Government's Scrupulous Policy: A Warning from the Punjab By A Srecian Simla, May 3.
The Government, continue to do all they can to implement the terms lof the settlement, An instance from the. United Provinces will illustrate how liberal the Government have been. For failure to pay the instalment of land revenue P°: due from him, a few weeks back, a large landholder had his moveable attached. Orders have now een passed releasing the moveable al-hough he has not yet paid in full the amount due from him. This against the adoption of Jcoereive measures should go a long way in establishing that the Gor-fernment is implementing the agree-rent with greater generosity than is warranted by its letter or spirit. With regard to the Congress, the feeling is growing that, though the agreement "hasbeen honoured in many parts of India, there are Jeentres where it has been ignored land where the truce, -and "police t|abstinence, have been' regarded as Jexcellent opportunities for intensifed propaganda, The situation at Charsadda, in' the North West Frontier Province provides one of the most vivid illustrations of this disregard, and of the evils resulting from it,
hich Congress "peaceful" picket-Os des another, in jing lit the match on a smouldering trouble and kindled a conflagration by unparalleled savagery.
piece-goods are bitterly com-merchants in ig that the Congress is not Jearrying out its part of the agreement under which buyers were to be left free to bu¥ as they wished.
matter of fact people are factually being prevented from buy: ing British cloth. The Bombay [Congress Committee is reported to be preparing for a resumption of tensive picketing. Volunteers, it Four-fifths of them—practically never "catch the speaker's eye" many of them never attempt to There they sit day after day and night after night, occasionally trotting dutifully into the division lobbies as instructed by the Whips. Whatever they may think, they must keep their thoughts to them selves and vote as ordered.
The dreariest part of their life that the papers repeatedly tell them thnt nobody has much opinion of them and make lamentation that Parliamentary. debates should ay little practical effect. Nor does it, much matter which Party is in. We hope for a speedy return of the Conservatives, because there usually less spoliation and inquisition from them. But nobody expeets that they will do much more than the Labour men, towards cutting down the awful extravagance of the social service.
Nominally Parliament are the servants of the public. Actually' they are not even its masters. All alike are bound in the grip of a machine, The Minister is helpless in the hands of his permanent Department, and who really controls that nobody could say—some shapeless monster of convention and tradition and officialism before which even are helpless. Mentbers ent are bound by' Paity Whipsand organization. The public is equally restricted by all alike.
Important business associations, captains of industry and finance draw up repeated memorandums and protestations on this or that public abuse, the blighting influence on industry "of taxation, the i dispensable need of—econom: all probability the men who receive' these memorials secretly agree. But tke machine steps in between reason and action,' and nothing is done. Ministers ard members early. as before. The country is not much governed as coerced by some immutable Juggernaut of orgunization. All alike may be keenly alive to the practical needs of the moment but are impotent to leave the beaten track, The two most important matters before the country to-day, unemplosinent insurance and tariffs, are purely business questions, not. politics. Yet they can appai only be looked at through spectacles and so my BLP. friend cannot digest his dinner, carina: get enough sleep and frets away his ardent life listening to empty talk voting for the undesired and is stated, will be men wae will not thave any claim on Congress funds. They will be divided into thres last: being resumed it involves a double ibility danger. There is to be an increase in picketing and one fears a corres ponding increase in the evils to which it has led in the past. There is also the greater danger of complications, including breaches peace, inherent in the enrolment, of volunteers whose adherence to the loreed of non-violence has on numer-Jous occasions been belied. Soon after the settlement, when the Congress House in Bombay was restor-fed. to its owner some volunteers defied the authority of the leaders land police aid had to. be sought before the Congress office could be installed in the building, Only the other day, fifty of them had made themselves so obnoxious that Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had to be called to. admonish them. Although their' occupation was gone, they were persuaded to leave the premises in the hope that thes would provided with funds to enable them to go back to their native places. " Yet one cannot he sure that Jone has heard the last. of then. Indeed, the spirit' of lawlessness raised during the civil disobedience movement is a matter of no smal embarrassment to Congressmen themselves, A few days ago, at Mymenaingh, Mr. J, M. Sen president-elect of the district Jdents' conference, was attacked by several men with lathes. and other weapons. 'They are believed to. be-Jong to' the political party which does not see eye to eye with Mr. [Son Gupta and his methods of work; Jand they were led by three members fof the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. In a statement, Mir. Sen Gupta has testified to, the violence of the crowd and stated that it included three girls between 9 and 13! Tt shows the extent to which undisciplined fury among Congressmen can go, A split has occurred in the local gress Committee at, Anaritsa ization of tw the presid-Jeney of Dr. Kitehlew and. anoth under Ghazi Abdur Rahman Kha The quarrel, it now appea: lover the disposal of Congress fund: Doubts are naturally gaint pression whether Mr. Gandhi teapable of curbing the forces ha fas mainly instrumental in roleo jing. "Even more serious than the danger arising from lawlessness, in other spheres, is that connected with the agrarian situation. In the United Provinces, efforts, are being made to exploit economic. distress to exaggerate the importance of the Congress, to persuade tenants no¥ to pay their rents, and to affect the "relations between the tenants their landlords, Wi few days Bir. Gandhi Fhas made two statements which it is dificult to reconcile with each other. "He is. reported to have advised: the peasants of Bardoli whose confiscated lands had been sold to third parties, not to obstruct the purchasers in taking possession jof lands and to consider that they thad lost their lands it the straggle {for freedom. This' seems quite in Keeping with the terms "of the But it is dificult to see how his anxiety to abide by the terms of the settlement could have inspired ithe leaflets he had issued in Kaira district, elucidating: his position with regard to the payment of land revenue. In this he i8 reported to have urged (1) that cultivators who kad suffered heavy losses owing to their participation in the satyagraha movement were not obliged to pay revenue dues by borrowing money Jon interest; (2) that. cultivators who did not join the no-tax campaign or having joined it did not suffer losses should promptly pay.
their dues, as before, even if in doing so they had to seck the aid fof the moneylender; and ((3). that cultivators referred jo in (1) should understand that they were, in hia opinion, protected under the settlement.. 'Mr. Gandhi has promised to his utmost. to get' for then (No. 1) the suspension of one yeay's Payment of revenue dues, but he warns them that should he fail they should be prepared to undergo the fiery ordeal which, he says, in alt probability, would be their Tot." He has added that his advice about the non-payment of revenue dues doos
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.