INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 5, 7 January 1908, Page 2

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Yesterday week the Legislative Council at Simla passed the Bill for the prevention or public . seditious meetings. The Bill, which empowers I provincial authorities to declare any part of their districts a proclaimed area within.wKicK.no, public meetings will be allowed without a written permission under penalty of fine or im- " priaonment, >was carried by nine votes •to three j the dissentients attacking its ' principle and contending that disorders were already adequately | punishable by the present penal and ' criminal code. Lord Minto, who'clos- ' ed the. debate, acknowledged' the \ honesty and sincerity' of the opposition, but refused to. admit that the ' Act just passed imputed disloyalty to the .masses, of the Indian people.. .The • recent riots, however,"' 'could not' be ' forgotten or their warnings difiresard- ' cd. After a tribute to the steadfastness of the Indian troops in rejecting the overtures of agitators, Lord Minto declared that the government, while resolved to repress sedition, had no l wish |to check th* growth of political • thought. They could riot check its » flow, .but they could direct it into > beneficial- channels. -He concluded by ■ appealing to, the leaders of Indian ~ thought, to L giv© .the, .Government, as- ; sistance in view of ithe heavy responsi- : bility which rested on the shoulders of ■ Indian reformers. The Act, it may be • added, will at present only be applied1 [' to the Bakarganj district of Eastern I: Bengali; '"vVfT--;':\ " I'-.. -' ■ ■ > ,In this <St>nte3tt: we may note the ad- • mirable remarks of the Maharaja of / Bikanir in reply to an address prei sented him on his recent return : from ■ England. After "commending the Mar• wari community for retraining from i taking part in political * agitation, he i observed that while every true Indian's I sympathy—and every true English- ■ man's sympathy also-^-was with the .; just and sound aspirations of Indians, .', it waa ; in reality the reverse of true ' patriotism to the Mother Country to I indulge in such political vagaries as I 1 they had heard of recently. Reason- ; able and impartial observers must realise that the sympathy of the Viceroy and or Mr Morley was with India and its people, and that the agitators could ; not have chosen a more inopportune moment. In conclusion, the Maharaja distinguished between genuine Swafleshism, which the Viceroy had j publicly approved, and the " spiteful boycotting of foreign goods," which could never commend itself to any honest and right-thinking individual. THE NEW CUNADER. The new Cunard liner Mauretania

has achieved some wonderful results in her steam trials this week. Like the Lusitania, she traversed twelve hundred miles in four tests of three hundred miles each. In the best test she ran the three hundred miles at an average speed of 27.36 knots, or at the rate of over thirty-one miles an hour. The average speed for the whole twelve hundred miles was 26.03 knots. The Mauretania is evidently much the fastest, as well as the largest, liner afloat. y The Lusitania in her speed trials averaged twenty-five and a quarter knots. The Mauretania is due to start on her first voyage across the Atlantic on November 16, th. We do not wish to seem worshippers of mere speed, but we confess to a thrill at the thought of what British shipbuilders have accomplished in the Mauretania.