SAVAGE RIOTING

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 119, 16 April 1930, Page 9

SAVAGE RIOTING

OUTBREAK AT CALCUTTA. EUROPEANS STONED. TRAMS BURNED AND WRECKED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received April 16 10.5 a.m. DELHI, April 15. Savage rioting in several parts of Calcutta broke out to-day as a result of the. arrests of Jawaharbal Nehru and Sen Gupta. Jawaharbal Nehru is president of the Indian National Congress, and Sen Gupta is Mayor of Calcutta. They were each sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for violation of the Salt Laws and. reading publicly extracts from seditious literature. They are both prominent Nationalists. Tiro trams were set on fire and three others were wrecked. The fire brigade wero stoned by a mob, and several firemen whre gravely injured. In the main thoroughfare of the city a crowd of rioters hurled stones at trams and passing cars driven by Europeans, And the police. The‘ latter were forced to open fire. The casualties at present are not known. Auxiliary forces of armoured cars were called out and are patrolling the streets, which were practically deserted at noon. In other parts of the city traffic was held up by jeering crowds, who dislocated the tram service by cutting the wires, s .. ■ CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 15. Questioned in the House of Commons to-day .regarding the civil disobedience movement in India, the Secretary for India, Captain Wedgwood Benn, said that the movement initiated by Gandhi had developed generally along the lines anticipated. Broadly speaking, it might be said that the defiance of the Salt Laws had in itself not caused much trouble. Its real significance lay in the attempt to use it as a means of rousing public sentiment to a dangerous pitch, and in one or two places, public demonstrations had, he regretted to say, resulted in. clashes with the police. It. was too early yet to give an appreciation of the effects of the campaign, but he had every confidence that the steps taken by the Government of India would be adequate to deal with the situation as it might develop.

GANDHI POSES AS SAINT VISCOUNT WILLINGDON’S OPINION. Received April 16, 10.5 a.m. Vancouver, April is. “Gandhi, poses as a saint, hut there is nothing saintly about persuading his followers to break the law,” declared Viscount Willingdon, GovernorGeneral of Canada, in an address today. He said that he was in India six years ago, when Gandhi tried the same thing. He wished he were not Gov-ernor-General so that he might say what he thought about the Gandhi Sjovement ana Mr Snowden’s Budget. He hoped to return some time, when he would be able to speak his mind freely . SALT LAWS OF INDIA. GANDHI’S AGITATION. LONG STANDING GRIEVANCE. PRESENT SITUATION EXPLAINED Many people have been puzzled by the references in the cables to the important part that the salt laws appear to be playing in the present political agitation in India. To secure a clarification of the position a “Standard” reporter interviewed Mr J. A. Brailsford, 8.A., lecturer for the Workers’ Educational Association, who by reason of many years’ residence in the East and a .close study of current affairs in India and China, is well qualified to comment upon the situation. “The. taxing of salt, a necessity of life for the richest and poorest people, has long been a grievous question among the Indians,” said Mr Brailsford. “One Indian writer described this imposition as the cruellest tax imposed on any civilised country. Salt, affirmed this critic, was chosen by the Government as a means of taxing people who possessed nothing else that could be taxed. The agitation has continued for many years,” said Mr Brailsford, “and the tax was gradually reduced from 2J rupees per maund (821b5.) to one rupee in 1907, but it was increased during the war to li rupees per maund, or about a farthing a pound. Possibly the addition to the retail price might be as much as a penny per lb., but even so it appears a trifling sum to us. “The revenue collected by the Indian Government from this source is only between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000, Mr Brailsford continued. “However, the tax is still ; exceedingly unpopular among Indians, and Gandhi has apparently decided to appeal to this general feeling in order to obtain strong support for his campaign of ‘civil disobedience,’ a form oi passive resistance which includes a refusal to pay taxes. “It is difficult to see how Gandhi can achieve much by manufacturing an insignificant amount of contraband salt, but this vs not of course the only feature of his campaign.. The fact that 150. people have already been arrested indicates that the trouble is not yet at an end.” ■ Commenting on .the report that Gandhi had urged, his followers to abandon the policy of non-violence, and to actively resist the , authorities, Mr Brailsford said he doubted whether Gandhi would throw over the policy which had proved so successful in South Africa and to which he had clung for 40 years. It was, of course, .difficult, to draw a strict line between passive and active resistance. Eor example, in South Africa Gandhi had led an unarmed invasion of 1500 Indians, including men and women, into the Transvaal, in defiance of the law. Was this active or passive resistance? “It is possible that in India he has advised the people not to give up the salt in response to official demands,” said Mr Brailsford, “but to dare the police to come into their homes and seize the contraband. “On* could say much about the success of Gandhi’s campaign of non-co-operation in South Africa, where thousands went to prison for refusing to obey the registration and poll-tax laws,” the speaker added. “The Government was at last induced to repeal these and other obnoxious laivs, but I, for one, am. not prepared to prophesy what measure of success Gandhi will achieve by these methods in his preset) t campaign in India.”