Item 4 - Telegram from Lord Reading to Edwin Montagu

Refers to A3/9/2. Nothing is reported as having happened as the result of the meetings at which the formula of the Ali brothers has been repeated, and he has not yet received the opinion of the Bombay Government’s legal advisers, nor the Government of India’s views on the expected effect of Gandhi’s arrest. The Government will lose no time [in taking action], but there are unavoidable delays in obtaining evidence. He infers that when Montagu sent his telegram he had not yet received his own of the 11th [A3/8/9]. His view is stiffening against the arrest of Gandhi, in the hope that his ‘bombshell’ may become a ‘squib’. Is examining the po-lice precautions in connection with the Prince of Wales’s visit. Agrees, for the most part, with Montagu’s objections to the suggested conference.

(Carbon copy.)