Item 22 - Printed copy of a telegram from Lord Reading to Edwin Montagu

Refers to his official telegram of the 16th for the resolutions of the Bombay conference, which he does not think worthy of consideration, as they are merely the views of Gandhi. Lloyd reports that the conference was a fiasco, and that only about twenty would sign the resolutions. Malaviya has arrived, but Reading has postponed seeing him till after this evening’s debate on the matter in the Legislative Assembly. Vincent and Sapru are the chief speakers for the Government, whose view is that the terms put forward are impossible. Sir C. S. Nair, who presided over the first two days of the conference, is convinced that Gandhi only wanted a conference in order to obtain his own ‘irreducible terms’. Gandhi’s irreconcilable attitude is, Reading thinks, a tactical mistake, as it has estranged men who were momentarily inclined to join him. Moreover, the Bombay conference has for the present destroyed all notions of a round-table conference, which was the preferred course of the moderates. He continues in his view that no conference can be considered without assurances that non-co-operationists will cease unlawful activities, and that Gandhi will give no such assurance.

(Cuttings from a larger document, pasted to a sheet of paper.)