THE SEDITIOUS MEETINGS ACT.

[At a meeting of the Supreme Legislative Council held in November 1907, the Hon'ble Sir Harvey Adamson moved that the Report of the Select Committee on the Bill to make better provision for the prevention of meetings. likely to promote sedition or to cause a disturbance of public tranquillity be taken into consideration. The Hon'ble Mr. Gokhale said:—] ·

For many years now it has been a well established practice of this Council that no important legislation-especially of a controversial character-should be enacted at Simla, but it should be reserved for the session at Calcutta, where alone the assistance of all Additional Members is available. This practice has behind it the authority of a clear instruction from the Secretary of State. Thirty-two years ago, on the Government of Lord Northbrook passing an important measure at Simla, Lord Salisbury, then Secretary of State for India, deemed it necessary to address a remonstrance to the Governor-General in Council in the following words :

In providing that laws for India should be passed at a Council consisting not only of the Ordinary Members of the Executive Government, but of Additional Members specially added for the purpose (of whom some have always been unofficial), it was the clear intention of Parliament that in the task of legislation the Government should, in addition to the sources of information usually open to it, be enlightened by the advice and knowledge of persons possessing other than official experience.

Of these you were unfortunately deprived in discussing the subject in respect to which the assistance of nonofficial Councillors is of special value. My Lord, it is a matter for deep regret that the Government of India should have thought it proper to depart from this wise and salutary practice in the present instance. But the absence of most Additional Members from to-day's meeting is not my only ground of complaint against the course adopted by Government. I think it is no exaggeration to say that

this Bill has been received throughout the country with feelings of consternation and dismay, and yet it is being rushed through this Council in such hot haste, that practically no time has been allowed to the public to state its objections to the measure. The Hon'ble Sir Harvey Adamson, in introducing the Bill last Friday, observed :—

From the date of its publication in the Gazette to the date on which it will be finally considered, an interval of twenty days has been allowed. I am confident that the time is sufficient for a full consideration of the merits of the Bill.

I suppose the Hon'ble Member was indulging in a bit of cynical humour when he said this. Else, my Lord, it is not possible to understand his statement. I presume the object of publication is to give the public affected by the proposed legislation an opportunity to say what it thinks of the measure. This it can only do after it has had time to examine the provisions of the Bill, and such examination must, in fairness to Government, be made in the light of the reasons adduced by the Member in charge in introducing it. Now, my Lord, this Bill was published at Simla on 11th October, and its provisions, as telegraphed from here, appeared in the columns of the daily press of the country on the morning of the 12th. There are only seven or eight towns in the whole of India which have a daily press of their own. Of the others, the more important ones, which are served by these same dailies, have to wait for a day or two, and, in some cases, for even three or four or five days, before they get their daily budget of news. The smaller towns have, as a rule, to content themselves with weekly newspapers only. The Hon'ble Member must therefore allow at least a week's time for anything telegraphed from here to spread all over so vast a country as India. Then, my Lord,the Bill was introduced in this Council only on 18th October, and a telegraphic report of the Hon'ble Member's speech in introducing it appeared in the dailies only on the morning of the 19th. Allowing another week as the very least time required for the speech to penetrate into the interior of the country, it brings us down to 26th October as the earliest date by which the whole case of the Government may be assumed

to have been before the people. After this, some time would be required for deliberation, for the formulation of objections and for these objections to reach the Government; and even if a month had been allowed for this purpose, it would hardly have sufficed. Meanwhile, what happens here? The Select Committee, to whom the Bill was referred for consideration, meets on 22nd October, concludes its deliberations on 23rd, and makes its report on 24th! Now, every one knows that once the Select Committee has made its report, the door is closed on all further modifications, and therefore for any expression of public opinion to be of the slightest value in influencing the character or details of a Bill, it must reach the Government before the Select Committee finishes its labours. It is for this reason that the Rules of this Council lay down that ordinarily a Select Committee shall not make its report sooner than three months from the first publication of a Bill in the Gazette of India. In the present case the Select Committee had not the advantage of a single expression of public opinion to assist it; and even those few telegraphic protests, which had been received by the Government and of which some of us had received copies independently, were not laid before the Committee. My Lord, in the face of these facts, to speak of having allowed sufficient time to the public for a full consideration of the Bill is to mock public opinion. Better for that the Hon'ble Member had said: "The Legislature exists in India only to register the decrees of the Executive. The passage of a Bill through the Council is a mere formality, and on occasions like the present an inconvenient formality. We are facing the inconvenience in this case simply because we must face it. But the people may as well spare themselves the trouble of making any representations to us. For we have made up our mind and nothing they can possibly say will affect our determination to make this addition to the Statute-book. Moreover, it is not for them to reason why or to make reply. Their only business is to obey." That the Hon'ble Member is not wholly unconscious of the fact that he has given practically no time to the public for what he calls "a full consideration of the merits of the Bill" may be seen from his providing himself with a

