in varying degrees, 
 were at the same time setting their faces with 
 an ugly expression against all active political 
 propaganda. They began to use the Press Act 
 with frequency and severity. Lord Willingdon 
 surprised those who had looked upon him as 
 a sympathetic and liberal-minded administrator 
 by putting the Defence of India Regulations in 
 force for the exclusion of Mrs. Besant from the 
 Bombay Presidency, and publicly deprecating 
 and even reprobating political agitation. The 
 Viceroy received a deputation of the Indian 
 Press Association, who represented the injustice 
 
32 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 and severity of the Press Act and its operations, 
 only to hector them Uke schoolboys and to 
 express views which would have done credit to 
 the Austrian administrators to whom the late 
 Sir Herbert Risley went for the models on 
 which he drafted the provisions of the Act. 
 At about the same time, early in 1917, a con- 
 fidential circular was sent out to the Provincial 
 Governments, instructing them to deal drastically 
 with Home Rule propaganda and Home Rule 
 organisations. The Mohammedan community 
 especially suffered. Mahomet Ali and Shaukat 
 Ali, the two most popular Moslem leaders in 
 India, were in^terned early in the war, their 
 paper was suppressed, and one Moslem journal 
 after another, especially in the Punjab, was 
 penaUsed, and usually succumbed under the 
 operations of the Press Act and the Defence of 
 India Act. In Bengal the internment of sus- 
 pects proceeded on a wholesale scale till the 
 number ran into thousands. Young men dis- 
 appeared from their homes, some to be confined 
 in solitary cells, and the public imagination was 
 stirred to its depths by stories of torture and 
 
POLITICAL REPRESSION 
 
 men going mad and committing suicide under 
 imprisonment without trial or charge. A young 
 professor of the Calcutta University, who became 
 mad in gaol (he was never charged or tried), was 
 actually removed to a criminal lunatic asylum, 
 and the Government of Bengal replied to his 
 mother's pathetic appeal for his release on the 
 ground that his power to harm the Government 
 was gone, that she could, if she wanted to be 
 near her son, take up her residence in the asylum 
 on condition that she submitted herself to the 
 ordinary rules and regulations of the institution 1 
 The careless fashion in which the terrible powers 
 of the Executive, under the Defence of India 
 Act, were being used was illustrated by a case in 
 which two innocent Bengali ladies were arrested, 
 made to walk several miles under the hot sun, 
 then carried a long distance by bullock cart, and 
 finally imprisoned in a common gaol for a con- 
 siderable period, before it was admitted that 
 their arrest was due to a mistake resulting from 
 gross carelessness, and their agony prolonged by 
 a series of blunders in red-tape routine. The 
 final touch of horror was added when two High 
 
 3 
 
34 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Court Judges, appointed to report on the opera- 
 tion of the Act in Bengal in regard to intern- 
 ments, declared that, while torture to extort 
 evidence was to be deprecated, it was not 
 desirable to ignore evidence so obtained in the 
 case of revolutionary crime for the internment 
 of suspects I 
 
 Finally came the dramatic pronouncement of 
 Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras, who 
 publicly declared that people had better put aU 
 thoughts of the early realisation of self-govern- 
 ment out of their minds, denounced the Home 
 Rule agitation, and declared his intention of 
 dealing with those who ignored his warnings 
 with a heavy hand. Soon afterwards the whole 
 of India was thrown into a state of ferment by 
 the internment, by Lord Pentland, of Mrs. 
 Besant and her chief lieutenants. This was in 
 June, 1917. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GLOOM OF 1919 
 
 What would have ultimately followed upon 
 this it is not necessary to speculate. The im- 
 mediate effect was an intensification of the Home 
 Rule agitation, added to which was the clamour 
 all over the country for the release of the interned 
 leaders. The advent of Mr. Montagu to the 
 India Office, however, following upon the dis- 
 credit thrown upon the Government of India 
 by the Mesopotamia revelations, brought about 
 a change of attitude. The announcement of 
 August, 1917, declaring that responsible govern- 
 ment was the goal of British policy, in spite of 
 its qualifying phraseology, brought some measure 
 of relief to a distracted people whose leaders were 
 at that moment about to inaugurate a passive 
 resistance movement, and public apprehensions 
 were further calmed by the announcement of 
 Mr. Montagu's visit to India to discuss reforms 
 with the Viceroy and public bodies, by the 
 
 35 
 
36 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 release of Mrs. Besant, and the removal of 
 restrictions on certain other persons. 
 
 A period of comparative restfulness followed. 
 But the publication of the Montagu-Chelmsford 
 scheme in the following year produced a profound 
 sense of disappointment by the inadequacy of 
 its proposals. It was roundly condemned, even 
 by some of those who subsequently accepted it 
 faute de mieux. Mrs. Besant, who has since 
 visited England as its champion, declared at the 
 outset that it was " unworthy of England to offer 
 and unworthy of India to accept." The Congress, 
 in a special session attended by a record number 
 of delegates, declared that it was " disappointing 
 and unsatisfactory," and demanded a number of 
 extensions and modifications, none of which have 
 been accepted. They laid special stress on a 
 " Declaration of Rights " guaranteeing to Indians 
 freedom of person, speech, and association, and 
 equality of rights with all subjects of the King 
 and Emperor. 
 
 The reply of the Government of India to the 
 demand for a Declaration of Rights was the 
 introduction of the Rowlatt Bills, which proposed 
 
THE GLOOM OF 1919 37 
 
 permanently further to limit in an extraordinary 
 degree the rights of Indians. The Rowlatt Bills 
 were published early in 1919 and introduced, 
 and the principal one passed into law, in a few 
 days in March. The next chapter will deal 
 with their provisions, and the reasons which 
 caused the Indian people to regard them with 
 such grave apprehension, and the consequent 
 agitation in the country. In the meanwhile, 
 it should be noted that nothing had happened, 
 apart from this, to amehorate the temper of the 
 people, but a great deal to aggravate it. The 
 conclusion of the war brought no relief of the 
 severity of economic conditions. On the con- 
 trary, foodstuffs seemed to grow dearer; and 
 public movements for the betterment of the 
 condition of the people, especially in the case of 
 industrial strikes, were dealt with unsympa- 
 thetically and even harshly. The scandal of 
 the incompetence of food control was growing. 
 During the great mill strike in Bombay the 
 mill districts bore the aspect of an armed camp, 
 and strikers were shot down in circumstances 
 that would have evoked a storm of wrath 
 
38 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 had these events occurred in England. The 
 Mohammedan community was deeply perturbed 
 by the threatened fate of Constantinople and 
 the blow thus to be struck at their spiritual 
 head, as well as by the continued internment 
 of their leaders, and repression of propaganda. 
 In all this the sympathies of their Hindu 
 brethren were keenly excited. Finally, the 
 rumblings of a threatened mutiny in the Indian 
 Civil Service, and the bitter agitation of the 
 European community against the Reforms 
 were crowned by the obvious intention of the 
 Government of India to attempt to have them 
 whittled down. The conclusion of the war thus 
 found India in a condition of gloomy appre- 
 hension and irritation, and in looking ahead 
 their attention was necessarily concentrated on 
 the certain evils of the Rowlatt Act, rather 
 than the questionable benefits of the Reform 
 scheme, which promised them no relief from the 
 iron control of the irresponsible bureaucracy. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE ROWLATT BILLS AND THE 
 
 AGITATION 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE ROWLATT LEGISLATION 
 
 In dealing with the agitation which was produced 
 by the introduction of the Rowlatt Bills, and 
 which came to a head on the passing of the 
 second but the more important of them into 
 law, it is necessary to offer first a brief account 
 of the measures, why they were brought in, and 
 why the people of India regarded them with 
 alarm bordering on panic. 
 
 From the year 1907 and onwards there was a 
 certain amount of revolutionary crime in India ; 
 it was not widespread, it was confined to a small 
 section of extremists, who, however, were ex- 
 tremely well organised, and became better 
 organised as time went on. Acts of violence, 
 in the form of the assassination of officials (mostly 
 the police officers who were investigating their 
 crimes), and dacoities (robbery under arms by 
 gangs), were the chief features of their campaign ; 
 but they endeavoured also to work on the minds 
 
 41 
 
42 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 of the younger generation in schools and colleges, 
 chiefly in Bengal, by means of secret propaganda. 
 The police, especially in Bengal, were by no 
 means successful in coping with their crimes, 
 which if spasmodic and infrequent — if considered 
 statistically in relation to crime as a whole — were 
 sufficiently disconcerting to the Government, and 
 particularly to the police, from whose ranks 
 most of their victims were selected. The legal 
 annals of Bengal contain the records of cases 
 during the years from 1908 to 1914 which were 
 abortive on account of the blundering and ill- 
 conceived methods of the police themselves, in 
 spite of the fact that an Act was passed for the 
 removal of such cases to special tribunals, com- 
 posed of three High Court Judges. These failures 
 were due to the usual faults of police work in 
 India — the hankering after approvers and con- 
 fessions, to be obtained by any means, good or 
 bad ; the concoction of a little evidence to make 
 a bad case good or a good case better ; and the 
 suppression of facts which fail to fit the theory 
 that has been built up for the convenience of the 
 prosecution. However that may be, the fact 
 
ORIGIN OF THE ROWLATT LEGISLATION 43 
 
 was that these crimes, without growing to very 
 large proportions, continued, a:nd the poUce 
 authorities took up the attitude that, if they were 
 to be confined within the limits of the procedure 
 which bare justice demands and human liberty 
 enjoins, they were helpless in the face of a secret 
 organisation which persistently defied their 
 efforts. Demands were put forward for special 
 powers, the lowering of the standard of evidence, 
 and other devices for the easy success of the 
 police in securing convictions. The Indian police, 
 as at present constituted, are the very last who 
 should be entrusted with such extraordinary 
 powers : they already enjoyed more than the 
 police in this country in a great many respects. 
 And the whole Indian Press anticipated with the 
 liveliest apprehension the prospect of any exten- 
 sion of those wide powers which already enabled 
 the police to oppress the people. 
 
 Whether legislation on the lines indicated 
 would have been attempted is now matter only for 
 profitless speculation. The war came, and with 
 it an unexpected opportunity for those who 
 favoured drastic methods of dealing with political 
 
44 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 suspects. One of these was Sir Reginald 
 Craddock, then Home Member of the Viceroy's 
 Executive Council, and he grasped the oppor- 
 tunity. He was chiefly responsible for the 
 Defence of India Act, the Indian D.O.R.A., 
 which was placed before the Viceroy's Legislative 
 Council, and patriotically accepted by the Indian 
 non-official members (to their lasting regret) as 
 a " war emergency " measure. Sir Reginald 
 Craddock explained that it might be divided into 
 two parts — the one dealing with emergencies of a 
 purely military nature, and according to the 
 Government special powers in that respect ; the 
 other dealing with conspiracies against the State, 
 etc. Very wide powers for internment of persons 
 without trial, and restriction of the liberty of 
 individuals in writing, speech, and movement 
 were given to the Executive, and these were not 
 limited to action against persons of hostile origin 
 or associations, as in England, but were usable 
 against any subject of the King. In addition, 
 power was given for the trial of offences under 
 the Act by tribunals composed of commissioners 
 below the status of High Court Judges, who 
 
ORIGIN OF THE ROWLATT XEGISLATION 46 
 
 would have the power to take direct cognisance 
 of offences, thus abolishing all preliminary 
 proceedings, and would sit without juries. There 
 was to be no appeal from any sentence passed by 
 them, and their powers of punishment extended 
 to the death sentence. Nobody ever supposed 
 that these powers would be used, except for pur- 
 poses coming legitimately under the description 
 of war emergency. But the disillusionment was 
 grave. Political suspects of all sorts were 
 imprisoned without trial, papers were made 
 to suffer for their political views on the 
 least pretext, the movements of poUtical leaders 
 who were loyal supporters of the war were 
 restricted, and Special Tribunals sometimes sat 
 to try cases not even remotely connected with 
 the war, which were thus removed from their 
 legitimate sphere, depriving those charged of 
 their proper rights of trial by jury and appeal, 
 etc. As an instance may be mentioned a case of 
 a religious riot, which was utterly unconnected 
 with any danger to the State, in which a large 
 number of persons were tried and sentenced by a 
 Special Tribunal under the Defence of India Act. 
 
46 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 These things are mentioned here because they 
 have an important bearing on the attitude of 
 apprehension which was produced later when the 
 Rowlatt Act came on the scene. 
 
 It is claimed by the Executive Authorities in 
 India that the powers enjoyed under the Defence 
 of India Act enabled them to cope, with a large 
 measure of success, with the revolutionary crime 
 which had baffled them hitherto. It is not 
 necessary to argue about that. It is possible that, 
 if the London police had power to arrest and 
 imprison without trial indefinitely every person 
 they suspected of burglarious intent, burglaries 
 would for a time diminish, but it is certain that a 
 very large number of innocent people would be 
 thrown into gaol. The claim was made, and, in 
 view of the fact that the war would one day end 
 and the Defence of India Act cease to exist six 
 months thereafter, the Executive bethought 
 themselves of the means whereby these powers 
 might be retained and even improved. There- 
 upon the Rowlatt Committee was appointed to 
 report on revolutionary crime in India, and to 
 recommend measures to cope with it in the 
 
ORIGIN OF THE ROWLAIT LEGISLATION 47 
 
 future. It is often the boast of the Government 
 that this Committee was presided over by an 
 English Judge, Sir Sidney Rowlatt, and included 
 among its members two Indian Judges. A dis- 
 tinguished law lord said in the House of Lords, 
 in reference to the Advisory Committee of 
 Judges under D.O.R.A., that a committee of 
 angels could not be expected to give an impartial 
 decision if they heard only one side of the case, 
 and the importance of the Rowlatt Committee's 
 procedure and findings is not in the persons who 
 made them, but in the inherent wrongness of 
 what they did. If men are to be imprisoned 
 without trial, and to have their national liberty 
 and rights restricted in many other important 
 ways, it is little consolation to those who suffer, 
 or those who may at any moment be called upon 
 to suffer, to know that the law under which they 
 suffer is the outcome of the deliberations of a 
 committee composed of Judges, who were set the 
 task of recommending the means whereby the 
 ordinary processes of justice might be dispensed 
 with for the convenience of the Executive, in 
 cases where those proper and essential processes 
 
48 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 prevented the conviction of suspects. For the 
 Rowlatt Committee, after all, were set a definite 
 task, and all they did was to do what the Govern- 
 ment asked them to do. In arriving at their 
 conclusions, it is true that they confirmed the 
 Government's view as to the gravity of the 
 revolutionary crime that had existed, and the 
 danger of its recrudescence. But it must be 
 remembered that they conducted their delibera- 
 tions in camera J the material on which they 
 reported consisted for the most part of secret 
 police records, and the public men whom they 
 associated with responsibility for revolutionary 
 propaganda or the promotion of movements 
 which led to crime, as alleged, were not given 
 the opportunity of appearing before them to be 
 heard in their own defence. Such an investiga- 
 tion could hardly result otherwise than in a 
 complete endorsement of Government views. 
 But it is important to note that in making their 
 recommendations as to the form of the legislation 
 which would confirm, in the hands of the Execu- 
 tive, the powers temporarily exercised under the 
 Defence of India Act, and improve them, the 
 
ORIGIN OF THE ROWLATT LEGISLATION 49 
 
 Committee were careful to state that they had 
 not considered whether such legislation was, in 
 any respect, beyond the competence of the 
 Governor-General in Council. Many hold that 
 it was. But the point has not been tested. 
 
 The Government of India, however, were in 
 no doubt on the matter. The armistice was no 
 sooner signed than they set about the task of 
 getting this legislation through. The two Bills 
 were gazetted early in 1919 and introduced in 
 the Imperial Legislature shortly afterwards. 
 They were received with amazement by the 
 public, who, accustomed as they had become to 
 the harsh and repressive attitude of Lord Chelms- 
 ford's Government, had hardly believed that the 
 triumph of the AUies in the struggle for world- 
 freedom, so largely bought by Indian sacrifices, 
 and the announcement of August, 1917, would 
 be quickly followed by the introduction of 
 drastic legislation, depriving people of their most 
 elementary human rights and unparalleled in 
 the laws of any modem civilised State. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE "BLACK" BILLS 
 
 Probably few people in Great Britain are well 
 acquainted with the nature of the provisions of 
 the Rowlatt Bills, or have any more than a 
 vague idea about them as some repressive 
 legislation which Indian agitators regarded as 
 obnoxious. It has been said often enough by 
 officials in India, by the Anglo-Indian Press and 
 in telegrams sent to this country by Anglo- 
 Indian correspondents, that the BUls were 
 "wickedly misrepresented" on the platform in 
 India. The fact is, that the provisions are so 
 iniquitous in themselves that it would be 
 extremely difficult to misrepresent them as any- 
 thing worse than they are. Generally speaking, 
 any proposals to place larger powers in the 
 hands of the police are sufficient to create panic 
 in the minds of the Indian populace, and they 
 have had plenty of experience of the ruthless, 
 cruel use which can be and is made of repressive 
 
 50 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 51 
 
 legislation, which, of course, is always passed for 
 purposes of temporary emergency and to deal 
 with particular classes of persons, but has a 
 habit of becoming permanent and applying itself 
 in a generous and widespread fashion to all sorts 
 of purposes and people. Executive authority 
 does not easily surrender the powers it has once 
 wielded, nor is it easily deterred from using for 
 one purpose powers which were ostensibly given 
 to it by the Legislature for another, if there is 
 nothing in the letter of the law to prevent it. 
 And in India, Executive authority, responsible 
 only to a Parliament seven thousand mUes away, 
 which does not hear of happenings in India for 
 eight months and sometimes longer, is naturally 
 less scrupulous than in countries where it can 
 be called quickly to account by those who have 
 in their own hands the power of censure and 
 punishment. The Press Act and the Defence 
 of India Act, as has been already indicated, are 
 glaring instances, to take only two, of legislation 
 that has been used wholesale for purposes outside 
 the scope to which a confiding Legislature, or its 
 non-official minority, was persuaded it would be 
 
52 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 confined. The plea, therefore, that the Rowlatt 
 Act is only intended to deal with anarchists and 
 revolutionary conspiracies and movements does 
 not "cut any ice" with the Indian people. 
 They want to know who is an anarchist and 
 what is a revolutionary movement, and prefer 
 that these aU-important questions should be 
 decided by proper procedure in the ordinary 
 courts of justice instead of being left to the 
 arbitrary decision of the Executive, who have 
 peculiar and narrow notions on the subject. 
 
 However, a brief examination of the provisions 
 of the two Bills will show whether they were the 
 sort of proposals which a people who aspired to 
 political freedom, who had made immense sacri- 
 fices and undergone great sufferings to win 
 freedom from oppression for other peoples, could 
 be expected to accept without going to the 
 utmost lengths in resistance, even if they were 
 to refrain from actual violence ; or, rather, 
 whether it was not legislation which the least 
 discerning Government (we will leave out the 
 consideration of sympathy and affection for, or 
 gratitude to, the people) ought to have realised 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 53 
 
 would have raised the protests of the people to 
 the pitch of frenzy. 
 
 Rowlatt Bill No. I. — There is some mystery 
 attaching to the peculiar fact that the lesser BiU 
 was subjected to the process of "publishing," 
 while the greater was immediately passed into 
 law. In India there is a technical meaning 
 attaching to the publication of a bill after its 
 introduction in the Legislature. It means that it 
 must be published in all the Provincial Govern- 
 ment gazettes and then await the lapse of a 
 certain period before it is passed into law. The 
 Bill that has become an Act was not subjected 
 to this process. It has been stated that the 
 Secretary of State cabled his sanction only for 
 the publication of the BUls, but the Government 
 of India misunderstood or misread the cable, 
 and took it as conveying sanction to proceed 
 with its enactment, with the result that the first 
 intimation of this fact that Mr. Montagu had 
 came to him in the newspapers. The error was 
 rectified too late, and the first Bill was then 
 allowed, with a weakness which has not been 
 wanting in the attitude of Whitehall to the 
 
54 AMRFTSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Government of India, to proceed on its course. 
 Had Mr. Montagu been strong enough to insist 
 upon the Bill being postponed, when it was 
 realised that it would be resisted by a most 
 strenuous popular agitation, the events which 
 have so shocked public opinion in this country 
 would not have occurred. 
 
 The minor Bill, however, although it has 
 never passed the Legislative Council, played 
 its part in the earlier stages of the agitation, 
 when both Bills were at the stage of proposals 
 which it was hoped to prevent from being passed 
 into law. Its provisions, though less drastic and 
 sweeping than those of the other measure, were 
 sufficiently alarming. It provided for the 
 amendment of the Indian Penal Code and the 
 Code of Criminal Procedure. India is blessed 
 with a law of sedition, which is as comprehensive 
 and severe as one would have thought in- 
 genuity could make it. The amendments of the 
 two codes, however, proposed to make it even 
 more severe. A new section, 124 B, was to be 
 added which made it punishable by imprison- 
 ment up to two years, or by fine, or by both, for 
 
THE « BLACK " BILLS 55 
 
 anyone to have in his possession any seditious 
 document, intending that the same shall be 
 published or circulated, unless he could prove 
 that he had such document in his possession for 
 a lawful purpose. The possibilities opened up 
 by this provision, which presumes guilty inten- 
 tion and throws upon the accused the onus of 
 proving the absence of intention, do not require 
 elaboration. There is a direct negation of the 
 first principle of British justice which presumes 
 a man to be innocent, and throws upon the 
 prosecution the onus of proving his guilt. A 
 seditious document is defined in the code as one 
 which instigates, or is likely to instigate, the use 
 of criminal force against the King, the Govern- 
 ment, or a public servant or servants. Many 
 historical works, reports of trials, or mere curiosi- 
 ties of literature might be brought within so 
 vague a description and the innocent possessor 
 of such, being unable to achieve the impossible 
 and prove that he had no intention that they 
 should be published or circulated, be penalised 
 under the proposed section. They might even 
 come into his possession as waste paper, and be 
 
56 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 used to wrap up tea or sugar with the most 
 alarming results in the shape of a suggestion 
 that he had discovered a peculiarly subtle and 
 cunning way of spreading sedition. No sugges- 
 tion as to the possible consequence of such a 
 law could be regarded as fantastic by anyone 
 acquainted with the methods of the Indian 
 police, and their facile ingenuity in trumping up 
 cases against those who have made themselves 
 obnoxious to authority. 
 
 Having created a new crime, and set up a new 
 and startling principle of law, the BUI next pro- 
 posed to make justice still less safe by providing 
 that on the trial of an offence under Chapter VI. 
 of the Indian Penal Code (offences against the 
 State) the following facts should be relevant — 
 namely : 
 
 1. That the person accused has previously 
 been convicted of an offence under that chapter, 
 and 
 
 2. That such person has habitually and volun- 
 tarily associated with any person who has been 
 convicted of an offence under that chapter. 
 
 That an accused's previous conviction should 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 67 
 
 be used against him is another startUng perversion 
 of British justice as we know it and as we have 
 boasted of it in India ; hardly less so is the 
 proposal that a man may have it brought in 
 evidence against him that he has habitually and 
 unlawfully associated with anyone who has been 
 convicted of a seditious offence. The friends and 
 relatives of a man who had been convicted under 
 one of the dangerously vague sedition sections 
 of the Indian Code might well begin to shun 
 him, in the knowledge that association with 
 him might be used against them at some future 
 time. 
 
 Finally, the Bill proposed that a person con- 
 victed only once of an offence punishable under 
 Section VI. should be liable to an obligation on 
 his release from gaol to execute a bond with 
 sureties for his good behaviour for a period not 
 exceeding two years. In the event of his not 
 being able to do so, the released person would 
 have to notify his residence, and any change of 
 his residence, to the police during the prescribed 
 period. And, not satisfied with this, the authors 
 of the Bill proceeded to provide that the Local 
 
58 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Government might further place him under a 
 series of restrictions extending to internment 
 and prohibition of speech or writing, with the 
 penalty of imprisonment and fine for disobedience. 
 The Rowlatt Act. — Such was Rowlatt Bill 
 No. 1, which in itself was sufficient to justify the 
 strongest public protest. Bill No. 2, which is 
 now the Rowlatt Act, was far more wide and 
 drastic in its provisions, sweeping away wholesale 
 nearly all the safeguards and checks which 
 human experience has incorporated in the forms 
 of criminal procedure, which we are proud to call 
 British justice. " Na dalil, na vakil, na appeal "* 
 was a popular cry, which, in rough-and-ready 
 idiom, described but inadequately the dangerous 
 features of the new law which was in reality a 
 negation of law. The Rowlatt Act included in 
 its various parts all the three things contained in 
 this cry of the bazaars and a great many worse 
 besides. People could be tried by courts which 
 were empowered to sit in camera, which could 
 accept in evidence, in certain circumstances, the 
 recorded statements of persons dead or missing 
 * " No argument, no lawyer, no appeal." 
 
THE " BLACK " BILLS 59 
 
 or otherwise incapable of giving evidence, without 
 having been subjected to the test of cross- 
 examination, and whose judgment was to be 
 final and conclusive. The tribunals were to be 
 composed of three persons who would be either 
 High Court Judges or of the status of such, and 
 they were to sit without juries. Proof of previous 
 conviction could be admitted as evidence, a fact 
 which lent piquancy to the provision that an 
 accused giving evidence on oath could not be 
 asked any questions tending to show that he had 
 committed, or been convicted of, or;charged with, 
 any other offence, or had a bad character, unless 
 proof that he had committed, or been convicted 
 of (note the distinction I), such other offence was 
 " admissible evidence " to show that he was 
 guilty of the offence with which he was then 
 charged. By such tribunals, with such procedure, 
 without juries, without preliminary proceedings 
 for committal — which are provided for in the 
 ordinary criminal law — and without any sort of 
 appeal from their decision, people could be sent 
 to the gallows or to the Andamans — the hell to 
 which transported convicts in India are com- 
 
60 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 mitted for the remainder of their lives. That 
 was Part I. of the Act. 
 
