opinions of men
like Lionel Curtis[203] and Sir Valentine Chirol, who stated: "It is of
the utmost importance that there should be no unnecessary delay. We have
had object-lessons enough as to the danger of procrastination, and in
India as elsewhere time is on the side of the troublemakers.... We
cannot hope to reconcile Indian Extremism. What we can hope to do is to
free from its insidious influence all that is best in Indian public life
by opening up a larger field of useful activity."[204]

As a matter of fact, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was accepted as the
basis of discussion by the British Parliament, and at the close of the
year 1919 its recommendations were formally embodied in law.
Unfortunately, during the eighteen months which elapsed between the
publication of the report and its legal enactment, the situation in
India had darkened. Militant unrest had again raised its head, and India
was more disturbed than it had been since 1909.

For this there were several reasons. In the first place, all those
nationalist elements who were dissatisfied with the report began
coquetting with the revolutionary irreconcilables and encouraging them
to fresh terrorism, perhaps in the hope of stampeding the British
Parliament into wider concessions than the report had contemplated. But
there were other causes of a more general nature. The year 1918 was a
black one for India. The world-wide influenza epidemic hit India
particularly hard, millions of persons being carried off by the grim
plague. Furthermore, India was cursed with drought, the crops failed,
and the spectre of famine stalked through the land. The year 1919 saw an
even worse drought, involving an almost record famine. By the late
summer it was estimated that millions of persons had died of hunger,
with millions more on the verge of starvation. And on top of all came an
Afghan war, throwing the north-west border into tumult and further
unsettling the already restless Mohammedan element.

The upshot was a wave of unrest revealing itself in an epidemic of
riots, terrorism, and seditious activity which gave the British
authorities serious concern. So critical appeared the situation that a
special commission was appointed to investigate conditions, and the
report handed in by its chairman, Justice Rowlatt, painted a depressing
picture of the strength of revolutionary unrest. The report stated that
not only had a considerable number of young men of the educated upper