Oct. 13. lotion and sentence of the prisoners in the Lahore conspiracy trial brings to an end one chapter in recent Indian revolutionary ivistory. On November 17, 1928, Lola Lajpat Raj, a Punjab political leader of considerable standing and a member of the Legislative Assembly, died of heart failure in'Lahore. About three weeks later Mr. John Poyntz Saunders, of the Indian Police Service, was assassinated at Lahore and his Sikh orderly, who gallantly tried to capture the assailant was aleo shot dead. Mr. Saunders had Just celebrated his twenty-first birthday, He had been a brilliant athlete and scholar at his school.
He "had passed first in. the examination for entry into Sand-horst, and he selected an appointment in the Indian Police. So'greatly had this young police officer impressed his personality on his superiors and sri the community during his _all-too-short Indian career, that the Governor of the Province personally attended his funeral and followed the coffin on foot. theta the link of the inflammatory eloquence of the political a tator, Eighteen days before his death Mr. Lajpat Rai thought fit to take part in a demonstration outside Lahore station against the Simon Commission which had arrived on that day. In their task of preserving law and order the police took measures, and due warning was issued. The officer-i charge was Mr. Saunders' superior officer, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Saunders was there under at the station, the mo' in which Mr. Lajpat Rai had become involved became threatening, and the police had te exercise all their tact, with the minimum display of force, to keep the road clear for the Simon Commission, In the course of this affair Mr. Lajpat Rai was slightly injured. That the blow was slight can be gauged from the fact that, in the period of nearly three weeks which supervened, he travelled several hundred miles, attended various business meetings im his capacity as a director, and generally engaged in jhe conduct of his personal affairs as if nothing had happened. Medical evidence made it clear that his death at Lahore was from heart failure, Immediately agitation was raised that his death was due to the action of the police at the time of the arrival of the Simon Commission. The government appointed an_ official enquiry, which found that there was no ground for the allegations and the Punjab Legislative Council by a majority accepted that finding. Meanwhile, inflamed by the speeches of the politicians, the students in La-here became firmly convinced that Mr. Lajpat Rai had met his death at the hands of the police force under Mr. Scott, Vows were taken to kill Mr. Scott. Mr.
Saunders was shot in fulfilment of those vows, as it was revealed that the assailants mistook him for his superior officer. In spite of earnest enquiry and the offer of a reward the Government could not lay their hands on the men who had committed the double murder.
Two months later a bomb was thrown in the Legisfative Assembly at New Delhi, which fortunately did little harm except damaging a certain amount, of furniture and wounding an Indian member and Sir George Schuster, The bomb throwers were arrested, and in course of their examination the police were able to get on the tracks of the murderers of Mr. Saunders. The men were arrested and put on trial before a special magistrate, an experienced Indian subordinate judge of what is known as the provincial service. Able as this judge was, it became apparent that he was quite incapable of keeping order in his court. The prisoners adopted a vigorously truculent demeanour and proceeded with considerable success to make the proceedings quite impossible. They shouted revolttionary cries, they threw shoes at the police, they often had to be taken back to the gaol and the day's proceedings abandoned. They indulged in hunger striking, and generally bid defiance to the court. there must be much sympathy for the magistrate, because he was far more heavily handicapped than an English judge would have been in dealing with the same conditions. However, his conduct, marked as it was occasionally' by misplaced weakness and at other times by ill-advised strength, became a subject for vehement criticism, and even the extremist papers agreed that the affair amounted to a public scandal, although of course their remedy would have been to release the prisoners unconditionally. The Government had the matter under consideration for several weeks, ard finally was decided," by special ordinance, to create a tribunal of three judges of the high court to try these prisoners, with the result now known. The. whole episode throws a lurid light on the perversity of certain forms of anti-British propaganda in India. It shows how tragic i its effect, not only on officials who run' the: risk of assassina~ tion, but also on young men such as those now convicted, who have had their youthful and praise-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.