 Part II. gave power to the Executive to place 
 persons suspected of (not convicted of, or charged 
 with) complicity in " anarchical or revolutionary 
 movements " under restraint and restriction of 
 their liberty in various ways. They might be 
 made to execute a bond, with or without sureties, 
 not to commit certain offences scheduled in the 
 Act, which included offences under the ordinary 
 law not normally connected with anarchical or 
 revolutionary movements, but liable to be so 
 connected by the arbitrary fiat of the Executive. 
 They might be ordered to notify their residence 
 and any change of residence, in the manner of 
 habitual offenders ; to remain or reside in any 
 specified area ; to abstain from any act which in 
 the opinion of the Local Government was calcu- 
 lated to disturb the public peace or was prejudicial 
 to the public safety (this might involve the 
 suspension of a man's means of livelihood) ; or 
 to report themselves periodically to the police. 
 They might be ordered to do any or all of these 
 things, and the order would remain in force for 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 61 
 
 a year, at the end of which time it could be 
 renewed. The penalty for disobedience of any 
 such order might extend to six months' imprison- 
 ment or a fine of five hundred rupees, or both. 
 
 Part III. of the Act was even more alarming. 
 This empowered the Executive authority to arrest 
 and search without warrant, and to confine persons 
 so arrested without trial in any part of a prison 
 or place not actually used for the confinement 
 of convicted criminals, and to prolong such con- 
 finement from time to time, in periods of one year, 
 by the renewal of orders. There was nothing to 
 prevent the confinement of such persons within 
 the precincts of ordinary criminal gaols, or m 
 solitary cells — a practice which had led to hideous 
 results in some of the cases of internment under 
 the Defence of India Act. 
 
 Part IV. provided for the automatic continu- 
 ance of the confinement or restriction of persons 
 already confined or restricted under the Defence 
 of India Act, when that beneficent measure 
 expired six months after the long-deferred con- 
 clusion of the war. Part V. added a few more 
 provisions to make the whole business of punish- 
 
62 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 ment by Star Chamber tribunals and restriction 
 of liberties thoroughly sound and water-tight, 
 nothing that could possibly help to do so being 
 forgotten in this odious piece of legislation, 
 which is now part of the law of British India. 
 
 Those who have attempted to defend or excuse 
 the measure have made much of the " investi- 
 gating authorities," for which the Bill provides, 
 to inquire into the cases of persons dealt with 
 under Part II. and Part III., and that before 
 Parts I., II., and III. can come into operation 
 the Governor-General in Council must be satisfied 
 that " in the whole or any part of British India 
 anarchical or revolutionary movements are being 
 promoted," and that (Part I.) " scheduled oiFences 
 in connection with such movements are prevalent 
 to such an extent that it is expedient in the 
 interests of the public safety to provide for the 
 speedy trial of such offences "; or (Part II.) such 
 movements are " likely to lead to the commission 
 of scheduled offences "; or (Part III.) " scheduled 
 offences in connection with such movements are 
 prevalent to such an extent as to endanger the 
 public safety." 
 
THE " BLACK " BILLS 63 
 
 As regards the Investigating Authorities, they 
 could afford no greater guarantee of safety than 
 the other provisions of Parts II, and III. They 
 would be appointed by the Executive for the 
 occasion, and the Act provides that the investi- 
 gations should be held in camera. The person 
 affected would not be entitled to be represented 
 by pleader ; " any fact the communication of 
 which might endanger the public safety, or the 
 safety of any individual," would be withheld from 
 him, and the Investigating Authority would not 
 be bound by the rules of the law of evidence. 
 The position of a person attempting to defend 
 himself against vague allegations supported by 
 an untested police dossier before a secret inquiry 
 of this character would be obviously hopeless. 
 And the experience of similar inquiries under 
 the Defence of India Act, to which reference 
 has been made in a previous chapter, was suffi- 
 cient, apart from the prima facie unfairness and 
 injustice of such procedure for the protection 
 of men whose liberty is being robbed, to justify 
 the most grave apprehension of the consequences 
 of placing such powers in the hands of Executive 
 
64 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 authority, acting on the instigation of a noto- 
 riously and justly distrusted police department. 
 As for the initial condition of a formal declaration 
 of the prevalence of anarchical or revolutionary 
 movements before putting the Act in opera- 
 tion, here the public was to be at the mercy of 
 the state of mind of the Executive, which in 
 India is very easily inflamed into the belief that 
 legitimate expressions of pohtical opinions, or 
 popular agitations for the redress of legitimate 
 grievances, indicate an anarchical or revolutionary 
 spirit in the people ; and has been capable, to 
 take one example only, of using a war emergency 
 measure to set up a special tribunal for the trial 
 of persons implicated in a religious riot which 
 had no more the character of an offence against 
 the State than the man in the moon. Nothing 
 but the arbitrary notification of its opinion by the 
 Government in the Gazette of India would be 
 required for the immediate creation of anarchy 
 or revolution, and since the "scheduled offences" 
 included a number of ordinary crimes under 
 the common law, such as rioting, unlawful 
 assembly, assault, etc., their " prevalence to such 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 65 
 
 an extent as to endanger the public safety " — 
 when do they not ? — would be not less difficult 
 to assert as a matter of opinion — and the Act 
 demands no more — ^than that political move- 
 ments, which the Government chose to consider 
 anarchical or revolutionary, were likely to lead 
 to the commission of ' ' scheduled offences. " Even 
 in England a railway strike was denounced by the 
 Prime Minister as an anarchical movement. It 
 would probably require less to provoke authority 
 in India to make use of these powers lying so 
 temptingly at hand. 
 
 But one need not analyse legislation of this 
 sort closely, to justify the opposition to and 
 fear of it by a people on whom it was being 
 thrust by an autocratic Government. The broad 
 fact is sufficient that, at the conclusion and not 
 the commencement of a war, at a time when 
 no emergency existed, when no danger to the 
 State was indicated, it was proposed to take 
 away, not from persons of hostile origin or hostile 
 association, but from subjects of the British 
 Crown, the right of trial, and to expose them to 
 all the terrors of arrest without warrant, im- 
 
 5 
 
66 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 prisonment without trial, drastic restrictions of 
 liberty of other kinds, and Star Chamber tribunals. 
 And deeper still, perhaps, in its effect upon the 
 public temper, was the moral hurt to the self- 
 respect and the awakened sentiments of freedom 
 of a people who had just made ungrudging sacri- 
 fices to win victory for the freedom of the world ; 
 while the brutal indifference to the popular 
 sentiment and will with which every protest 
 and every appeal was ignored, and the measure 
 forced through the Legislature by the bloc of 
 bureaucrats appointed to the Council for the 
 express purpose of carrying Government legisla- 
 tion against the elected representatives, was in 
 itself enough to rouse the fury of the most 
 submissive population. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive a more deliberate or culpable provocation 
 of the people. Lord Chelmsford's Government 
 was warned, by men whose loyalty and modera- 
 tion is unquestioned, of the dire consequences 
 likely to result from the step they were taking. 
 They refused to listen. Appeals were made 
 from the same quarter even for a postponement 
 of the measure and time for further consideration. 
 
THE "BLACK" BILLS 67 
 
 They went ruthlessly on, and they had no excuse 
 for haste, even if they believed in the ultimate 
 necessity of the measure. The official termina- 
 tion of the war, as they knew, was far distant, 
 and there were six months to spare after that. 
 They might even have done what the Govern- 
 ment in England has just done. They might 
 have provided for a temporary extension of the 
 Indian D.O.R.A. But they seemed to be set 
 upon showing the Indian people that the war- 
 won freedom was not for them, that Government 
 in India was still, and would remain, an autoc- 
 racy, unrepresentative of and antagonistic to 
 the sentiments of the people, able to ride rough- 
 shod over their protests and to rob them, if it 
 so willed, of the liberties and rights solemnly 
 guaranteed to them in the proclamations of 
 three successive sovereigns. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A PEACEFUL AGITATION 
 
 The agitation against the Rowlatt Act was 
 treated by the Government and its agents as 
 though it were a factitious ferment excited by 
 a few noisy pohticians eager to seize any oppor- 
 tunity to discredit the Government. That, at 
 least, was their attitude in the early stages. It 
 is doubtful whether any official authority now, 
 however, could be found who would attempt to 
 deny that, rightly or wrongly, the whole popula- 
 tion was stirred to the depths by resentment 
 against the legislation and apprehensions of its 
 consequences. They would tell you that this 
 state of feeling, unparalleled in the history of 
 Crown rule in India, was brought about by 
 " wicked misrepresentations " of the Act and the 
 Government's motives in passing it on the part 
 of unscrupulous agitators; but, whatever the 
 cause, the wide extent of the popular indigna- 
 tion, spreading through every class and every 
 
 68 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 69 
 
 part of the country, would not be denied. We 
 need not, here, go deeply into the question 
 whether the Act was misrepresented or not. 
 The nature of its provisions and its extensive 
 and startling potentialities have been explained, 
 and they are there for everybody to judge. The 
 question is, how far it would be possible wickedly 
 to misrepresent an Act which deprives people, 
 unfortunate enough to come under its operation, 
 of their natural rights and liberties and every 
 guarantee and safeguard that the law had 
 hitherto provided. Meticulous accuracy on the 
 platform, when speakers are dealing with com- 
 plicated measures in the heat of a great popular 
 agitation, is not characteristic of the politics of 
 any country in the world. One deals with the 
 general effects likely to follow from the passing 
 .of such legislation as the Rowlatt Act. The 
 English reader may be asked to consider his 
 own feelings if it were proposed to place such a 
 measure on the Statute Book in this country as 
 a permanent law* in times of peace, and then to 
 
 * The adjective is used advisedly. Experience in India 
 teaches that a law of this kind once accepted for three years 
 is permanent. 
 
70 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 remember that the possible or probable results 
 would be inj&nitely more grave in a country 
 unprotected by representative Government, an 
 untrammelled Press, and free institutions. It 
 would be useless to teU him that the Act was 
 intended only for anarchists, and could only be 
 brought into operation when "scheduled offences " 
 connected with anarchical or revolutionary move- 
 ments were, in the opinion of the Executive 
 Government, prevalent. He would want to 
 know who was to be considered an anarchist 
 and what is an anarchical movement, and tell 
 the authors of such legislation that these are 
 questions that could only be decided by fair and 
 open trial. But it is fantastic to suppose that 
 such a measure could ever be brought forward 
 in the Parliament of this country. 
 
 What was also remarkable about the agitation 
 against the Rowlatt Act, and equally undeniable, 
 was its absolutely peaceful character. It must 
 not be supposed that the people of the Punjab 
 burst into riot and disorder, or, what has been 
 called most extravagantly by the Government, 
 " open rebellion " against the Act itself. We 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 71 
 
 shall see, presently, how disorder followed upon 
 aggression and gratuitous provocation of demon- 
 strators pursuing very peaceful methods. What 
 has been called the " Passive Resistance " move- 
 ment — and the term may be used here for 
 convenience, though Mr. Gandhi, its leader, will 
 not accept it — was based upon Satyagi'aha, a 
 Sanscrit word which it would be impossible to 
 translate in all its fullness into any English terms. 
 But it may be explained. The cardinal doctrines 
 are strict adhesion to truth, absolute absten- 
 tion from violence, and readiness to suffer. A 
 Satyagrahi, indeed, must invite suffering, and 
 must never do anything that can hurt others, 
 even those who inflict suflFering on him, and 
 he must not speak, or even think, evilly of them. 
 It is a sublimation of the Christian doctrine. 
 By suflfering and soul-force and conversion, 
 through these and love, one must conquer ; not 
 by destroying one's enemies or oppressors. 
 
 Satyagraha is thus a permanent and un- 
 changing philosophy which stands by itself. Its 
 application to a crisis or disaster falling upon a 
 whole people has to be considered a little apart. 
 
72 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 perhaps, from its position as a great human philo- 
 sophy, as Mahatma Gandhi himself lives and 
 teaches it. Perhaps it would be as well to quote 
 here the Mahatma's explanation, as given by 
 himself recently before the Hunter Committee, 
 
 The law-breaker breaks the law surreptitiously and tries 
 to avoid the penalty ; not so the civil resister. He ever 
 obeys the laws of the State to which he belongs, not out of 
 fear of the sanctions, but because he considers them to be 
 good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, 
 generally rare, when he considers certain laws to be so un- 
 just as to render obedience to them a dishonour. He then 
 openly and civilly breaks them, and quietly suffers the penalty 
 for their breach. And in order to register his protest against 
 the action of the law-givers, it is open to him to withdraw 
 his co-operation from the State by disobeying such other 
 laws whose breach does not involve moral turpitude. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that a doctrine, so 
 intensely rigorous in its rules of conduct and 
 the demands it makes on the individual in every 
 department of life, could be imposed on or prac- 
 tised at short notice by a whole people. When 
 the Satyagraha Sabha (Association of Satya- 
 grahis) was formed, it was not expected that 
 more than comparatively few people could or 
 would become members. And the conditions 
 of membership were very strict. None was 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 73 
 
 admitted but those who satisfied the officers who 
 were appointed by the committee, after, very 
 often, exhaustive questioning and inquiry, that 
 they fully understood the gravity and rigour of 
 the rules that would be imposed upon them, that 
 they could be humanly trusted to conduct them- 
 selves as true Satyagrahis, refraining rigidly from 
 all violence, and prepared to suffer to the utmost 
 and to invite suffering. From the wider public 
 all that was looked for was moral sympathy 
 and support. The small band of Satyagrahis 
 was to exist as an example to the Government 
 and people of spiritual resistance to wrong and 
 oppression, and their numbers would grow as 
 time went on. The spirit of Satyagraha would 
 gradually spread, and tyranny would be con- 
 quered at length by " soul-force," to use Mr. 
 Gandhi's expression, as it had been conquered 
 before in South Africa, Behar, and Kaira, where 
 Mr. Gandhi had led similar movements. But while 
 few, and those only who were fully prepared and 
 fitted, were to suffer, many were asked to 
 exhibit sympathy for and moral adhesion to the 
 movement. 
 
74 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 The vow which the members of the Satyagraha 
 Sahha were asked to take was as follows : 
 
 " Being conscientiously of opinion that the Bills knomn as the 
 Indian Criminal Lam {Amendment) Bill No. 1 o/" 1919, and No. 2 
 oj" 1919 are unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and 
 justice and destructive of the elementary rights of individuals on 
 which the safety of the community as a whole and the State itself 
 is based, we solemnly affirm that, in the event of these Bills 
 becoming law, me shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such 
 other laws as a committee, to be hereafter appointed, may think Jit, 
 and we further affirm that in the struggle we will faithfully follow 
 truth, and refrain from violence of life, person, or property." 
 
 The vow was originally drawn up in Gujerati. 
 It was elaborated after much anxious discussion, 
 and finally drafted in English by the present 
 writer. Before the movement was definitely 
 launched, notice of the intention was given in a 
 private letter to the Viceroy by Mr. Gandhi, and 
 a final appeal made to Lord Chelmsford to with- 
 draw the Bills. There were many stages at 
 which the Government, without hurt to itself, 
 might have withdrawn from the contest that 
 was daily lowering it further in the pubHc 
 estimation. But Lord Chelmsford would not 
 wait, and lost no time in giving his formal assent 
 to the Act as soon as it had passed through the 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 75 
 
 Council. And the hope that Mr. Montagu 
 would interfere at the eleventh hour, and advise 
 the King to disallow it, knowing as he did the 
 turmoil it was creating, proved vain. 
 
 Something may be said regarding the laws 
 which, on the decision of a committee, were to 
 be civilly disobeyed. It was felt that passive 
 resistance to the Rowlatt Act itself would be 
 inadequate, since opportunity would only occur 
 to those on whom the operation of the Act fell. 
 
 It was decided, therefore, to select from time 
 to time other laws against liberty and individual 
 rights, of which there are not a few in India, for 
 civil disobedience. The initial laws that were 
 selected for this purpose were those affecting 
 the sale of proscribed literature aud the Press 
 Act. It would surprise many people, no doubt, 
 to learn that there are a large number of works, 
 of historical and classical reputation in common 
 circulation all over the world, which are pro- 
 scribed in India, lest the mind of the Indian 
 youth should be unduly stirred by the doctrines 
 of liberty and freedom. Works of this character 
 were printed and taken into the streets for sale 
 
76 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 in defiance of the law by Satyagrahis. They 
 included a mild dissertation on Home Rule by 
 Mr, Gandhi, which was proscribed some years 
 ago and the Apologia of Socrates, also on the 
 Index Eocpurgatorius. In addition, Mr. Gandhi 
 published and circulated a small cyclostyle news- 
 paper, without conforming with the regulations 
 for publishing and printing under the Press Act, 
 which imposes a system of licensing on all books, 
 periodicals, and printing presses. 
 
 That was the Satyagraha movement so far as 
 the activities of actual sworn Satyagrahis went. 
 
 But there was participation in the Satya- 
 graha demonstrations of April 6 all over the 
 country by practically the whole population of 
 all the great cities and smaller towns and to 
 a considerable extent in the villages and country 
 districts. Mr. Gandhi decided that the move- 
 ment should be inaugurated by demonstrations, 
 in which the general public were invited to join. 
 These demonstrations consisted of what is called 
 a hartal, that is, general closing of shops and 
 suspension of all work, fasting, public mourning 
 and prayers, and other religious observances and 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 77 
 
 public meetings. The response to the call was 
 extraordinary and provided a widespread popular 
 manifestation of feeling unparalleled in India. 
 Far from being confined to agitators and so- 
 called " extremists," those participating in these 
 demonstrations included every class, race, and 
 sect, politicians of " moderate " views and every 
 other shade of opinion, and millions of persons, 
 high and low, who had never taken part or 
 interested themselves in politics at all. In the 
 city of Bombay, to take an example of what 
 occurred in all the great cities, about a hundred 
 thousand people opened the day by going to 
 the seashore and taking part in a purifying 
 immersion in the sea. They then marched in 
 processions to various temples and mosques, 
 gathering numbers as they went, and held 
 public prayers. No distinctions of creed were 
 recognised. Hindus were admitted freely to the 
 Mohammedan mosques and not only prayed but 
 spoke to the congregations. Moslems were as 
 freely admitted to the precincts of Hindu 
 temples. This breaking down of religious bar- 
 riers was unheard of before and almost incredible 
 
78 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 to those who had not seen it. It set the seal of 
 approval of the whole population on the Hindu- 
 Moslem entente, which the necessity for unity in 
 the face of oppression of the whole people had 
 brought about. Subsequent events in the Pun- 
 jab served to strengthen this feeling of unity 
 between the two great sections of Indian people, 
 so greatly that never again will the ruling powers 
 be able to look to the principle oi Divide et Impera 
 for their guide. That much good, at least, has 
 come out of the obstinacy of an autocratic 
 Government that hardened its heart against the 
 people, and repaid their ungrudging services and 
 sacrifices in the cause of liberty by striking 
 a cruel blow at their own freedom. 
 
 It remains only to be said that all these immense 
 popular manifestations passed with an absence 
 of disorder that was remarkable. Here and 
 there there were, maybe, isolated instances of 
 shopkeepers who refrained from joining in the 
 general hartal (there were very few such, for the 
 response to the call was spontaneous and prac- 
 tically universal) being subjected to something 
 a little stronger than moral suasion ; here and 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 79 
 
 there there were, maybe, minor coUisions with 
 the pohce, which were quickly subdued by the 
 influence of leaders. But taken as a whole, these 
 demonstrations of millions of people were marked 
 only by their peaceful and inoffensive character. 
 It could hardly have been otherwise. The 
 people were in mourning for their freedom ; they 
 fasted and prayed, and the speeches to which 
 they listened in the evening at the enormous 
 open-air meeting were those of leaders who 
 exhorted them to be peaceful, to refrain from 
 violence, and to conquer tyranny and oppression 
 by spiritual force. Tribute to the peaceful and 
 orderly character of the Satyagraha demonstra- 
 tions on April 6 has been paid in the official 
 reports. 
 
 It was only in Delhi, on March 30, that a 
 Satyagraha demonstration was disturbed by an 
 outbreak of disorder. Owing to a misunderstand- 
 ing, the Delhi demonstration took place a week 
 earlier than those elsewhere. The mistake was 
 discovered when it was considered by the local 
 leaders too late to alter the arrangements already 
 made. What happened at Delhi may be described 
 
80 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 very briefly. The response to the call for hartal 
 was almost unanimous in the city, but it was 
 reported that a refreshment vendor at the railway 
 station had refused to close his shop. Two or 
 three demonstrators proceeded to the station, 
 and endeavoured to persuade him to join the 
 hartal. He refused, and it is alleged, though 
 this is denied, that he was threatened. However 
 that may be, the station-master took unneces- 
 sarily drastic measures. The demonstrators were 
 treated with violence, and arrested ; two of 
 them were arrested by the station-master, who 
 called to his assistance some British soldiers 
 who were in the station. When the news of 
 the arrest was carried to the city, a small crowd 
 marched to the station and demanded the release 
 of the two men. They were told that the men 
 had been or would be released, but they demanded 
 to see them, and as they were not forthcoming 
 they continued their demonstration. According 
 to the authorities stones were thrown, and there- 
 upon the mihtary were requisitioned, and the 
 crowd was fired upon, some being killed and 
 wounded. Some of the crowd took refuge in 
 
A PEACEFUL AGITATION 81 
 
 the Queen's Garden, and firing again took place, 
 with further casualties. 
 
 There need be no hesitation in saying 
 that the firing was quite unnecessary. Such a 
 demonstration would have been dealt with very 
 differently in this country, and an Indian crowd 
 on such an occasion is far less dangerous than 
 an English crowd. The result was a state of 
 public indignation, which led not to disorder, 
 but to the prolongation of the hartal in Delhi 
 for some days. The local authorities would 
 have declared Martial Law, but were restrained, 
 and subsequent events showed that those who 
 called upon them to reconsider the matter 
 adopted a wise course. There were no further 
 disturbances, and the public were quieted, largely 
 by the efforts of popular leaders. If similar 
 wisdom had prevailed in the Punjab, there would 
 have been no story to tell of the killing of 
 Europeans, and the infliction of six weeks' agony 
 on that unhappy province. The afi^air at Delhi, 
 however, is important as showing the reckless 
 and culpable haste which the authorities in 
 India displayed in opening fire on crowds at the 
 
 6 
 
82 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 least prospect of a disturbance, and because it 
 played its part in bringing about the causes of 
 disturbances which occurred elsewhere, as we 
 shall now see. 
 
PAET III 
 
 THE DISTURBANCES AND THEIR 
 CAUSE 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AMRITSAR 
 
 Having seen how eminently peaceful was the 
 nature of the Satyagraha demonstrations and 
 how, with the exception of the incident at Delhi, 
 they passed without any ebuUition of pubUc dis- 
 order or any kind of public disturbance, it requires 
 to be explained how they were so quickly followed 
 in a few places in the Punjab by the outbreak 
 of violent disturbances. The fact, however, that 
 such was the case is an illustration of the danger 
 of arming Executive authority with powers which, 
 though intended to deal with definite and genuine 
 danger to the State, are invariably liable to be 
 used by those in whose hands they are placed 
 for the purpose of vindicating what they con- 
 ceive to be the offended prestige of their own 
 authority. The India Office has recently pub- 
 hshed a series of Reports, prepared by the district 
 officials in the Punjab and presented to the 
 public in this country, in the obvious hope that 
 
 85 
 
86 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 they will be accepted as a justification of the 
 drastic and brutal methods that were adopted to 
 suppress a " rebellion," the evidence of which is 
 entirely lacking. Far from doing that, however, 
 they show at every stage almost the real truth : 
 that popular disturbances were aggressively 
 and gratuitously provoked by authority, which 
 either had fallen into a totally inexcusable state 
 of panic, or had deliberately set itself to crush, 
 by methods of repression, the awakened spirit 
 of the people, which was manifesting itself in 
 dramatic but wholly peaceful and legitimate 
 demonstrations. 
 
 In dealing chronologically with the events 
 which occurred, we may follow the sequence given 
 in the official Reports mentioned above, which, 
 if conveniently reticent about many things and 
 misleading about others, are at least fairly correct 
 in this respect ; and we find that no violence and 
 no disturbance of the public peace occurred at all 
 until the sudden arrest and deportation of leaders, 
 who had continually impressed upon the people 
 the necessity for abstention from violence and 
 had been, in fact, responsible for the peaceful 
 
AMRITSAR 87 
 
 character of the demonstrations. Even then there 
 was no violence on the part of the crowd at 
 Amritsar, where the first outbreak occurred, 
 until they had been fired upon, with fatal 
 casualties, in circumstances which show the action 
 of those responsible for this to be unreasonable. 
 
 The official Report, in defending the action of 
 the Government of the Punjab — action which 
 was taken over the heads of the local officials 
 immediately responsible for order in Amritsar — 
 in arresting and deporting Dr. Satyapal and Dr. 
 Kitchlew, two local leaders intensely loved by 
 the people, actually says : 
 
 In the great majority of towns in the 
 Punjab there had been a hartal on the 6th 
 and no disorder had followed. The Lahore 
 papers, while interested in maintaining the 
 general excitement, had quoted the general 
 course of the demonstration on the 6th as 
 reflecting credit both on the character of 
 the crowds and Government. 
 
 It is difficult to find in this any justification 
 for the apprehension that the continuance of the 
 
88 AMRITSAR: OUft DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 attitude on the part of authority thus indicated 
 would have led to undesirable results. But the 
 Report goes on to say that there was a stale of 
 tension, that such tension would lead to further 
 agitation, and that further agitation was likely to 
 have undesirable results was "the danger with 
 which the local Government had to deal." So with- 
 out, apparently, on this occasion consulting the 
 "man on the spot" — whose untouchable authority 
 is so often advanced to justify non-interference 
 when he is doing something dangerous — the 
 local Government ordered the arrest of the two 
 leaders and their removal to a place of internment. 
 That was the initial step, unjustifiable on the 
 showing of the Government's own official Report, 
 which has to be recorded as the prime cause of 
 the terrible events which followed. 
 
