THE GORDON RIOTS AND THE AMRITSAR REBELLION.
[To THE EDITOR OF TER "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In the interesting comparison of your correspondent Mr. Bushnell under above heading in your issue of July 24th he makes a grave mistake as to the numbers of the rebels in the Tallianwalla Bagh. He first says "the 30,000 rebels at Amritsar murdered four white men," &c. Six lines further on he makes the number at the Jallianwalla Bagh only 4,000. In view of the fact that those who were for Montagu v. Dyer in the Lords' debate (as, for instance, the Lord Chancellor ,V England) stated that the numbers were from 15,000 to 20,000, and as General Dyer's printed statement, p. 8, mentions the same high figures, I would respectfully ask where Mr. Bushnell got his smaller figures from? Lastly, it is interesting to note that, according to Lord Sinha, "the judgment of the Hunter Committee, of the Government of India, and of His Majesty's Government was based, not on a single word of cross-examination," but on the "statement carefully prepared on August 5th (by General Dyer) long before the (Hunter) Committee sat," &c. [Morning Post, July 20th]. A little previously in the same speech Lord Sinha calls this same statement "the meagre report of General Dies himself" [Morning Post, July 20th]. This is something quite new, and I would ask where is this "meagre report" or "carefully prepared statement of August 5th (1919)," why has it not been published, and what is the object of His Majesty's Government in issuing as a White Paper General Dyer's statement of 1920, which could not affect the judgment against him, which, according to Lord Sinha, was a " chose
Previous page
