Bengal Ordinance Bill

ONCE again have the Swarajists and the Independents combined to inflict a crushing defeat upon the Government in the Legislative Assembly. The matter was one of vital importance, in which not only the best and highest interests of the country, but the self-respect of the Legislature itself were at stake. The Government of India, after having treating that body in the shabbiest manner in which it was possible for them to treat it in connection with the Bengal Ordinance, had now come before it with a legislative proposal designed to carry out their decrees. This in itself was a sufficient ground for a Legislature that knew its business and was not entirely lacking in self-respect to throw out the proposal without a moment’s serious thought. The position, however, was complicated by circumstances which made this summary rejection a virtual impossibility. The proposal contained one provision which, as far as it went, was a veritable oasis in a desert of otherwise unredeemed repression and reaction. Whether in a fit of rare generosity or as a sop to Cerberus, the Government had included in its Bill a provision for an appeal to the High Court by those tried and convicted under the ordinance or the Ordinance Act. Now this was a matter in which the Legislature, like the public, had always been keen, and we have a shrewd suspicion that the framers of the Bill, in including this provision, had laid the flattering unction to their soul that at last they were confronting the Opposition with a real dilemma. It could not reject a measure containing such a provision outright, for in that case both those immediately affected and the public generally would curse it instead of blessing it.

Advertisement