Sir Malcolm Hailey’s duty

THE Times has been somewhat late in congratulating Sir Malcolm Hailey as well as the Sikh community on the passing of the Gurdwara Bill, but the congratulations, as we have said ourselves, are well deserved. It is true that the Bill, which the Times describes as “an excellent solution conceived in the best spirit of sympathetic statesmanship,” has not yet completely solved the Sikh problem. For that, one other thing is clearly essential, the actual release of the gurdwara prisoners. Sir Hailey is too shrewd and experienced an administrator not to know that with the large majority of those who were imprisoned in connection with the Gurdwara movement, including most of the leaders, still in custody, it can be no easy thing either to restore that mutual understanding between the Sikhs and the government or to create that calm atmosphere in which alone the Bill can be worked with success. Nor would it do to say that the Punjab Government has done everything in its power by announcing the conditions on which it is prepared to release the prisoners, and if the latter do not accept its offer that is entirely their lookout. Everything is not done while anything remains to be done and particularly when so essential and so substantial a part of the thing remains undone. But we anticipate no serious difficulty in this matter, though the delay that has taken place already is in itself regrettable. After all, the condition laid down by His Excellency has been already substantially fulfilled. What he and his government really wanted was an assurance that the prisoners would not, on their release, place any obstacle in the path of the Gurdwara Act.