Item 3 - Telegram from Lord Reading to Edwin Montagu

Part 2. Ronaldshay felt that, owing to the position he had taken in the Legislative Council, he ought to respond to the Bengal non-co-operationists’ change of attitude as opposed to Gandhi’s. After pleading for concessions with regard to proclamations and the release of prisoners apart from any discussion of the conference, Malaviya left. Reading communicated to Ronaldshay the substance of A3/21/2 and explained that he was no longer in a position to authorise a conference, even if the proper assurances were forthcoming, but Ronaldshay insisted that a conference was the only way out and that in Bengal Das and others were presumably prepared to make terms for a truce. While they were talking news came that the Governor of Bihar and Orissa [Sir Havilland Le Mesurier] had issued an order revoking the proclamations and releasing prisoners, apparently assuming that a conference was about to take place. The reception of the Prince at Patna was successful, despite the hartal. He and Ronaldshay are in favour of releasing prison-ers. He left Calcutta last night, and is presently on the train. He detests the large number of arrests and the heavy sentences on young men, and is not consoled by the approval of those who believe in repression as the only policy of governing India. The Cabinet Committee seem not to have appreciated the seriousness of the situation; but he supposes that their attitude is not final, as he can imagine the difficulty of having to make a prompt decision in the absence of the Prime Minister and leading members of the Cabinet. As it happens, the Cabinet’s view did not affect the situation, though if he had received it in time it would have been very awkward for him to give an absolute refusal for all time.

(Typed. Continued in A3/23/4.)