 The next step followed when a wholly peace- 
 ful and not very large crowd of demonstrators, on 
 hearing of the arrests, proceeded to the bungalow 
 of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar to 
 plead for the release of the prisoners. There is 
 no reason to suppose that anything dreadful 
 would have occurred had they been allowed to 
 
AMRITSAR 89 
 
 proceed. The reports of people on the spot 
 show that they were not, up to that time, a 
 threatening crowd ; and the official Report tells 
 us that " the crowd passed several Europeans on 
 the way but did not molest them." But they 
 were stopped at a place called the Hall Gate 
 Bridge, and their further passage was barred by 
 a military picket, or, as the official Report 
 rather curiously puts it, the crowd " was angrily 
 opposing" the picket. Mounted troops were 
 then requisitioned, but were, so the Report says — 
 a very different version is given from the popular 
 side — pressed back, which seems to have been a 
 remarkable achievement on the part of an un- 
 armed crowd. The mounted troops, it is also 
 alleged, were heavily stoned, and " the first-class 
 magistrate, who had written instructions to deal 
 with any crowd attempting to pass this point as 
 an unlawful assembly " — why and by right of 
 what law ? — " called on the troops to fire." 
 Several people were killed and wounded. The 
 crowd then rushed back to the city, infuriated 
 by the sight of their dead and woimded com- 
 rades on the ground and the action of the 
 
90 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 authorities, who had dealt in this manner with a 
 demonstration which set out with peaceful in- 
 tentions. 
 
 Thereafter followed a series of brutal acts of 
 violence on the part of the coarser elements in 
 the mob, which had got entirely out of hand. 
 No one would attempt to defend the violence 
 that occurred, which was considerable and in- 
 volved the loss of human Ufe and great destruc- 
 tion of property. Five Europeans were murdered 
 and several buildings, including the telephone 
 exchange, two banks, the Town Hall, and the 
 Indian Christian Church, were attacked and fired 
 and, in some instances, destroyed. Three of 
 those killed were officials of the National Bank 
 and the Chartered Bank. A lady missionary 
 doctor, Miss Sherwood, was set upon by the 
 mob, struck with sticks and fists, and left un- 
 conscious in the street. She was subsequently 
 rescued by some Indians, who took her into a 
 house and cared for her until she was restored to 
 her friends. Later the crowd again attempted 
 to pass the Hall Gate Bridge, and were fired 
 upon, with twenty to thirty casualties. The 
 
AMRITSAR 91 
 
 telegraph wires were cut and two railway 
 stations outside the city were attacked. During 
 the afternoon the Commissioner of the Division, 
 who had arrived, handed over charge to General 
 Dyer, the Officer Commanding the Troops, with 
 instructions to " take whatever steps he con- 
 sidered necessary to re-establish civil control." 
 Reinforcements arrived and by night order was 
 restored. 
 
 The sequence of events is important because 
 it shows, as admitted in the official Report, that 
 all the acts of mob violence followed on the 
 occurrence at the Hall Gate Bridge. The whole 
 case of the Government for a " rebellion " rests 
 on the assertion — for there has been no proof — 
 that all these acts of violence emanated from 
 a premeditated intention to rebel, and were the 
 designed outcome of a conspiracy to subvert the 
 Government. And it was at first held that the 
 acts of violence occurred simultaneously and 
 independently of the Hall Gate Bridge incident. 
 The admission in the Report that they all 
 followed the unnecessary and unreasonable firing 
 on the crowd at the Hall Gate Bridge, and the 
 
92 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 killing and wounding of peaceful demonstrators, 
 coincides with the popular assertion that the 
 violence was provoked by the Hall Gate Bridge 
 incident, and was a spontaneous outburst on the 
 part of a mob infuriated by an unnecessary 
 attack on the people. The popular version 
 alleges, too, that the manager of the Alliance 
 Bank provoked the attack on himself by firing 
 his revolver into the crowd. But there is no 
 need to enter into the discussion of minor 
 details. The fact is estabhshed that, however 
 indefensible the conduct of the mob, the dis- 
 turbances were initially provoked by the stupid- 
 ity and wanton violence of the authorities, and 
 that on those who were responsible for the firing 
 at the Hall Gate Bridge rests the responsibility 
 for the flame of disorder which destroyed the 
 peace which had been, up tiU then, the marked 
 characteristic of the popular demonstrations. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE 
 
 There were no further incidents of mob violence 
 in Amritsar. For two days after the outbreak 
 on April 10, the city was at peace. The people 
 were in a suUen mood and among the better 
 elements there was a shocked feeling at what 
 had occurred. In the city itself, while much is 
 in dispute between the people and the authori- 
 ties, it is undoubted that no violence occurred, 
 though it is alleged in the official report that 
 a " threatened disturbance " was averted by a 
 display of military force. In the districts out- 
 side the city the Report alleges that mission 
 buildings were threatened, some telegraph wires 
 cut, and a band of would-be looters was dispersed 
 by the police. Much of all this is open to con- 
 troversy. But as far as Amritsar city itself 
 is concerned, the Report show« that the people, 
 or any section of them, were not in a violent 
 mood. The authorities forbade any demonstra- 
 
 93 
 
94 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 tion in connection with the burial on the 11th of 
 the victims of the firing by the military on the 
 previous day. And, the Report says, these 
 orders were carried out. All that is alleged by 
 the authorities, on the two days following the 
 deplorable occurrences of the 10th, is that the 
 " attitude of the people," when a military force 
 was sent round the city, was one of hostiUty, 
 " many spitting on the ground and raising in- 
 sulting cries." It is not necessary to attach 
 importance to that. It is an obsession with 
 a certain type of Britisher in India that when 
 an Indian spits he is doing it to insult some- 
 body's august presence, and the Report shows, 
 in more than one place, that mere ebullitions of 
 patriotism seem to be regarded as "insulting 
 cries." The Report, in continuing to prepare 
 the ground for the terrible incident of April 13, 
 proceeds to say that " villagers were now pouring 
 into the city," and "there is little doubt that 
 the peasants of the district, who are not of a type 
 which will keep the law unless its guardians 
 show themselves able to enforce it, were not so 
 far persuaded that order had been re-estabUshed 
 
THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE 95 
 
 in Amritsar." " And this fact," adds the Report, 
 "gives particular importance to the incident 
 which occurred on the afternoon of the 13th." 
 General Dyer was going to persuade them ! 
 
 The Report is, to say the least, disingenuous. 
 The significance of the " fact " alluded to, " that 
 the villagers were pouring into the city " — for 
 there is no fact in speculation as to what was 
 in their minds — is that a religious fair was taking 
 place in the city of Amritsar, to which the 
 peasants of the surrounding districts were in 
 the habit of flocking every year. The most 
 important fact that remains, in spite of all 
 attempts to give colour to the suggestion that 
 there was a state of things which could possibly 
 justify or extenuate General Dyer's action, is 
 that two days passed after the events of the 10th 
 and the third day had arrived, and there had 
 been no outbreak of violence. The people had 
 obeyed the injunction not to demonstrate at the 
 burials. The city was at peace and was, in fact, 
 as the Report admits, under military control. 
 
 It was at this juncture that General Dyer 
 proceeded with an armed force to the Jallewal- 
 
96 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 lian Bagh and opened fire without warning on 
 a large mass meeting of a wholly peaceful char- 
 acter, shooting down in cold blood without a 
 word of warning two thousand of them, and 
 leaving the dead and wounded lying on the 
 ground. 
 
 Martial Law had not been declared. But 
 General Dyer held, as he said in his evidence 
 before the Hunter Committee, that it existed 
 ipso facto. There were times, he said, when one 
 had to act without rules and regulations. He 
 had previously made a proclamation that no 
 meetings were to be held, and had marched 
 round the city in the forenoon of the 13th to 
 give a warning that no meetings were to be held. 
 In the Report it says that " at every important 
 point the column stopped while this was an- 
 nounced by beat of drum." In his evidence 
 before the Hunter Committee, General Dyer 
 had to admit, with a map of the city in front 
 of him, that this statement was not true ; that 
 the proclamation was not made at every impor- 
 tant point ; important localities were omitted 
 and large numbers of people, even if his proclama- 
 
THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE 97 
 
 tion could be taken as a preliminary justification 
 of what he did, could not have known of it. 
 Nor did he, on his own admission, take any steps 
 to communicate with the organisers of the meeting 
 and warn them, though he knew for several 
 hours beforehand that it was going to take 
 place. 
 
 He just let things go on. And when the 
 thousands of people who assembled, including 
 many who came as pilgrims to the fair, were 
 standing or sitting on the groimd listening to an 
 address, he marched up his force of infantry, 
 opened fire, and himself directed the fire so that 
 the soldiers should shoot where the crowd was 
 the thickest. He liad no evidence at all to justify 
 his assumption that this was a seditioiis assembly. 
 The people themselves say it was a meeting 
 called to consider what should be done to ensure 
 the preservation of peace, and to mourn for the 
 victims of the Hall Gate Bridge incident. 
 
 Here is the summarised description of this 
 massacre, as given in the " Chronological State- 
 ment," pubUshed with the " Reports on the 
 Punjab Disturbances " : 
 
 7 
 
98 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 In the forenoon the OflScer Commanding Troops, accom- 
 panied by the Deputy Commissioner, marched through city 
 at head of some troops, announcing by beat of drum, at every 
 important street, that no meetings would be allowed. Not- 
 withstanding this warning, just after the troops had returned 
 (about 4 p.m.), a meeting began assembling at the Jalle- 
 wallian Bagh, and this large crowd only dispersed on being 
 Jired on hy troops, the casualties being considerable. 
 
 It would be hard to conceive a more mislead- 
 ing and dishonest summary of what actually 
 occurred. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LAHORE— GUJRANWALA—KASUR 
 
 The fullness of the iniquity of the Amritsar 
 massacre and the spirit that inspired it will be 
 dealt with in its proper place in another 
 chapter. We are now following the sequence 
 of the disturbances. General Dyer said he fired, 
 and fired well, because he did not want anyone 
 to have to shoot again in the Punjab. What 
 followed on the Amritsar battibe — and it is not 
 unreasonable to argue that it was a result — was 
 wholesale shooting and bombing of unarmed 
 people in other parts of the Punjab, and six 
 weeks' agony under Martial Law. 
 
 In the first paragraph of the first of the 
 official Reports we are told that " it is clear that 
 the outbreaks at Lahore, Gujranwala, and Kasur 
 were directly due to the previous occurrence of 
 such outbreaks at Amritsar." 
 
 So far as Lahore is concerned, this statement 
 is grossly misleading. There was never anything 
 
 99 
 
100 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 that could be described as an "outbreak" at 
 Lahore. It is alleged that stones were thrown, 
 that people spat on the ground in the presence 
 of military officials, and laughed at them. Martial 
 Law Commissions have recklessly attributed 
 every kind of violent motives to crowds that 
 did nothing violent, and dignified street demon- 
 strations, in which nothing violent occurred but 
 the shootings by the police and military, using 
 such terms as " insuri'ection " and "rebellion." 
 But the fact remains that nothing occurred in 
 Lahore in the nature of mob violence. 
 
 At Gujranwala and Kasur there was serious 
 violence. At the latter place on April 12 
 crowds did considerable damage to the railway 
 station, burned a small oil shed, damaged signal 
 and telegraph wires, attacked a train in which 
 were some Europeans and beat two soldiers to 
 death ; a branch post-office was looted, the main 
 post-office burned, the MunsifF's Court set on 
 fire, and other damage done. That is the official 
 version summarised. The popular version alleges 
 previous provocation of the crowd. 
 
 At Gujranwala on April 14 crowds surrounded 
 
LAHORE— GUJRANWALA—KASUR 101 
 
 and stoned a train, burnt a small railway bridge 
 and fired another railway bridge where a calf 
 had been kiUed — by the police, as alleged — and 
 hung up on the bridge as an insult to Hindus, 
 to whom the cow is sacred. The telegraph- 
 office, post-office and railway station were sub- 
 sequently set on fire, as well as the Ddk 
 Bungalow, Kutcheri (Collector's office), a church, 
 a school, and a railway shed. 
 
 These were the chief incidents. There were 
 minor outbreaks elsewhere in smaller places, 
 such as stoning of trains, cutting of wires, and 
 setting fire to railway stations. We have not 
 attempted to deal with any but the official 
 version of these occurrences. But it should be 
 mentioned that the official accounts are in many 
 respects in dispute, and that only official evidence 
 was heard by the Hunter Committee. An inde- 
 pendent committee was appointed by the Indian 
 National Congress and collected a mass of 
 evidence, but it was not heard by the Hunter 
 Committee. Its report, however, it is under- 
 stood, will be published in due course. 
 
 There is no desire, in these pages, in any way 
 
102 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 to minimise the gravity of the excesses com- 
 mitted by mobs in the Punjab. If the worst in 
 this respect is admitted, there is nothing to 
 excuse or justify the horrors perpetrated under 
 Martial Law, in punishment of the innocent and 
 guilty aUke, which have yet to be detailed. And 
 the significant fact remains and is unassailable, 
 that in the places where disturbances occurred 
 and these regrettable things took place, peaceful 
 demonstrations were not turned into violent out- 
 breaks, until the spirit of a section of the people 
 was maddened into violence by the initial violence 
 of the authorities. The disturbances at Anaritsar 
 followed on the arrest of the two popular leaders, 
 and the inexcusable firing on the crowd on 
 April 10, when nothing had occurred to justify 
 this resort to the extreme resources of the law. 
 The disturbances elsewhere and the so-called out- 
 break at Lahore followed on the arrival of the 
 news of the arrest of Mr. Gandhi, and the arrests 
 at Amritsar, and of the firing on the people at 
 Lahore and Amritsar. 
 
 The arrest of Mr. Gandhi was even more 
 reprehensible and gratuitous in its provocation 
 
LAHORE— GUJRANWALA—KASUR 103 
 
 of the popular temper than those of the Amritsar 
 leaders. Mr. Gandhi was the chief leader of 
 a great movement, in which abstention from 
 violence was preached without cessation. He 
 was actually proceeding to Delhi, and thence to 
 Amritsar, to persuade the people there to end 
 the hartal, which was being prolonged without 
 his authority, and to urge upon them by personal 
 exhortation the necessity for strict adhesion to 
 peaceful methods, even in the face of official pro- 
 vocation and violence, when two Governments, 
 those of Delhi and the Punjab, were guilty of 
 the extraordinary folly of issuing orders prohibit- 
 ing his entry into the areas over which they had 
 jurisdiction. When in spite of this he proceeded 
 on his way, he was arrested and sent back under 
 escort to Bombay. The news of his arrest created 
 the wildest excitement throughout the country, 
 and was responsible for much that followed. It 
 is impossible to doubt that had he been allowed 
 to proceed, and had the Government of the 
 Punjab not been guilty, also, of the folly of the 
 arrest and deportation of Dr. Satyapal and Dr. 
 Kitchlew, and the aggressive attitude adopted 
 
104 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 towards the demonstrators in Amritsar, there 
 would have been no tale of horror to tell. 
 
 We are not immediately concerned with what 
 actually occurred outside the Punjab and Delhi, 
 but it is significant to contrast what occurred 
 elsewhere with the events in Amritsar, Lahore, 
 and other places in the Punjab. In Bombay 
 the news of Gandhi's arrest brought large crowds 
 into the streets, undoubtedly in an ugly temper. 
 The police, however, behaved with restraint, and 
 popular leaders were allowed to go among the 
 people and exercise their pacifying influence. 
 Finally, when Gandhi himself arrived, he went 
 among them and addressed them, and the danger 
 of any trouble ended. At Ahmedabad, where 
 Gandhi lives, the excitement was intense and there 
 were serious acts of mob violence. But Gandhi 
 was allowed by the Government of Bombay to 
 proceed to Ahmedabad, and his presence exercised 
 an immediately pacifying effect. 
 
 Such was the difference in result between a 
 reckless, overbearing, and brutal treatment of 
 people greatly tried and provoked, and the 
 adoption of a wise and statesmanlike policy. 
 
LAHORE— GUJRANWALA—KASUR 105 
 
 which recognised that the pacification of the 
 people was of greater importance than the 
 bolstering up of official prestige at the cost of 
 bloodshed. 
 
PART IV 
 THE SIX WEEKS' TERROR 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WAS MARTIAL LAW JUSTIFIED? 
 
 The whole case for the infliction of Martial 
 Law in the Punjab in April last rests on very 
 doubtful ground. The action of the Punjab 
 Government, in this respect, is upheld to a 
 certain extent by the judgments of the Martial 
 Law Commissions, which they set up to try the 
 various cases of conspiracy that were instituted. 
 These judgments have proved a very convenient 
 refiige for the authorities, as the Reports on 
 the disturbances fully reveal. We have seen 
 the weakness of the argument in justification of 
 the arrests of the Amritsar leaders, so far as any 
 events had till then occurred to excuse such 
 drastic action ; but the Report triumphantly 
 records, before it proceeds on its own explanation, 
 that "the justification for their action" (the 
 arrests) " is the subsequent judgment of the Mar- 
 tial Law Cofnmjssion, that they were among the 
 prime movers in a ' conspiracy having as its 
 
 109 
 
110 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 object the dissemination of sedition.' " Now we 
 may as well dispose of these Martial Law Com- 
 mission judgments at once, so far as they affect 
 the political leaders, who have not been found 
 guilty of any overt acts, were not " taken in 
 arms," and were not guilty of any violence. 
 They are a judicial curiosity, and would provoke 
 laughter were it not for the tragedy of their 
 sentences of hanging, transportation for life, and 
 confiscation of property, passed wholesale on 
 men who had been guilty of no more than 
 leading the people in a popular movement 
 against the Rowlatt Act. What these people did 
 was " conspire to hold meetings " against the 
 Rowlatt Act — that is how the precis of charges 
 sets out — and they were convicted, as quoted 
 above, of conspiring to disseminate sedition. In 
 order to bring in the speeches they had made 
 prior to the outbreak of disturbances, the appli- 
 cation of Martial Law was made retrospective, a 
 remarkable proceeding, which, unfortunately, has 
 been held by the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council to be within the Ordinance-making 
 power of the Government of India. But what 
 
WAS MARTIAL LAW JUSTIFIED? Ill 
 
 had they done ? They had made speeches, very 
 strong speeches, no doubt — but no stronger, as 
 was pointed out in one of the trials, than 
 members of the Legislative Council had made in 
 the presence of the Viceroy without protest — 
 against an iniquitous measure which had terrified 
 the whole population. The law of sedition in 
 India is as comprehensive and wide as such a 
 law can be made. It embraces practically any- 
 thing that can bring the Government into dis- 
 credit — " hatred and contempt " are the words — 
 and if apphed as these Martial Law Commis- 
 sions applied it, anything in the nature of a 
 protest proportionate to the occasion, such as 
 could be freely made in a civilised country, would 
 be impossible. If a Government pursues a course 
 which brings it into discredit with the people, 
 public speakers, on behalf of the people, cannot 
 perform an obvious public duty without being 
 guilty of discrediting it, or even perhaps bringing 
 it into hatred and contempt. But there is a wide 
 distinction between that and a definite and 
 deliberate attempt to subvert the Government 
 by law established, or to incite others to do so. 
 
112 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 The Martial Law tribunals in the Punjab, in 
 the evidence and facts onVhich they proceeded, 
 and their findings were a travesty of justice. The 
 plea that their findings have in any way 
 justified the resort of the authorities to extra- 
 legal methods, much less to the infliction of 
 appalling atrocities, cannot be accepted. 
 
 But if there is a case for the application of 
 Martial Law at the height of the disturbances* 
 which is open to grave question, there is none for 
 its continuance over a period of about six weeks, 
 accompanied by the most fearful methods of 
 frightfulness which a horrible ingenuity of mind 
 could devise. The official witnesses before the 
 Hunter Committee have been unable to produce 
 any evidence of rebellion or conspiracy against 
 the State at all. The question has been put to wit- 
 ness after witness ; and in no case has it been met 
 with anything but a frank admission that there is 
 no evidence in existence, or, in the case of certain 
 military witnesses who see rebelhon or conspiracy 
 in any combination of circumstances which assails 
 their prestige or anything inimical to the per- 
 fection of authority, vague assertions that 
 
WAS MARTIAL LAW JUSTIFIED ? 118 
 
 there was rebellion and there must have been 
 conspiracy. 
 
 Wild and reckless assertions of Bolshevist 
 intrigue and instigation and seditious conspiracy 
 being behind the disturbances in the Punjab have 
 been made both in India and in this country. 
 There is no evidence to support them. None 
 has ever been produced. 
 
 Mr. Barron, Chief Commissioner of Delhi, in 
 his evidence before the Hunter Committee, said 
 there was no evidence of any organised con- 
 spiracy. He did not suggest that anybody from 
 Delhi stirred up the disturbances in the Punjab, 
 or vice versa. Mr. Orde, the Superintendent of 
 Police, said he found no trace of Bolshevist 
 influence behind the disturbances. Mr. Cocks, 
 a high official in the Criminal Investigation 
 Department in the Punjab, admitted that he 
 had no evidence of a rebellion or conspiracy. 
 Similar evidence was given by others. 
 
 The Times, in a leading article recently, com- 
 menting on the letter addressed to it by Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer in defence of his action in 
 approving of General Dyer's massacre, said there 
 
 8 
 
114 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 had not been for many years in India, including 
 last year, a riotous assembly that could not have 
 been dispersed by a dozen armed policemen, 
 armed with smooth-bore rifles. And those who 
 know the facts, and have no motive for misrepre- 
 sentation, know this to be true. Every one of the 
 riotous assemblies in the Punjab could have been 
 so dispersed. There have been equally danger- 
 ous disturbances in England, without a shot 
 being fired, One of the features of the evidence 
 regarding the Amritsar disturbances, however, 
 which is highly significant was that the police 
 were singularly apathetic. And now the report 
 comes from India that searches carried out in 
 connection with the arrest of a number of police- 
 men at Amritsar, implicated in thefts, have led 
 to the discovery of property belonging to the 
 National Bank, which was looted during the 
 disturbances in April last ! 
 
 Whatever may be the findings of the Hunter 
 Committee, which has heard only ofiicial evidence, 
 and is appointed by the Government of India 
 whose responsibility is in question, the whole 
 case for the infliction of Martial Law is open to 
 
WAS MARTIAL LAW JUSTIFIED ? 115 
 
 the gravest doubt. Yet for six weeks it was 
 perpetuated and the horrors now to be related 
 inflicted on the people of whose loyalty and good 
 behaviour Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who was 
 responsible as Lieutenant-Governor for its 
 horrors, had made a constant boast. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 
 
 The incident that is chiefly impressed on the 
 minds of the public in this country, in a Whole 
 series of frightful events, is, of course, the 
 Amritsar massacre, to which reference has already 
 been made. Much of the other incidents of a 
 long narrative is, as yet, little known. But 
 General Dyer's own relation of the performance 
 of what he described as his " horrible duty " 
 impresses the imagination and is ineffaceable. 
 He did not pretend that what he did was neces- 
 sary, even for the dispersal of a meeting, the 
 improper character of which was a pure assump- 
 tion on his part. He had no authority for what 
 he did. He had no authority to make his 
 proclamation prohibiting meetings. Martial Law 
 had not been proclaimed. Authority to re- 
 establish civil control had been confided to him 
 by a civil official who had no legal authority to 
 delegate this duty to anyone, or to do anything 
 
 116 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 117 
 
 but call for military assistance in the main- 
 tenance of order, according to clearly defined 
 statutory rules. But he conceived in the 
 wisdom of his own Prussian mind that the 
 time had come to act without rules or regula- 
 tions. " He understood roughly that civil law 
 was at an end and military law would have to 
 take its place." 
 
 At 12.40 he heard that the meeting at the 
 Jallewallian Bagh was to be held that evening. 
 But he took no steps to prevent it. He waited 
 for it to assemble and then he marched down on 
 it with his force of rifles and machine-guns. He 
 would have used his machine-guns, he declared, 
 if he could have got them into the enclosure. 
 But they were attached to armoured cars, which 
 could not be got through the entrances. The 
 thousands of helpless, unarmed people, some of 
 them boys and children, were at his mercy, 
 practically penned up in an enclosure from which 
 they could only escape over walls, or through 
 the entrances commanded by his soldiers. And 
 deliberately, in cold blood, calmly directing the 
 fire where the crowd was thickest, he fired upon 
 
118 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 them for ten minutes until his ammunition was 
 exhausted. 
 
 He "felt his orders had not been obeyed. 
 Martial Law " — which did not then exist — " had 
 been flouted, and he considered it his duty to 
 disperse the crowd by rapid fire." 
 
 He was asked why he did not stop firing when 
 the crowd began to disperse. His reply was 
 that he thought it was his duty to go on firing 
 until the crowd dispersed, and that a little firing 
 would not be sufficient. 
 
 He was asked if his idea was to strike terror 
 in the people. He said, if he found they had 
 disobeyed his order he meant to punish them 
 and teach them a lesson. His idea was that, 
 from a military point of view, it would make 
 a wide impression throughout the Punjab ! 
 
 " It was a merciful act. It was a horrible act, 
 and it required a lot of doing. It was his opinion 
 it did a lot of good." 
 
 " He did not think it was a disservice to the 
 British Raj. What he did was right, and they 
 ought to be thankful for it." 
 
 After the firing he did not take any steps 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 119 
 
 to attend to the wounded. " Certainly not. It 
 was not his job. Hospitals were open and they 
 could have gone to them." 
 
 Mr. Justice Rankin, a member of the Hunter 
 Committee, said with somewhat uncalled-for 
 politeness : " Excuse me putting it in this way, 
 General, but was it not a form of frightfulness ?" 
 And the General replied : 
 
 " No, it was not. It was a horrible duty I had 
 to perform. I think it was a merciful thing. 1 
 thought that I should shoot well and shoot strong, 
 so that I, or anybody else, should not have to 
 shoot again." 
 
 And, finally : 
 
 " I think it is quite possible I could have 
 dispersed the crowd without firing, but they 
 would have come back again and laughed, and I 
 should have made what I consider to be a fool 
 of myself ." 
 
 General Dyer admitted that the number of 
 killed might have been four or five hundred, and 
 he would estimate the number bf wounded at 
 three times the number killed. Unofficial 
 agencies, which have very carefully investigated 
 
120 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 the matter, claim to have established that the 
 casualties far exceeded the numbers admitted 
 by General Dyer. But if we accept his 
 figures, no less than 2,000 people, including 
 a number of mere boys, and even children 
 in arms, who were defenceless, unarmed, com- 
 mitting no sort of wrong in the view of anyone 
 but himself, were shot down by this British 
 General without warning, and left by him where 
 they fell. And his action was immediately 
 approved by the Lieutenant - Governor, Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer, in a telegram sent to him 
 by his military superior after he had obtained 
 Sir Michael's assent, which ran : " Your action 
 correct : Lieutenant-Governor approves." 
 
