d in the highest degree discreditable to our
whole Government in India. It would be detestable and dangerous. But
is there to be no such thing as an Emergency power? I am not talking
about England, Scotland, or Ireland. I am talking about India. Is
there to be no such thing as an emergency power? My view is that the
powers given under the Regulation of 1818 do constitute an emergency
power, which, may be lawfully applied if an emergency presents itself.
Was there an emergency last December? The Government of India found in
December a movement that was a grave menace to the very foundations of
public peace and security. The list of crimes for twelve months
was formidable, showing the determined and daring character of the
supporters of this movement. The crimes were not all. Terrorism
prevented evidence. The ordinary process of law was no longer
adequate, and the fatal impression prevailed that the Government could
be defied with impunity. The Government of India did not need to pass
a new law. We found a law in the armoury and we applied it. Very
disagreeable, but still we should have been perfectly unworthy of
holding the position we do--I am speaking now of the Government of
India and myself--if we had not taken that weapon out of the armoury,
and used it against these evildoers.

It was vital that we should stamp out the impression that the
Government of India could be defied with impunity, not in matters of
opinion, mark you, but in matters affecting peace, order, life, and
property--that the Government in those elementary conditions of social
existence could be defied with impunity. I say, then--it was vital in
that week of December that these severe proceedings should be taken,
if there was to be any fair and reasonable chance for those reforms
which have since been laboriously hammered out, which had been for
very many months upon the anvil, and to which we looked, as we look
now, for a real pacification. It was not the first time that this
arbitrary power--for it is that, I never disguise it--was used. It was
used some years ago--I forget how many. I was talking the other day to
an officer who was greatly concerned in it in Poona, and he described
the conditions, and told me the effect was magical. I do not say the
effect of our proceedings the other day was magical. I do not say that
bombs and knives and pistols are at an end. None of the officers in
India think that we may not have some of these over again, bu