Without more evidence to go upon than the summarized version of the Hunter Committee's report which Reuter sends to-day, it is still greatly to be feared that the course against which the Archbishop of Simla issues so urgent a warning has been followed in respect of General Dyer and that he has been made a scapegoat, with some craven and wholly deceptive idea of pacifying the Indian agitator. who, of course, will merely ye encouraged thereby to further excesses. We have the British members of the Committee stating that "open rebellion is the only suitable description of the disturbances" and disposing of the Amritsar outbreak as '"'anti-Government at every stage," and we also have the Indian Government's tribute to the conduct of Sir Michael O'Dwyer and other officers "in difficult circumstances," and their admission that "the movement was calculated to lead to the overthrow of law and order." Is there not in all this a strong suggestion of extenuating circumstances which might have weighed in General Dyer's favour? And what is likely to be the result! of his being thus thrown to the wolves? Will it not probably be that the next time any firing has to be done, the. officer on the spot will begin the firing too late ant leave off too soon, with consequences. as Archbishop Kenealy says "which no white man cares to contemplate"? It is not as if the Montage-Chelmsford scheme—that terrible attempt to introduce the platform polities of Peckham Rye among the immutable castes of India—had produced any improvement in the country. It has not. Agitation has been more virulent since it was published than before, and even casual visitors to India speak of life there as like living or a—voleano. at seems to have happened is this. The Indian members on the Committee disagreed with the British because they were afraid to do otherwise. No one imagines that their testimony is worth a rap. But because they disagreed it is felt that some victim must be given them, and General Dyer is the handiest. How many|h other victims will, indirectly, be added, time only can show.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.