 The public cannot be asked to suspend judg- 
 ment on such an atrocity, in the face of the 
 brutal revelation of the perpetrator himself. It 
 is an affront to humanity to ask us, as Mr. 
 Montagu has recently done, to consider ourselves 
 in the position of a British General, who has to 
 deal with a critical situation where prompt and 
 swift action is required ; and to indulge, as other 
 people have done, in similar cant about the 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 121 
 
 character of men who are entitled to a large 
 measure of confidence and support being at stake. 
 The British Press, with one or two ignoble excep- 
 tions, and of all shades of opinion, has condemned, 
 as decent-minded people could only do, without 
 hesitation or compromise the perpetration of a 
 deed which has profoundly shocked, not merely 
 the public of Great Britain, but of the whole 
 world. It would be better to consider ourselves 
 in the position of those on whom this atrocity 
 was wantonly inflicted, and to endeavour to 
 realise the impression it must have created in 
 the mind of the whole Indian people, on 
 whom we claim to impose a just and humane 
 rule. 
 
 If Dyerarchy in Amritsar had begun and 
 ended with this incident, the disgrace to Britain 
 would have been sufficiently deep. But it was 
 brought to still further depths by the iniquities 
 which followed during the six weeks of adminis- 
 tration of Martial Law under Dyer, with the 
 continued approval, knowledge, and co-operation 
 of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, and also the Govern- 
 ment of India, who had given the Lieutenant- 
 
122 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Governor a blank cheque and provided him, by 
 a series of proclamations and ordinances, with 
 unlimited power to override the ordinary law 
 and destroy liberty. While the various adminis- 
 trators of Martial Law in different districts pro- 
 ceeded on a generally similar plan, the similarity 
 of the chief orders indicating one directing mind 
 or council, each distinguished himself for in- 
 dividual originality and ingenuity in devising 
 special atrocities and methods of frightfulness, 
 sometimes on the plan of making the punish- 
 ment fit the crime, sometimes with the object of 
 striking at some particular class or section of the 
 community (such as lawyers or students), and 
 sometimes, apparently, inspired only by the 
 desire to do something frightful. 
 
 General Dyer was as active in both respects 
 as his brother officers in Lahore, Kasur, and 
 Gujranwala. The Jallewallian Bagh battue, of 
 course, is an achievement which has earned for 
 him a special niche of his own in the gallery of 
 frightfulness, and will go down in history as an 
 indelible blot on British rule in India. This 
 took place, as has been seen, before Martial Law 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 123 
 
 was proclaimed (the date of proclamation was 
 April 15). But as the reader will have gathered 
 from the summary of his evidence given on a 
 previous page, General Dyer assumed all the 
 functions of a properly constituted administrator 
 of Martial Law, with full powers to do anything 
 he liked, the moment he received from an 
 unauthorised source the request to take over 
 control and re-establish the civil power — which 
 was ineffective, it may be mentioned, through 
 the fault of its own incompetence and ineptitude 
 and for no other reason. And on the very day 
 that he left two thousand dead and dying on the 
 ground at Jallewallian Bagh — ^to go to the 
 hospitals if they liked — he had issued a Curfew 
 Order, that all persons must be indoors after 
 8 p.m., and would go abroad in the streets at the 
 risk of being shot at sight. Is it surprising that 
 the wounded lay in their agony, that the dead 
 lay putrefying in the hot atniosphere of an 
 Amritsar April night, that the vultures and 
 jackals came to tear the flesh from the bodies of 
 the innocent victims of this dreadful holocaust, 
 while the anxious relatives of innocent victims 
 
124 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 remained terrified ia their houses. There were 
 families who knew that loved ones had gone to 
 the Jallewallian Bagh and had not returned. 
 They had heard of the massacre. But if they 
 went forth to seek their missing kin, the military 
 pickets were waiting with loaded rifles. Is it 
 conceivable that the man who had done this 
 thing did not know also and fiiUy realise the 
 effect of the Curfew Order ? Is it to be sup- 
 posed that the man who could come before a 
 public inquiry months afterwards and say it was 
 " not his job " to tend the wounded, that " the 
 hospitals were open and they could go to them," 
 was not anything but deliberate in this additional 
 infliction of frightfulness ? 
 
 The Curfew Order in Amritsar was maintained 
 for weeks, and was administered with the utmost 
 rigour. There are stories told in connection 
 with this which, in the absence of any but official 
 evidence, have not come before the Hunter 
 Committee. They belong to a whole quantity 
 of allegations, which are so grave as to make it 
 essential, apart from all other considerations, 
 that a fuller, more authoritative, and impartial 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 125 
 
 investigation should be held. It is not proposed 
 to deal with these matters here, however. They 
 will come, in due course, before the pubhc when 
 the Report of the Congress Committee of In- 
 vestigation is available. 
 
 Among General Dyer's inspirations was the 
 cutting off of the water supply and the electric 
 supply of the city. By these and other general 
 orders, he made the might of his name known, 
 and inflicted untold moral and material suffering 
 on the population of a loyal and historic city. 
 But the spirit in which this man set out to impress 
 the people with the might of the British Raj, 
 as represented by his august authority, was most 
 luridly illustrated in the public floggings, and 
 what is known as the "crawling order." By 
 his orders, for several days, everyone passing 
 through the street in which Miss Sherwood, the 
 lady doctor, was assaulted was ordered to crawl 
 with belly to the ground. There were people 
 living in this street, respectable and respected 
 citizens of the British Empire. It was the street 
 not only in which Miss Sherwood was assaulted, 
 but also in which kind-hearted Indians came 
 
126 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 from their house, took her in, and tended her 
 with loving hands. But all who hved in the 
 street had to obey Dyer's disgusting order if 
 they wished to leave their houses or return to 
 them, though he was good enough to say in his 
 evidence that they could have gone over the 
 roofs ! How many underwent the humiliation 
 we do not know. But it was made a jest by 
 the official members in the Imperial Legislative 
 Council, great merriment being excited by 
 Quartermaster- General Hudson's account of 
 a poor wretch who, for martyrdom or from 
 imbecility, crawled up and down the street tiU 
 he was stopped ! Such are the men whp represent 
 the humanity and decency of a noble-hearted 
 people in the CouncU of the Viceroy. Such is 
 the representative of the King-Emperor, who 
 sat in the Viceroy's throne in the Council 
 Chamber while this was going on I 
 
 Floggings were a common feature of the 
 administration of Martial Law in Amritsar as in 
 other areas. The sentences were inflicted by 
 summary courts for trivial offisnces on trumpery 
 evidence. The public flogging of some men 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 127 
 
 who were alleged to have been concerned in the 
 assault on Miss Sherwood, was an exceptional 
 incident, akin to the crawling order. These men 
 had not been tried or convicted for the crime. 
 They were awaiting trial. But to create an 
 example, they were brought to the scene of the 
 assault, and publicly flvgged in the street. They 
 were tried afterwards 1 What words can be 
 strong enough to describe this iniquity 
 adequately ? General Dyer tried to excuse and 
 defend this before the Committee. The men 
 were not flogged for their alleged share in the 
 assault on Miss Sherwood, he said, but because 
 they had committed a breach of discipline, while 
 under confinement in the fort. 
 
 It is impossible to regard this as anjiihing but 
 a contemptible subterfuge. If the object was 
 not to impress the populace with the fate in 
 store for those who attacked or were suspected 
 of having attacked an Englishwoman, why were 
 these men taken to the street where the assault 
 on Miss Sherwood was committed, to receive 
 this punishment in anticipation of their trial ? 
 It was clearly part of a general plan of frightful- 
 
128 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 ness which would have done credit to a Prussian 
 officer in Belgium. 
 
 In addition to the Martial Law order-s already 
 mentioned, others of a drastic nature among a 
 large number may be mentioned. The issue of 
 third-class tickets on the railways was prohibited, 
 which involved a general suspension of travelling 
 by the Indian public. More than two persons 
 were prohibited from marching abreast on side- 
 walks or pavements. Bicycles, "other than 
 those owned by Europeans," were commandeered. 
 People who had closed their shops were forced 
 to open them, under severe penalties. Prices of 
 commodities were fixed by military officers. 
 Carts were commandeered. A public platform 
 for whippings was erected near the fort, and a 
 number of triangles for floggings were erected 
 in various parts of the city. 
 
 The comments of the official Report on some 
 of these orders and incidents are amusing in 
 their apparent ingenuousness. " The prohibition 
 of the issue of third-class tickets," we are told, 
 " naturally caused inconvenience to the general 
 public," but " was held to be essential to prevent 
 
DYERARCHY IN AMRITSAR 129 
 
 communication between agitators." " It is, 
 however," adds the Report, "a restriction of 
 somewhat too extensive a nature for general 
 use !" 
 
 The regulations for fixing prices, the Report 
 admits, "cannot, on the whole, be regarded as 
 entirely successful." Though it was harvest- 
 time, it had the eflfect of sending prices up and 
 preventing grain from coming in. " It was 
 necessary to raise prices week by week, and also 
 to publish notices that carts coming into the 
 city would not be commandeered," and " it was 
 finally found necessary to discontinue fixed 
 prices altogether." One is able to gather from 
 these naive accounts of the effects and incidence 
 of Martial Law generally, and the results of 
 the efforts of military officers to regulate the 
 economic life of the city on lines of their own, 
 that the boasts that were made at the time 
 that they were protecting the poor against 
 profiteers, and the people against themselves, 
 were ill-founded. On the contrary, people in 
 Amritsar tell of the agony and terror that they 
 underwent, and the economic miseries that were 
 
130 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 added to their other sufferings while the period 
 of Dyerarchy lasted. 
 
 Finally, here are the figures of the cases dealt 
 with by the Courts at Amritsar. On major 
 charges 298 people were put before the Martial 
 Law Commissions, who tried cases unfettered 
 by the ordinary recognised rules of procedure 
 or laws of evidence. Of these 218 were con- 
 victed : 51 were sentenced to death, 46 to trans- 
 portation for life, 2 to imprisonment for ten 
 years, 79 for seven years, 10 for five years, 13 for 
 three years, and 11 for lesser periods. This does 
 not take account of the cases dealt with sum- 
 marily by military officers, numbering 60 persons, 
 of whom 50 were convicted, and 105 persons 
 convicted under Martial Law by civil magistrates. 
 These figures are sufficient to indicate the severity 
 with which the law that is no law was adminis- 
 tered by the Commissions and Summary Courts. 
 They do not tell, however, of the travesty of 
 justice which the proceedings of these tribunals 
 constituted, the absurdity of the charges, and 
 the inadequacy of the evidence. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "THE PHYSICIAN" FROM BECHUANALAND 
 
 According to the Official Report contained in 
 the White Paper recently issued to Parliament, 
 the administration of Martial Law was "more 
 intensive " in Lahore than elsewhere. The reason 
 for this is not to be found in the occurrence of 
 greater violence there on the part of the mob 
 than elsewhere — because in Lahore there was, as 
 we have said, no violence at all worthy of the 
 name, even on the official showing, although 
 crowds were fired on and people were killed and 
 wounded — but because at Lahore the gentle- 
 man to whom the task of administering Martial 
 Law was entrusted was a trained expert 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Johnson, D.S.O., had 
 lived many years in South Africa, and adminis- 
 tered Martial Law among the unfortunate natives 
 of Bechuanaland, no doubt with an " intensity " 
 which has left his name an impressive memory 
 among the population of that Protectorate), and 
 
 181 
 
132 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 also because, probably, Lahore being the capital 
 city of the Punjab and the headquarters of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor, that august person was 
 on the spot throughout, helping, advising, 
 directing, and conferring with his military 
 administrators. But Colonel Johnson, on this 
 latter account, should not be deprived of any of 
 the credit which rightly belongs to him. He 
 showed not only an intensity but a malignant 
 efficiency in devising means for the terrorisation 
 of the population, which, if not always as full- 
 blooded, was as ingenious and refined in the 
 cruelty of method as any displayed by his com- 
 petitors. The "physician" from Bechuanaland 
 was the appellation given him by The Inde- 
 pendent, in ironical allusion to the panegyrics of 
 The Pioneer, which hailed him as the " physician" 
 with expert experience of Martial Law in Bechu- 
 analand. Colonel Johnson, when giving his 
 evidence and proudly relating — ^for not one of 
 these men ever showed anything but arrogant 
 pride in his achievements — his deeds before the 
 Committee, declared " he had been longing for 
 an opportunity to show the people of the Punjab 
 
THE "PHYSICIAN" 133 
 
 the might of Martial Law," and he used his 
 opportunity to the full. 
 
 He described, himself, how he entered the city 
 at the head of a column of troops, with aeroplanes 
 preceding it at low altitudes with orders to drop 
 bombs on the unarmed civilian population the 
 moment the signal was given by the firing of the 
 troops. Presumably, no targets in the shape of 
 meetings or crowds presented themselves, for no 
 bombs were dropped. But the intensity of Mar- 
 tial Law began without delay. The Curfew Order, 
 of course, was immediately put in force, and 
 people out after 8 p.m. were liable to be shot, 
 flogged, fined, or imprisoned, or otherwise 
 punished. Those whose shops were closed were 
 ordered to open them ; the alternatives were 
 either being shot or having the shops publicly 
 opened and their contents distributed free to the 
 public. " Lawyers' agents and touts " were 
 ordered to be registered, and forbidden to leave 
 the city without permit. Occupiers of premises 
 on whose walls Martial Law notices were posted 
 were ordered to protect them, and were liable to 
 punishment if in any way they were defaced or 
 
134 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 torn, although they could not stay out at night 
 to watch them. More than two persons abreast 
 were not allowed on the sidewalks. Students of 
 colleges were ordered to report themselves four 
 times a day to the military authorities at varying 
 places of assembly. Langars, or pubUc food 
 kitchens, which had been opened by philanthropic 
 persons for the feeding of those who could not 
 purchase food, were ordered to be clcjeed ; motor- 
 cars, motor-bicycles, and ordinary bicycles 
 belonging to Indians were ordered to be delivered 
 up to the miUtary authorities, and were handed 
 over to officials for their use. Electric punkahs 
 and other electric fittings belonging to Indians 
 were commandeered and stripped from the 
 houses for the use of British soldiers. Public 
 conveyances were ordered to report themselves 
 daily at places a considerable distance from the 
 city. There were a number of other orders 
 devised for the purpose of making the people 
 realise the intensity and might of Martial Law. 
 
 The manner in which they were applied, and 
 the deliberate cruelty of the whole administra- 
 tion can be illustrated by a few facts, mostly 
 
THE "PHYSICIAN" 135 
 
 admitted in evidence before the Hunter Com- 
 mittee, and otherwise verified. Punishments by 
 flogging were numerous, and took place for 
 several days in public. They were mostly for 
 petty breaches of Martial Law regulations. There 
 was one case of an elderly man, who was caught 
 tending his cow outside his shop door in a side 
 lane after 8 p.m. He was seized and flogged 
 for this breach of the Curfew Order 1 
 
 Drivers of tongas (hackney carriages) had 
 participated in the hartal. To teach them a 
 lesson, 300 tongas were commandeered ; of those 
 who were permitted to ply for hire, orders to 
 report themselves at certain times at places 
 distant from the busy parts of the city, and their 
 detention at the pleasure of the miUtary officials 
 concerned, effectually destroyed their chances 
 of a day's earnings. Thus were these humble 
 men and their families, who live from hand to 
 mouth, punished for their participation in a 
 peaceful and legitimate demonstration against 
 an unpopular Government measure. 
 
 Colonel Johnson admitted that many of his 
 orders were directed against the educated and 
 
136 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 professional classes — lawyers, etc. He considered 
 they were the classes from which the political agi- 
 tators were drawn. He had many pleasant little 
 ways of making the " might " felt. Professional 
 men and other residents on whose premises 
 Martial Law orders were posted had to set 
 servants to watch them lest they should be torn 
 or defaced — perhaps by a police agent ; one such 
 case was detected. When they applied for permits 
 for such guardians of the placards to be out after 
 8 p.m., they were told they could have passes 
 for this purpose for themselves, but not for their 
 servants ! 
 
 Students, boys of 16 to 20, were the objects 
 of special attention. The students of several 
 colleges in Lahore, which is a large University 
 town, were ordered to report themselves four 
 times daily at a place, in one case, four miles 
 distant from their college. In the burning sun 
 of Lahore in April, the hottest time of the year, 
 when the temperature is often over 100° in the 
 shade, these youths had to walk 16 miles daily. 
 Some of them fainted by the wayside. Colonel 
 Johnson thought it did them good ; it kept them 
 
THE " PHYSICIAN " 137 
 
 out of mischief ! A Martial Law notice was torn 
 from one of the walls of one college. The whole 
 professional staff, including the Principal, were 
 arrested, and marched under military escort to 
 the fort, where they were kept in military 
 custody for three days. They were given " a 
 corner in the fort " for their accommodation, and 
 allowed to sleep on the roof. 
 
 The closing of the langars, or public kitchens, 
 which had been opened by philanthropic persons, 
 has already been referred to. Colonel Johnson 
 gave as the reason for this that they were used 
 for seditious propaganda. Under cross-examina- 
 tion he could produce no justification for this 
 assertion. He had no evidence, and he could 
 not say who gave him the information. 
 
 His evidence regarding the floggings was 
 nauseating. He declared that these were not 
 public but quasi-T^Mhlic floggings, whatever that 
 may mean. They were only inflicted on people 
 of low social status. He was not a doctor, and 
 could not say whether whipping might affect the 
 health of the victim. But he thought it was an 
 essential punishment. People liked going to 
 
188 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 gaol, and flogging was a better deterrent. An 
 instance of the spirit in which the flogging 
 punishments were administered is provided by 
 the case of a whole wedding party, including the 
 priest, being flogged for being in the street after 
 hours (weddings in India take place after sunset) ; 
 but it is due to Colonel Johnson to say that he 
 admitted that this was "the one regrettable 
 incident." It serves, however, graphically to 
 indicate the sort of terror under which the 
 people of Lahore lived for six weeks. 
 
 During all this time, flying columns were 
 being sent out to the surrounding villages to 
 make arrests and impress the peasants with the 
 "might." The fashion in which this was done 
 may be gathered from the following extracts 
 from the Official Report : 
 
 " As the village headman (village of Narwar) 
 refused to produce any evidence as to the persons 
 culpable, the officer in charge ordered three 
 headmen and four others to be beaten by a 
 cavalry sowar." (No pretence of a trial !) 
 
 " On the same day (April 20) another flying 
 column went to Muridke and Kamske, between 
 
THE "PHYSICIAN" 139 
 
 which places the telegraph wire had been cut ; 
 this column was accompanied by a civil officer, 
 and the latter, acting as a Summary Court, 
 sentenced the headman of Kamske to a fine of 
 Rs. 200 and a whipping for obstructive be- 
 haviour." 
 
 Mr. Jacob, the civil officer in question, de- 
 scribed this affair in his evidence before the 
 Committee. The headman (a person of high 
 status in the village) was tied to a tree and 
 publicly flogged for his own punishment and 
 the edification of the village. There was appar- 
 ently no court or pretence of judicial procedure, 
 summary or otherwise. There was only sum- 
 mary flogging. 
 
 The Official Report tells us it was inevitable 
 that some of the Ordinances should assume " a 
 racial aspect," because attacks had been made 
 "on one section of His Majesty's subjects." 
 This is stated in excuse of the fact that the 
 Curfew Order, the restrictions on travelling, and 
 other orders of the same nature, were so framed 
 as not to apply to Europeans. It is a fact, 
 however, which will help to preserve for genera- 
 
140 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 tions the racial hatred engendered by this 
 campaign of frightfulness against the natives 
 of the Punjab. The Report again admits, in 
 the case of Lahore, that the orders fixing prices, 
 etc., were " not of uniform success as economic 
 measures." The import of grains was seriously 
 affected. Colonel Johnson, however, was quite 
 pleased with what he did in this respect, and 
 the Europeans of Lahore entertained him at a 
 farewell dinner and lauded him as the " protector 
 of the poor" — the poor people, who suffered a 
 six weeks' agony under his rule. The story of 
 it, as told in his own evidence and in the Official 
 Report, is sufficiently terrible. What would it 
 be if we had the people's version ? 
 
 It is due, however, to Colonel Johnson to 
 record that he regarded himself, and, according 
 to his own account, was so regarded by a large 
 number of the people on whom he inflicted his 
 administration, as a kindly and benevolent auto- 
 crat, who castigated the people for their own 
 good. It was as a benefactor of the poor that 
 he was entertained at a banquet by his fellow- 
 countrymen in Lahore. But the tributes then 
 
THE "PHYSICIAN" 141 
 
 paid to him cannot be said to equal that he paid 
 to himself in giving evidence before the Hunter 
 Committee. Many people, he declared, called 
 on him to thank him for his administration of 
 Martial Law, and to tell him how much they 
 enjoyed it. It reminded them, they said, of the 
 rule which their ancestors enjoyed in olden 
 times I This was his solemn assurance to the 
 Committee. 
 
 It is a common but mistaken tradition among 
 Anglo-Indians in India that the Indians have 
 no sense of humour ! 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED AND MACHINE- 
 GUNNED 
 
 To present a detailed account of the administra- 
 tion of Martial Law in all the towns and districts 
 where it was applied would occupy more pages 
 than this work can afford. The full story, so 
 far as it has been gleaned from the examination 
 of official witnesses, wiU be found in the report 
 of the evidence before the Hunter Committee. 
 For the present purpose it will be sufficient 
 to deal with the record, in its more glaring 
 details, of a few men in particular. Colonel 
 O'Brien, who administered Martial Law in 
 Gujranwala ; Captain Dovetpn, who had charge 
 of Kasur; and Mr. Bosworth- Smith, a civilian 
 officer who was in command at Sheirkupura, 
 particularly distinguished themselves. If "in- 
 tensity" is the word by which to describe the 
 administration at Lahore, one does not know 
 where to find an adjective which would ade- 
 
 142 
 
HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED 143 
 
 quately describe the terrorisation in which these 
 officers indulged in their respective areas. 
 
 First, however, we have to deal with the 
 bombing operations at Gujranwala, which were 
 carried out by two R.A.F. officers, Major Car- 
 berry and Lieutenant Dodkins. 
 
 In Gujranwala the disorders which occurred 
 were admittedly of a serious nature. Their 
 gravity and causes have already been discussed, 
 and need hot be gone into further. But there 
 is no reason to believe, however they originated, 
 that they were anything more than spontaneous 
 outbursts of mob violence, such as have been 
 known in England during the past year, or 
 could not have been dealt with in the manner 
 suggested by The Times in its article already 
 referred to, as being adequate to deal with any 
 riotous assembly that has occurred in India in 
 recent years. If the disturbances in Gujran- 
 wala town and district, and in Kasur last April, 
 justified the imposition of six weeks' Martial 
 Law and the terrors that were inflicted on the 
 people by Colonel O'Brien, Captain Doveton, 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith, Major Carberry and Lieu- 
 
144 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 tenant Dodkins, then we should have seen in 
 Liverpool and Luton last year the proclamation 
 and continuance for six weeks of Martial Law, 
 the bombing of crowds from aeroplanes, shooting 
 from machine-guns, floggings in public and 
 private, wholesale arrests and sentences of im- 
 prisonment ad lib., leaving aside the Uttle 
 embellishments which took the fancy of an 
 O'Brien or a Doveton. 
 
 When the news of disturbances at Gujran- 
 wala reached Lahore, it was no less a person 
 than the Lieutenant-Governor himself who con- 
 ceived the brilliant idea of despatching aeroplanes 
 to the scene. It is a matter of dispute whether, 
 when they arrived, the danger from the mob was 
 not at an end. Such was the information, 
 definitely given in an account which appeared 
 at the time in the Civil and Military Gazette 
 — an organ which represents the official classes. 
 But the official view maintains otherwise. The 
 Official Report says : " It is clear that at the time 
 the police were still engaged in different direc- 
 tions in the attempt to prevent further damage.'' 
 But however that may be the aeroplanes came 
 
HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED 145 
 
 and proceeded to bomb the people. Let us take 
 first the account in the Official Report. It 
 tells us: 
 
 Two bombs were first droppedj being aimed at a large 
 party of people at a village (Dhulla) outside Gujranwala, the 
 officer no doubt believing them to be rioters going or coming from 
 the city. One bomb fell through the roof of a house and 
 failed to explode ; one fell among the party, killing one 
 woman and one boy and slightly wounding two men. Fifty 
 rounds from the machine-gun were also fired into the party. 
 Shortly after, another bomb was dropped at about a mile 
 south of this place, another crowd being observed. The bomb 
 dropped into a dry pond and did not explode ; twenty-five 
 rounds were fired from the machine-gun, but, as far as is known 
 (months afterwards !), without damage. At 3.3.5 the oflicer 
 attacked a crowd of some size near the Khalsa High School 
 and Boarding House on the outskirts of the town ; one bomb 
 was dropped and thirty rounds fired from the machine-gun. 
 As far as is known, on this occasion one man was hit by a 
 bullet, one student by a splinter, and one small boy stunned. 
 At 3.40 p.m. two bombs were dropped near a mosque (Moham- 
 medan church) in the town; these failed to explode. The 
 aeroplane was now directly over the scene of the worst of the 
 disorder. A hundred and fifty rounds were fired from the 
 machine-gun at crowds in the street ; one bomb was dropped 
 on the crowd near the burning goods shed, killing four men 
 and wounding five men ; one bomb was dropped on the 
 crowd in front of the station, killing two and wounding six. 
 This makes a total of eight in all. The rumour that a large 
 number more were dropped is probably due to confusion 
 between the dropping of bombs and the firing of the machine- 
 gun. ... As far as has been ascertained up to the present 
 
 10 
 
146 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 (months afterwards !) the total number of persons killed by 
 the police was three, and by the aeroplanes nine ; twenty- 
 seven in all were wounded by police and aeroplanes. 
 
 The public are asked to believe that this pro- 
 miscuous dropping of bombs and the firing of 
 altogether 255 rounds of a machine-gun, ap- 
 parently at close quarters, into crowds of people, 
 resulted in the killing of nine and wounding of 
 only about sixteen people! Can anyone, who 
 remembers the work of the German aeroplanes 
 in England during the war, doubt that the 
 popular assertion of niany more casualties is 
 well founded ? The Report is transparently dis- 
 honest. The eiFect of the firing of fifty rounds 
 into the first crowd is not mentioned ; and thrice 
 we have the saving phrase, " as far as is known," 
 or "as far as can be ascertained," while stress 
 is laid on the bombs that did not explode. A 
 party of peasants far from the scene of disorder 
 is fired on because, " no doubt," the officer 
 believed them to be " rioters going or coming 
 from the city." If there had been no casualties, 
 the motive and intention of the whole thing 
 remains horrible, but it is asserted, and it is 
 
HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED 147 
 
 hard not to believe it, that there were far heavier 
 casualties than are mentioned in this Report. 
 
