We have always held that an enquiry into such laws as the Press Act and the Rowlatt Act is an enquiry about the obvious. Such an enquiry does nobody any good. It makes people suspicious of the intentions of Government, while for the reactionaries, if it results in any good, it must seem more insulting than solicitous. The net outcome of such enquiries, then, is an amount of extra expenditure which at this time of financial stringency ought to have been avoided by a wise Government. If anything more is gained, it can only be a bit of disappointment. With a small committee, the constituents of which are carefully selected gentlemen, there are better chances for the bureaucracy of successful huckstering; and we are afraid the Press Act Committee’s Report leaves ample traces of higgling behind the scenes in a spirit of give and take. For the fact is that while the Committee has gone far to conciliate public opinion, it has not altogether failed to gratify the wishes of reactionary officialdom. The Press of India is henceforth to be spared the humiliation of being kept under security. Nor need the nightmare of forfeiture of the security and the confiscation of the press disturb the peace of mind of independent journalists, publishers and printers.
