{"id":1092,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:30","slug":"11-mr-mackarness-bill-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/11-mr-mackarness-bill-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-11_Mr Mackarness’ Bill.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n\tMr.
\n\tMackarness’ Bill<\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tw<\/font>e<\/b>
\n\t<\/span>FIND<\/b> in India<\/i> to hand by
\n\tmail last week the full text of Mr. Mackarness’ speech in introducing the
\n\tBill by which he proposes to amend the Regulation of 1818 and safeguard the
\n\tliberties of the subject in India. We are by no means enamoured of the step
\n\twhich Mr. Mackarness has taken. We could have understood a proposal to
\n\tabolish the regulation entirely and disclaim the necessity or permissibility
\n\tof coercion in India. This would be a sound Liberal position to take, but it
\n\twould not have the slightest chance of success in England and would be no
\n\tmore than an emphatic form of protest not expected or intended to go
\n\tfarther. British Liberalism is and has always been self-regarding, liberal
\n\tat home, hankering after benevolent despotism and its inevitable
\n\tconsummation in dependencies. To ask Liberal England to give up the use of
\n\tcoercion in emergencies would be to ask it to contradict a deep-rooted
\n\tinstinct. We could have understood, again, a Bill which while leaving the
\n\tGovernment powers of an extraordinary nature to deport the subject, under
\n\tcareful safeguards, in unusual and well-defined circumstances and for no
\n\tmore than a fixed period, would yet leave the aggrieved subject an
\n\topportunity after his release of vindicating his character and, if it
\n\tappeared that he had been deported unwarrantably and without due inquiry or
\n\tin spite of complete innocence, of obtaining fitting compensation. Such an
\n\tact would meet both the considerations of State and the considerations of
\n\tjustice. It would leave the Government ample power in emergencies but would
\n\ttake from it the freedom to deport out of caprice, panic or unscrupulous reactionism. Deportation would then be a rare act of State necessity, not an
\n\tautocratic lettre de cachet<\/i> used to bolster up injustice or crush all
\n\topposition to the continuance of autocratic absolutism. Mr. Mackarness’ Bill
\n\tseems to us to leave the essence of deportation just where it was before.
\n\tThe changes made are purely palliative and palliative not of the unjust,
\n\tirritating and odious character of the measure<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n\tbut of the apparent monstrosity of deporting a man without even letting him
\n\tor his friends or the World know what charge lay against him or whether any
\n\tcharge lay against him. It is this which gives an ultra-Russian character to
\n\tthe Regulation and makes the Liberal conscience queasy. The proposed changes
\n\tare a salve to that conscience, not a benefit to the victim of deportation.
\n\tIt makes his position, if anything, worse. It is bad to be punished without
\n\tany charge, it is worse to be punished on a charge which you are debarred to
\n\tall time from disproving.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\tThere are three changes which the Bill contemplates. Instead
\n\tof being able to confine a man until farther orders the Viceroy has to renew
\n\this sanction every three months, a change which may have some deterrent
\n\teffect on a Viceroy with a Liberal conscience but to others will mean
\n\tmerely a quarterly expenditure of a drop of ink and a few strokes of the
\n\tpen. Another and more important change is the provision that, to qualify for
\n\tdeportation, "a British subject must be reasonably suspected of having been
\n\tguilty of treasonable practices or of a crime punishable by law, being an
\n\tact of violence or intimidation and tending to interfere with or disturb the
\n\tmaintenance of law and order". "That," thinks Mr. Mackarness, "insures in
\n\tthe first place that a man must have been guilty of some definite offence.
\n\tAt any rate it is intended to provide for that." Unfortunately the intention
\n\tis all, there is no real provision for carrying it out, except the clause
\n\tthat the warrant shall contain a definite statement of the character of the
\n\tcrime. How will this clause help the alleged intention of the Bill ? It is
\n\tonly the character of the crime that has to be defined and, if the
\n\tauthorities relying on a Mazrue Haq or a Rakhal Laha frame a charge say
\n\tagainst Srijut Surendranath Banerji of waging war or abetting or conspiring
\n\tto wage war or financing unlawful assemblies and incontinently deport him,
\n\twould the Liberal conscience be satisfied ? Or would it be possible for the
\n\tModerate leader to meet this charge, however definite in character ? It is
\n\tevident that to carry out the "intention" of the Bill it would be necessary
\n\tto name the specific act or acts which constitute the offence and the time
\n\tand circumstances of commission, for it is only a precise accusation that
\n\tcan be met. Even if the charge be precise in its terms, Mr. Mackarness’ Bill<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 54<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tprovides no redress to the deportee. All that he can do is to submit a
\n\t"representation" to the officials who have deported him. Those who know the
\n\tways of the bureaucrat can tell beforehand the inevitable answer to such
\n\trepresentations, "The Government have considered your representation and see
\n\tno cause to alter the conclusions they had arrived at upon sufficient and
\n\treliable information." So the deportation will stand, the charge will stand
\n\tand the last condition of the deportee will be worse than his first. The
\n\tonly advantage the Bill will secure is the greater opportunities for
\n\teffective heckling in the House of Commons if facts can be secured which
\n\tthrow doubt on the charge; but the Government has always the answer that its
\n\tevidence is reliable and conclusive but for reasons of State policy it is
\n\tnot advisable to disclose either its nature or its sources, and the relics
\n\tof the Liberal conscience will be satisfied. As things stand the
\n\tdeportations have made even some Imperialistic consciences uneasy and that
\n\tadvantage will be lost under the new Bill.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\tMr. Mackarness has admitted that the regulations are
\n\tabsolutely hateful and he would prefer to propose their entire abolition if
\n\tsuch a proposal had any chance of acceptance by a British House of Commons.
\n\tHis amendments will not make them less hateful, they will only make them
\n\tless calmly absurd. That is a gain to the Government, not to us or to
\n\tjustice. The only provisions that would make deportation a reasonable though
\n\tstill autocratic measure of State would be to allow the Viceroy to deport a
\n\tperson, stating the charge against him, for a period of not more than six
\n\tmonths and oblige the Government to provide the deportee on release with
\n\tfull particulars as to the nature of the information on which he was
\n\tdeported, so that he might seek redress against malicious slander by
\n\tindividuals or, if it were considered impolitic to disclose the sources of
\n\tinformation, for wanton and arbitrary imprisonment by the authorities. The
\n\tmeasure would still be oppressive but it would then give some chance to an
\n\taggrieved and innocent man, so long as a sense of justice and some tradition
\n\tof independence still linger in the higher tribunals of the land. Such a
\n\tmeasure would have been a moderate measure and would have left the essential
\n\tabsolutism of Government in India unchanged. But even to this the Bill does<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 55<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tnot rise. It is noticeable that the only Irish Nationalist whose name was on
\n\tthe Bill repudiated it as soon as he heard Mr. Mackarness’ speech, on the
\n\tground that he had been under the impression that the Bill went much farther
\n\tthan was now stated. The other names were those of British Liberals or
\n\tConservatives. This is significant of the difference between the sympathy we
\n\tmay expect even from conscientious English Liberals and the real
\n\tfellow-feeling of a Nationalist who has himself known what it is to live
\n\tunder the conditions of bureaucratic coercion. Mr. Mackarness has fought the
\n\tcause of the deportees in the spirit of genuine Liberalism, but his Bill is
\n\ta concession to that watery British substitute for it which is only
\n\tImperialism afraid of its convictions.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n


\n
\nHOME<\/span><\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Mackarness’ Bill   we FIND in India to hand by mail last week the full text of Mr. Mackarness’ speech in introducing the Bill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}