second line of defence. He says that though the Bill has been before the public for a few days only the Ordinance which was promulgated in May last for the Provinces of East Bengal and the Punjab has been before the country for the last five months! He might as well have said that we had the History of Ireland before us all these years, or that we could not be altogether ignorant of what was taking place before our eyes in Russia!

My Lord, I can imagine circumstances of such extreme urgency and such extreme gravity as to necessitate the passing of a law of this kind and passing it even in the manner the Government have adopted. Had there been an active and widespread movement of resistance to authority afoot in the country, if breaches of public peace had been frequent, if incitements to violence had been the order of the day, I can understand the Executive wanting to arm themselves with these vast powers of coercion. But, my Lord, can any one truthfully say that such a state of things has arisen in the country? On the contrary, I assert, without fear of contradiction, that there is nothing in the circumstances of the land which constitutes even a distant approach to such a situation. It is true that there is widespread discontent throughout the country and very acute discontent in one or two Provinces, and to this discontent is now being added a fresh feeling of resentmentdaily growing deeper and stronger-on account of the policy of repression on which the Government have embarked. But of active disaffection there is really very little anywhere, and whatever there is, is due to causes which lie almost on the surface, and should, therefore, be not difficult to understand. The Statement of Objects and Reasons, appended to the Bill, says :

The occurrences of the last six months have convinced the Government of India that it is necessary, for the preservation of the public peace and for the protection of the law-abiding members of the community, to incorporate in the general law of an effective measure for the prevention of the seditious meetings and to take power to bring its provisions into operation in any part of India as Occasion may require.

And the Hon'ble Member, in introducing the Bill, observed:

We had hoped that the need for an enactment of this kind would cease before the Ordinance expired, but in this hope we have been disappointed. It has become painfully apparent that persistent attempts continue to be made to promote sedition and to cause such ill-feeling as is calculated to disturb the public tranquillity, and that these attempts are not confined to the two Provinces which came under the scope of the Ordinance.

My Lord, these are serious but vague statements, and I am astonished that the Hon'ble Member has not seen the necessity of supporting them by the testimony of facts. He mentions no cases, no statistics; one general assertion that persistent attempts continue to be made to promote sedition, and he thinks he has established the need for enacting drastic law of this kind for the whole country! With due deference, I submit this is not a fair proceeding, and the vast bulk of the people throughout India, who are perfectly law-abiding, have just cause to resent it. Let us examine the Hon'ble Member's contention a little closely. He says, first, that he had hoped that after the expiry of the Ordinance of May last, it would be unnecessary to renew its policy in the two Provinces in which it was in force, but that in this hope he has been disappointed; and, secondly, that unless that policy is extended to all the other Provinces of India, public tranquillity in those Provinces also would be in danger of being disturbed. Now, what are the facts? Let us take the Punjab first. In the whole of this Province there has been, as far as I am aware, only one public meeting since the promulgation of the Ordinance. It was held in Delhi, before Delhi was proclaimed; it was attended by both Hindus and Mahomedans, and its object was to express regret at Lala Lajpat Rai's deportation. There has been no disturbance of public tranquillity anywhere in the Province during the time. The Hon'ble Member will very probably say "But this is all due to the Ordinance"! Assuming for a moment, for the sake of argument, that it is so, the fact remains that the Hon'ble Member has no reason to complain of any diappointment in the Punjab. Turning next to East Bengal, we find that there too, after the Hindu-Mahomedan disturbances, which led to the promulgation of the Ordinance, were over, there has been no public disturb

ance.

There have also been no public meetings held in