Universal condemnation

IF Reuter and other news agencies have at all done their duty in the matter of faithfully telegraphing Indian news to England, then neither Mr Lloyd George nor his countrymen have any excuse for being under a delusion as to what India thinks of his recent blustering speech. That amazing effort, in which the very rudiments of statesmanship and political sanity are conspicuous only by their absence, has stirred India out of her depths and from one end of the country to the other the cry has gone forth that the Premier has not only held out an unworthy threat to India, but has outlined a position for her which no self-respecting country can for a moment accept and which amounts to nothing less than an attempt on the part of the individual concerned to go back upon the solemn announcement of August 1917, made by the very Government of which he is the head. We have already referred to the opinions which have been quite freely expressed by some of our contemporaries, English and Indian. Public men are equally frank. As will have been seen from a telegram published in these columns yesterday, the Political Section of the 1921 Club, Madras, of which Dr Besant is the Vice-President, has condemned the speech in strong terms. In the course of a resolution, which is also endorsed by the Executive of the National Home Rule League, representing its 100 branches, the Club says:-- “The members can only interpret this speech as a repudiation of the Cabinet declaration of August 20, 1917, and the promises of His Majesty the King-Emperor conveyed by His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, that the new Legislatures were the beginning of Swaraj within the Empire. All political parties in India have been shocked by the speech. If it is to be taken as an expression of the mind of Great Britain, the effect of it on India will be disastrous.”

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