THE RAWALPINDI CONFERENCE.

THE Punjab Provincial Conference is to be held at Rawalpindi on the 30th instant and the following days under the presidency of Hakim Ajmal Khan of Delhi. Judging from the enthusiastic preparations that have been made by the local people and the situation created by the Government by adopting repressive measures in the Central Punjab, the Conference promises to be a most successful one. The last Conference was held at Jullundur soon after the release of Martial Law prisoners and the restoration of something like normal life after atrocities of Martial Law, when Lala Harkishen Lal reviewed the horrors of the previous repression and evoked sympathy for the unmerited sufferings of the Punjab. This year, the conditions are not, we regret to say, much better, though Lala Harkishen Lal is in the Governor’s Cabinet and Punjab is subjected to a great deal of needless and unnecessary suffering. After the inauguration of the re-constituted Councils, the changes effected in the Central and Provincial Governments, and the loud claims made by the Government as well as one section of public men, at any rate, for the Reforms, it might have been expected that in the Punjab as well as in other provinces, there would reign, at least, a short spell of peace and contentment among the people. But no sooner had the Duke of Connaught’s back been turned towards India and his appeal “to forgive and forget” had been heard that Lord Chelmsford gave the start to his policy of repression on the pretext of suppressing the non-co-operation movement. He set to task the provincial officialdom to put down Gandhi’s movement by a resort to certain forgotten sections of the Criminal Procedure Code and put as many Gandhi’s followers in jail as possible. At the Rawalpindi Conference, we shall hear some of the effects of the policy of repression and the Government will have the satisfaction of finding out the futility of its policy.

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