THE "MONTFORD" REPORT IN THE LORDS.
(To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—Please pardon me for the heading I have chosen. The word " Montford " facilitates reference and economizes space, while it is supported by the well-established precedent of the Bakerloo tube.
The House of Lords as a deliberative assembly has one redeeming quality—it never gets excited. If it is given to political excitement at all I imagine that it will require some greater stimulant than the Montford Report to disturb its ordinary serenity. I listened to the Indian debate on Wednesday and Thursday of last week from the gallery of the House of Lords with great interest, because the• future of my country was the subject of debate. To my mind, the outstanding feature of the debate was the great speech of Lord. Selborne. His lordship has fully realized the gravity of the Indian situation, and his warning that the greatest danger that the Government had to guard against was that " a scheme should be brought in and fail" was not uttered a moment too soon.
"Every day that passed," said Lord Selborne, "without the Government expressing their opinion would make it more difficult for them to vary the scheme if they should feel it necessary." That is perfectly true; but is it not the very thing that the framers of the Report want ? Already it is coming to that, for Lord Curzon, in the course of his speech in the debate, asked : " Supposing the Committee [the joint Committee of the two Houses] reject the scheme, are the Government to wipe of the slate altogether the scheme of their Secretary of State and accept that of the Committee ?" My fear is that the Montford scheme will, without careful scrutiny, become the Government scheme and be embodied in a Bill. Once a Government Bill is introduced into Parliament it becomes exceedingly difficult to oppose it under the system of Parliamentary government obtaining in this country. It is especially so when the Bill relates to India, for India has no representatives in Parliament, and the tendency of public men in this country does not differ very much from that of the editor of a daily newspaper in this country who said to me the other day : "I have not the time nor space in my paper to devote to Indian questions." I am not satisfied with the Montford Report, nor with the inquiry that preceded the publication of that Report. Let me point out one aspect of that inquiry here. In a signed article published in New India of July 9th last Mrs. Besant says:— " I find myself unable to change the view I formed on an earlier draft, on which I had the honour, as had many others, of taking part in discussion months ago. The fact that I was among those admitted to some extent into confidence for the purposes of discussion has been charitably translated into my being bought over by the Government. . . . The present scheme is on nearly all points the same in essence, though much more verbose, than the one I commented on, so I print my opinion as I then wrote it, save for the omission of a proposal that has disappeared, and additional criticisms on a few points changed for the worse.. .."
Then follows the opinion of Mrs. Besant written on an earlier draft of the Montford Report. (The italics are mine.) On Octo- ber 15th when Lord Sydenham raised this question in. the House of Ltirds, the Under-Secretary for India said that " He was requested by the Secretary for India to say that he did not grant Mrs. Besant any opportunity of seeing the draft Report as suggested. Neither could he deduce, after reading the article in New India, that the statement was made by Mrs. Besant herself that she saw the draft form. The Secretary of State and the Viceroy took every opportunity to interview, in- formally and confidentially, all classes of the community in India, and in the oourse of these interviews they submitted proposals which would give effect to the announcement of August 20th. That, he understood, was the entire extent to which Mrs. Besant had access in regard to what was now embodied in the important Report of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. The Secretary of State and the Viceroy had offered Mrs. Besant no privileged position beyond that which had been given to other representatives of Indian opinion."
The only conclusion that I can come to from these contradictory statements is that Mrs. Besant used her occultic powers to read the contents of the draft Report which was inside Mr. Montagu's despatch-box. But the interesting question arises, on what date did the draft Report come into existence? Was there a draft in existence, containing "nearly all points the same in essence" as the now famous Montford Report, at the time when the Secretary of State and the Viceroy were touring India to collect materials for such a Report ? Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford toured about India in November and December, 1917. They returned to Delhi early in January, 1918. A Conference of heads of Provincial Governments was held at Delhi about the third week of January, 1918. A draft of a Report based on the results of these investiga- tions could not possibly come into existence before the last week of January, 1918. By that date the Viceroy and Secretary of State had, from all accounts, completed all interviews with represen- tatives of all shades of opinion in India. Mrs. Besant may have had an interview at Delhi when she went there with the Home Rule deputation in November, 1917, or she may have had an
.interview when the Secretary of State and the Viceroy came to Madras in the middle of December, 1917. Did she have another interview after the Report had materialized? Or did Mr. Montagu -start the inquiry with his conclusions already formed ? These are interesting questions. But perhaps the non-publication of the Rowlett Committee's Report in this country is an even more interesting question. The Rowlett Committee investigated into the workings of a conspiracy in which Indians and Germans were involved. The British public have a right to know the nature and extent of that conspiracy before they give their sanction to a scheme of political reform in India. The Montford Report dated April 22nd, 1918, was published here on July 5th, 1918, while the Rowlett Committee's Report dated April 15th, 1918, is not yet published. According to Lord Islington, this was due to a "mis- understanding," and according to Lord Crewe it was a " blunder." I know a better word than either of those, but I refrain from
[We hope that this matter may be rapidly cleared up. —We cannot describe the dismay which is aroused in us—and we are sure it will be shared by thousands who have watched Mrs. Beelines career—at the very suspicion, or possibility, that Mrs. Besant should have been seriously called into consultation in this great affair of State.—Eo. Spectator.]
Previous page
