Reforms in Punjab

Lahore, Friday, November 7, 1924

CONSIDERABLE importance attaches to the interview which Lala Harkishen Lal gave to a representative of The Tribune regarding the points on which Sir John Maynard, in his evidence before the Reforms Enquiry Committee, had contradicted statements made by the former before the committee. On some of these points, as we said in our review of Sir Maynard’s evidence, the only man who could effectively deal with the contradiction was Lal himself and we specifically referred to the question whether Lal had resigned more than once as he himself asserted, or had resigned only once, as Sir Maynard stated before the committee. It is interesting to note that on all or most of these points, Lal was able, in the course of the interview, to give a satisfactory answer to Sir Maynard’s statements. Let us first take the matter of his resignation. Sir Maynard had stated that Lal had resigned only in connection with the Urban Rent Bill. Lal was able to quote from a letter, received by him from the Governor and marked ‘private’, which showed that he had resigned at least on one other occasion, while he quoted another specific case of resignation, familiarly known as the Jacob incident. It is possible for one, who is so minded, to express one’s surprise that while Lal resigned as many as three times in connection with such matters, he should not have resigned over one matter which was more important than any other, namely the Governor’s wrong interpretation of the words of the Statute and the Joint Committee’s report on the subject of mutual consultation by the ministers.