The circumstances which drove him to declare war against British rule and Western civilisation arose out of the action taken by Government on the report of the "Sedition Committee," which, under the presidency of Mr. Justice Rowlatt, a judge of the High Court of King's Bench, sent out especially to preside over it, had not only carefully explored the origins and growth of political crime during the great wave of unrest after the Partition of Bengal, but recommended that in some directions the hands of the executive and judicial authorities should be strengthened to cope with any fresh outbreaks of a similar character. The Committee pointed out that in spite of the preventive legislation of 1911 it had become apparent before the war broke out that the forces of law and order were still inadequately equipped to cope with the situation in Bengal. For the duration of the war the Defence of India Act had conferred upon Government emergency powers which had enabled the authorities summarily to intern a large number of those who were known to be closely connected with the criminal propaganda, but almost as soon as the war was over their release would follow automatically upon the expiry of the Defence Act, and a dangerous situation would arise again if Government had nothing but the old methods of procedure to fall back upon. In January 1919 the Government of India announced that legislation in conformity with the recommendations of the Sedition Committee would be required from the Imperial Legislative Council, and two draft bills were published, one of them embodying permanent alterations in the law and the other arming the Executive with emergency powers. The publication of these bills threw the country into a fresh ferment of agitation, and even an Indian judge of undeniably moderate views, Sir Narain Chandavarkar, declared that such measures were no longer required, as with the advent of constitutional reforms revolutionary agitation would, he believed, cease, and, as a warm supporter of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, he felt bound to protest against legislation so entirely at variance with the spirit in which the Report had been conceived and with the expectations which it had aroused. The Extremists read into the bills another proof of the organised hypocrisy characteristic of British rule in general and of the Report in particular, and denounced them as a monstrous engine of tyranny and oppression, against which no Indian would be safe. Government, however, was not to be moved from its determination, and in explaining the necessity for proceeding with the bills the Viceroy pointed out in his opening speech that "the reaction against all authority that had manifested itself in many parts of the civilised world was unlikely to leave India entirely untouched and the powers of evil were still abroad." The Indian non-official members, on the other hand, were solid in opposition, and even those who did not challenge the report of the