OCCASIONAL NOTE

It would be interesting to know why Reuter’s Agency was in great haste to telegraph out to India the comments of the Radical Manchester Guardian and Daily Chronicle on the recent riots, was tardy in sending the comments of the Times and Daily Telegraph, and failed altogether to allude to the remarks of the Morning Post – although that journal’s Indian leader writer is among the best informed of the ordinary London commentators – and Lord Sydenham’s important article published in the Daily Graphic. If Lord Harris had mentioned India in the House of Lords, a portion at least of his remarks would have been telegraphed out, because he is an ex-Governor of Bombay. For some reason the comment of Lord Sydenham, although his Bombay experience is more recent than that of Lord Harris and although he is a far able man, is taboo. Unless the management of Reuter’s has changed considerably since Baron de Reuter’s death and the advent of the young Imperialist lions to the directorship of the Agency, there is no reason to suppose that it has been “got at” by the India Office. Reuter’s might take note, however, of the fact that the public in India wishes to hear not what the journalistic hacks of the Liberal organs say about India – for they always say the same thing – but what those men are saying who know India, and whose comment, whatever the India Office thinks or does not think, carries weight in London.

DEPRESSED CLASSES IN MADRAS

With a view to ascertain the actual facts with regard to the admission of children of Panchamas in public schools, local bodies and the Director of Public Instruction were requested to investigate and to report in how many of such schools, not specially intended for Panchamas such children were admitted, and, in regard to those schools in which they were not admitted, the reasons which led to their exclusion. Replies received disclose that out of 6,157 schools in the Presidency under public management, such children were admitted only into 609 schools. The Government desire to impress on local bodies the obligation which rests upon them to consider seriously and disabilities to which Panchamas are now subjected, and instructions for the guidance of the officers of the educational department with regard to the remedial measures, and request the Director of Public Instruction, presidents of district boards, and the chairmen of municipalities to submit to the Government before 15th June of each year information as to the nature of the steps taken in the previous official year and their progress.

SHAFI S APPEAL TO MR. GANDHI

LAHORE, APR 30 Hon.

Mian Muhammad Shafi, has sent an open letter to Mr. Gandhi which appears in today’s Civil and military Gazette. After praising Mr. Gandhi for his heroic fight in South Africa, Mr. Shafi says: The use of passive resistance in South Africa was one thing and its adoption as a political weapon among 310 millions of countrymen, the vast majority of whom are illiterate, easily moved by passionate appeals to courses of action the serious consequences of which they are for the moment incapable of realising is something entirely different. Mr. Shafi concludes his letter thus: High flights in the realm of idealism are beyond the power of the Indian masses. In crowds of rioters there lie dormant forces and passions such as have already been roused in Russia, mutually self-destructive and ruinous to ordered progress.

FURNITURE HIRING CASE

At the Town Police Court this morning an application was made for the issue of a non-bailable warrant against a European named William Dibbs on a charge of criminal breach of trust in respect of furniture valued at Rs 1,050. The case for the prosecution is that on February 3rd the accused went to Messrs. Hami and Co., Mount Road, and gave an order for the hire of furniture for Rs 20 per mensem. The firm sent the articles to the accused’s house in Royapuram. On February 20 the accused gave an additional order and again furniture was sent. On the 2nd instant the firm sent a bill to the accused for the hire for March and it was reported that the accused had absconded and that the furniture had been sold for Rs 650. The complainant reported the matter to the police. His Worship issued a non-bailable warrant against the accused, making it returnable on the 13th May.

BIG BUSTI FIRE

During Wednesday’s storm the Central Fire Brigade received a call to a big busti fire near the second Belgatchia Bridge. Station Officer Jarrett with one motor from headquarters, and Station Officer Morgan, with a motor and a steamer from Chitpore, proceeded to the scene of the outbreak. A gale was blowing at the time and the fire spread rapidly as most of the huts and golputa roofs. Practically all the huts, numbering about 30 were burnt to the ground. The Brigade succeeded in preventing the fire spreading to a neighbouring busti. The damage is reported to amount to about Rs 3,000.