3 MAY 1930, Page 2

The Situation in India The disturbances at Peshawar were much

the most serious that have occurred in India. The police would have been helpless :unless troops had come to their rescue.. The Times .correspondent says that the troops behaved with exemplary restraint. Some of the Indian papers assert that as _many as one hundred persons were killed by machine gun fire, but there is no con- firmation of such figures, and the coupling of them with such statements as that "rebels were blown from British guns "—a phrase which dates back to 1857—deprives them of credibility. One grave incident at Peshawar was the disaffection of two platoons of an Indian battalion. The battalion has been withdrawn and an inquiry is proceeding. For some time business was at a standstill in Peshawar ; no outsiders were allowed to enter the city ; and the European women and children were removed. Elsewhere women have been warned that they may have to be removed. All the towns near the restless tribesmen of the frontier are, of course, subject to sudden emergencies. *. *