O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Insincerity and dialogue
Pakistan is misusing Hurriyat visit
Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik’s disclosure that Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had been running camps for training terrorists is a very serious matter, notwithstanding the minister’s denial. India cannot ignore it after issuing a reminder on Gen Pervez Musharraf’s commitment to fighting terrorism.

Pay more for power
Why not set right PSEB?
Tuesday’s Punjab power tariff hike of 10.27 per cent, unavoidable as it was, spares farmers, but hits the rural domestic power consumer the most as the 10 per cent rebate given last year stands abolished. Farmers pay about 10 per cent of the cost of power supply, while households meet 60 per cent of the cost.

In the dock
Nip militancy in the bud
After several days of dilly-dallying, the Punjab Government has made it bold to arrest Mr Simranjit Singh Mann for making inflammatory speeches and raising pro-“Khalistan” slogans. Turning a blind eye to his recent activities would have amounted to condoning decidedly fissiparous activities.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

A defining moment
Indo-US cooperation will boost stability in Asia
by G. Parthasarathy
Pleading for foreign investment in oil and gas exploration, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar told bemused senior executives of American and Canadian oil companies in Houston and Calgary earlier this year: “Take my oil please. We invite you to come and get it”.

MIDDLE

“Adverse” information technology
by Ehsan Fazili
I was still in primary school, yet innocent about the outside world and the impact of mass media on our day-to-day lives. My grandmother made a simple query from my uncle while he was listening to radio news. She asked as to “what is this television all about?”

OPED

Victims of planning
by G.S. Grewal
India became independent at the midnight of August 15, 1947 and a Democratic Republic on November 26, 1949, when, the people of India gave to themselves the Constitution. Since then lots of development is seen all over the country, but its fruit is mostly being enjoyed by the upper classes of society.

Rape victim refused trip to US
by Jan McGirk
When Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped on the orders of village elders to settle a tribal score, she shocked Pakistan by taking her case to the courts. But now she has found herself persecuted once again.

From Pakistan
PIA concession to judges
Islamabad: The Defence Ministry has directed the Pakistan International Airlines to exempt judges from the rules being applied at airports regarding issuance of boarding cards.

From the pages of

July 19, 1890
No justice in Punjab

 

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Insincerity and dialogue
Pakistan is misusing Hurriyat visit

Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik’s disclosure that Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had been running camps for training terrorists is a very serious matter, notwithstanding the minister’s denial. India cannot ignore it after issuing a reminder on Gen Pervez Musharraf’s commitment to fighting terrorism. It is surprising that such a person has been given a ministerial berth. Obviously, he is not the only highly placed person who has had links with jihadi terrorists. Allowing such people to occupy key positions in the government shows that President Musharraf is not sincere about his pledge not to allow any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used for terrorism. The General has not been able to get the Jihad Council, the alliance of jihadi outfits operating from Pakistan, wound up. The terrorists’ training camps and communication network have also not been dismantled.

Pakistan’s unholy intentions have also been exposed by the way it has been using the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. Islamabad has used it and the Hurriyat leaders’ visit to encourage secessionist elements. This amounts to defeating the very purpose for which the bus service was started, i.e. to promote people-to-people contacts or to have a soft border. The emerging scenario may pose a serious threat to the on-going peace process, besides causing bitterness in Delhi.

It is plain Pakistan does not seem to be interested in helping India to end the terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir. It has rarely condemned terrorist killings. If there is a decline in militancy in the border state it is because of the border fencing, the ceasefire agreement and greater and effective vigilance by India’s security forces. Ideally, there should have been negligible cross-border infiltration by now, but that could have been possible if Pakistan had launched a crackdown on the Kashmir-centric terrorist outfits, putting all those associated with such activities behind bars. This requires sincerity of purpose, which is sadly missing on the part of the Government of Pakistan. It must be a worrying thought for all those who want the peace process to succeed.

Pay more for power
Why not set right PSEB?

Tuesday’s Punjab power tariff hike of 10.27 per cent, unavoidable as it was, spares farmers, but hits the rural domestic power consumer the most as the 10 per cent rebate given last year stands abolished. Farmers pay about 10 per cent of the cost of power supply, while households meet 60 per cent of the cost. The state government will pay to the Punjab State Electricity Board the increased cost of power to farming and, if free power is announced for this sector, ruled the regulator, the government would make good the board’s losses. The government is bleeding itself by subsidising power for farmers. Subsidised or free power should be restricted to small farmers only; big land owners don’t deserve it.

