CO129-276 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1897 [6-8] — Page 141

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the spirit in which the Indian Government has dealt with these maiters, justifies our alarm.

There is no need, however, to exaggerate the gravity of the existing situation, and I think we are justified in dwell- ing with a considerable degree of satisfaction on the para- graph of Lord George Hamilton's despatch to the Govern- ment of India (April, 1897), in which be gives definite instructions to that Government that :--

1. Nothing is to be done which can be interpreted as an encouragement to vice.

24 No provision of women for immoral purposes is to be made by any authority, civil or military.

3. There is to be no registration of prostitutes, no granting of licences to practise prostitution, and no compulsory and periodical examination of women.

-L. Prostitutes are not to be allowed to reside in regimental bazuars, or accompany regiments on the line of march.

All these orders are extremely good, and if words and actions were always in exact correspondence, we ought to be completely satisfied. But unfortunately words and actions are not always in complete correspondence, espe- cially when the words are spoken by a Member of Parlia- ment in London, directly responsible to the English people, and the actions are carried out by officials in India far removed from the control of any public opinion except that of their own departments. I have already given you an example of how une high military official in India interprets the expression that no act of the Government or its officers can justly be taken as encouragement to vice."

And there is another circumstance which must make us pause before we can rest with complete satisfaction on the assurances of Lord George Hamilton's despatch. has all happened, once before. The C. D. Acts in India were unanimously condemned by resolution of the House of Commons in 1888, and the Cantonment Act was passed in

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1889. Sir James Stansfeld, then the leader on this ques- tion in the House of Commons, and Mr. Stuart took alarm at once, and pointed out that this Cantonment Act would render it possible to reintroduce many of the worst features of the C. D. Acts. Lord Cross, then Secretary of State for India, and Sir John Gorst, the Under Secretary, gave the most solemn assurances, no doubt quite honestly, that this would not be the case, and that the new Act would be worked in an entirely unobjectionable manner and in accordance with the resolution of the House of Commons. But we know as a matter of fact that the doubts of Sir James Stansfeld and Mr. Stuart were more than justified, and that the horrors to which I have already alluded in connection with the reports made by Mrs. Andrews and Dr. Bushnell, were carried on under the Cantonments Act.

I urge then that we have ground for refusing to be entirely satisfied with words in this matter: that there is real ground for alarm, and that our alarm is increased by finding that the first Act of the Government of India on receipt of Lord George Hamilton's despatch, forbidding the objectionable practices which I have just recited, was to repeal the Act of 1895, which alone makes these ob- jectionable practices illegal. This legal barrier to the re-imposition of the horrors of the system pursued up to 1893, has been repealed, and Lord George Hamilton has sanctioned the repeal, and we have now nothing between us and the evils which formerly existed, but the interpre- tation placed by the Government of India on the new rules and Lord George Hamilton's despatch.

The Act of 1895, now repealed, contains the following -- Pro- vided that no such rufe shall contain any regulation enjoining or per- mitting any compulsory or periodical examination of any women by medical officers or others for the purpose of ascertaining whether she is or is not suffering from any venereal disease, or is or is not fit for prostitution, or any regulation for the licensing or special registration of prostitution or giving legal sanction to the practice of prostitution in any cantonment."

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