conspiracy to screen these offenders against humanity.  I would not be party to make heroes of them by joining the cry for prosecution private or public.  If I can only persuade India to insist upon their complete dismissal, I should be satisfied.  But more than the dismissal, of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and General Dyer, is necessary the peremptory dismissal, if not a trial, of Colonel O’Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram and others mentioned in the Congress Sub-Committee’s Report.  Bad as General Dyer is I consider Mr. Smith to be infinitely worse and his crimes to be far more serious than the massacre of Jallianwalla Bugh.  General Dyer sincerely believed that it was a soldierly act to terrorise people by shooting them.  But Mr. Smith was wantonly cruel, vulgar and debased.  If all the facts that have been deposed to against him are true, there is not a spark of humanity about him.  Unlike General Dyer he lacks the courage to confirm what he has done and he wriggles when challenged.  This officer remains free to inflict himself upon people who have done no wrong to him, and who is permitted to disgrace the rule he represents for the time being.

What is the Punjab doing?  Is it not the duty of the Punjabis not to rest until they have secured the dismissal of Mr. Smith and the like?  The Punjab leaders have been discharged in vain if they will not utilise the liberty they have received, in order to purge the administration of Messrs. Bosworth Smith and Company.  I am sure that if they will only begin a determined agitation they will have the whole India by their side.  I venture to suggest to them that the best way to qualify for sending General Dyer to the gallows is to perform the easier and the more urgent duty of arresting the mischief still continued by the officials against whom they have assisted in collecting overwhelming evidence.

GENERAL DYER

The Army Council has found General Dyer guilty of error of judgment and advised that he should not receive any office under the Crown.  Mr. Montagu has been unsparing in his criticism of General Dyer’s conduct.  And yet somehow or other I cannot help feeling that General Dyer is by no means the worst offender.  His brutality is unmistakable.  His abject and unsoldier-like cowardice is apparent in every line of his amazing defence before the Army Council.  He has called an unarmed crowd of men and children—­mostly holiday-makers—­’a rebel army.’  He believes himself to be the saviour of the Punjab in that he was able to shoot down like rabbits men who were penned in an inclosure.  Such a man is unworthy of being considered a soldier.  There was no bravery in his action.  He ran no risk.  He shot without the slightest opposition and without warning.  This is not an ‘error of judgement.’  It is paralysis of it in the face of fancied danger.  It is proof of criminal incapacity and heartlessness.  But the fury that has been spent upon General Dyer is, I am sure, largely