PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3489, 25 January 1921, Page 65

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

“AMRITSAR AND OCR DUTY TO INDIA.” This is a volume I have read, and as ; t gives a most sombre picture I am going to write a chat upon it. Not that I want mv boy and girl readers to read sombre things, but because I think that anythin c that makes them think and read on • citizenship should be put before them. Often I have heard it said: “It is not advisable to let that be known ; it is better that it should be kept quiet. It may cause a panic,” and so on. “Educate, eoucate, educate, ’ should be our aim. for we cannot have too much of it. Rut do not misunderstand me. We arc educating India, but not in things India. "East is East, and West is West.” I read an article some tiine ago pointing out that we were educating India, and the first thing the writer noticed that in art goods, architecture, and needlework, we were teaching them western ideas; no Indian art, architecture, etc. And wc can say the same of New Zealand, though not nearly to the same extent: but native art could be improved, carving native designs, encouraging native " interior designs could be very much more encouraged, and so on. “Amritsar and our Dutv to India” is written by B. E. ifomiman, who may or may not be a pacifist; but whatever lie may be that need not prejudice us against him, though it may put a different judgment upon his writings. He writes at the outset: "No event within living memory, probably, has made so deep and painful an impression on the mind of the public in this country as what has become known as the Amritsar Massacre. This is not surprising, for the event itself is without parallel.” I have by me a book by, T think, Rii Onion Doyle, showing natives in the Belgian Congo who have lost their hands by fiends ; another book showing the fear ful results of money-making at a cost oi \frimn lives in the New Guinea area ii , connection with cocoa plantations anti . allied industries. I lnvc. too, sonic fi-nrfu. pictures showing wholesale executions ii i German ex-possessions, and 1 have Kvitisl ■ white papers substantiating the picture ' These, of course, wc bad nothing to d> with; “but it was a new experience (1101 ' mine but the writer’s) to learn of revolt'd-; j atrocities committed by Rriti-h officers , and to learn pf them from the mouths o:

the perpetrators themselves, in frank, brutal, and often boastful language.” One chapter, “Dyerarchy in Amritsar,” is horrible, and it shows that a military mind is often at bottom a Prussian mind. The writer certainly makes his "horrible j duty” impress the imagination. “He did j not pretend that what General Dyer did j was necessary. . . . He had no authority j for what he did. He had no authority to make his proclamation prohibiting meetings. Martial law had not been proclaimed. Authority to re-establish civil j control had been confided to him by a j civil official who had no legal authority to delegate this duty to anyone. At midday he knew that the meeting | at Jallewallian Bagh was to be held that ! evening, but lie took no steps to prevent | it. "He waited for it to assemble and then he marched down to it with his force of rifles and machine guns.” The machine guns could not be used because they were attached to armoured cars. “The thousands of helpless, unarmed people, some of them boys and children, were at his mercy, practically penned up in an enclosure from which they could not escape except over walls, or through the entrances commanded by his soldiers. And deliberately, in cold blood, calmly directed his fire where the crowd was thickest, he fired upon them for ten minutes until his ammunition was exhausted.” He admitted that the number of killed might have been four or five hundred, and the wounded at three- times that number, though the number was probably greater. The following is taken from the sworn evidence : “It was a merciful act. It was a horrible act, and it required a lot of doing. It was his opinion it did a lot of good. "He did not think it was a disservice to the British Raj. Wliat he did was right, and they -ought to be thankful for it.” So far he might have been justified, even though martial law had not been proclaimed; but when asked what steps he had taken to attend to the wounded lie replied: “Certainly not. It was not his job. Hospitals were open and they could have gone to them.” When Mr Justice Rankin said with what we might say was undue politeness : “Excuse me putting it in this way, General, but was it not a form of frightfulness?” the answer came that he had a horrible duty to perform, that it was a merciful thing, that he thought he should shoot well and strong, that neither he nor anyone else should have to shoot again: and when he was asked could he not have dispersed the crowd without firing, his answer was : “I think it quite possible, hut they would have come back again and laughed, and I should have made what I consider to be a fool of myself.” But what has been called the Amritsar massacre did not end with this incident. On the very day that this “battue” took place (look up >tbe meaning of the word “battue”) "a Curfew Order came out ordering that all persons must be indoors after 8 p.m., and would go abroad in the streets at the risk of being shot. Ts it surprising that the wounded lay in their agony, that the dead lay putrefying in the hot atmosphere of an Amritsar April night, that the vultures and jackals came to tear the flesh from the bodies of the innocent victims of this dreadful holocaust, while the anxious relatives of innocent victims remained terrified in their houses.” This Curfew Order remained in force for a week. General Dyer—not to he confused with the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Michael O’Dwyer—to add to the inconvenience also cut off the water and electric supply, and the writer adds : “added totlie moral and material suffering of a loyal and historic city.” We have heard of the “crawling order” by which all passing along the street in which Miss Sherwood was assaulted “had to crawl with belly to the ground.” All had to do this, though “some were respectable and respected citizens of the British Empire,” and in this street were kindhearted Indians who had come from their houses and had tended her with loving hands. They were told that they could have gone over the roofs ! The public flogging of some men who were alleged to have had something to do with the assault un Miss Sherwood was as humiliating as the “crawling order.” They were publicly flogged and tried afterwards ! The writer says that the flogging, according to General Dyer was because of some breach of discipline, but lie says this is "a contemptible subterfuge.” There were other Prussian restrictions which I shall not go into. The times were difficult, and have been made ten times more critical since. Only in very exceptional circumstances can martial law boallowed, and the subsequent actions of General Dyer to not assist us to justify his actions, for they were not within reason and were the actions ol a despot. | They did nothing to bring respect for tlie law into the minds of the people beyond the fear of terrorism. The administration of martial law in Lahore was in the hands of Lieutenantcolonel Frank Johnston, D. 5.0., who had the administration of martial law in Bechuanaland. Ilis leanings seemed to be to rounding up the student classes of Lahore. Crowds in some areas were bombed and machine-gunned, though it seems to , have been more to excite fear and terror of the British Rnj. One bomb killed seven and wounded many : and another said : “The firing was not intended to do damage - alone. it was in the interest of the villagers themselves. By killing a few he thought he would prevent the people from collecting again.” The hook contains two phot: graphs of men being- flogged apparently in public—- | one is of a native being tied to a ladder at the Kasur railway station, and the i other shows a sen.>y doing, the flogging with a British sentry with a fixed bag met ) standing near. Another picture shows a cage, an enclosed piece of ground for rer tabling suspects, and showing, perhaps. 200 in it ; and a fourth shows a large galf lows erect, d at Kasur and taken down

under orders of the Commissioner of Lahore. The pictures alone show that wholesale law administration in India differs from ours, and I hope our boys will have a different value -of life from what our military rulers have in India. In connection with the Amritsar courts, there were 298 tried by the (Martial Law Commissioners, "who tried cases unfettered by the ordinary recognised rules of procedure of laws of evidence.” Of these, 218 were convicted, 51 were sentenced to death, 46 to transportation for life, two to sentences for 10 years, 79 for seven years, 10 for five years, 13 for three years, and j 11 for lesser periods. This does not take j into account 50 convicted by miltiary i officers and 105 convicted under martial j law by civil magistrates.