Item 1b - Telegram from Edwin Montagu to Lord Chelmsford

The Hunter Committee will report shortly, and he is anxious to have some indication of how Chelmsford intends to approach discussion of the matter. The disclosures have caused a serious situation, as Meston can report, and inadequate action will be impossible to sustain. He will not commit himself on any specific incident, as he does not know what the report will contain or whether there will be more than one. Public opinion in England feels that Dyer used more force than regulations permit, and is shocked by stories of racial orders and indiscriminate punishments, the Morning Post being about the only newspaper to defend what took place. It will be possible to point out the dan-gers of ‘head-hunting’ for errors of judgement or policy, but the report must persuade the pub-lic that they have neither something to regret nor something to prevent from happening again.