Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1932. THE VICEROY'S FIRMNESS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1932, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1932. THE VICEROY'S FIRMNESS

Lord Willingdon succeeded lo one of the most difficult positions in the Empire when he was sworn in as the Viceroy of India at Bombay on the 18th April. He was bound by the terms of the agreement with Mr. j Gandhi by which in return for liberal concessions Lord Irwin had procured the discontinuance of the civil disobedience campaign, and he was at once besieged with official complaints that the agreement was being violated by the Congress party and with retaliatory charges against the officials. In the conduct of this business Lord Willingdon seemed to be taking a firmer attitude than his predecessor, and the result of his approval of the Bombay Government's reply to Mr. Gandhi's allegations that it had broken the agreement was that Mr. Gandhi telegraphed on the 11th August that il was impossible for him to attend the Round Table Conference. Two days later this attitude was confirmed by a resolution of the Congress Working Committee. But the Viceroy was not alarmed by the ultimatum, and though the resolution does not appear to have been formally cancelled, the Government of India was ableto announce on the 28th August that, as the resuk of further conversations with the Viceroy, Mr. Gandhi would attend the Conference as the representative of Congress.

In view of the attitude adopted by Mr. Gandhi at the Conference, and of his outrageous charge that the failure of the Indian delegates to settle the fundamental problem of conaDunal representation was due to the baS. faith of the British Government, it was obvious.that the return of Mr, Gandhi would confront the Government of India with a much severer test than the threat whichpreceded his departure. While the terrorist campaign in Bengal and the Red Shirt movement in the Northwest Frontier Province were causing great anxiety, the other Congress leaders were busily preparing a renewal of the civildisobedience campaign for which'they expected Mr. Gandhi. to\give the signal on his return. The four items which reached us from India on Tuesday last served to [illustrate the complexity and the danger of its problems and the part which this saintly firebrand is fitted to play in the Indian powdermagazine as neatly as if they had been staged for the purpose.

At Bombay the landing of Mr. Gandhi, "almost hidden by garlands of flowers presented by women," resulted in a fight between a thousand "untouchables" and a thousand representatives of the Congress, to which, and not to the "Satanic" power of Britain, they ought,,, Mr. Gandhi tells us, to look for protection. At Lahore the strife between Moslems and Hindus, which Mr. Gandhi blames the British Government for failing to settle in London, resulted in serious rioting, in the looting of several Hindu shops, and in the intervention of the troops of that same "Satanic" power to restore order. At Saibasu, a village near Cawnpore, the no-rent campaign of the Congress had provoked a clash between peasants and police in which several were injured. In the North-west Frontier Province the'designs of 3000 Red Shirts from Kohat had been defeated by British troops, and the arrest of 200 of them and the conviction of 48 had eased the position.

Such are the problems with which from day to day the Government of India is confronted, and the nature of Mr. Gandhi's contribution to their solution was indicated by the threat to renew the struggle with the Government which he made in a speech at Bombay.

He would not flinch at sacrificing a million lives for India's liberty. He invited the country to be' reacly to fight, and added that -he did not expect to be able to exercise the same restraint upon himself as before if if came to taking a strong step. Ho emphasised that in the last fight they had to face police staves, but this time it would be bullets.

Mr. Gandhi's expectation—he does not say his fear—that he would not be able to exercise the same restraint upon himself as before suggests that those monstrous statements of his which were reported from Rome may have been due to such a loss of selfrestraint as left him unable to believe that he had ever used the words which were heard by more reporters than one. A more violent defence of the policy of non-violence could not well be imagined than this outburst at Bombay. The country must be "ready to fight." Mr. Gandhi does not expect to be able to restrain himself, and therefore can hardly be expected to blame his followers if they suffer from the same disability. Even if they confine themselves to passive disobedience they must expect the police to attack them, not with slaves this time, but with bullets. And this wild, inflammatory, and mendacious nonsense the Mahatma followed up with a long telegram to the yiceroy, announcing

civil disobedience, but suspending its operation till he hears whether the Viceroy will "consider il worth while lo sec him."

We may be thankful thai in these circumstances the Viceroy did not "'consider it worth while to see him," and that there will be no WillingdonGandhi Pact to carry to far more dangerous lengths the dubious policy of the Irwin-Gandhi Pact that was made at Delhi in March. What may be taken as Lord Willingdon's reply to the Bombay speech was the "sLern warning" administered in his address to the European Association on Tuesday last.

Any attempt by any organisation lo impede tho constitutional programme, whether a no-rent and no-revenue campaign, a boycott, or the defiance of tho law would, he said, be utterly crushed.

There was a note of resolution in this declaration which probably took Mr. Gandhi and his friends by surprise, and the reply to his impudent telegram was more resolute still.

The Government, said the Viceroy, will hold you and Congress responsible for all the consequences that may ensue from the action which the Congress has announced its intention of taking ami to meet which the Government will take all necessary measures.

It was apparently in the same message that the Viceroy demanded the withdrawal of the Congress resolutions as the condition of the suggested interview.

Before Mr. Gandhi had had lime to recover from the regret and the astonishment caused by a firmness which he had ceased to expect from the Indian Government, still stronger evidence was forthcoming. At*" 3 o'clock yesterday morning Mr. Gandhi and the Congress President were arrested at Bombay and taken to the Yeravda gaol. It was a drastic and momentous proceeding which draws from Mr. Lansbury the remark that "coercion always makes the situation worse," but has been calmly received in India, and in Britain is regarded as inevitable. Coercion has a bad name, but law and order, which cannot be had without some form of coercion, are better than the chaos and anarchy which are the only possible alternative. The lawless propaganda of Mr. Gandhi and the Congress leaders is really a greater danger to India than the terrorism of Bengal, and sound constitutional progress is impossible while it blocks the way.