If politics and the rich farmers’ lobby do not come in the way, subsidy can be converted into investment. The government’s own profligacy, red tape and corruption also do not let any fresh investment flow into power generation. The government is forced to buy power when demand peaks in the paddy season, but makes little efforts to raise generation capacity. On the one hand, the government wants farmers to shift from paddy to other crops, on the other it diverts power from the industrial and domestic consumers to facilitate paddy cultivation. Consumers may not mind paying a bit extra, but the problem is there is no regular, quality supply available.

Upset by frequent, long power cuts, consumers will hate to pay the 10 per cent tariff increase. Moreover, they are forced to pay for the board’s inefficiency. The board’s per employee cost is among the highest in the country. Still the board sought Rs 1,700 crore more for the staff. The regulator has cleared only Rs 1,475 crore. The board has failed to cut the line losses by 1.2 per cent every year as required by the regulator. The transmission losses are alarmingly high at 24 per cent, touching up to 40 per cent in the border areas. The board has also failed to recover its huge pending dues, particularly from government departments. As the power scenario is only deteriorating, there is no alternative left to implementing the reforms, currently put on hold.

In the dock
Nip militancy in the bud

After several days of dilly-dallying, the Punjab Government has made it bold to arrest Mr Simranjit Singh Mann for making inflammatory speeches and raising pro-“Khalistan” slogans. Turning a blind eye to his recent activities would have amounted to condoning decidedly fissiparous activities. Mr Mann has been known as a maverick all along, but this time it especially appeared that he was asking for arrest, considering that he not only raised the “Khalistan” demand but also went to the extent of boasting how freely he had issued arms licences to the followers of the late Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a police officer. If this is true, it is a very serious matter. If not, even then nobody can be allowed to make a song and dance about his avowedly seditious activities. The government must nip every such attempt in the bud because ignoring such mischief in the past has allowed it to fester and go out of control.

Luckily, the people of Punjab have seen the real face of militants and there is hardly any sympathy for their cause. It is just that some politicians and also parties are out to get cheap publicity by adopting the militant vocabulary every now and then to bounce back into public eye as hardliners. Their unholy designs can be thwarted by showing that the government means business and will brook no nonsense.

Not only the government but also various parties must ensure that they do not directly or indirectly extend any help to the cause of those who plead for secession. The latter have repeatedly attempted to foment trouble even by inflaming communal passions. Religious organisations must be especially on the watchout for such nefarious activities. It is high time everyone realised that the militants were nobody’s friends, least of all of those who promote them to begin with for the sake of their narrow political ends. Punjab has witnessed such a dirty game not too long ago. Let there be no repeat.

Thought for the day

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.

— Khalil Gibran

ARTICLE

A defining moment
Indo-US cooperation will boost stability in Asia
by G. Parthasarathy

Pleading for foreign investment in oil and gas exploration, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar told bemused senior executives of American and Canadian oil companies in Houston and Calgary earlier this year: “Take my oil please. We invite you to come and get it”. Never one given to understatement, Mr Aiyar added: “I would simply go down on my knees and say, ‘Please, please come’… India desperately needs you to find more oil and gas.”

The soft-spoken economist-turned accomplished diplomat, Dr Manmohan Singh will, of course, not be “desperate” like Mr. Aiyar when he visits the White House on July 18. But his visit could constitute a defining moment for the future of US-India relations, as the two countries are discovering new areas where their interests coincide. They could well become partners for economic progress and strategic stability in Asia.

Why is the United States “rediscovering” India? Dr Condoleezza Rice remarked on May 26: “India is a rising economic power in the international system. I think it is a natural friend of the USA”. Unlike China that seeks to “contain” India and merely refers to India as “an important developing country in South Asia,” even as it provides Pakistan with nuclear weapon designs, missile capabilities and conventional weapon, the Bush Administration now sees India as an emerging power, with growing strategic importance.

Dr Rice spoke of the strategic dimensions of the Indo-US relationship saying that India’s growing power will make it an important player to its west in West Asia and to its east in East Asia. This echoes the role that the Bush National Security Doctrine of 2002 envisaged for India as a major power in the Indian Ocean Region, contributing to “strategic stability” in Asia.

Endorsing the views of Dr Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed on June 3: “India clearly is a major power. It has a democratic political system and a relatively free economic system. We have what I would characterise as excellent relations with India.”

Relations between major powers are not transformed merely by pious declarations, especially when they have been clouded for decades by mutual suspicions. The Bush Administration has shown remarkable understanding of the role of India in South Asia and has worked in close consultation with India in dealing with Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism and developments in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. But there are differences on crucial issues like India’s relations with Iran and our inhibitions in playing a more pro-active role in Iraq.