 Colonel O'Brien, in his evidence before 
 the Committee, said the crowd was fired on 
 "wherever found." This was referring to the 
 aeroplanes. Once it was found, by an aeroplane 
 in charge of Lieutenant Dodkins, R.A.F., in the 
 form of twenty peasants in a field. Lieutenant 
 Dodkins said he machine-gunned them till they 
 fled. He denied that they were engaged in 
 harvesting operations, which is alleged to be 
 the fact. " They were standing in a group and 
 talking." He saw another party in front of 
 a house being addressed by a man, so he dropped 
 a bomb on them because he " had no doubt in 
 his mind that they were not a marriage or 
 funeral party." 
 
 Major Carberry, R.A.F., was the gentleman 
 who bombed a party of people, because he thought 
 they were rioters going or coming from the city. 
 These wretched people fled after the bombs were 
 dropped, and he then pursued them to a village 
 with a machine-gun. " He could not say if any 
 casualties were caused by the machine-gun 
 
148 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 firing." Major Carberry's account in his evi- 
 dence of the bombing and machine-gunning in 
 the city differs from the Official Report. The 
 Official Report speaks of 150 rounds. The 
 report of Major Carberry's evidence says he 
 followed up the bombs with "several hundred 
 rounds of machine-gun fire on the town itself." 
 He also bombed a party in a field. They num- 
 bered, he said, about two hundred. " He could 
 not say if they were making for the city." " Some 
 time after" his pursuit of the first party with 
 machine-gun fire he dropped two bombs on 
 another village. One exploded : casualties not 
 mentioned. 
 
 Major Carberry's state of mind may be gathered 
 from some further extracts from the report of his 
 evidence : 
 
 " The crowd was running away and he fired to 
 disperse them. 
 
 " As the crowd dispersed, he fired the machine- 
 gun into the village itself. He supposed some 
 shots hit the houses. He could make no dis- 
 crimination between the innocent and the guilty. 
 
 " He was at a height of feet 200 and could see 
 
HOW CROWDS WERE BOMBED 149 
 
 perfectly what he was doing. His object was not 
 accompUshed by the dropping of bombs alone. 
 
 " The firing was not intended to do damage 
 alone. It was in the interests of the villagers 
 themselves. By killing a few, he thought he 
 would prevent the people from collecting again. 
 This action had a moral effect ! 
 
 "After that he went over the city, dropping 
 bombs, and Jired at the people who were trying to 
 get away." 
 
 Let it be remembered that these operations 
 were conducted not against a city and villages in 
 a hostile territory of a country with which Great 
 Britain was at war ; they were not reprisals for 
 similar acts against ourselves. They were inflicted 
 on an unarmed civilian population of a province 
 whose loyalty and sterling assistance to the 
 Empire in the war was Sir Michael O'Dwyer's 
 constant boast, when it suited him to " boost " his 
 own achievements as a Lieutenant-Governor. 
 And they were carried out for the purpose of 
 suppressing the violence of a mob which, as 
 The Times has said, could have been dispersed by 
 a dozen armed policemen. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 O'BRIEN, POVETON, AND BOSWORTH-SMITH 
 
 GujRANWALA, Kasur, and Sheikupura, like 
 Amritsar and Lahore, had their Curfew Order, 
 prohibition of travelling for Indians, floggings 
 public and private, wholesale arrests and punish- 
 ments by Summary Courts and Special Tri- 
 bunals. They had also the variants which 
 suggested themselves to the minds of the 
 individual administrators, who were out to 
 impress the people with the might of the British 
 Raj, as represented by Colonel O'Brien, Captain 
 Doveton, and Mr. Bosworth-Smith. 
 
 Colonel O'Brien was responsible for an order 
 that when Indians met British officers they must 
 salute, alight from their carriages, or dismount 
 if they were riding or driving, and lower their 
 umbrellas if they were carrying any. This order. 
 Colonel O'Brien told the Committee, " was good 
 by way of bringing home to the people that they 
 had new masters." People were whipped, fined, 
 
 150 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOSWORTH-SMITH 151 
 
 and otherwise punished for disobedience of this 
 monstrous order. He was responsible for the 
 arrest of numbers of people, who were kept in 
 gaol for as long as six weeks without being 
 brought to trial. In one case a number of 
 leading citizens were summarily arrested, put 
 in a goods truck, where they were huddled 
 together after being marched several miles in the 
 burning sun, some of them half clad, and sent by 
 train to Lahore. They were refused permission 
 to answer the calls of nature, and were kept in 
 the truck in these conditions for about twenty- 
 four hours. Their horrible plight hardly needs 
 description. As they were marched through the 
 streets, an ever-growing crowd of prisoners — 
 for Colonel O'Brien went on making arrests 
 indiscriminately as he proceeded — they were 
 handcuffed and chained together. Hindus and 
 Mohammedans were chained together. This was 
 regarded by the populace as a jibe at Hindu- 
 Moslem unity. Colonel O'Brien said it was 
 accidental. As an example of the spirit of the 
 whole proceeding it may be mentioned that one 
 of the victims, an elderly citizen, was a noted 
 
152 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 benefactor of the town, who gave a lakh of rupees 
 (£10,000) to found the King George School in 
 commemoration of the King's visit, and had 
 contributed largely to war relief funds and war 
 loans. Such was the reward of loyalty ! 
 
 Another example of Colonel O'Brien's 
 methods is the arrest of an elderly farmer, as 
 a hostage for his two sons, whom he was unable 
 to produce. Colonel O'Brien ordered this man's 
 property to be confiscated, and issued a warning 
 that anybody attempting to help him with his 
 crops would be shot. He admitted the man had 
 committed no offence himself, but " he did not 
 say where his sons were." He assumed that 
 under Martial Law he could pass such an order ! 
 Afterwards the man's pension was stopped. 
 
 These are only incidents in Colonel O'Brien's 
 lengthy record. He was a real " terror " to the 
 people while Martial Law lasted, with his flog- 
 gings, summary arrests, and marchings hither 
 and thither, imposing his methods of " the new 
 masters " on all and sundry ; while at other times 
 he sat in Court sentencing people, who were 
 sometimes hardly allowed to defend themselves. 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOSWORTH-SMITH 153 
 
 Two hundred persons were convicted by Summary 
 Courts, and received sentences of whipping, or 
 from one month up to two years' imprisonment. 
 The Commission convicted 149 people, of whom 
 22 were sentenced to death, 108 to transportation 
 for life, and others to sentences varying from ten 
 years downwards. In addition to this, heavy 
 fines were inflicted on towns and villages, and 
 additional police imposed on the " disturbed " 
 area at the cost of the inhabitants. In one 
 case — the alleged burning of the King's effigy by 
 some people at Ramnagar — Colonel O'Brien 
 himself disposed of the trial of a large number 
 of persons, who were all sentenced to the full 
 term of imprisonment, in one day. There was 
 an enormous number of witnesses for the prose- 
 cution and defence, but Colonel O'Brien polished 
 off the lot in a few hours, with his rough-and- 
 ready methods of " swift justice," while a police- 
 sergeant, who gave evidence for the defence, 
 was subsequently punished "for trying to hush 
 up matters." The whole incident of this burning 
 of the King's effigy is stoutly denied by the 
 people of Ramnagar, and an unofficial investiga- 
 
154 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 tion into it justifies the suspicion, if not an 
 actual belief, that it was fabricated. Colonel 
 O'Brien's final achievement was to rush a large 
 batch of cases through in about twenty-four 
 hours, when he heard that Martial Law was to 
 terminate the next day. The people concerned 
 were given little opportunity of defending them- 
 selves, and cases fixed for some days ahead were 
 rushed into the Court post-haste, so anxious was 
 Colonel O'Brien that none should escape his 
 justice by reason of the lapse of Martial Law. 
 
 Captain Doveton was associated with Colonel 
 O'Brien in the administration of Martial Law. 
 He was in a sort of independent command in 
 the Kasur subdivision, the headquarters of 
 which is the fairly large town of Kasur. At 
 this place a pubHc gallows was erected for 
 hangings, though apparently it was never used, 
 and was taken down by order of the superior 
 authorities. It was there, however, for some 
 days to the terror of the inhabitants. A large 
 public cage was also erected near the railway 
 station, designed to accommodate 150 persons, 
 and here suspects were incarcerated before the 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOS WORTH-SMITH 155 
 
 public gaze. The whole male population of the 
 town was paraded for identification. 
 
 Floggings took place in public, and photo- 
 graphic records of these disgusting incidents are 
 in existence, showing that the victims Were 
 stripped naked to the knees, and tied to tele- 
 graph poles or triangles. Publicity was not 
 casual, or accidental, but designed. A sort of 
 levee of the " bad characters " of the town was 
 held for the purpose by Captain Doveton's order, 
 and on at least one occasion prostitutes were 
 brought to witness the floggings. Just as 
 Colonel Johnson had his " one regrettable inci- 
 dent," when a wedding party was flogged, this 
 flogging in the presence of prostitutes was the 
 one thing which seemed to excite Captain Dove- 
 ton's shame when he was taxed with it, while 
 giving evidence before the Hunter Committee. 
 His explanation was that he had ordered the 
 sub-inspector of police to round up the bad 
 characters, and bring them to witness the flog- 
 gings, but was " horrified " when he saw these 
 women there. But he could not send them 
 away, because he was unable to find an escort 
 
156 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 for them. So they remained to witness the 
 floggings. We can leave the explanation to the 
 reader for what it is worth! 
 
 Captain Doveton was a prohfic inventor of 
 " minor punishments." His sole object in invent- 
 ing minor punishments, he told the Committee, 
 was to make things "as mild as circumstances 
 would permit." Circumstances were not very 
 merciful in this respect. Offenders against Martial 
 Law were set to work at loading and unloading 
 goods waggons in the station yard. He instituted 
 a system of making people touch the ground with 
 their foreheads — a sort of variation of Colonel 
 Dyer's crawling order. It is alleged that some 
 persons were whitewashed by his orders, and 
 it cannot be said that his denial of the incident, 
 in view of the evidence, is altogether acceptable. 
 He was also accused of having made a man 
 dance before him with a fool's cap on his head. 
 He denied this, but admitted another form of 
 " minor punishment," which consisted in ordering 
 an offender to compose a poem in his honour ! 
 
 Captain Doveton was quite assured in his own 
 mind that he was a popular personage in Kasur. 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOSWORTH-SMITH 157 
 
 Wherever he went, he assured the Committee, 
 he got a cheery greeting, and he was also thanked 
 for his firm administration of Martial Law. He 
 had to admit, however, that some of the un- 
 appreciative inhabitants fled from the town to 
 escape his attentions. Their ingratitude was 
 punished by the confiscation and destruction 
 of their property I 
 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith is a civilian officer, who 
 administered Martial Law in the subdivision 
 of Sheikupura, He administered it with an 
 " intensity " which rivalled that of any of his 
 military competitors. He admitted that Martial 
 Law was not " essential," but he thought it was 
 " desirable," and keeping it on was a " good 
 thing." He tried all the cases in his area, and, 
 as elsewhere, sentences of flogging were inflicted, 
 which were carried out at the rising of the Court. 
 He tried 477 persons between May 6 and 
 May 20. The floggings, he said, were not public. 
 But it transpired that his interpretation of a 
 public flogging was one that did not take place 
 inside the city or town. It did not apply to 
 floggings which were witnessed by all persons 
 
158 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 attending the Court, while flogging which took 
 place at the " Canal bungalow " was not, he 
 admitted, "altogether private." He made an 
 enormous number of arrests, and tried a very 
 large number of cases, a remarkable feature of 
 which was that, according to his own record, 
 the accused with a very few exceptions always 
 pleaded guilty. This was peculiar to Mr. 
 Bosworth-Smith's Court. He seemed to exercise 
 a subtle influence over the persons brought before 
 him, which produced wholesale admissions of 
 guilt. Convictions, it is alleged^ were based on 
 the evidence of three or four railway officials. 
 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith made a report to the 
 Government on the disturbances, an abstract of 
 which was placed before the Hunter Committee. 
 In it he made a number of sweeping state- 
 ments regarding the disloyalty of the people, and 
 was especially inimical to the pleader (lawyer) 
 class. "There is no place," he said, "where 
 disloyalty is so deep as in Delhi, Lahore, and 
 Amritsar." He was cross-examined on this by 
 Sir Chimanlal Setalwad, and the following extract 
 from the report is interesting as showing the 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOSWORTH-SMITH 159 
 
 grounds, or want of them, on which he made 
 a wholesale incrimination of this kind. 
 
 Q. Had you any personal experience of Delhi ? 
 
 A. I spent some months there. 
 
 Q. Had you ever been officially connected with that place ? 
 
 A. No. 
 
 Q. On what material did you base your statement ? 
 
 A. It was a confidential report to Government. 
 
 Q. But when you make a confidential report surely any 
 opinion you express therein must be based on some material ? 
 
 A. I had my own opinion. 
 
 Q. You don't arrive at opinions without material. What is 
 the material on which you based your opinion ? 
 
 A, I prefer not to say. 
 
 Q. Why don't you care to enlighten the Committee on 
 the matter ? Is it against public interest or were you 
 ordered by the Government not to say ? Why are you so 
 unwilling ? 
 
 A. I don't care to say. 
 
 Q. I want to have your' position clear. You don't want to 
 answer the question .'' 
 
 A. I have already said I don't think it is desirable. 
 
 Q. Is it against public interest ? 
 
 A, 1 don't wish to answer this. 
 
 Q. May I know your reason ? 
 
 A. I don't wish to give it to you. 
 
 Q. You don't wish to answer the question and you don't 
 wish to give your reasons ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q, You think this is the way in which to come here to 
 assist the Committee. 
 
 No answer ! 
 
160 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Q. Does the same thing apply to your assertion regarding 
 Lahore and Amritsar ? 
 A. The same. 
 
 ***** 
 
 All the witnesses mentioned in this chapter 
 were questioned regarding an order, issued by 
 the military authorities, compelling schoolboys 
 to parade three times a day to salute the flag. 
 The order applied to the infant classes and 
 children of five and six years of age were included. 
 It is actually alleged that there were fatal cases 
 of sunstroke resulting from this, and it is admitted 
 that children fainted from undue exposure 
 to the sun. It is alleged, too, that in some 
 instances the boys were made to repeat, " I have 
 committed no offence. I will not commit any 
 offence. I repent, I repent, I repent." In such 
 ways were love and respect for the British flag 
 inculcated. Here are some extracts from the 
 reports of the evidence pertaining to this : 
 
 " Major Smith, Administrator of Martial Law 
 in Gujranwala, Gujrat, and LyaUpur, was asked 
 by Sir Chimanlal Setalwad whether the order was 
 enforced in all places in his area and whether it 
 applied to all classes, including infant classes. 
 
O'BRIEN, DOVETON, BOSWORTH-SMITH 161 
 
 The Major replied that it applied to all places in his 
 area where there were troops, and that even infant- 
 class boys of the ages of five and six were required 
 to attend the parade, but the little boys were 
 exempted from the evening parade. The object 
 of this parade, he explained, was to inculcate in 
 the boys, some of whom in his opinion had taken 
 part in the riots, respect for the British, and in 
 part it was meant as a punishment. He did not 
 think it a hardship for these little boys of the 
 infant classes who had taken no part in the riots 
 to go day after day to the parade ground, and he 
 would do the same thing again if he considered 
 it necessary." 
 
 Colonel O'Brien, in his evidence, said that 
 " one day when he was at Wazirabad he saw a 
 boy fainting during his march to the flag, and 
 wrote to the military authorities. He did not 
 know if the next day this duty was increased 
 from two to three times. Questioned if it was 
 so done would it not be hard on the boys. 
 Colonel O'Brien said ' No.' " 
 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith said he " could not say " 
 
 11 
 
162 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 if boys were made to repeat at parades the words 
 of repentance quoted above. 
 
 The idea of repentance, however, was greatly 
 to the fore in the mind of Mr Bosworth-Smith. 
 He admitted that he had suggested the erection 
 of a " House of Repentance " at Sangla. " His 
 idea was good," he said. It was not true that 
 he had suggested that the cost of the hall, 
 estimated at Rs. 10,000, should be borne by 
 pleaders. " Speaking somewhat roughly, his idea 
 was, plainly, that people should go inside this 
 house and repent. The plan had never been 
 laid before Government. So far as pleaders 
 were concerned he had submitted a confidential 
 report to the High Court recommending dis- 
 ciplinary action against some." 
 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith had also practical methods 
 of enforcing repentance. He arrested some 125 
 persons at Sangla, and when the "respectable 
 people " of Sangla agreed to the payment of a 
 fine of Rs. 50,000 he released most of the 
 arrested persons ! There is a strange likeness 
 in this to German methods in France and 
 Belgium. 
 
PARTY 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 
 
 It is not to be supposed, as has been indicated 
 already, that the matters related in the foregoing 
 pages have by any means exhausted the whole 
 terrible story of the agony inflicted on the 
 people of the affected areas in the Punjab. 
 General Dyer's battue, the bombs and machine- 
 guns of Major Carberry and Lieutenant Dodkins, 
 and the shooting of crowds at Lahore, do not 
 even exhaust the story of reprisals of this 
 description. An armoured train was let loose 
 on the villages of Sheikupara. It was in com- 
 mand, of course, of a military officer, and 
 accompanied by a civil officer, Lala Sriram, who 
 gave the Hunter Committee a lurid account of 
 how it would descend on a village and turn its 
 machine-gun indiscriminately on the villagers in 
 the street or in their fields, not because they 
 were doing anything at the time, but because 
 somebody had done something and it was 
 
 165 
 
166 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 necessary to strike terror into the population. 
 There are no details of casualties, but the affair 
 of this armoured train appears to have been as 
 terrible in its way as the massacre at Amritsar, 
 the people being fired on relentlessly and in- 
 discriminately, without inquiry and without 
 warning. 
 
 But it is impossible to record everything, or 
 even a tithe of it, in detail. Those who wish 
 for a full acquaintance With the whole terrible 
 business must go to the reports of the evidence 
 taken before the Hunter Committee. The 
 object of this book is to rou«e the British 
 pubhc to a sense of the gravity of the crime 
 that has been committed in their name by 
 persons to whom their authority has been en- 
 trusted. And surely enough has been recorded 
 to form an indictment, which cannot remain 
 merely as a record. We have seen how these 
 disturbances arose, the policy and methods that 
 provoked them, and that, serious as they un- 
 doubtedly were, they were, when all is said and 
 done, merely outbreaks of mob violence and not 
 a " rebellion " or a " war " against the King, as 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 167 
 
 the official witnesses asserted and the Martial 
 Law Tribunals found. As a result of these out- 
 breaks, the population of the Punjab was sub- 
 jected to all the severities which must attend the 
 administration of Martial Law in any circum- 
 stances, accompanied by the terror of vindictive 
 reprisals and atrocities, such as those for which 
 the world has condemned the Prussians in 
 France and Flanders, but which nobody could 
 have conceived could be committed by British 
 officials in a province of a loyal dependency, 
 to whom Great Britain is under the deepest 
 debt of gratitude and reward. Let it be re- 
 membered that, while some had to suffisr in the 
 acutest form the methods described in the pre- 
 ceding pages could inffict, there is not a solitary 
 inhabitant of these areas who did not have to 
 feel the " intensity " of this regime of blood and 
 iron. Those who have come from the Punjab 
 since have endless tales to teU of the suffi5rings 
 of the population as a whole and of individuals 
 in particular under this regime of Curfew Orders, 
 travelling restrictions, enforced opening of shops 
 and labour, wholesale arrests, confinement in 
 
168 AMRIl'SAB : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 solitary cells, public parades of innocent and 
 guilty alike, punishments for petty and un- 
 intentional breaches of Martial Law regulations, 
 and enforced submission to the bullying and 
 threats of a domineering official caste, who cele- 
 brated the end of the war with an orgy of 
 tyranny and blood. Here in England we have 
 to consider the effect of all this on the people, 
 not only of the Punjab, but the whole Indian 
 people, who have been hearing from day to day 
 of the sufferings inflicted on their fellow-country- 
 men in our name. 
 
 The matter cannot be left in the hands of 
 the authorities in India, under whom these 
 tragic events were allowed to take place. And 
 it must be taken out of the hands of the Secretary 
 of State for India, who failed to appreciate their 
 gravity or to reahse his own responsibihty, who is 
 never tired of publicly giving expression to the 
 confidence he reposes in Lord Chelmsford, the 
 Viceroy of India, and who weakly submitted to 
 the Government of I ndia in allowing them topass 
 an Act of Indemnity, and to appoint their own 
 Committee of Investigation into matters where 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 169 
 
 their own responsibility and degree of blame is 
 essentially one of the most important questions 
 for public inquiry. It is necessary, therefore, 
 to examine the degree of responsibility resting 
 on the shoulders of each of the authorities 
 concerned, to press for a fuller and wholly 
 impartial investigation by a Royal Commission, 
 and to see how the British people can fulfil 
 the responsibility that rests upon them, not 
 merely to vindicate their humanity in the eyes 
 of the world by the trial and punishment of 
 the guilty, whoever they may be, but to ensure 
 by statutory legislation that the people of India 
 are able to protect themselves in the future 
 against a recurrence of such an outburst of 
 tyranny, and such infliction of suffering. 
 
 Responsibility of the Punjab Government 
 AND ITS Officials. 
 
 There are three authorities, primarily, whose 
 responsibihty we have to discuss. These are, 
 in the reverse order of their importance but 
 their respective order of responsibility, the 
 Government of the Punjab, the Government 
 
170 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 of India, and the Secretary of State for India, 
 who is directly responsible to Parliament and 
 the Crown for everything that is done in India 
 in their name, and under their authority. The 
 Government of India is responsible to the 
 Secretary of State, and the Government of 
 the Punjab is responsible to the Government 
 of India, who can at any moment veto any 
 action it proposes to take, and without whose 
 acquiescence, approval, or direct orders, as the 
 case may be, it could not have imposed Martial 
 Law, and done or caused or allowed to be done 
 or approved all the things that were done under 
 its authority, or approved by it, either before 
 or during the administration of Martial Law. 
 
 The Government of the Punjab is vested 
 practically in the supreme authority of one 
 person, the Lieutenant-Governor, who, unUke 
 the Governors or Lieutenant-Governors of most 
 other provinces in India, governs without an 
 Executive Council. Up to the time of the 
 proclamation of Martial Law, everything that 
 was done in the Punjab was done under the civil 
 authority of the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
 
""^ -^ -^-.-^-w 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 171 
 
 Punjab, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who is thus person- 
 ally responsible for the arrests of the people's 
 leaders at Amritsar, which led to the outbreak and 
 was really the beginning of all serious trouble in 
 the Punjab, and the firing on the crowd at the Hall 
 Gate Bridge. How far his responsibility is en- 
 hanced in regard to some of the earlier events is 
 a matter for investigation. But it is on record 
 that he ordered the arrest and deportation of 
 Dr. Satyapal and Dr. Kitchlew over the heads of 
 the local officials, to whom apparently the order 
 came as a surprise, and who had not themselves 
 considered this drastic action to be necessary. 
 So far as subsequent events before the proclam- 
 ation of Martial Law are concerned. Sir Michael 
 O'Dwyer could only be exonerated from any 
 personal responsibility as Lieutenant-Governor, if 
 it Could be shown that he had iij any case dis- 
 approved any action taken by his officials at 
 Amritsar, or coimtermanded any of their orders. 
 But we know that, on the contrary, he expressed 
 his definite approval of General Dyer's action in 
 shooting down about two thousand people at 
 Jallewallian Bagh without warning, and allowed 
 
172 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 it to be conveyed to General Dyer by General 
 Beynon, his superior, that he, the Lieutenant- 
 Governor, considered his action to be correct. 
 In his letter to The Times recently. Sir Michael 
 O'Dwyer complained that that journal had 
 criticised him unfairly in this matter by the 
 suggestion that he sent the telegram of approval 
 himself And he entered into an elaborate ex- 
 planation of how, at a time when he was very 
 busy receiving reports of disturbances, General 
 Beynon pressed him for an expression of approval 
 of General Dyer's action, and he ultimately gave 
 his sanction over the telephone for such approval 
 to be sent. In the same letter he gives it as his 
 considered opinion that Dyer was right in what 
 he did. It is difficult, therefore, to understand 
 the object or meaning of his protest. But how- 
 ever the approval was given, the fact remains 
 that he approved and definitely accepted the 
 fullest responsibihty, and continued his approval 
 of General Dyer's administration of Martial Law 
 and general assumption of authority before 
 Martial Law was proclaimed, and before he was 
 possessed of any legal authority at aU. 
 
THE I>UTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 173 
 
 As regards the firing at Lahore on demon- 
 strators who had been guilty of no violence 
 whatever, all this took place under Sir Michael's 
 direct gaze, if not at his actual direction. He 
 was in Lahore throughout, and consulting hourly 
 with his secretaries and the local authorities. 
 
 For the bombing incidents at Gujranwala 
 he is also directly and primarily responsible. It 
 was he who ordered the aeroplanes to be sent to 
 Gujranwala, and there is no evidence that he 
 at any time disapproved of the excesses that 
 were committed by the officers in charge of 
 them. 
 
 Sir Michael O'Dwyer was also jointly respon- 
 sible with the Chief Commissioner of Delhi for the 
 arrest of Mr. Gandhi, another most potent cause 
 of trouble throughout the Punjab, At a time 
 when Mr. Gandhi was on an errand of pacifica- 
 tion. Sir Michael O'Dwyer issued his ukase 
 prohibiting the entry of Mr. Gandhi into the 
 Punjab, a provocative and unnecessary action 
 which led to Mr. Gandhi's arrest and his dis- 
 appearance in custody for a day, thus leading the 
 people to suppose that, like Dr. Satyapal and 
 
174 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 Dr. Kitchlew, he had been taken away for 
 internment. 
 
