SEDITION IN INDIA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1096, 7 April 1911, Page 5

SEDITION IN INDIA.

. LANDOWNER'S ARSENAL SEIZED, •By Telegraph—Press Association— Oopyricht Calcutta, April 5. The police raided the residence of Mohan Roy, a wealthy landowner, and seized a quantity of picric acid and dynamite and a complete plant for the manufacture of bank notes. Mohan Roy and four others were arrested, LORD MINTO ON INDIAN DISCONTENT. Lord Minto, the ex-Viceroy of India, on being presented with the freedom of the city of London on his return home in February, made an interesting speech on the situation in India. Before ho had been many months in India, snid Lord Minto, it became evident to him that they would, before long, be confronted with an accumulated mass of popular discontent, which many loyal Indians believed to be due to disregard on our part of their just hopes. If this discontent had been allowed to continue it would Have undoubtedly developed' into a far more dangerous hostility than anything with which they subsequently had to deal, in that it was the conviction of honest, loyal, and moderate men. So far as they could judge the character of the discontent, it was due to a. dawning belief that greater opportunities must be granted for the official expression of Indian public opinion, and that a greater share must be offered to Indians in the government of their country. The growth of public opinion was hastened and matured by the successes of Japan, which produced an enormous impression in the East. They were very, soon confronted also with an agitation of a far more dangerous character! Certain murders which occurred gave the clue to a widespread conspiracy having as its object the removal of British officials .by assassination, and the ultimate, disappearance of British rule from India. The leaders of that agitation must have had very little knowledge of the stuff of which British officials were made. By force of circumstances tho Government of India was called upon to follow a dual line of action— to recognise the necessity of administrative reforms, and at the same time to put its fopt down sternly on every form of political sedition. It was a dnnl action, and as such it was perhaps not unnaturally, somewhat misunderstood at home. At the same time it was his firm belief that tho Government of India to-day was fairly entitled to claim that the quiet which now reigned in India was due to the policy that was then adopted. It was a period naturally of very great anxieties—anxieties immensely increased by the misguided acHfins of individuals in Great Britain, who did not hesitate to sympathise with the worst and most dangerous revolutionary aaitators in India, whilst plots were deliberately hatched in London and in Paris for the assassination of the officers of the King which tho, people, of India looked upon with the same disgust and contempt as did tho King's officers themselves.