Item 3a - Memorandum from J. W. Hose to Sir Malcolm Seton

The despatch referred to in A2/23/2 was sent only three months ago, on the occasion of the very sentences that have again impressed Montagu, and it is therefore unsafe to refer to it as suggested. It should also be considered that the Government of India knew that martial law, unmodified, refers to a situation where, in the absence of law, the ‘arm of power’ has to exercise its discretion unfettered to restore order. In this case, however, martial law was not un-modified, since the commissions for grave cases and the summary courts had their powers of punishment laid down. The only unregulated courts were those of military officers trying breaches of purely martial law regulations for which imprisonment or whipping were not suitable punishements. These officers had some instructions, but were not apparently prohibited from using whipping, fines, or imprisonment as punishments if they thought fit. Officers who used such punishments are responsible to their military superiors. The Hunter Committee will probably make relevant recommendations. Has drafted an alternative message [A2/23/3b]. The ‘crawling order’ should probably not be considered as a pun-ishment but as a ‘traffic-regulation of an extreme kind’, since it was not applicable to any particular person; the provision of a cage at Kasur is of a similar character, and the whipping of schoolboys there was carried out at the headmaster’s request. In brief, most of the punishments were regular and authorised, and the unusual orders were designed to cover circumstances which cannot be codified. To make a code of martial law punishments would be to destroy martial law, which involves the displacement of all codes. When martial law is in force military officers must have all powers, though they are responsible for the abuse of those powers.