OCCASIONAL NOTE

It is significant that the very last points on which the Germans were prepared to give way in connection with the peace negotiations were, the admission of responsibility for the war, and the surrender of the worst criminals to justice. The two things hang together, of course, and it is plain that the reluctance to accept responsibility was largely prompted by a desire to shield the chief culprits from punishment, especially the ex-Kaiser. This attitude is quite in keeping with the remark made after the armistice to the contributor whose article appeared in yesterday’s issue of The Statesman – “You (the Allies) have won the war, but we are still Prussians and our King will return.” Our contributor is of opinion that this remark, made to him by a Prussian officer who had been stripped alike of his rank and the emblems of it, is typical of Prussian feeling. To such a state of mind the thought of the ex-War Lord being put on his trial for his crimes is intolerable; hence the strenuousness with which the Huns have fought against accepting the treaty as a whole. With their usual maladroitness they have allowed their main object to appear – an object calculated to make the Allies still more inflexible, if that were possible, in requiring the Huns to sign sans phrase.

RIOT IN HARDOI JAIL

A disturbance took place on the morning of the 19th in the Hardoi District Jail, says the Lucknow correspondent of the Pioneer. It appears that on the evening of the 18th some under-trial prisoners were smoking together. The warders forbade them to smoke but they showed defiance and a quarrel ensued. The under-trial prisoners, it seems, resorted to Satyagraha and resolved not to take food or do any work until their grievances were redressed. On the morning of the 19th when Dr. B.C. Sanyal went to the prison the matter was brought to his notice. He ordered the two ringleaders to be separated from the rest. As the warders proceeded to take the two away the ringleaders appealed to their companions who picked up bricks and stones and assaulted Dr. Sanyal who after leaving the spot provided ordinary prisoners with lathis to put down the revolt. An enquiry is going on into the matter. Several persons were injured and some prison structures were damaged.

THE E.I. RAILWAY DISASTER

SIMLA, JUNE 26

It is with regret that the following further particulars of the accident on the East Indian Railway on June the 19th, when No. 7 Up Passenger and 126 Down Goods collided between Ferozabad and Makhanpur stations, are published for general information. The known casualties up to date are fifteen passengers and five railway servants killed (including the drivers of both engines) and fifty-two passengers and two railway servants injured. It is to be feared that other deaths have occurred, but the number of these has not yet been verified. A full enquiry into the cause of the accident is being held by the Senior Government Inspector of Railways, No. 1 Circle, and attended by the District Magistrate Agra, and the result will be published in due course.

HINDUS IN MURDER PLOT

A sensational trial has begun before the Federal Tribunal at Zurich. The accused, all of whom are German agents, number twenty-eight, including two Germans and two Hindus. The remainder are Italian and Swiss anarchists and include two women. They are charged with conspiring to cause a revolution in Switzerland and Italy, to murder Signor Salandra and Baron Sonnino, and to blow up stations and banks in Milan and Rome and the principal tunnels including the Simplon. One side of the court was filled with tables covered with bombs, hand grenades, revolvers, Brownings, poison, and bacteria tubes of great force. The bombs and grenades bear German military factory marks.

LAJPAT RAI

The Government of India would be well advised to keep an eye on the American newspapers, some of which are giving much prominence just now to the India Home Rule League of America. This body publishes in New York a weekly newspaper called Young India which is doing grave harm both to India and to England and is full of the wildest sedition. Frankly and unblushingly pro-German, it attacks the Government of India tooth and nail and systematically misrepresents everything that is done by the British Raj. Lajpat Rai also manages to get his seditious speeches reported in the New York press, and has contrived to stir up a good deal of ill-feeling against England in regard to its relations with India.