The Viceroy and India On Monday Lord Irwin was entertained
at banquet by the Punjab Government. He chose the occasion to make an enlightening review of the situation in India. He spoke more plainly than he has ever done on the responsi- bility of Congress for the disorders. The leaders of Congress, he said, had deliberately and after due warning started a movement which was nominally peaceful but which • led infallibly to widespread suffering and bloodshed. Crime had been eulogized ; ignorant youth had been encouraged to defy the law ; enormous economic damage had been done. Evidently the Congress leaders were "bankrupt of statesmanship " for a fruitful alterna- tive had been offered to them—that of taking part in a free discussion at the Round-Table Conference. In spite of all that had happened he himself had no doubt that if those who were going to represent India at the Conference "could agree on one broad Constitutional plan" they would achieve for India something as great its anything in her history. At any rate they would be truer patriots than those who had refused co-operation.
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