 So far as the actual administration of Martial 
 Law is concerned, there is an indication in Sir 
 Michael's letter to The Times that he is inclined 
 to plead that he had no authority to interfere 
 with military ordfers. He sets up this defence, 
 even in regard to an order that was issued 
 apparently before Martial Law was proclaimed. 
 But however that may be, his authority in the 
 Province remained supreme, Martial Law or no 
 Martial Law. And the circumstances are such 
 that it is clear that Sir Michael O'Dwyer, as 
 Lieutenant-Governor, was cognisant of, approved 
 of, and is responsible for, all that was going on. 
 He was in Lahore throughout and in consulta- 
 tion with Colonel Johnson all the time, while 
 Colonel O'Brien and others entrusted with the 
 administration of Martial Law referred to the 
 Punjab Government, at times, for the assurance 
 that they would be indemnified for the drastic 
 measures they were enforcing. It has been 
 declared in evidence that it was the Punjab 
 Government that ordered the erection of the 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 175 
 
 public gallows at Kasur. And we cannot find 
 that Sir Michael O'Dwyer at any time used his 
 authority or influence to lessen the horrors that 
 were inflicted on the populace. On the other 
 hand, his chief Lieutenant and coadjutor, Mr. 
 Thompson, the Chief Secretary of the Punjab 
 Government, strenuously defended the whole 
 administration bf Martial Law in the Imperial 
 Council subsequently; and he spoke for the 
 Government of the Punjab, of which Sir Michael 
 O'Dwyer was the supreme autocratic head. 
 Finally, we have the declaration of Lord 
 Chelmsford, the Viceroy, made publicly in the 
 Imperial Council, that he had given the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor the fullest latitude to deal 
 with the situation, a pronouncement which, 
 while it does not absolve the Viceroy from 
 ultimate responsibility as may have been the 
 intention, shows the responsibility of Sir Michael 
 O'Dwyer throughout to be clear and undoubted. 
 One of the gravest counts in the indictment 
 against Sir Michael O'Dwyer, as Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the Punjab, is the policy of con- 
 cealment which he deliberately pursued. In 
 
176 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 the first place, from the beginning every news- 
 paper in the Province was placed under pre- 
 censorship by the Government and nothing, 
 either by comment or report of events, could 
 be published without being submitted for official 
 approval and sanction. In this way the publica- 
 tion of inconvenient exposures of the methods 
 that were being pursued was prevented at one 
 stroke. Editors who showed any independence 
 in theu' attitude were drastically treated. Mr. 
 Kalinath Roy, editor of The Tribune, a most 
 respected journalist, greatly esteemed in his 
 profession and by all classes of the public, was 
 tried and sentenced to two years' hard labour on 
 a far-fetched interpretation of an article he had 
 published. His paper had to suspend publica- 
 tion. The restrictions on travelling made it well- 
 nigh impossible for anyone likely to carry the 
 news of what was going on to get out of the 
 Province, and one man who got to Bombay by 
 way of Karachi — a highly respected citizen of 
 Lahore — and wrote an account for the Bombay 
 Chronicle of events in Lahore, was subsequently 
 arrested, tried under the Defence of India Act, 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 177 
 
 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.* 
 Several Indian papers in other Provinces joined 
 in appointing Mr. C. F. Andrews, a well-known 
 ex-missionary and public man in India, as their 
 correspondent to go to the Punjab and investi- 
 gate the terrible reports that were being heard of 
 the events taking place. Sir Michael O'Dwyer 
 refused to admit him, and on Mr. Andrews 
 none the less proceeding, he was arrested and 
 sent back. In the meanwhile, there was of 
 course a rigid censorship of all telegrams. 
 
 The length to which this policy of exclusion 
 was carried is evidenced by a still more extra- 
 ordinary proceeding. In Lahore, Amritsar, Guj- 
 ranwala, and other places, all the leading men 
 who had taken any part in agitation against the 
 Rowlatt Act, and many others as well, were 
 under arrest, and charged with serious offences, 
 such as " waging war against the King " and 
 conspiracy against the State. They were anxious, 
 naturally, to obtain the best legal assistance 
 available from Calcutta and Bombay, apart from 
 
 * The editor of the Bombay Chronicle was deported very 
 shortly after publishing the account, 
 
 12 
 
178 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 the fact that the terrorisation of the local legal 
 fraternity was making it difficult to persuade 
 lawyers in the Punjab to take up Martial Law 
 briefs. The Punjab Government, except in one 
 instance under great pressure, refused to allow 
 any barristers from outside the Province to come 
 into it. Such leading Indian counsel as Pundit 
 Motilal Nehru, Mr. C. R. Das, and Mr. B. 
 Chuckerbutty, and European counsel, like Mr. 
 Eardley Norton, were refused admission. One 
 accused, a weU-known banker, merchant, and 
 philanthropist, who was among those arrested, 
 could only convey the papers in his case to his 
 lawyers in Allahabad by getting his son to travel 
 in disguise, accompanied by another man. These 
 two changed the papers from one to another at 
 the various stations where all Indian passengers 
 were searched, and ultimately succeeded in reach- 
 ing Allahabad after several days, dropping from 
 fatigue and starvation. 
 
 Sir Michael O'Dwyer's responsibility, however, 
 does not begin and end with the chapter of events 
 in the Punjab last year. The indictment is more 
 extensive and raises the whole conduct of the 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 179 
 
 administration of the Punjab over a series of 
 years. The methods of recruitment and of 
 raising of war loans in the different Provinces of 
 India have been mentioned in an eariier chapter. 
 In the Punjab these methods reached a pitch of 
 oppression which was provocative of long- 
 smouldering discontent, to which the ultimate 
 shock of the Rowlatt Act was the culminating 
 stroke. Nowhere was the Defence of India Act, 
 with its host of liberty-destroying regulations, 
 applied with greater intensity than in the Punjab. 
 Newspapers were suppressed one after the other, 
 and public men restricted and interned, the 
 while Sir Michael O'Dwyer, in the Imperial 
 Council or the Durbar Halls of his own Province, 
 delighted to boast of the loyalty of its people, 
 which he extolled to the detriment of those of 
 the other Provinces. The recruiting campaigns 
 exhibited the methods of the press-gang, and 
 various other modes of pressure which could, 
 legally or otherwise, be brought to bear on people 
 unwilling to contribute a sufficiency of recruits 
 to the Army ; and districts which were remiss in 
 this respect were accorded the honour of a specia 
 
180 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 visit from the Lieutenant-Governor, which was 
 followed by a general tightening of the screws 
 and speeding-up of the repressive methods 
 notorious^ employed. If the object had been to 
 destroy any feehngs of loyalty and affection for 
 British rule, and to crush out political life in the 
 Province, the whole policy in the Punjab, and 
 the methods by which it was pursued during the 
 four and a half years of war, could not have been 
 better devised for the purpose. All this played 
 its part in producing a general spirit of discontent 
 and unrest in a Province noted for its peaceful 
 character and loyalty to the Empire in the past, 
 and requires to be strictly investigated. 
 
 As for the officers of the Punjab Government, 
 civil and military, under whom and by whom 
 Martial Law was administered, the record of 
 those chiefly responsible has been given to us 
 out of their own mouths. General Dyer, Colonel 
 Johnson, Colonel O'Brien, Captain Doveton, 
 Major Carberry Smith, Lieutenant Dodkins, 
 Mr. Bosworth-Smith, Lala Sriram and others, 
 have themselves related the deeds they com- 
 mitted. The Government of India have passed 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 181 
 
 an Act of Indemnity, which makes it difficult, 
 if not impossible, to sue or prosecute them in the 
 Indian Courts. But that is no reason why they 
 should not be called to answer for their conduct 
 in England, where officers of the Crown in distant 
 parts of the Empire can be held to account, 
 under the law, for acts of oppression they may 
 have committed. After the revelations of the 
 Hunter Committee, Great Britain cannot, if she 
 is to maintain her honour before the world, 
 remain quiescent. She owes it -as much to her- 
 self as to the people of India, who have been so 
 deeply wronged, to probe this matter to the 
 bottom, and to ascertain the joint and several 
 guilt of all those concerned. And in doing so 
 she will have to see whether the intention to 
 terrorise the people of the Punjab was deliberate 
 and prearranged. The military mind of the 
 Prussian type is not confined to Prussia, and is 
 liable to express itself in brutal and repressive 
 fashion wherever the opportunity occurs. But 
 we can claim that men of the Dyer and O'Brien 
 type are exceptional in the British Army, and 
 that our administrators are not men, usually, 
 
182 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 whatever other defects they may have, who 
 tolerate or approve of unbridled cruelty and 
 ruthless oppression. It seems hardly conceivable 
 that fortuitous circumstances could have produced, 
 at one moment in one Province of the Empire, 
 a coterie of officials who were capable of the 
 frightful excesses which occurred in the Punjab 
 last year. It is hardly credible that the moment 
 should have found ready to hand the men to 
 commit these excesses directly the opportunity 
 occurred, and to vie with one another in their 
 severity and cruelty. The question must suggest 
 itself to the mind of those who know the British 
 character as it reaUy is, whether it was not by 
 premeditated design that the right men were in 
 their places ready for their job when the moment 
 arrived. It is a question that must be fully 
 examined. If the general character of our officials, 
 civil and military, who are entrusted with 
 dangerous powers in such countries as India, 
 were such that outbreaks of terrorism of the kind 
 we have seen in the Punjab are liable to occur at 
 any time, we should be compelled frankly to 
 abandon our claim to be a justice and humanity- 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 183 
 
 loving people. However ugly the facts we must 
 investigate and face them. 
 
 Lord Chelmsford and the Government 
 OF India. 
 
 The responsibility of the Viceroy and the 
 Government of India is equally clear and grave. 
 Lord Chelmsford seems to think, judging from 
 his utterances in the Imperial Council, that his 
 responsibility ended when he had given Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer carte blanche to do as he 
 liked, and by his insistence on a Committee of 
 Inquiry appointed by himself, instead of by 
 Parliament, has assumed that only the respon- 
 sibility of the local Government and its officers 
 is a fit matter for investigation. The fact is 
 that his responsibility began when he gave the 
 Punjab Government a free hand. But it did 
 not end there. It continued throughout. It 
 was on the authority of the Government of 
 India that Martial Law was proclaimed, and it 
 was by their authority that it was continued for 
 six weeks. They also proclaimed the Ordinances 
 by which Tribunals were set up, superseding the 
 
184 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 ordinary courts and making Martial Law retro- 
 spective, thus roping in people who had been 
 guilty of no violence, were not " taken in arms " 
 — as indeed nobody was — and subjecting them 
 to trials from which the most elementary require- 
 ments of justice were almost entirely absent, 
 and by judges who were authorised to ignore 
 all the statutory codes. It is not too much to 
 say that, if the propriety of these proceedings 
 were accepted, anybody who had made a speech 
 against the Government prior to disturbances, 
 in which he had no lot or part, but which arose 
 out of the same agitation, would be liable to 
 conviction for seditious conspiracy or waging 
 war against the King. 
 
 Nor can Lord Chelmsford and his Government 
 plead ignorance of what was going on under 
 Martial Law. In spite of Sir Michael O'Dwyer's 
 rigorous policy of concealment, news of the 
 Amritsar massacre, though not at first of its full 
 horror, the public floggings and many of the 
 other excesses, reached the pubhc in other parts 
 of India, and numerous protests and appeals 
 were made to Lord Chelmsford to stay the 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 185 
 
 hands of the Lieutenant-Governor and the 
 military authorities. All were met, however, 
 with a stern refusal to interfere, and the Indian 
 public got nothing from the Government of 
 India but an attitude of repression and public 
 declarations, which might well cause them to 
 believe they had been abandoned by those to 
 whom they were entitled to look for protection, 
 as, indeed, they had been. The only instance 
 in which they intervened was the issue of an 
 order to stop the public floggings after they had 
 gone on for some days, which was accompanied 
 by the explanation that they had taken place 
 only in the case of those of low social status I 
 Lengthy telegrams of protest were addressed to 
 the Viceroy by the President of the Indian 
 National Congress and other bodies, but nothing 
 was of any avail. 
 
 As for the Amritsar massacre and the Gujran- 
 wala bombings, if they did not know of the 
 gravity of these occurrences, theirs is a serious 
 responsibility that they failed to make themselves 
 acquainted with the full details of these terrible 
 events. There is no reason to suppose, however, 
 
186 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 that they did not know. But whether they knew 
 them or not, it is a fact that they strenuously 
 defended everything that was done in the dis- 
 cussions that took place later in the Imperial 
 Council, and thus accepted responsibility. Sir 
 William Vincent, for the Government of India, 
 and General Hudson, Quartermaster-General, for 
 the military authorities, attempted to justify or 
 excuse all the acts committed by the civil or 
 military authorities. They denied the full extent 
 of the casualties at Amritsar admitted after- 
 wards before the Hunter Committee by General 
 Dyer, and hotly attacked the Indian members, 
 who denounced these outrages, accusing them 
 of exaggeration and inaccuracy. How they 
 came to do this, when they must have had 
 General Dyer's Report before them, is one of 
 the matters which will have to be cleared up. 
 
 Finally, anticipating the inquiry of the Hunter 
 Committee, they rushed the Indemnity Bill by 
 their official bloc through the Imperial Council, 
 in the face of the strong protests of the non- 
 official members. The result of this is that, 
 so far as India is concerned, officials responsible 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 187 
 
 for excesses and abuse of authority can only be 
 dealt with departmentally. They are immune 
 in the Indian Courts from prosecution or civil 
 suits for anything done under Martial Law " in 
 good faith." 
 
 The responsibility of the Viceroy and his 
 colleagues is further emphasised by the fact that 
 the Indian member of the Executive Council, 
 Sir Sankaran Nair, actua/Uy resigned as a protest 
 against the administration of Martial Law. 
 Sir Sankaran Nair, to his credit, refused to 
 remain a member of a Government which failed 
 to perform the obvious duty of putting an end 
 to these excesses. The question of the blame 
 attaching to those who continued to connive at 
 them is clearly one for investigation. 
 
 The Secretary of State. 
 
 We come next to the question of the respon- 
 sibility of the Secretary of State. Mr. Montagu 
 surprised the House of Commons, by indicating 
 that he was ignorant of the gravity and extent 
 of the casualties revealed in General Dyer's 
 evidence. If he was ignorant, he was either 
 
188 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 wilfully so or by his own neglect. At least he 
 knew that statements, even more grave than 
 that of General Dyer, regarding the Amritsar 
 affair, had been made by responsible investi- 
 gators, such as the Hon. Pundit Madan Mohan 
 Malavija, President of the Indian National 
 Congress, and member of the Imperial Council. 
 And had he pursued the lines of inquiry open 
 to him, he must have ascertained that the 
 probability was that the facts were far more 
 grave than those communicated to him in the 
 first instance by the Government of India. Mr. 
 Montagu, in fact, had unusual opportunities of 
 ascertaining to the fullest extent the details of 
 what had been occurring in the Punjab. He 
 was in frequent communication during the 
 summer months with the members of Indian 
 delegations, who were acquainted with the facts, 
 and it is a matter of public knowledge that 
 some of these gentlemen made strenuous repre- 
 sentations to him on the subject. Moreover, 
 Sir Michael O'Dwyer came home early in the 
 summer, and we have it on record from Sir 
 Michael himself that he communicated fiilly to 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 189 
 
 the India Office the facts of the Amritsar 
 shooting — though perhaps not fully admitting 
 the casualties — and apparently told Mr. Montagu 
 of his approval of General Dyer's action. 
 Again, Sir James Meston, a member of the 
 Government of India at the time, was also in 
 England throughout the summer, and in con- 
 stant communication with the Secretary of 
 State. And finally there was Sir Sankaran 
 Nair, who came to England immediately after 
 his resignation. Did Mr. Montagu learn nothing, 
 or care to learn nothing, from the man who had 
 resigned as a protest against these things, and, 
 as is generally understood, came to England to 
 lay the facts before the Government and the 
 public ? Mr. Montagu, however, is an impartial 
 man, and has his own way of dealing with these 
 things. He appointed Sir Michael O'Dwyer a 
 member of an important Commission proceed- 
 ing to India in connection with Army re- 
 organisation, and made Sir Sankaran a member 
 of the Secretary of State's Council. And Sir 
 James Meston, who came to England on behalf 
 of the Government of India, charged further to 
 
190 AMRITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 eviscerate an already anasmic scheme of reforms, 
 was made a peer and sent into the House of 
 Lords to give the scheme, minus the Govern- 
 ment of India's proposed modifications, his 
 blessing I 
 
 Mr. Montagu, in fact, although he knew of 
 
 the gravity of the charges that were being made 
 
 regarding the administration of Martial Law 
 
 in the Punjab, was a consistent defender and 
 
 upholder of the authorities in India throughout.* 
 
 The most glaring example is to be found in the 
 
 answers he made to questions put to him in June 
 
 last, regarding the bombing of civilian crowds 
 
 by aeroplanes in Gujranwala. He admitted 
 
 that " a few bombs " had been dropped, but 
 
 when asked by Colonel Wedgwood whether 
 
 he would give instructions that civilian crowds 
 
 should not be bombed in future, he replied : 
 
 "No, sir. The responsibility for the adminis- 
 tration of Martial Law must rest with those who 
 have to administer it." 
 
 And in reply to a further question, he added : 
 
 * He has quite recently declared that Lord Chelmsford 
 has enjoyed his full confidence throughout. 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 191 
 
 ' ' 1 refuse to interfere with the discretion of the 
 military authorities." 
 
 Mr. Montagu's theory of responsibility would 
 quickly make an end of constitutional government 
 if it were accepted. But he cannot divest himself 
 of the responsibility that rests with a Minister 
 of the Crown for all the acts done by those who 
 derive authority, through him, from the Crown 
 and Parliamelit. And the extent to which he 
 has justified or neglected his responsibility must 
 inevitably be as much the subject of investigation 
 as the responsibility of General Dyer or Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer. We may as well abandon our- 
 selves to anarchy as admit that responsibility 
 for the administration of Martial Law rests alone 
 with those who have to administer it, or that 
 the Minister responsible to Parliament cannot 
 interfere with the discretion of military authorities 
 e ngaged in operations of the kind that we have 
 counted first among the crimes charged against 
 the Germans. 
 
1 92 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 OuE Responsibility and Duty to India. 
 
 Finally, we have to consider the responsibility 
 of the British people, and their duty in this 
 matter to the people of India. It has been 
 made clear, we trust, that our prime responsi- 
 bility will not have been discharged until the 
 disturbances in India last year, and their causes, 
 and the measures adopted to deal with them, 
 have been made the subject of a full and im- 
 partial investigation by a Royal Commission, on 
 which Indians shall be represented, and which 
 shall have power to fix the responsibility on all 
 concerned, from the Secretary of State down- 
 wards ; and unless, when that has been done, 
 those who have been guilty of oppression are 
 brought to trial, and if convicted, adequately 
 punished for their misdeeds. 
 
 But there is more than that. We have to 
 ensure that, so far as is humanly possible, the 
 people of India are duly protected from having 
 forced upon them liberty-destrojring laws and 
 the recurrence of such oppression as that inflicted 
 on the people of the Punjab last year. They 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 193 
 
 cannot be allowed to remain at the mercy of an 
 autocratic Government, armed with repressive 
 weapons, which it can bring into use at any 
 moment to supersede the civil law and the most 
 elementary process of justice. The ordinance- 
 making powers of the Government of India, 
 which the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council holds it to possess, exceed anything 
 which is decently conformable to the needs of 
 a civilised State. While the ordinary Courts are 
 still sitting, while there is actually no danger to 
 the State from any rebelhon or armed rising in 
 being, the Government can bring into force its 
 ordinances, and subject people to the whim of 
 courts which have power to ignore and supersede 
 all the existing codes and laws of procedure and 
 evidence by which justice is normally secured, 
 and to follow any sort of procedure they may 
 choose to lay down ; and the application of such 
 an ordinance may, apparently, be made retro- 
 spective to any extent. This, in itself, quite 
 apart from the dangers attaching to the easy 
 terms on which Martial Law may be imposed on 
 the Indian people, is a danger to which no 
 
 13 
 
194 AMRITSAR : OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 people living under the pretence of a just and 
 humane Government should be exposed. Such 
 power in the hands of a responsible Government 
 would be bad enough. To place such resources 
 in the hands of a Government which owes no 
 responsibility to the people it governs, and is 
 responsible only to a Parliament seven thousand 
 miles away, which learns of events of the most 
 grave nature eight months after they have 
 happened, is to invite abuse. 
 
 But it is not enough merely to destroy the 
 ordinance-making powers of the Government of 
 India. It would still remain an irresponsible 
 Government with autocratic powers. The 
 scheme of reforms embodied in the Act which 
 has recently passed through ParUament, and is 
 sometimes humorously called Mr. Montagu's 
 Home Rule Act, leaves the autocracy of the 
 Government of India absolutely untouched in all 
 essential matters. Those who know the present 
 temper of the Indian people, and how profoundly 
 they have been stirred and embittered by the 
 events of last year, are under no illusions as to 
 their attitude towards a measure of reform which 
 
THE DUTY OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE 195 
 
 leaves them as helpless as before in the face 
 of such oppression as may be meted out to them. 
 Quite apart from all considerations of the 
 principle of the right of self-government, they 
 realise that it is absolutely essential for their own 
 safety, for the restoration of the liberties of which 
 they have been deprived, that they should have 
 the fullest power of control over their own 
 Government necessary to protect themselves 
 from oppression, and to save them from the 
 humiliation and suiFering they have recently 
 undergone. There is no other way to ensure that 
 safety but to make the Government responsible 
 in the first instance to themselves, and to no 
 one else. And if the British people believe that 
 their own interests and safety are inseparable 
 from the Indian connection, let them realise that 
 the only assurance of that connection lies in the 
 full recognition of India's right to responsible 
 government now, and without equivocation ; for 
 nothing is more certain than that the road to 
 infinite trouble in India and ultimate separation 
 lies along the tedious way of half-hearted reforms 
 and the claim to determine for India from time 
 
196 AMllITSAR: OUR DUTY TO INDIA 
 
 to time what she is entitled to determine for 
 herself — the sort of Government under which 
 she is to live. 
 
 , Let those who can be moved by the knowledge 
 of what India has been made to suffer, at the 
 hands of persons wielding power in their name, 
 ponder whether, in the light of that knowledge, 
 they can still acquiesce in the denial to her people 
 of that full freedom which they have fought, not 
 only to win for the oppressed peoples of Europe, 
 but to preserve for England herself. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENOLAND 
 
THE ADVANCE OF 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 A FEW NOTES ON SOME INTERESTING BOOKS 
 DEALING WITH THE PAST HISTORY, PRESENT AND 
 FUTURE POSSIBILITIES OF THE GREAT CONTINENT 
 
 When in 1906 Mr, Fisher Unwin commissioned the late 
 Major Martin Hume to prepare a series of volumes by 
 experts on the South American Republics, but little 
 interest had been taken in the country as a possible field 
 for commercial development. The chief reasons for this 
 were ignorance as to the trade conditions and the varied 
 resources of the country, and the general unrest and 
 instability of most of the governments. With the coming 
 of the South American Series of handbooks the financial 
 world began to realize the importance of the country, 
 and, with more settled conditions, began in earnest 
 to develop the remarkable natural resources which 
 awaited outside enterprise. Undoubtedly the most 
 informative books on the various Republics are those 
 included in The South American Series, each of 
 which is the work of a recognized authority on his subject. 
 
 " The output of books upon Latin America has in recent years been 
 very large, a proof doubtless of the increasing interest that is felt 
 in the subject. Of these the ' South American Series ' is the most 
 noteworthy." The Times. 
 
 " When the ' South American Series ' is completed, those who take 
 interest in Latin-American affairs will have an invaluable encyclo- 
 paedia at their disposal." Westminster Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Unwiu's ' South American Series ' of books are of special interest 
 and value to the capitalist and trader." — Chamber of Commerce Journal. 
 
 Full particulars of the volumes in the "South American 
 Series," also of other interesting books on South 
 America, will be found in the pages following. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C.2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 1 Chile. By G. F. Scott Elliott, M.A., F.R.G.S. With 
 an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 39 Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 "An exhaustive, interesting account, not only of the turbulent 
 history of this country, but of the present conditions and seeming 
 prospects." Weatminster Gazette. 
 
 2 Peru. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an In- 
 troduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 64 Illustrations. 
 Cloth, 18/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " An important work. . . . The writer possesses a quick eye and 
 a keen intelligence ; is many-sided in his interests, and on certain 
 subjects speala as an expert. The volume deals fully with the develop- 
 ment of the coimtry." The Times. 
 
 3 Mexico. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an 
 Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 64 Illustrations. 
 Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The book is most comprehensive ; ' the history, politics, 
 topography, industries, resources and possibilities being most ably 
 discussed." The Finanaial News. 
 
 4 Argentina. By W. A. Hirst. With an Introduction by 
 Martin Hume, a Map and 64 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- 
 net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The best and most comprehensive of recent works on 
 the greatest and most progressive of the Republics of South 
 America." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 5 Brazil. By Pierre Denis. Translated, and with an 
 Historical Chapter by Bernard Miall. With a Supple- 
 mentary Chapter by Dawson A. Vindin, a Map and 
 86 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 " Altogether the book is full of information, which shows the author to 
 have made a most careful study of the country." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C.2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 6 Uruguay. By W. H. Koebel. With a Map and 55 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Koebel haa given us an expert's diagnosis of the present con- 
 dition of Uruguay. Glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, he 
 has prepared a document of the deepest interest." — Evening Standard. 
 
 7 Guiana. British, French and Dutch. By James Rodway. 
 With a Map and 32 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 18/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Rodway's work is a storehouse of information, historical, 
 economical and sociological." The Times. 
 
 8 Venezuela. By Leonaed V. Dalton, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 
 With a Map and 45 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 "An exhaustive and valuable survey of its geography, geology, 
 history, botany, zoology and anthropology, and of its commercial 
 possibilities in the near future." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 9 Latin America : Its Rise and Progress. By F. Gaecia- 
 Caldeeon. With a Preface by Raymond Poincaee,' 
 President of the French Republic. With a Map and 34 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 President Poincare, in a striking preface to this book, 
 says : " Here is a book that should be read and digested 
 by every one interested in the future of the Latin genius." 
 
 10 Colombia. By Phanoe James Edee, A.B., LL.B. With 
 2 Maps and 40 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 15/- net. Fourth Impression. 
 