In geopolitical terms, both India and the US share a common interest in secure and stable oil and gas prices and in stability in Arab Gulf countries, where nearly four million Indians reside and from where we obtain around 70 per cent of our oil supplies. Indo-US cooperation to promote stability, peace and progress in this region is crucial and should constitute a focal point for discussions by Dr Manmohan Singh in the White House.

There are naturally apprehensions in India about the propensity of American administrations, especially when headed by Democratic Party Presidents, to resort to sanctions. The Carter Administration started this trend by unilaterally annulling the contract for the supply of nuclear fuel for the Tarapur power plant in 1978. The Clinton Administration stopped Russia from going ahead with an existing contract to supply cryogenic engines for our space programme. It also made common cause with China (as the Nixon Administration did in 1971) to “cap, roll back and eliminate” India’s nuclear programme. The sanctions imposed on spares for British supplied naval helicopters in 1998 are still remembered. Apprehensions of a renewed US-China axis still haunt sections of our establishment.

Despite the foregoing, it would be highly counterproductive if we did not explore whether the reassuring words of Dr Condoleezza Rice can be translated into action. There are four crucial areas in which we will have to assess whether there has indeed been a change in American policies. These include cooperation in the energy sector, particularly on ending sanctions on the supply of nuclear power reactors and fuel, space technology, dual use high technology transfers and defence cooperation.

The litmus test of US intentions will lie in their approach to cooperation in nuclear power. Companies like Westinghouse are ready to sign high value contracts for supplying nuclear power plants to China. India can be assured that there is indeed a change in the American approach if the US works with countries like France, Russia and the UK in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, to amend their existing rules and end their sanctions on providing us nuclear power plants, fuel and uranium ore.

We have already enacted a stringent law on nuclear export controls and can agree to put a few more of our nuclear facilities under international safeguards, in return for such moves. Comments made by Senator Hillary Clinton in New Delhi suggest that the Bush Administration can obtain a bipartisan consensus on this issue.

Defence cooperation, including proposals to co-produce frontline F-16 aircraft in India, opens new avenues for working with the US. It is obvious that in the foreseeable future no potential adversary of India can acquire aircraft as lethal as the advanced F-16s. But in proceeding on such acquisitions, reliability in the supply of spares and transfer of technology, including for serial production of the indigenously designed LCA, will naturally be crucial consideration.

Such acquisitions should, however, not inhibit us from moving ahead with plans for joint research with our Russian friends on developing modern defence systems like a new generation of fighter aircraft. Pakistan’s Chinese supplied JF-17 fighters are likely to be equipped with reverse engineered Russian MiG 29 engines and French avionics. Indian weapons platforms likewise have Russian, Israeli and French components and systems.

There is a superficial view that American approaches to us are motivated primarily by considerations of “containing” China’s power. The Americans know that while we can be a friend and partner, we will not be a surrogate. But in an era when powers like France, Germany, Russia and China are bending over backwards to befriend the US, it would be a serious blunder if we do not avail ourselves of the opportunities now available for opening a new chapter in relations with the US, especially as we are seen as crucial for strategic stability and a stable balance of power in Asia.

The warming of India’s ties with the US has changed the way countries like Japan, Australia and even members of the European Union now look on us. Dr Manmohan Singh understands the importance of what can emerge from a successful visit to the White House. One only hopes that others in the UPA Alliance share his perspectives.

MIDDLE

“Adverse” information technology
by Ehsan Fazili

I was still in primary school, yet innocent about the outside world and the impact of mass media on our day-to-day lives. My grandmother made a simple query from my uncle while he was listening to radio news. She asked as to “what is this television all about?”

Without giving much thought he respectfully came out with an equally simple and brief answer: “When Bhaijan (his elder brother) reads (radio) news we cannot see him. Now, we can watch him and see his face when he reads it from the television”. His dwarf Bahijan and so my eldest uncle had been associated with news sections of Radio Pakistan for over four decades. He had migrated from a remote corner of north Kashmir in his youthful days at the time of Partition.

This curiosity in early 1970s was made at a time when television was yet to spread its network in Kashmir, prior to setting up of Doordarshan Kendra in Srinagar. That question continues to haunt me. It tosses my mind whenever I come across modern tools of information technology and the speedy dissemination of information through its network like the television channels, computers and internet facilities transforming the world into a global village.

For instance over the past two decades newspaper offices have switched over from resonating sounds of tele-printers to the computerised online system for getting news reports.

Going back, I remember my grandfather saying that he had come to know of succeeding in matriculation examination from the then Punjab University, Lahore, after the result had been published in The Tribune. He had had, however, access to the copy of this newspaper after about a month.

