Some fault was found, and I do not in the least complain, with the deportation of two native gentlemen.  I do not quarrel with the man who finds fault with that proceeding.  To take anybody and deport him without bringing any charge against him, and with no intention of bringing him to trial, is a step that, I think, the House is perfectly justified in calling me to account for.  I have done my best to account for it, and to-day, anyone who knows the Punjab, would agree that, whatever may happen at some remote period, its state is comparatively quiet and satisfactory.  I am not going to repeat my justification of that strong measure of deportation, but I should like to read to the House the words of the Viceroy in the Legislative Council in November last, when he was talking about the circumstances with which we had to deal.  He said, addressing Lord Kitchener—­

“I hope that your Excellency will on my behalf as Viceroy and as representing the King convey to His Majesty’s Indian troops my thanks for the contempt with which they have received the disgraceful overtures which I know have been made to them.  The seeds of sedition have been unscrupulously scattered throughout India, even amongst the hills of the frontier tribes.  We are grateful that they have fallen on much barren ground, but we can no longer allow their dissemination.”

Will anybody say, that in view of the possible danger pointed to in that language of the Viceroy two or three months ago, we did wrong in using the regulation which applied to the case?  No one can say what mischief might have followed, if we had taken any other course than that which we actually took.

Let me beseech my hon. friends at least to try for some sense of balanced proportion, instead of allowing their wrath at one particular incident of policy to blot out from their vision all the wide and durable operations, to which we have set firm and persistent hands.  After all, this absence of a sense of proportion is what, more than any other one thing, makes a man a wretched politician.

Now as to the reforms that are mentioned in my hon. friend’s Amendment.  It is an extraordinary Amendment.  It—­

    “submits that the present condition of affairs in India demands
    the immediate and serious attention of His Majesty’s Government.”

I could cordially vote for that, only remarking that the hon. member must think the Secretary of State, and the Viceroy, and other persons immediately concerned in the Government of India, very curious people if he supposes that the state of affairs in India does not always demand their immediate and very serious attention.  Then the Amendment says—­

    “The present proposals of the Government of India are inadequate
    to allay the existing and growing discontent.”