 "Mr. Eder's valuable work should do much to encourage invest- 
 ment, travel and trade in one of the least-known and most promising 
 of the countries of the New World." Man heater Guardian. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C.2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 11 Ecuador. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S, With 2 
 Maps and 37 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Enock's very thorough and exhaustive volume should help 
 British investors to take their part in promoting its develop- 
 ment. He has studied and described the country in all its 
 aspects." Manchester Ouardian. 
 
 12 Bolivia. By Paul Walle. With 4 Maps and 59 Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 18/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 Bolivia is a veritable El Dorado, requiring only capital 
 and enterprise to become one of the wealthiest States of 
 America. This volume is the result of a careful investiga- 
 tion made on behalf of the French Ministry of Commerce. 
 
 13 Paraguay. By W. H. Koebel. With a Map and 32 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Gives a great deal of serious and useful information about the 
 possibilities of the country for the emigrant, the investor and the 
 tourist, concurrently with a vivid and literary account of its 
 history." Economist. 
 
 14 Central America : Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, 
 Honduras, Panama and Salvador. By W. H. Koebel. 
 
 With a Map and 25 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 "We strongly recommend this volume, not only to merchants look- 
 ing ahead for new openings for trade, but also to all who wish for 
 an accurate and interesting account of an almost unknown 
 world." Saturday Beview. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON. W.C 2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 THER BOOKS ON 
 SO UTH AMERICA 
 
 Spanish America : Its Romance, Reality and Future. 
 By C. R. Enock, Author of " The Andes and the Amazon," 
 "Peru," "Mexico," "Ecuador." Illustrated and with a 
 Map. 2 vols. Cloth, 30/- net the set. 
 
 Starting with the various States of Central America, Mr. 
 Enock then describes ancient and modern Mexico, then 
 takes the reader successively along the Pacific Coast, the 
 Cordillera of the Andes, enters the land of the Spanish 
 Main, conducts the reader along the Amazon Valley, gives 
 a special chapter to Brazil and another to the River Plate 
 and Pampas. Thus all the States of Central and South 
 America are covered. The work is topographical, de- 
 scriptive and historical ; it describes the people and the 
 cities, the flora and fauna, the varied resources of South 
 America, its trade, railways, its characteristics generally. 
 
 South America : An Industrial and Commercial Field. 
 By W. H. KoEBEL. Illustrated. Cloth, 
 
 18/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The book considers such questions as South American commerce, 
 British interests in the various Republics, international relations 
 and trade, communications, the tendency of enterprise, iudustries, 
 etc. Two chapters devoted to the needs of the continent will be 
 of especial interest to manufacturers and merchants, giving as they 
 do valuable hints as to the various goods required, while the chapter 
 on merchandise and commercial travellers affords some sound and 
 practical advice." Chamber of Commerce Journal. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C.2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Vagabonding down the Andes. By Harry 
 
 A. Franck, author of "A Vagabond Journey Round the 
 World," etc. With a Map and 176 Illustrations. 
 Cloth, 25/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The book is a brilliant record of adventurous travel among 
 strange scenes and with even more strange companions, and 
 vividly illustrates, by its graphic text and its admirable photo- 
 graphs, the real conditions of life in the backwood regions of South 
 America." Manohester Quardian. 
 
 "Mr. Franck is to be congratulated on having produced a readable 
 and even fascinating book. His journey lay over countries in which 
 an increasing interest is being felt. Practically speaking, he may 
 be said to have started from Panama, wandered through Colombia, 
 spending some time at Bogota, and then going on to Ecuador, of 
 which Quito is the centre. Next he traversed the fascinating country 
 of the Inoas, from the borders of which he entered Bolivia, going 
 right across that country till he approached Brazil. He passed 
 through Paraguay, cut through a comer of the Argentine to Uruguay, 
 and so to the Biver Plata and the now well-known town of Buenos 
 Ayres." Country Life. 
 
 In the Wilds of South America: Six Years of Explora- 
 tion in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Peru, Bolivia, 
 Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. By Leo E. Miller, 
 of the American Museum of Natural History. With 48 
 Full-page Illustrations and with Maps. Cloth, 21/- net. 
 
 This volume represents a series of almost continuous 
 explorations hardly ever paralleled in the huge areas 
 traversed. The author is a distinguished field naturalist 
 — one of those who accompanied Colonel Roosevelt on 
 his famous South American expedition — and his first object 
 in his wanderings over 150,000 miles of territory was the 
 observation of wild life ; but hardly second was that of 
 exploration. The result is a wonderfully informative, 
 impressive and often thrilling narrative in which savage 
 peoples and all but unknown animals largely figure, which 
 forms an infinitely readable book and one of rare value 
 for geographers, naturalists and other scientific men. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C.2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The Putumayo: The Devil's Paradise. Travels in the 
 Peruvian Amazon Region and an Account of the Atrocities 
 committed upon the Indians therein. By E. W. Harden- 
 BURG, C.E. Edited and with an Introduction by C. 
 Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With a Map and 16 
 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, Cloth, 
 
 10/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The author gives us one of the most terrible pages in the history 
 of trade." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 Tramping through Mexico, Guatemala and Hon- 
 duras. By Harry A. France. With a Map and 88 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 "Mr. Harry Franck is a renowned vagabond with a gift for vivid 
 description. . . . His record is well illustrated and he tells his story 
 in an attractive manner, his descriptions of scenery being so well 
 done that one feels almost inclined to risk one's life in a wild race 
 dwelling in a land of lurid beauty." Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 "Mr. Franck has combined with an enthralling and amusing 
 personal narrative a very vivid and searching picture, topogra- 
 phical and social, of a region of much political and economic 
 interest." Glasgow Herald. 
 
 Mexico (Story of the Nations). By Susan Hale. 
 With Maps and 47 Illus. Cloth, 7/6 net. Third Impression. 
 
 " This is an attractive book. There is a fascination about Mexico 
 which is all but irresistible. . . . The authoress writes with 
 considerable descriptive power, and all through the stirring 
 narrative never permits us to lose sight of natural surround- 
 ings." Duhlin Review. 
 
 Things as they are in Panama. By Harry A. 
 Franck. With 50 Illustrations. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 "Mr. Franck writes from personal knowledge, fortified by the 
 aptitude of a practical and shrewd observer with a sense of humoiu-, 
 and the result is a word-picture of unusual vividness." — Standard. 
 
 "A sparkling narrative which leaves one wondering again why the 
 general reader favours modern fiction ^o much when it is possible 
 to get such vivacious yarns as this about strange men and their ways 
 in a romantic corner of the tropics." Daily Mail. 
 
 T, FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, WC,2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The Spell of the Tropics. Poems. By Randolph 
 H. Atkin. Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 The author has travelled extensively in Central and South 
 America, and has strongly felt the spell of those tropic lands, 
 with all their splendour and romance, and yet about which 
 so little is known. The poems are striking pen-pictures 
 of life as it is lived .by those men of the English-speaking ' 
 races whose lot is cast in the sun-bathed countries of 
 Latin-America. Mr. Atkin's verses will reach the hearts 
 of all who feel the call of the wanderlust, and, 
 having shared their pleasures and hardships, his 
 poems will vividly recall to " old-timers " bygone 
 memories of days spent in the land of the Coconut Tree. 
 
 Baedeker Guide to the United States. With 
 Excursions to Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico and Alaska. 
 With 33 Maps and 49 Plans. Fourth Edition, 
 
 1909. Cloth, 15/- net. 
 
 IMPORTANT. Travellers to the Republics of South America 
 will find WESSELY'S ENGLISH-SPANISH and SPANISH- 
 ENGLISH DICTIONARY and WESSELY'S LATIN-ENGLISH 
 and ENGLISH-LATIN DICTIONARY invaluable books. Bound 
 in cloth, pocket size. Price 4/- net each. 
 
 Ask for Wessely's Edition, published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHl TERRACE. LONDON, W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" 
 
 O T7 -p TT? Q PRACTICAL HANDBOOKS 
 »^-L!>-IXlILO FOR COLLECTORS 
 
 Most people nowadays are collectors in a small 
 way of Autographs, China, Furniture, Prints, 
 Miniatures, or Silver, and would take up these 
 fascinating hobbies more extensively, and collect 
 with profit, if they had a knowledge of the subject. 
 
 It is to the beginner and would-be collector that 
 Unwin's " Chats " Series of practical handbooks 
 ^specially appeal. They are the recognized stan-^ 
 dard guides to collecting, each volume being the 
 work of an expert on the subject dealt with. 
 
 Each volume is profusely illustrated with carefully- 
 chosen specimens of the various styles and periods. 
 
 ■ I 
 Full Indices, Bibliographies, and Lists of Sale Prices 
 
 at Public Auctions are included in the volumes. 
 
 " As this is the age of collectors, so it is the age of books for their guidance. 
 Mr. Unwin's series of books for collectors nqw includes t?wenty-one 
 volumes, and if bargains are missed it is certainly not the fault of the 
 various writers." * The Nbtion,. 
 
 HOW TO COLLECT WITH PROFIT 
 
 is the keynote of the series. The phenbmenal prices realized at 
 auction sales areWobtained by those who have collected wisely. 
 Prices are still rising', and those who have the knowledge aire buying 
 for future rises. Ask always for and see that you get UNWIN'S 
 "Chats" Series — the standard popular handbooks on collecting. 
 
 THE "CHATS" SERIES IS ON SALE AT ALL BOOKSELLERS 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND IS PUBLISHED BY 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON. W,C.3 
 
UN WIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 LIST OF VOLUMES 
 
 Chats on English China. By Arthur Hayden. Illus- 
 trated with reproductions of 136 marks and 89 specimens 
 of "china: Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. Sixth Impression. 
 
 This is the standard work on the subject. The volume 
 will enable the possessors of old china to determine 
 the factories at which their ware' was produced. 
 " It gives in a few chapters Just -^hat the beginner wants to know 
 about the principal varieties , of English ware. We can warmly 
 commend the book to the china collector." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " So simply yet so thoroughly written, that it is a sage guide to the 
 veriest tyro in china collecting." Bookman. 
 
 Chats on Old Furniture. By Arthur Hayden. With 
 a coloured frontispiece and 104 other Illusttations. Cloth, 
 10s. 6d, net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we have seen ; so 
 that altogether this is a model book of its kind." AtherUEwm. 
 
 " A fully illustrated practical guide for collectors." The Times. 
 
 " Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic lines, and 
 has made his book what it purports to be — a practical guide for the 
 collector." ' i ^ The Saturday Review. 
 
 Chats on Old Prints. How to Collect and Identify. 
 By Arthur Hayden. With a coloured frontispiece and 
 72 full-page plates. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. Fifth Impression. 
 Every branch of the subject is carefully and explicitly 
 handled in this book, and valuable information as to 
 technical processes and identification of prints is given. 
 " If there is a better book of its kind on print collecting we have not 
 yet come across it." Daily Graphic. 
 
 " A very useful handbook for beginners, intended to help any reeidei 
 of artistic tast«B, but very moderate means, to oolleot to good pur- 
 pose." The Timet. 
 
 Chats on Costume. By G. Woolliscroft Rhead, R.E. 
 With a coloured frpntispiece and 117 other Illustrations. 
 Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. Se<J)nd Impression. 
 A practical guide to historic dress. " Clothes " is 
 a subject that has been neglected, by collectors, 
 and this book will be a useful guide to those who 
 desire tp repair that neglect by forming a collection. 
 " A book that is at once the work_of an authority on the subject 
 of costiunes, and one that helps to enlarge our range of selee- 
 tion." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Old Miniatures, By J. J. Fostek, F.S.A. 
 With a coloured frontispiece and 116 other Illustra- 
 tions. Cloth, qs. net. 
 
 This book presents m a concise and popular form a variety 
 of valuable inforniation on the collection and preservation 
 of miniatures, on the leading English and French artists, 
 and on the specimens exhibited in public galleries. 
 
 " Mr. Foster is truly a guide, philosopher and friencj. He tells us 
 not only how to judge and how to buy miniatures, but how to take 
 proper care pf them. . . . The splendid jjhotographs by which the 
 book is enriched adds in a great measure to its attractiveness and 
 utility." Aberdeen Free Press, 
 
 Chats on Old Lace and Needlework. By Mrs. Lowes. 
 With a frontispiece and 74 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 IQs. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 Written by an expert and enthusiast in these most 
 interesting branches of art. The low price at which 
 the work is issued , is exceptiona,! in dealing with 
 these subjects, and it is remarkable in view of the 
 technical knowledge displayed and the many photo- 
 graphic illustrations which practically interleave the book. 
 
 "In commendable, clear and concise style Mrs. Lowes explains the 
 technical features distinguishing each example, making thfe book the 
 utmost val^e in identifying samples of old lace." — -Weldon's Ladies' iour 
 
 Chats on Oriental China. By J. F. Blacker. W'th 
 a coloured frontispiece and 70 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 10s. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 Will be of the utmost service to collectors and to all who 
 may have old Chinese and Japanese porcelain in their 
 possession. It deals with oriental china from the various 
 standpoij^ts of history^ technique, 'age, marks and values, 
 and is richly illustrated with admirable reproductions. 
 
 " A treatise that is so informing and comprehensive that it commands 
 the prompt reooguisation of all who value the choice productions of 
 the oriental artists. . . . The illustrations are numerous and invalu- 
 able to the attainment of expert knowledge, and the result iS a hand- 
 book that is as indispensable as it is unique." FaJi. Mall Oazett^. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHr TERRACE. LONDON. W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on English Earthenware. A companion volume 
 
 to " Chats on English China.'" By Arthur Hayden. 
 
 With a coloured frontispiece, 150 Illustrations and tables 
 
 of over 200 illustrated marks. ' Cloth, 
 
 10s. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 " To the ever-increasing number of collectors who are taking 
 an interest in old English pottery '. . . will be found one of 
 the most delightful, as it is a practical work on a fascinating 
 ■ubJBct." Hearth and Home. 
 
 " Here we have a handbook, written by a well-known authority, 
 which gives in the concisest possible form all the information that 
 the beginner in earthenware collecting is likely to need. Moreoverj 
 it contains one or two features that are not usually found in the 
 multifarious " guides " that are produced to-day." Nation. 
 
 Chats on Autographs. By A. M. Broadley. With 
 130 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Being an expert collector, Mr. Broadley , not only discourses on 
 the kinds of autograph he owns, but gives some excellent cautionary 
 advice and a valuable ' caveat emptor ' chapter for the benefit of 
 other collectors." Westminster Oazette. 
 
 "It is assuredly the best work of the kind yet given to the public ; 
 and supplies the intending collector with the various sources of infor- 
 mation necessary to his equipment." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 Chats on Pewter. By H. J. L. J. Masse, M.A. With 
 62 half-tone and numerous other Illustrations. Clo|;h, 
 10s. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " It is a remarkably thorough and well-arranged guide to the subject, 
 supplied with useful illustrations and with lists of pewterers and of 
 their marks so complete as to make it a very complete and satis- 
 factory book of reference." ^ Manchester Guardian. 
 " Before setting out to collect old pewter it would be as well to read 
 Mr. Mass^'s book, which is exhaustive in its information and its 
 lists of pewterers, analytical index, and historical and technical 
 chapters." Spectator. 
 
 Chats on Postage Stamps. By Fred J. Melville. 
 With 57" half-tone' and 17 line Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 10s. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The whole book, with its numerous illustrations of excellent quality, 
 is a vade mecum for stamp collectors, even though their efforts may • 
 be but modest ; we congratulate Mr. Melville on a remarkably good , 
 guide, which makes fascinating reading." Aaidemy. 
 
 " There is no doubt that Mr. MelviUe'a book fills a void. There is 
 nothing exactly like it. Agrfeably written in a popiilar style and 
 adequately illustrated, it is certainly one of the best guides to phila- 
 telic knowledge that have yet been published." World. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C 2 
 
UN WIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Old Jewellery and ^Trinkets. By MacIvek 
 Percival. With nearly 300 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 "The book is very thorough, deahng as it does with classic, antique 
 and modern ornaments ; with gold, silver, steel and pinchbeck ; with 
 the precious stones, the commoner stones and imitation." — Outlook. 
 " ' Chats on Old Jewellery and Trinkets ' is a book which will enable 
 every woman ,to turn over her jewel-case with a fresh interest and 
 a new intelligence ; a practical ' guide for the humble but anxious 
 collector. ... A good glossary of technicalities and many excel- ' 
 lent illustrations complete a valuable contribution to collector's 
 /lore." Illustrated London News. 
 
 Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture. A com- 
 panion volume to " Chats on Old Furniture." By Arthur 
 Hayden. With a coloured frontispiece and 75 other 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " One gets very much for one's money in this book. Seventy-three 
 full-page illustrations in half-tone embellish a letterpress which is 
 replete with wise description and valuable hints.'' Vanity Fair. 
 
 "Mr. Hayden's book is a guide to all sorts of desirable and simple 
 furniture, from Stuart to Georgian, and it is a delight to read as well 
 as a sure help to selection." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "Mr. Hayden writes lucidly and is careful and accurate in his state- 
 ments ; while the advice he gives to collectors is both soVind and '■ 
 reasonable." Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Chats on Old Coins. By Fred W. Burgess. With a 
 coloured frontispiece and 258 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 10s. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " A most useful and instructive book . . . will prove a boon to the 
 intending collector . of old coins and tokens, and full of interest to 
 every collector. As was to be expected of any volvime of this series, 
 the illustrations are numerous and good, and greatly assist the reader 
 to grasp the essentials of the author's descriptions." Outlook. 
 
 "Tlie author has not only produced ' a practical guide for the col- 
 lector ' but a handy book of reference for all. The volume is wonder- 
 fully cheap." Notes and Queries. 
 
 Chats on Old Copper and Brass. By Fred W. 
 Burgess. With a coloured frontispiece and 86 other 
 Illustrations. ' Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. F, W. Burgess is an expert on old copper and bi»onze, ahd in his 
 book there is little information lacking which the most ardent' 
 collector might want." ^ The Observer. 
 
 " Italian bronzes, African charms, Chinese and Japanese enamels, 
 bells, mortars, Indian idols, dials, candlesticks, and snuH boxes, 
 all come in for their share of attention, and th^ reader who has 
 ma,stered Mr. Burgess's, pages can face his rival in the auction- 
 room or the dealer in his shop with little fear of suffering by the 
 transaction." TheNation. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C, 2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Household Curios. By Feed W. Burgess. 
 With 94 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. Burgess gives much information about such attractive antiques 
 as old glass and enamels, old leather work, old clocks and watches, 
 old pipes, old seals, musical instruments, and even old samplers and 
 children's toys. The book is, in short, an excellent and compre- 
 hensive guide for what one may call the general collector, that is, 
 the collector who does not confine himself to one class of antique, 
 but buys whatever he comes across ip the curio line, provided that 
 it is interesting and at moderate price." Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 Chats on Japanese Prints. By Aethuk Davison 
 FicKE. With a coloured frontispiece and 56 Illustra- 
 tions. Cloth, 6s. net. Third ImpressipD. 
 
 " Mr. Ficke writes with the knowledge of the expert, and his history 
 of Japanese printing from very early times and his criticism of the 
 artists' work are wonderfully interesting." Taller. 
 
 " This is one of the most delightful and notable members of an 
 attractive series. ... A beginner who shall have mastered and made 
 thoroTighlyhis own the beauty of line and the various subtlety and bold- 
 ness of linear composition displayed in these sixty and odd photographs 
 will have no mean foundatioh for further study." — Notes and Qiieriea. 
 
 Chats on Old Clocks. By Arthur Hayden. With a 
 frontispiece and 80 Illustrations. 2nd Ed. Cloth, lOs^ 6d. net. 
 " A practical handbook dealing with the examples of old clocks likely 
 to come under the observatioii of the collector. Charmingly written 
 and illustrated." Outlook. 
 
 "One spepially useful feature of the work is the prominence Mr. 
 Hayden has given to the makers of clocks, dealing not only with 
 those of London, but also those of the leading provincial towns. The 
 lists he gives of the latter are highly valuable, as they are not to be 
 found in any similar book. The volume is, as usual with this series, 
 profusely illustrated, and may be recommended as a highly interesting 
 and loseful general guide to collector^ of clocks." The Connoisseur. 
 
 Chats on Old Silver. By Arthur Hayden. With a 
 frontispiece, 99 full-page Illustrations, and illustrated 
 table of marks. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 " Mr. Hayden's ' Chats on Old Silver ' deals very thoroughly with a 
 popular branch of collecting. There are a hundred full-page illus- 
 trations together with illustrated tables and charts, and the student 
 of this book can wander round the old curiosity shops of these islands 
 with a valuable equipment of knowledge. . . . Altogether we have 
 here a well-written^ summary of everything that one could wish to 
 know about this branch of collecting." . The Sphere. 
 
 " The information it gives will be of exce]ptional value at this time, 
 when so many families will be forced to part with their treasures — 
 . and old silver is among the most precious possessions bi the present 
 day." Morning Post. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, tONDON, W.C.2 
 
UN WIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Military Curios. By Stanley C. Johnson, 
 M.A., D.Sc. With a coloured frontispiece and 79 other 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. Johnson in this book describes many of the articles a collector 
 should he on tbe look out for, giving i^ort but informative notes on 
 medals, helmet and cap badges, tunic buttons, armour, weapons of 
 all kinds, medallions, autographs, original documents relating to 
 Army work, military piotvires and prints, newspaper cuttings; obso- 
 lete uniforms, crests, stamps, postmarks, memorial brasses, money 
 and curios made by prisoners of war, while there is also an excellent 
 biography on the subject. The author has, indeed, presented the 
 reader with a capital working handbook, which should prove a friendly 
 and reliable guide when he goes collecting." Fie^. 
 
 Chats on Royal Copenhagen Porcelain. By Aethur 
 Hayden. With a frontispiece, 56 full-page Illustrations 
 and illustrated tables of marks. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 " This very beautiful and very valuable book will be eagerly wel- 
 comed by lovers of porcelain. 1 . . Mr. Hayden describes with great 
 skiU and preoiseness all the quality and beauty of technique in which 
 this porcelain expels ; he loves it and understands it, and the examples 
 he has chosen as illustrations are a valuable supplement to his 
 descriptions." ' Bookman. 
 
 A NEW "CHATS" VOLUME TO BE ISSUED IN 
 THE AUTUMN OF 1920. ORDER EARLY 
 
 Chats on Old Sheffield Plate. By Arthur Hayden. 
 With frontispiece and 58 full page Illustrations, together 
 with makers' marks. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 Old plated ware has, by reason of its artistic excellence 
 and its technique, deservedly won favour with collectors. 
 The art of making plated ware, which originated at Sheffield 
 (hence .the name " Sheffield plate "), was continued at 
 Birmingham and London, where a considerable amount 
 of " old Sheffield plate " was made, in the manner of its 
 first inventors, by welding sheets of sUver upon copper. 
 The inanufacture lasted roughly a hundred years. Its 
 best period was from 1776 (American Declaration of 
 Independence) to 1^30 (Accession of Williani IV). The 
 author shows reasons why this old Sheffield plate should 
 be collected, and the volume is illustrated with many 
 examples giving various styles, and the development of the 
 art, together with makers' marks. Candlesticks and 
 candelabra, tea-caddies, sugar-baskets, salt-cellars, tea- 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. 1 ADKLPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 pots, coffee-pots, salvers, spoons, and many other articles 
 shown and described in the volume indicate the exquisite 
 craftsmanship of the best period. The work stands as a 
 companion volume to the author's " Chats on Old Silver," 
 the standard practical guide to old English silver collecting. 
 
 Bye Paths in Curio Cdllecting. By Arthur Hayden, 
 Author of " Chats on Old Silver," etc. With a frontis- 
 piece and 72 full-page Illustrations. Cloth, 
 21s. net. Second Impression.- 
 
 *' Every collector knows the name of Mr. Arthvir Hayden, and knowa 
 him for a wise counseller. Upon old furniture, old china, old pottery, 
 and old prints there is no more knowing judge in the country ; and 
 in his latest volume he supplies a notable need, in the shape of a vade- 
 mecum exploring some of the nondescript and little traversed bye- 
 paths of the iCoUector. There was neveir a time when the amateur 
 of the antique stood more in need of a competent guide. . . . 
 The man who wishes to avoid the pitfalls of the fraudulent will 
 find much salutary ^ advice in Mr. Hayden's gossipy pages. 
 There are chests, for example, a fruitful field for reproduction. 
 Mr. Hayden gives photographs of many exquisite examples. There 
 is a marriage coffer of the sixteenth century, decorated with carved 
 figures of Cupid and Hymen, a fine Gothic chest of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, with rich foliated decorations ; and a superb livery cupboard 
 from Haddon HaH. From Flanders come steel coffers, with a lock 
 of four bolts, the heavy sides strongly braized together. Then there 
 are snuffers, with and without trays, tinder-boxes, snuS gratets, and 
 metal tobacco stoppers. The most fascinating designs are shown, 
 with squirrels, dogs, and quaint human figures at the summit. Fans 
 and playing-cards provide another attractive section. 
 
 Chicken-skin, delicate, white, 
 
 Painted by Carlo van Loo. 
 The fan has always been an object of the collector's passion, because 
 of the grace of the article and its beauty as a display. Mr. Hayden 
 shows a particularly beautiful one, with designs after Fragonard, 
 the sticks of ivory with jewelled studs. Then there are watch-stands, 
 a' little baroque in desij|h, andi table-bells, some of them shaped as 
 female figures with spreading skirts, old toys and picture-books, and, 
 of course, cradles, of which every English farm-house once boasted 
 its local variety. Altogether the book abounds in inviting pictures 
 and curious information, and is certain of a large, appreciative 
 public." DaMy Telegraph. 
 
 TO BE" PUBLISHED IINf THE AUTUMN, 1920 
 The Fan Book: Including Special Chapters on European 
 Fans of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By 
 MacIver Percival, author of " Chats on Old Jewellery and 
 Trinkets." Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo, cloth, 21/- net. 
 
