THE RIOTS IN INDIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8440, 11 May 1907, Page 5

THE RIOTS IN INDIA.

Received May 10, 7.36 a.m. LONDON, May 9. Mr John Mor'.ey, Secretary for India, in reply to Mr Balfour. Leader of the Opposition, said the Government of India, in response to an application of bir D. C. J. Ibbetson, Governor of ihe Punjab, had issued a warrant for ihe arrest and deportation to another province of two very prominent agitators. Romesh thunder Dutt, lecturer on Indian history at the University College of London, in a letter to a Bombay newspaper, attributes the unrest to a belief being prevalent among the ignorant classes that the Government is ready to support the Mohammedans against the Hindus. He urges the Government to take most vigorous action, as he considers the situation is graver than it has been for many years. The Daily Telegraph's correspondent at Allahabad says that the aim of the Hindu agitators is to create a panic in England with a view to extorting cttlicessions in the matter of government. Received May 10, 7.28 a.m. MELBOURNE, May 10. ' Sir David Masson, a member of the Punjab 'Legislative Council, has arrived on a visit. Interviewed regarding the disturbances at RawaiPindi and Lahore, he said that for years past the Government had been in the habit of rewarding the best educated Indians with office of some sort. This had caused every educated Indian to become an office-seeker, always pestering people of influence to use it on their behalf. Those who fail to get office start agitations.

"Another cause of the disturbances," said Sir David Masson, "is the methods of self-advertisement adopted by the pleaders. The average Indian is never happier than when he is deep in a lawsuit, and pleaders are always seeking to advertise themselves, and if they can find a grievance of some sort they hurry out and harangue the mob. "The particular grievance seized on by the pleaders in the Punjab is one arising out of the Bill we passed last session. We have an enormous number of irrigation canals there, and the Canal Colony Bill rearranged the allotment of land on these canals. The thing had *,o be done. It caused some discontent, and the pleaders, seeing an excellent opportunity to boom themselves, have taken this as their text, and have endeavoured to inflame the people." Received May 10, 11.35 p.m. CALCUTTA, May 10. Raj Patria, a prominent ringleader at the Lahore disturbances, has been deported. The second ringleader is in hiding. The garrison has been strongly reinforced owing to the increased unrest, and large .numbers of stalwart rustics have been brought to Lahore by the agitators. All meetings are prohibited.