THE STATEMENT

ON another page will be found an important Statement which has just been issued by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Pandit Moti Lal Nehru, embodying a connected narrative of the events leading to the decision of the Congress Sub-Committee to withdraw its co-operation from Lord Hunter’s Committee. The Statement not only presents, in a cool and dispassionate manner and within a brief compass, a complete view of a most regrettable situation, but sets forth the grounds of the action taken by the Sub-Committee with equal clearness and force. “We need hardly says,” write the distinguished signatories, “that at every step in our inquiry we felt the need of the assistance of the leaders of the people who had occupied a prominent position in the public life of their respective towns and some of whom had taken a prominent part in the events which followed the disturbances.” This was in June, July and August. In September the appointment of Lord Hunter’s Committee of Enquiry was announced, and the Sub-Committee, of which the Pandits were the most prominent and active leaders, redoubled their efforts to collect evidence for the purposes of the enquiry. As they proceeded, they “realised more than ever that the presence of the principal Punjab leaders was necessary to guide and help us in collecting some of the most valuable evidence, to hearten those who were still keeping back from fear, and to show to the people generally that the Government wanted the inquiry to be carried on fairly and that they wanted the whole truth to be told to Lord Hunter’s Committee.” It was their realisation that led Pandit Malaviya, in a speech in the Imperial Legislative Council, delivered as far back as the 12th September, to urge the release of the Punjab leaders on such security, personal or pecuniary, as might seem adequate to the Lieutenant-Governor.