THE letter which four European gentlemen connected with St. Paul’s College and School, Calcutta, have addressed to the Press regarding the Chauri Chaura sentences prevents one from despairing of the possibility of a mutual understanding being even yet established between India and the European community. In the days when so many Europeans in all parts of the country were busy subscribing or collecting subscriptions to the Dyer fund, a small number of European gentlemen had the courage to dissociate themselves publicly from that movement and to condemn Dyer’s brutal action in severe terms. That this dissociation did some good, no one who knows the facts is likely to deny. It prevented Indians from believing that all Europeans were in sympathy with Dyer. Substantially, the same is the case now. Had the verdict of the Anglo-Indian Press remained the only public expression of European opinion regarding the monstrous sentences passed in the Chauri Chaura case, the people of India would have been forced to conclude that neither justice nor humanity could be expected from the exponents of European opinion in India regarding any matter in which political issues were involved. That conclusion is modified by the very outspoken condemnation of the sentences by the four gentlemen and their statement that “there is a considerable body of English opinion which has been disquieted by these sentences.” “These sentences are in danger of defeating the purpose which we have all at heart — the prevention of the recurrence of such outrages in the future. The publication of so long a list of death sentences nearly a year after the perpetration of the crime is only too likely to intensify the atmosphere of hatred and bitterness.”