 T. FiSHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C. 2 
 
POETRY THAT 
 
 A JM. lA. J. L^ J_^ 1^ A COLLECTION OF 
 
 SONGS FROM OVERSEAS THAT THRILL WITH VIVID 
 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ADVENTUROUS LIFE IN THE 
 FROZEN NORTH, IN THE OUTPOSTS OF CIVILIZATION 
 AND OF THE HEROISM OF SOLDIERS IN BATTLE 
 
 SONGS OF A SOURDOUGH. By Robert W. Service. , 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Thirty-ninth Impression. 
 Also a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 4/6 net, 
 
 " Of the Canadian disciples of Kipling, by far the best is R. W. Service. 
 His ' Songs of a Sourdough ' have run through many editions. Much 
 of his verse has a touch of real originality, conveying as it does a just 
 impression of the something evil and askew in the strange, uncouth 
 wilderness of the High North." The Times, 
 
 " Mr. Service has got nearer to the heart of the old-time place miner 
 than any other verse -maker in all the length and height of the 
 Dominion. . . . He certainly sees the Northern Wilderness through 
 the eyes of the man into whose soul it is entered." Morning Post.- 
 
 RHYJIES OF A RED-CRO^S MAN. By Robert W. 
 Service. Crown 8vo. , Cloth, 4/6 net. Fifth Impression. 
 Also a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 ^" It is the great merit of Mr. Service's verses that they are literally 
 alive with the stress and joy and agony and hardship that make up 
 life out in the battle zone. He has never written better than in this 
 book, and that is saying a great deal.", Bookman. 
 
 " Mr. Service has painted for us the unutterable tragedy of the war, the 
 horror, the waste, and the suffering, but side by side with that he 
 has set the heroism, the endurance, the unfailing cheerfulness and the 
 unquenchable laughter." " Scots Pictorial. 
 
 • — • V — ' ' ' ' ' 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT T H R I L L S-cowfd. 
 
 BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO. By Robert W. 
 
 Service. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Thirteenth 
 
 Impression. Also^a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, 
 
 Cloth, 4/6 iiet. 
 
 " It IB to men like Mr. Service that we must look for really original 
 verse nowadays ; to the men on the frontiers of the world. 'Ballads 
 of a CheSohako ' is magnificent." Oxford Magazma. 
 
 " AH are interesting, arresting,- and worth reading in their own 
 setting for their own sakes. They are full of life and fire and 
 muscularity, like the strenuous and devil-ntiay-care fight of » life 
 they describe." Standard. 
 
 RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE. By Robert W. 
 Service. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Fourteenth 
 Impression, Also a Pocket Edition. , Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 Cloth, 4/6 net, 
 
 " There is real rollicking futi in some of the rhymed stories, and some 
 sound philosophy in the shorter serious poems which shows that 
 Mr. Service is as many steps above the ordinary lesser poets in his 
 thought as he is in his accomplishments." Academy. 
 
 " Mr. Robert Service is, we suppose, one of the most popular verse- 
 writers in the world. His swinging measures, his robust ballads of 
 ,the outposts, his joy of living have fairly caught the ear of his 
 countrymen." Spectator. 
 
 THE SPELL OF THE TROPICS. By Randolph 
 H, Atkin. Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 The poems are striking pen-pictures of life as it is lived by 
 those men of the English-speaking races whose lot is cast 
 in the sun-bathed countries of Latin-America. Mr. Atkin's 
 verses will reach the hearts of all who feel the call of the 
 wanderlust, and, hp,ving shared their pleasures and hard- 
 ships, his poems will vividly recall to " old-timers " bygone 
 naemories of days spent in the Land of the Coconut Tree, 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT THRlLhS-contd. 
 
 THE SONG OF TIADATHA. By Owen Rutter. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 Composed on the familiar metre of " Hiawatha,"; " The 
 Song of Tiadatha " (Tired , Arthur), an extravaganza 
 written in the highest spirits, nevertheless is an epic 
 of the war. It typifies what innumerable soldiers have 
 seen and done and the manner in which they took it. 
 
 " This song of Tiadatha is nothing less than a little English epic of 
 'the war." The Morning Poat.f 
 
 " Every Army ofScer and eXTofScer will hail Tiadatha as a brother, 
 ' The Song of Tiadatha ' is one of the happiest skits bom of 
 the war." Evening Standard. 
 
 SONGS OUT OF EXILE: Being Verses of African 
 Sunshine and Shadow and Black Man's Twilight. By 
 
 CULUEN GOULDSBUEY. Cloth, 
 
 4/6 net. Fourth Impression. 
 
 " The ' Bhodesian Rhymes ' won for their aiUthor the journalistic 
 title of ' The Kipling of South Africa,' an<i indeed his work is full of 
 crisp vigour, fire and colour. It is brutal in parts ; but its brutality 
 is strong and realistic. Mr Gouldsbury has spent many years in 
 Rhodesia, Eind its life, black and white, is thoroughly familiar to 
 him. . . . Mr. Gouldsbury is undoubtedly a writer to be ftekoned 
 with. His verse is informed by knowledge of wild life in open places 
 and a measure of genuine feelingwhich make it real poetry. "—sSic^ord.' 
 
 FROM THE OUTPOSTS. By Cullen Gouldsbuky. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Third Impression. 
 
 '' Mr. Cullen Goul^bury's collections of his verses are always welcome, 
 and the last, ' Froni the Outposts,' is as good as its predecessor. No 
 one has quite Mr. Gouldsbury 's experience and gift." Spectator. 
 
 " It has been well said that Mr. Gouldsbury has done for the white 
 man in Africa what Adam Lindsay Gordon in a measure accomplished 
 for the Commonwealth and Kipling triumphantly for the British 
 r&ce, and he certainly is good to read." Field. 
 
 : . — ^ — . . 1 ^ 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT T H R I L L S-cowfd. 
 
 THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS and other Poems. 
 ("The Song of the Guns.") By Heebert Kaufman. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " A singular gift for expressing in verse the facts, the heroism, even 
 the humours of war ; and in some cases voices its ideals with real 
 eloquence." The Times. 
 
 " Mr. Kaufman has undoubtedly given us a book worthy of the great 
 hour that has brought it forth. He is a poet with a martial spirit 
 and a deep, manly voice." Daily Mail. 
 
 LYRA NIGERIA. By Adamu. (E. C. Adams). 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. E. C Adams (Adamu) is a singer of Nigeria, and it can safely 
 be said he has few, if any, rivals. There is^ something in these illus- 
 trations of Nigerian life akin to the style of Kipling and Service. 
 The heart of the wanderer and adventurer is revealed, and in particular 
 that spirit of longing which comes to all . . . who have gone out 
 to the far-lands of the world." Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 SUNNY SONGS. Poems. By Edgar A. Guest. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 In America Mr. Guest is an extraordinarily popular writer 
 of verses, though this is his first introduction in book form 
 to the British public. He brims over with sound sense 
 and tonic cheeriness. He is keenly sensible of the humour 
 of domestic life, but is deeply sympathetic with the 
 associations which combine in the word " Home." Hence 
 he is read by women yviih amusement and pleasure. During 
 the war his poem, " Said the Workman to the Soldier," 
 circulated t by the hundred thousand. Like Beranger 
 and all successful poets, he is essentially lyrical ; that 
 is to say, there is tune and swing in all his verses. 
 
 T. FISHER UN WIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
RICHARD MIDDLETON'S WORKS 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS {First Series). By Richard 
 MiDDLETON. Oloth, 6/- net. 
 
 " We haTe no tesitation in placing the name of Eiohard Middleton 
 beside the names of aU that galaxy of poets that made the later 
 Victorian era the most brilliant in poetry that England Ijad known 
 since the EHzabethto." Westminster Beview. 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS {Second Series). By Richard 
 Middleton. Cloth, 5/- net. 
 
 " Their beauty is undeniable and often- of extraordinary delicacy, 
 fcJr Middleton had a mastery of craftmanship such as is usually given 
 to men of a far widei; imaginative experience." Poetry Review. 
 
 "Among the 'Poems and Songs' qf Richard Middleton are to be 
 found some of the finest of contemporary lyrics." Country Life. 
 
 OTHER WORKS BY 
 RICHARD MIDDLETON 
 
 THE GHOST SHIP AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 MONOLOGUES. 
 THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. 
 
 THE WAITING WOMAN and other Poems. By 
 Herbert Kaufman. Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 "Mr. Kaufman's work possesses in a, high degree the qualities of 
 sincerity and ^truth, and it therefore never fails to move the reader. 
 . . . This volume, in short, is the work of a genuine poet and 
 artist." Aberdeen-^ree Press. 
 
 " A versifier of great virility and power " Review oj Reviews. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
BY W. B. YEATS AND OTHERS 
 
 POEMS.^ By W. .B. Yeats. Second edition. Large 
 Crown 8vo, Clotlj, 10/6 net. Ninth impression. 
 
 " Love songs, faery themes, moods of meditatioil, scenes of legendary 
 wonder . . . is it possible that they should became so infinitely 
 thrilling, touching, haunting in their fresh treatment, as though they 
 had never been, or poets had never turned to them ? In this poet's 
 hands they do so become. Mr. Teats has given uB a new thrill of 
 delight, a new experience '^f beauty." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 OTHER POEMS BY 
 
 W. B. YEATS 
 
 COUNTESS CATHLEEN. A Dramatic Poem. Paper 
 cover, 2/- net. 
 
 THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE. Paper 
 
 cover, 1/6 net. 
 
 WHY, DON'T THEY CHEER ? By R. J. C. Stead. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " Before the war Mr. Stead was known to Canadians as ' The Poet 
 of the Prairies.' He must now be ranked as a ' Poet of the Empire.' 
 . . . There iS a strength, a beauty, a restrained passion in his war 
 verses which prove his ability to penetrate into the heart of things 
 such as very few of our war poets have exhibited." — Daily Express^ 
 
 SWORDS AND FLUTES. By William Kean Seymour. 
 Cloth, 4/- net. 
 
 " Among the yeunser poets Mr. Seymour is distinguished by his 
 delicacy of technique. ' Swords and Flutes ' is a book of grave and tender 
 beauty expresaedinluoentthoughtandjewelled words. 'The Ambush' 
 is a lyric of jnastery and fascination, alike in conception and rhythm, 
 which should he included in any representative anthology of Georgian 
 poetry." ' DeMy Esopreaa, 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
THE MERMAID SERIES 
 
 THE BEST PLAYS OF THE OLD DRAMATISTS 
 
 Literal Reproductions of the Old ,Text. With Photo- 
 gravure Frontispieces. Thin Paper edition. Cloth, 5/- 
 net per volume. Leather, 7/6 net. 
 
 Marlowe. THE BEST PLAYS OF CHRISTOPHER 
 MAfeLOWE. Edited, with Critical Memoir and 
 Notes, by Havelock Ellis ; and containing a General 
 Introduction to the Series by John Addington 
 Symonds. 
 
 Otway. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS OTWAY. 
 
 Introduction and Notes by the Hon. Roden Noel. 
 
 Ford. THE BEST PLAYS OF JOHN FORD. Edited 
 by Havelock Ellis. 
 
 Massinger. THE BEST PLAYS OF PHILLIP 
 MASSINGER. With Critical and Biographical Essay 
 and Notes by Arthur Symons. 
 
 Heywood (T.). THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS 
 HEYWOOD. Edited by A. W. Verity. With 
 Introduction by J. :A. Sjrmpnds. 
 
 Wycherley. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF WILLIAM 
 WYCHERLEY. Edited, with Introduction and 
 Notes, by W. C. Ward. 
 
 NERO AND OTHER PLAYS. Edited by H. P. Home, 
 Arthur Symons, A. ,W. Verity and H. Ellis. 
 
 Beaumont. THE BEST PLAYS OF BEAUMONT 
 AND FLETCHER. Introcjuction and Notes by 
 . J. St. Loe Strachey. 2 vols. * 
 
 Congreve. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF WILLIAM 
 CONGREVE. Edited by Alex. C. Ewald. 
 
 Symonds (J. A.). THE BEST ?LAYS OF WEBSTER 
 AND TOURNEUR. With an Introduction and 
 Notes by John Addington Symonds, 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
THE MERMAID SERIE S-contd. 
 
 Middleton (T.). THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS 
 MIDDLETON. With an Introduction by Algernon 
 Charles Swinburne. 2 vols. 
 
 Shirley. THE BEST PLAYS OF JAMES SHIRLEY. 
 With Introduction by Edmund Gosse. 
 
 Dekker. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS DEKKER. 
 
 Notes by Ernest Rhys. 
 
 Steele (R.). THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF RICHARD 
 STEELE. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, 
 by G. A. Aitken. 
 
 Jonson. THE BEST PLAYS OF BEN JONSON. 
 
 Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Brinsley 
 Nicholson and C. H. Herford. 2 vols. 
 
 Chapman. THE BEST PLAYS OF GEORGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Edited by William Lyon Phelps. 
 
 Vanbrugh. THE SELECT PLAYS OF SIR JOHN 
 VANBRUGH. Edited, with an Introduction and 
 Notes, by A. E. H. Swain. 
 
 Shadwell. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS SHAD- 
 WELL. Edited by ..George Saiatsbury. 
 
 Dryden. THE BEST PLAYS OF JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 Edited by George Saintsbury. 2 vols. 
 
 Farquhar. THE BEST PLAYS OF GEORGE FARQUHAR. 
 
 Edited, and with an Introduction, by William 
 Archer. 
 
 Greene. THE COMPLETE, PLAYS OF ROBERT 
 GREENE. Edited with Introduction and Notes 
 by Thomas H. Dickinson. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN I.TD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, Lordon, W.C.2 
 
THE STORY OF 
 THE NATIONS 
 
 THE GREATEST HISTORICAL LIBRARY 
 IN THE WORLD :: :: 67 VOLUMES 
 
 Each volume of ' ' The Story of the Nations " Series is the work of 
 a recognized scholar, chosen for his knowledge of the subject and 
 ability to present history in an attractive form, for the student and 
 the general reader. The Illustrations and Maps are an attractive 
 feature of the volume, which are strongly bound for constant use. 
 
 67 Volumes. Cloth, 7s. 6d. net each. 
 
 See page 2 for an announcement of a new volume. 
 
 "It is many years since Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin commenced the 
 publication of a series of volumes now entitled " The Story of the 
 Nations." Each volume is written by an acknowledged authority 
 on the country with which it deals. The series has enjoyed 
 great popularity, and not an uncommon experience being the 
 necessity for a second, third, and even fourth impression of 
 particular volumes." Scotsman. 
 
 " Probably no publisher has issued a more informative and valuable 
 series of works than those included in " The Story of the 
 Nations." To-Day. 
 
 "The series is likely to be found indispensable in every school 
 library." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " An admirable series." Spectator. 
 
 " Such a universal history as the series will present us with in 
 its completion will be a possession such as no country but 
 our own can boast of. Its success on the whole has been very 
 remarkable." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " There is perhaps no surer sign of the increased interest that is now 
 being taken in historical matters than the favourable reception which 
 we believe both here and in America is being accorded to the various 
 volumes of " The Story of the Nations " as they issue in quick 
 succession from the press. More than one volvmie has reached its 
 third edition in England alone. . . . Each voliune is written by one 
 of the foremost English authorities on the subject with which 
 it deals. ... It is jJmost impossible to over-estimate the value 
 of the series of carefully prepared volumes, such as are the 
 majority of those comprising this library. . . . The illustrations 
 make one of the most attractive features of the series." — Ouardian. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
A NEW VOLUME IN "THE 
 STORY OF THE NATIONS" 
 
 READY IN THE AUTUMN, 1920 
 
 BELGIUM 
 
 FROM THE ROMAN INVASION TO THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 By EMILE GAMMA ERTS. With Maps and 
 Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 A complete history of the Belgian nation from its origins 
 to its present situation has not yet been published in this 
 country. Up till now Belgian history has only been 
 treated as a side issue in works concerned with the Belgian 
 art, Belgian literature or social conditions. Besides, 
 there has been some doubt with regard to the date at 
 which such a history ought to begin, and a good many 
 writers have limited themselves to the modem history 
 of Belgium because they did not see in olden times 
 sufficient evidence of Belgian unity. According to the 
 modern school of Belgian historians, however, this unity, 
 founded on common traditions and common interests,- 
 has asserted itself again and again through the various 
 periods of history in spite of invasion, foreign domination' 
 and the various trials experienced by the country. The 
 history of the Belgian nation appears to the modem mind 
 as a slow development of one nationality constituted by 
 two races speaking two different languages but boimd 
 together by geographical, economic and cultural con- 
 ditions. In view of the recent proof Belgium has given 
 of her patriotism during the world-war, this impartial 
 enquiry into her origins may prove interesting to British 
 readers. Every opportunity has been taken to insist on 
 the frequent relationships between the Belgian provinces 
 and Great Britain from the early middle ages to the present 
 time, and to show the way in which both countries were 
 affected by them. Written by one of the most dis- 
 tinguished Belgian writers, who has made a specialty of 
 his subject, this work will be one of the most brilliant and 
 informing contributions in " The Story of the Nations." 
 
A COMPLETE LIST OF THE 
 VOLUMES IN "THE STORY OF 
 THE NATIONS" SERIES. THE 
 FIRST AND MOST COMPLETE 
 LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY 
 PRESENTED IN A POPULAR FORM 
 
 1 Rome; From the Earliest Times to the End of 
 the Republic. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. Third 
 Edition. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 2 The Jews: In Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern 
 Times. By Professor James K. Hosmer. Eighth 
 Impression. With 37 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 3 Germany. By S. Baring-Gould, M.A. Seventh 
 Impression. With 108 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 4 Carthage: or the Empire of Africa. By Professor 
 Alfred J. Church, M.A. With the Collaboration 
 of Arthur Gilman, M.A. Ninth Impres- 
 sion. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 5 Alexander's Empire. By John Pentland Mahafey, 
 D.D. With the Collaboration of Arthur Gilman, M.A. 
 Eighth Impression. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 6 The Moors in Spain. By Stanley Lane-Poole. With 
 the Collaboration of Arthur Gilman, M.A. Eighth 
 Edition. With 29 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 7 Ancient l^pt. By Professor George Rawlinson, 
 M.A. Tenth Edition. Eleventh Impres- 
 sion. With 50 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 8 Hungary. In Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Times. 
 By Professor Arminius Vambery. With Collaboration 
 of Louis Heilpin. Seventh 
 Edition. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 9 The Saracens : From the Earliest Times to the Fall 
 of Bagdad. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. Fourth 
 Edition. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATlONS-continued 
 
 10 Ireland. By the Hon. Emily Lawless. Revised and 
 brought up to date by J. O 'Toole. With some 
 additions by Mrs. Arthur Bronson. Eighth 
 Impression. With 58 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 11 Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of 
 Assyria. By Zenaide A. Ragozin. Seventh 
 Impression. With 80 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 12 The Goths: From the Earliest Times to the End 
 of the Gothic Dominion in Spain. By Henky Beadley. 
 Fifth Edition. With 35 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 IS Assyria : From the Rise of the Empire to the Fall 
 
 of Nineveh. (Continued from " Chaldea.") ^ By 
 
 ZfiNAiDE A. Ragozin. Seventh 
 
 Impression. With 81 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 14 Turkey. By Stanley Lane-Poole, assisted by 
 C. J. W. Gibb and Arthur Oilman. New 
 Edition. With a new Chapter on recent 
 events (1908). With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 15 Holland. By Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 Fifth Edition. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 16 Mediae val France : From the Reign of Huguar Capet 
 to the beginning of the 16th Century. By Gustave Masson, 
 B.A. Sixth Edition. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 17 Persia. By S. G. W. Benjamin. Fourth 
 Edition. With 56 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 18 Phoenicia. By Professor George Rawunson, M.A. 
 Third Edition. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 19 Media, Babylon, and Persia: From the Fall of 
 Nineveh to the Persian War. By Zenaide A. Ragozin. 
 Fourth Edition. With 17 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 20 The Hansa Towns. By Helen Zimmern. Third 
 Edition. With 51 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 21 Early Britain. By Professor Alfred J. Church, M.A. 
 Sixth Impression. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATlONS-continued 
 
 22 The Barbary Corsairs. By Stanley Lane-Poole. 
 With additions by J. D. Kelly. Fourth 
 Edition. With 39 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 23 Russia. By W. R. Morfill, M.A. Fourth 
 Edition. With 60 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 24 The Jews under Roman Rule. By W. D. Mderison. 
 Second Impression. With 61 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 25 Scotland: From the Earliest Times to the Present 
 Day. By John Mackintosh, LL.D. Fifth 
 Impression. With 60 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 26 Switzerland. By Lina Hug and R. Stead. Third 
 Impression. With over 64 Illustrations, Maps, etc. 
 
 27 Mexico. By Susan Hale. Third 
 Impression. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 28 Porti^al. By H. Moese Stephens, M.A. New 
 Edition. With a new Chapter by Major M. Hume and 
 5 new Illustrations. Third Impres- 
 sion. With 44 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 29 The Normans. Told chiefly in Relation to their 
 Conquest of England. By Saeah Oene Jewett. Third 
 Impression. With 35 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 30 The Byzantine Empire. By C. W. C. Oman, M.A. 
 Third Edition. With 44 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 31 Sicily : Phoenician, Greek, and Roman. By Professor 
 E. A. Freeman. Third Edition. With 45 Illustrations. 
 
 32 The Tuscan Republics (Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca) 
 with Genoa. By Bella 
 Duffy. With 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 33 Poland. By W. R. Morfill. Third Impres- 
 sion. With 50 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 34 Parthia. By Professor George Rawlinson. Third 
 Impression. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS-corainued 
 
 85 The Australian Commonwealth. (New South Wales, 
 Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, 
 Queensland, New Zealand,) By Greville Tkegaethen. 
 Fifth Impression. With 36 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 86 Spain. Being a Summary of Spanish History from 
 the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Granada (a.d. 
 711-1492). By Henry Edward Watts. Third 
 Edition. With 36 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 87 Japan. By David Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. With a new 
 Chapter by Joseph W.Longford. 85 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 88 South Africa. (The Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free 
 State, South African Republic, Rhodesia, and all other 
 Territories south of the Zambesi.) By Dr. George 
 McCall Theal, D.Litt., LL.D. Revised and brought up to 
 date. Eleventh Impression. With 89 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 39 Venice. By Alethea Wiel. Fifth 
 Impression. With 61 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 40 The Crusades : The Story of the Latia Kingdom of 
 Jerusalem. By T. A. Archer and C. L. Kingsford. 
 Third Impression. With 68 Illustrations and 8 Maps. 
 
 41 Vedic India: As embodied principally in the Rig- 
 Veda. By Zenaide A. Ragozin. Third 
 Edition. With 86 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 42 The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By 
 
 James Rodway, F.L.S. Third 
 
 Impression. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 43 Bohemia : From the Earliest Times to the Fall of 
 National Independence in 1620 ; with a Short Summary 
 of later Events. By ^C. Edmund Maurice. Second 
 Impression. With 41 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 44 The Balkans (Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia and Monte- 
 negro). By W. Miller, M.A. New Edition. With 
 a new Chapter containing their History from 1296 to 
 1908. With 39 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATlONS-continued 
 
 45 Canada. By Sir John Bourinot, CM.G. With 68 
 Illustrations and Maps. Second Edition. With a new 
 Map and revisions, and a supplementary Chapter by 
 Edward Porkitt. Third Impression. 
 
 46 British India. By R. W. Frazer, LL.D. Eighth 
 Impression. With 80 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 47 Modem France, ITSS-ISSS. By Andre Lebon. 
 With 26 Illustrations and a Chronological Chart of the 
 Literary, Artistic, and Scientific Movement in Con- 
 temporary France. Fourth Impression. 
 
 48 The Franks. From their Origin as a Confederacy to 
 the EstabUshment of the Kingdom of France and the 
 German Empire. By Lewis Sergeant. Second 
 Edition. With 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 49 Austria. By Sidney Whitman. With the Colla- 
 boration of J. R. McIlraith. Third 
 Edition. With 35 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 50 Modem England before the Reform Bill. By 
 
 Justin McCarthy. With 31 Illustrations. 
 
 51 China. By Professor R.K.Douglas. Fourth Edition. 
 With a new Preface. 51 Illustrations and a Map. 
 Revised and brought up to date by Ian C. Hannah. 
 
 52 Modem Ei^land under Queen Victoria : From the 
 Reform Bill to the Present Time. By Justin McCarthy. 
 Second Edition With 46 Illustrations. 
 
 58 Modern Spain, 1878-1898. By Martin A, S. Hume. 
 Second Impression. With 87 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 54 Modem Italy, 1748-1898. By JProfessor Pietro 
 Orsi. With over 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 55 Norway : From the Earliest Times. By Professor 
 Hjaumar H. Boyesen. With a Chapter by C. F. 
 Keary. With 77 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 56 Wales. By Owen Edwards. With 47 Illustrations 
 and 7 Maps. Fifth Impression. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATlONS-continued 
 
 57 Mediaeval Rome : From Hildebrand to Clement VIII, 
 1073-1535. By William Miller. With 35 Illustrations. 
 
 58 The Papal Monarchy; From Gregory the Great to 
 Boniface VIII. By William Barry, D.D. Second 
 Impression. With 61 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 59 Mediaeval India under Mohammedan Rule. By 
 
 Stanley Lane-Poole. With 59 Illus- 
 
 trations. Twelfth Impression. 
 
 60 Parliamentary England : The Evolution of the 
 Cabinet System, 1660-1832. By Edward 
 Jenks. With 47 Illustrations. 
 
 61 Buddhist India. By T. W. Rhys Davids. Fourth 
 Impression. With 67 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 62 Mediaeval England, 1066-1350. By Mary 
 Bateson. With 93 Illustrations. 
 
 63 The Coming of Parliament. (England, 1350-1660.) 
 By L. Cecil Jane. With 51 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 64 The Story of Greece: From the Earliest Times 
 to A.D. 14. By E. S. Shuck- 
 burgh. With 2 Maps and about 70 Illustrations. 
 
 65 The Story of the Roman Empire. (29 B.C. to a.d. 
 476.) By H. Stuart Jones. Third 
 Impression. With a Map and 52 Illustrations. 
 
 66 Sweden and Denmiark. With Chapters on Finland 
 and Iceland. By Jon 
 Stefansson. With Maps and 40 Illustrations. 
 
 67 Belgium. {See page 2 for special announcement.) 
 
 important.-ask your bookseller to let 
 you examine a specimen volume of 
 
 "THE story of the NATIONS" SERIES 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN Ltd., 1 Adelphi 
 Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
 And of all Booksellers throughout the World 
 
aLHi!»n-ii 
 
 |l,t.if„(J-..;. •