LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LORD OLIVIER AND BENGAL: A CORRECTION [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—One of the most interesting parts of the experience of Ministerial office to a man of official training, accustomed to use language of precision, is to discover the extraordinary perversity of Press representations of his Parliamentary utterances. These ought not to occur in a weekly Review which has access to the Official Reports, and the Spectator 1; the last place in the world where I should expect to find tendencious misstatement. May I, therefore, call your attention to a curiosity of journalism of this character which appears in your note of the 4th inst., on the debate on the Bengal Ordinance ?
You quote me as saying that so far as I knew "there was no
justification for the arrest of two members of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta Corporation." Further, that Lord Birkenhead "could not agree that the three prominent persons whom Lord Olivier had mentioned were doubtful cases ; politician ' and revolutionary' were not contradictory terms."
What I said was :—
"Severe att-ks have been made on this Ordinance in India en the pretext that it was used for the purpose of repressing political
agitation ; and therefore the late Goverrunent was the more desirous that any excuse whatever for saying that this was aimed at any hind of political agitation should be without foundation . . . I find that _among those who were arrested under the provisions of Regulation III. are three gentlemen who are very conspicuous politicians . . . The allegation against the Govertunent of India is that these men have been arrested on political grounds under Reg,alation III. and were not liable to be arrested under the provisions of the Ordinance. The names of one or more of these gentlemen were mentioned to me in. correspondence . . . and the operations in which it nvzs represented that they WM engaged were definitely of a character which I should have said fell absolutely within the four corners of the schcclaks of this Ordinance, and there should have been no need whatever, if these representations were correct, to go outside the provisions of the Ordinance and to arrest them under Regulation III. Lord Birkenhead : Did the noble Lord mean that politicians could not commit any crime ?
Lord Olivier : Not at all. I thought I made it clear that it was unfortunate if these men could not he arrested under the Ordinance because political capital was made in India out of the fact that they were politicians and had not been arrested under the Ordinance but under the It..gulation."
You will observe that so far from saying that so far as I knew
there was no justification for the arrest of' these gentlemen,
stated that I had information. that there was justification. There was no disagreement between Lord Birkenhead and myself on this point, and the words " politician" and " revolutionary" were not those which were contrasted.—I am, Sir, &e., OLIVIER.
Old Hall, Ramsden.
enclose marked copy of the official Report.
[We greatly regret that we should have unintentionally misrepresented what Lord Olivier said. Our rote was a summarized version of a fairly full newspaper report of the debate.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