Most of the parents these days come across precarious situation while watching various television channels. On many occasions these parents are embarrassed at the sight of womenfolk in minimal dresses performing dance not in conformity with our cultural ethos. It is more perplexing in the homes of nuclear families with children in the age group of teens and below, owning one TV set. In these families the situation becomes more slippery when grandparents are also present, however occasionally.

As the radio, once a popular media both in rural and urban India, has taken a backseat while still enjoying popularity in the countryside, the internet surfing has come forward with more dangerous signals. One may or may not look only at the positive aspects of these tools but there is every apprehension of the younger generation falling prey to it.

Then have we thought of maintaining the level of our milieu that reflected the composite culture? We live in a composite religio-cultural society laden with unique features of religious sensibility. Then, how can we reconcile with the nudity of the modern world culture? Are we going to retain the old value system or shift to new modern culture or perish in transition is the baffling interrogative.

OPED

Victims of planning
by G.S. Grewal

India became independent at the midnight of August 15, 1947 and a Democratic Republic on November 26, 1949, when, the people of India gave to themselves the Constitution.

Since then lots of development is seen all over the country, but its fruit is mostly being enjoyed by the upper classes of society. The poor have become poorer. Their numbers and problems have multiplied. In cities unemployment, over crowding and crime have crossed all estimates. In villages drug addiction has engulfed youth.

One of the reasons why progress has not reached the grassroots is that our system of planning is not people oriented. On the contrary, it is wasteful. At one stage it was felt that out of 100 rupees spent on planning only one reached the man at the base.

To avoid this, the Constitution was amended in 1993 and new chapters on panchayats and municipalities were added with powers to make schemes for coordinated development of rural and urban areas up to the district level.

The state governments were directed to constitute district-level development committees comprising elected representatives from panchayats and municipalities.

Nowhere, in the country, the state governments have taken any steps to enact appropriate legislation in accordance with Article 243ZD of the Constitution and the whole planning, even after 12 years of the amendment of the Constitution, is being done by influential bureaucrats.

In Punjab, PUDA is the only planning authority. It comprises 99 per cent bureaucrats. Only the minister of the Department of Housing is its Chairman, who is a layman.

So far PUDA has been only creating urban estates around big cities, where plots can be sold at high rates. This type of planning dislocates a large number of people from their homes and lands to settle elites of society at their place.

Under the name of planned development, bigger unplanned problems are created for the rural and urban sections. It is such planning around big cities which has given birth to 80 slum colonies all over Chandigarh alone and about 800 to 900 in the state.

Our system of planning has increased unemployment, crime and violence. Indeed, it has brought good money for the authorities.

Only very recently PUDA doubled the price of plots allotted to people. The reason for enhancing the price is not that PUDA had to spend so much more on development. The reason given in the Press is that now people can afford enhanced rates. What a justification!

On September 7, 2001, in a statement published in a section of the Press, a very senior officer of PUDA said that there are several projects started in the state, but expansion of Mohali was most important and PUDA was supposed to earn Rs 1,000 crore from only five Sectors, 76 to 80, which were under acquisition proceedings.

It was also revealed in the statement that out of the total earning PUDA would divert some amount to the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB) Fund.

Two years thereafter the Comptroller and Auditor General of India gave a report on the expenditure made by the previous government at “Sangat Darshan.” The expenditure was held to be illegal being on unauthorised projects and contribution of PUDA in that illegal venture was more than a hundred crore.

A summary of the report was published in almost every newspaper. But, instead of looking into the matter to take steps to prevent future diversion of funds for illegal purposes, the government has chosen to sleep over the issue, for reasons known to itself only.

Section 136 of the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995, clearly says that if there is saving from any project then such saving will be spent on the area of the project to provide more amenities after consultation with the plot owners of the area. The law does not permit diversion of any money, but who cares.

The basic motive of planners is not welfare but profit. Therefore, PUDA finds itself at war with both the dislocated and the new settlers. People are not partners in planning. They are the victims.

PUDA has many schemes to construct urban estates but there is no scheme to rehabilitate those who will be dislocated. Most of the affected people are agriculturists who cultivate small holdings and those holdings are their only source of livelihood.

The amount of compensation, mostly in instalments, is so meagre that they cannot get similar land anywhere in the state. In search of land compensation is consumed and they are on the road.

Is it proper and just that before people are dislocated there should be a project to rehabilitate them. Progress is not possible by multiplying miseries.

Around every city first we permit the construction of illegal colonies (slums). After many decades it is decided to demolish them with the help of the police, if necessary. Some of the uprooted get absorbed in colonies not yet demolished. But many wait for a few days and start reconstructing similar slums in the neighbourhood.

