“I’ll buy him off! I’ll buy him off!” exclaimed one woman to us, with streaming eyes, at the close of one of our meetings. “My boy enlisted to go to India without my consent and then repented, and I thought it would teach him a lesson to compel him to abide by his word. He has already got as far as Gibraltar, I think; but I’ll send the money and buy him off. I cannot consent to let him go out under officers who will teach him that vice is necessary.” Another mother expressed great indignation at our statements regarding the temptations put in the way of young soldiers by their superiors, and declared she would write to her boy and obtain his contradiction of them. The reply came back, and the almost broken-hearted mother caused it to be conveyed to us, together with an exhortation that we should “cry aloud and spare not.” It was to the following effect:
“Yes, mother, all those ladies say is true, and much more that they do not know, and you would hardly believe. I have been so harassed and persecuted that sometimes I have gone to the chakla, pretending to sin, but God knows I have not; it was the only way to escape their merciless persecution.”
We have been informed many times that there were military officers who sneered at virtuous soldiers as lacking proper fighting qualities, and who deliberately fostered in their soldiers animal propensities, for the sake of the ferocity of disposition that attends licentiousness.
The names of the special Commissioners were: Mr. Denzil Ibbetson and Surgeon-Colonel J. Cleghorn, M.D., Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals throughout the Punjab. In addition to these witnesses from India and ourselves, Lord Roberts, Quartermaster-General Chapman, and Mr. Hyslop Bell, of Darlington, were called before the Departmental Committee to give evidence.
The statements of Lord Roberts and of General Chapman, who were called before the Departmental Committee in August, proved to be matters of intense interest, especially as regarded their disagreement as to Lord Roberts’ knowledge of the Infamous Memorandum. Lord Roberts testified that, when the Resolution of 1888 was carried in the House of Commons not permitting the compulsory examination of women or the licensing of prostitution, he understood those measures to mean abolition, not modification, of measures for the regulation of prostitution, and proceeded accordingly. The Resolution meant the abolishing of the periodical examination, of licensing, of compulsion, of regulation, etc. He declared that he knew nothing of the Infamous Memorandum which had been issued in his name, and that he “entirely disapproved” of some of the contents of that circular, saying, “I certainly would not have approved of that part of the Circular which referred to providing them with pretty young women.” Lord Roberts was confronted with a mass of evidence which he little expected. After his own sweeping contradictions of our statements, he was shown the report from the Cantonment of Meean Meer which the Special Commission had brought from India, and in which nearly every statement we had made was “admitted.” Other prima facie evidence of the truth of our statements convinced him that our testimony was not to be broken down. As he left the Committee it was with the conviction that General Chapman was next to be called, and would give most disagreeable evidence against him as regarded the Infamous Memorandum and its authorship. Lord Roberts proceeded immediately to Scotland, and from thence wrote the following letter of apology:—
Dunbar, Scotland, 11 August, 1893.
Having read the reports of Mr. Ibbetson’s Committee, in regard to the working of the Rules dealing with the abolition of Lock Hospitals, etc., in Cantonments in India, and also the reports of the officers commanding the seven stations which the Committee did not visit, I frankly admit that the statements of the two American missionary ladies, who made a tour through Upper India in the cold weather of 1891–92, for the purpose of inquiring into the matter, are in the main correct.
I hoped and believed that the orders issued to give effect to the Resolution of the House of Commons had been everywhere obeyed. In some stations the Rules have been strictly enforced, but in others it now turns out this has not been completely the case.
I deeply regret this, and I feel that an apology is due from me to the ladies concerned. This apology I offer unreservedly.
In doing so, I would remark that I think it would have been better if the missionary ladies had been commended to the care of the authorities in India. We could have assisted them to carry out the work on which they were engaged; omissions and shortcomings would have been remedied at the time; a great deal of unpleasantness would have been avoided; the ladies themselves would have found their task considerably lightened; and there would have been less chance of their drawing wrong deductions from some of the circumstances which came under their notice, as in sundry instances they would seem from Mr. Ibbetson’s Committee Report to have done. This was owing, no doubt, to a want of knowledge of the language, and of the habits and customs of the people of India.
Roberts.
This letter was accompanied by a short note to the Chairman requesting him to annex the letter of apology to the official report of the proceedings of the Committee.
A few days later General Chapman came before the Committee and testified with regard to the Circular Memorandum: “It was prepared at Simla, after the Commander-in-Chief [Lord Roberts] had completed his annual inspection, and had freely discussed with the officers in command the various measures which it was proposed to adopt.” General Chapman described the manner in which it was done as follows: The Commander-in-Chief gave the instruction that the Circular be prepared; then it was drawn up by officials in the General’s office under his supervision. The Surgeon-General was consulted; then the Circular was issued under the authority of the Commander-in-Chief. It was sent first to the Military Department of the Government of India, and then sent in every direction to all the authorities in India. He said he “could not have issued” the Circular “unless Lord Roberts had seen it; that would have been perfectly impossible.” When questioned particularly as to Lord Roberts’ knowledge of that part of the document which, as Lord Roberts expressed it, called for “pretty young women” to be provided for the soldiers, General Chapman said of these sentences: “He certainly did approve of them.” When asked how it was that the Secretary of State laid the blame on him (General Chapman), in the House of Commons, he replied: “Sir John Gorst said it was necessary to put the blame on somebody, therefore he put it on me.”
In the meantime a box had arrived from India containing the hospital records, which had been impounded by the Indian Government, on the request of the Chairman of the Committee, and they furnished a large quantity of prima facie evidence, in the very handwriting of the British officials. These books being placed in our hands, we were able to verify the statements we had given in evidence concerning these records, and were also able to place official documents before the Committee which disproved some of the statements which had been conveyed to England from India by the hand of the two Special Commissioners. As this well illustrates the utter unreliability of many Anglo-Indian official assertions, we will copy a condensed and simplified extract from the proceedings of that session of the Committee at which we placed official document against official document, and pointed out irreconcilable differences.