Extracts from the speech delivered by His Excellency Sir Harcourt Butler
at a meeting of the United Provinces Legislative Council
_28th March 1921_
Mr. President and Members of the Legislative Council,
"The recent disorder in Rae Bareli has necessitated a further
reconsideration of the question. Whereas the former disorders in Rae
Bareli were largely agrarian in origin the recent disorders were mainly
political in origin and wholly revolutionary".
"The result of the disorders has been an unfortunate loss of life, for
which the agitators are directly responsible, and a feeling of
insecurity which if unchecked may spread with untoward results,
affecting innocent and guilty alike. Confronted with an elemental
question as to the maintenance of order, my Government came unanimously
to the conclusion that it was necessary to stop the campaign of
unconstitutional agitation and lying, _propaganda_ which has been
carried on the four south-eastern districts of Outh--Rae Bareli,
Partabgarh, Sultanpur and Fyzabad. We therefore applied to the
Government of India to extend the Seditious Meetings Act to those four
districts. This has been done".
"I believe that this action will have the support of this Council and of
responsible people generally in this province. With the non-co-operators
we can have nothing to do beyond meeting their mischievous activities.
Their movement is a revolutionary movement playing on passion and
pandering to ignorance but the mass of people are loyal and all their
interests are bound up with the maintenance of order."