THE SITUATION IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 214, 4 June 1919, Page 7

THE SITUATION IN INDIA

9 DANGER NOT YET PAST

STATEMENT IN BRITISH

PARLIAMENT

CAUSES OF UNREST

3y ToleerapH—Proas Associntion-CoDyrlßlil (I!<2C. ,lime 3, ll.'iO p.m.) London, .May ii (delayed). Speaking in the .House of Comuious, Mr. E. H. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, said tliat the, internal danger i" India was not yet past. Fighting had occurred in the Presidency (if Bombay, involving one-tenth of the area and onothird of the population. In l!:e Punjab there had been an outbreak at Delhi. Trouble had occurred at Calcutta, aleo, but to a minor extent. There hud boon no trouble in Madras or in the Central or United Provinces. The trouble was wholly confined to the towns. Events had shown the unmistakable loyalty of India as a. whole. Altogether nine Kuropean and four hundred Indian lives bad been lost. The perplexity in the. Mohammedan world, arising out of Turkey's defeat, was one of the causes of Indmn unrest. Another arose from a. fear that the promises of 1017 would not bo carried out. The Rowlatt Act was very unpopular, kit would not bo used except U» cope- with remarkable revolutionary movements.

M.r. Montagu said that he felt convinced that they must proceed without delay with the Bill providing for the alteration of the Indian Government. Cabinet had agreed to the introduction of tha Bill at the beginning of June. The keystone of Indian reform would be the transference of power from tho bureaucracy to the people. "This may bo gradual' in its application," he added, "but it must be veal."—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Aesn.