Attack upon Mr. Andrews.

AFTER Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Andrews! Having failed in their noble attempt to induce the Secretary of State to bring his authority to bear upon the Government of India with a view to obtaining the prosecution of Mahatma Gandhi, British reactionaries have now turned their attention to one of their own countrymen, one of the purest and noblest that ever came out to India. Sir Frederick Hall, for that is the name of the gentleman who interested himself in the matter, not only drew attention to what he was pleased to describe as “the seditious speeches of Mr. Andrews in India,” but actually suggested that “Mr. Andrews should be sent to England with a view to his trial on a charge of sedition.” In other words, the British Government should re-enact the Horniman scandal in a somewhat modified form. We wish very much that the suggestion could be acted upon, consistently both with the provisions of criminal law in India and with fairness and justice to Mr. Andrews himself, for we should like to see the English jury which could convict Mr. Andrews of sedition on any speech that he ever made or any article that he ever wrote for the Press. Mr. Andrews, if he is one of those who do not consider it an offence against good taste to express feeling and emotion where there is room for their expression, and never mince matters in their condemnation of injustice and unrighteousness, is at the same time one of the most careful of speakers and writers, careful in the sense that he never utters a word without weighing it. He has an instinctive horror of disorder and lawlessness, and during the last few months he has risked his popularity with people in India who love him as they love only a few among their own countrymen rather than be a consenting party, by his silence, to exhibitions of intolerance verging even remotely on violence.

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