periods of detention in some cases seem unduly long, this very difficult work was not done badly or oppressively on the whole. We think it would have been better had this proclamation (i.e., the order against the employment of outside counsel) not been issued. Some of the (Martial Law) orders were injudicious. . . . served no good purpose were not drawn with sufficient care."

The Committee do not agree that it was merely a slight inconvenience for the inhabitants of the street disgraced by the Sherwood assault to go on the roofs of their houses. The "order caused unnecessary inconvenience.........in subjecting the Indian population to an act of humiliation it has continued to be a source of bitterness and racial ill-feeling long after it was recalled." By the Salaaming Order "no good object was served." Colonel Johnson's treatment of the students was "unnecessarily severe."

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Public floggings are condemned, and some restriction on the number of floggings should be imposed on the discretion of area officers in giving sentences of whipping. There should always be a record of the punishment and some limitations on the nature of the punishment. And, finally, where martial law has been imposed. . . . the

power of the military commanders need not necessarily be so supreme as was the case in the Punjab."

From the personnel and terms of reference of the Committee this is much the Report to be expected. If Mr. Montagu stands by this, he will go down to some minor page in history's record together with the condoners of Limerick, Glencoe, and Peterloo. If he is courageous enough to throw it overboard and ask for a Royal Commission in England to investigate the whole circumstances he may yet clear himself of some measure of the hideous responsibility which, like Black Care, must ride behind him in all its horrors.-May 28, 1920.

XIII

MR. MONTAGU'S VIA MEDIA

THE Majority Hunter Report, which was summarised in India of May 28, has been given an unobtrusive funeral by the covering correspondence issued with the whole Report. Command Paper 705-Correspondence between the Government of India and the Secretary of State for India on the Report of Lord Hunter's Committee is officially christened as "In continuation of Cmd. 681" (The Hunter Report). It is much nearer to being in condemnation of Cmd. 681.

Although agreement is indicated with many of its conclusion, those who recognise the formal and informal limitations of official phraseology will note that the opening sentences of Section 4 of the Secretary of State's letter are practically a censure of the whole spirit animating the Majority Report. There is one question with regard to which it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Majority of Lord Hunter's Committee have failed to express themselves in the terms which unfortunately the facts not only justify but necessitate. In paras. 16 to 25 of Chapter XII of their Report, the Majority have dealt with the

'intensive' form generally which martial law assumed, and with certain specified instances of undue severity and of improper punishments or orders." To put this as bluntly as the man in the street would express it, the Hunter Committee are thrown overboard; and that on a subject of major importance, the administration of martial law. In fact, even the despatch of the Government of India, surprising as it may seem, uses stronger language than does Lord Hunter's Majority, taking its stand with the Minority in this case: "the administration of martial law in the Punjab was marred in particular instances by a misuse of power, by irregularities, and by injudicious and irresponsible acts."

The cause célèbre of General Dyer is another glaring instance of the failure of Lord Hunter and his official clique. In a nutshell, their judgment of the Dyer massacre was that a warning would not have dispersed the crowd, but that Dyer should have given it. Having given it, his firing would have been justified if there had been less of it, what extent of diminution would have been not excessive being unspecified. They state that his inattention to the wounded was a subject of criticism" and then callously advance the same pitiful excuses which Dyer had already worn threadbare, winding

up with a sentence which probably displays the most effrontery of any they have framed. "It has not been proved to us that any wounded people were in fact exposed to unnecessary suffering from want of medical treatment." This, although Indian unofficial evidence was driven by the Committee's unfairness into boycotting its sessions! The Government of India's despatch, after intimating that Dyer "was thrown temporarily off the balance of his judgment," states that after carefully weighing all the factors they can arrive at no other conclusion than that at Jallianwalla Bagh, General Dyer acted beyond the necessity of the case, beyond what any reasonable man could have thought to be necessary and that he did not act with as much humanity as the case permitted."

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The Secretary of State's despatch is of about equivalent strength to this, with the addition that it censures the doctrine on which General Dyer based his action and his avowed conception of his duty in the circumstances confronting him. Mr. Montagu states that he approves the decision of the Commander-in-Chief which required BrigadierGeneral Dyer to resign his appointment as Brigade Commander and informed him that he would receive no further employment in India. The