Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/605

This page needs to be proofread.

have accepted my advice and myself the credit for being actuated by nothing less than a stern sense of duty. I have the honour to remain, Your Excellency 'sobdt. servant,

(Si.) M. K. GANDHI. Laburnum Road,

Gamdevi, Bombay.

22nd June 1920.

��POLITICAL FREEMASONRY.

"[The Report of the Hunter Committee together with the Govern- ment of India's Despatch was published on the 3rd May $ 1920, and the Secretary of State's reply followed on the 26th. As was expected the Indian members of the Committee submitted a separate Report. the Hon. Mr. Shafi writing a strong dissenting minute to the Govern- ment of India's despatch. Mr. Montagu in his Despatch comdemned the severity of the martial law administration and the excesses of Gen Dyer's action at Jullianwallah Bagh and laid down in unmis- takable terms the principle which ought to govern the policy of His Majesty's Government in similar cases in the future. Mr. Gandhi, disappointed at and stung by the injustice of the Government threw out the challenge that " a scandal of this magnituda cannot be tolerated by the nation, if it is to preserve its self-respect and become a free partner in the Empire." He wrote in Young India, dated the 9th June, 1920:]

Freemasonry is a secret brotherhood which has, more by its secret and iron rulesuhan by i:-; service to huna-iity, obtained a hold upon some of the best minds. Similarly there seems to be some secret code of conduct governing the official class in India before which the flower of the great British nation fall prostrate and unconsciously become instiuments of injustice which as private individuils they would be ashamed of perpetrating. In no other way is it possible for one to understand the majority report of the Hunter Committee, the despatch of the Government of

�� �