In the process no problem is solved. Only miseries are increased. Of course, political leaders console them that they would not be ejected from their new slums again, in the hope to secure their votes.

Our development moves in a circle without any direction and we cover no distance to solve any problem.

Article 243ZD has clearly suggested democratisation of planning with the consent and approval of people. No state is ready to decentralise power. Therefore, no democratic planning.

Democracy has still to become our lifestyle. Surprisingly, no state in the country has implemented more than six out of 37 Articles of the 73rd and 74th amendments. Articles which are not implemented are those which transfer some powers and responsibilities to municipalities and panchayats and make them responsible for development up to the district levels.

It is not the people who are defying the Constitution amendments, it is the government, though it is under an obligation to enforce them. If these amendments are implemented, it will bring a revolution in our total outlook towards development and administration. Chief Ministers are obviously reluctant. Can the Prime Minister help?

The writer is a former Advocate-General of Punjab

Rape victim refused trip to US
by Jan McGirk

When Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped on the orders of village elders to settle a tribal score, she shocked Pakistan by taking her case to the courts. But now she has found herself persecuted once again.

It was a scorching afternoon in Islamabad on Tuesday, when a visibly trembling Mukhtar Mai, teacher and rape victim, announced to assembled journalists that a long-planned trip to America was off because her mother was sick.

No one believed her. Ms Mai was to publicise in the United States the work of the crisis centres she has developed since being brutally gang-raped on the orders of a village court in Jirga, in the Punjab. Now it turned out that, because her mother was ill, she would be unable to undertake a trip that would have been highly embarrassing to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

For the activists who have passionately championed Ms Mai’s cause for three long years years, the shoddy and hastily arranged “show-conference” was the final insult in a case which has appalled urban Pakistanis, enraged human rights activists around the world and thrown a sharp and unflattering spotlight on the way Pakistan treats its women.

During the first seven months of last year, according to the Independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 151 Pakistani women were gang-raped and 176 were simply murdered as the victims of honour killings.

The traumatic case of Mukhtar Mai’s experiences, which will not now be personally described to an American audience, has come to stand for all such brutal violations of female dignity in the remote tribal regions of the country.

On a terrible June day three years ago, 14 men from the dominant Mastoi tribe in Jirga volunteered to rape Ms Mai as a way to settle a score after her 12-year-old brother Abdul Shakoor was seen walking with a Mastoi girl.

The decision on retribution had been taken by a village court to preserve tribal honour. The jirga, or council of village elders, summoned Ms Mai to apologise for her brother’s sexual misdeed. When she apologised, they gang-raped her anyway.

After the atrocity was carried out, Ms Mai was paraded naked before hundreds of onlookers. Finally, her father covered her with a shawl and took her home.

Many assumed that the subsequent rumours that the 30-year-old had committed suicide by swallowing pesticide were true. Few would have blamed her. Calling attention to such abject abuse is virtually unheard of even in modern-day Pakistan, where the downtrodden, especially women, are expected to remain meek.

But Mukhtar Mai, an unmarried daughter from a low-caste family, was not about to go quietly. She fought back in the courts and at first the legal decisions appeared to go her way. Half a dozen men involved in her rape were punished, with two sentenced to death. But since that early success events have begun to take an increasingly sinister and depressing turn.

Last Friday, a court in Lahore refused to extend a 90-day detention order and 12 of the 14 accused were ordered to be released. The case has gone into appeal, and now is expected to go to the Supreme Court. —The Independent

From Pakistan
PIA concession to judges

Islamabad: The Defence Ministry has directed the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to exempt judges from the rules being applied at airports regarding issuance of boarding cards.

These directives were made on Monday following the inconvenience the judges conveyed to the relevant officials which they face at airports to secure the boarding cards.

About a week ago PIA had passed on instructions to the airports authorities not to issue boarding cards to the personal staff of VIPs until the dignitaries themselves appear for the purpose.

According to the sources, PIA has to face major security and operational problems due to the late arrival of dignitaries at airports. It is a routine practice of VIPs to secure boarding cards through their personal staff before reaching airports. Given their hectic schedule, dignitaries sometimes get late in reaching airports which also delays the flight schedule. — The Nation

Economy in good shape

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday said the prudent economic measures and continuity and consistency of polices over the last few years have enabled the government not only to bid farewell to the IMF but also to transform a near-bankrupt economy into a robust one, which is poised to scale even greater heights in the days to come.

He was addressing a group of parliamentarians who called on him in his chamber at Parliament House.

The Prime Minister said that from “one tranche country” in 1999, Pakistan had graduated to a position of one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This remarkable transition had won accolades from all over the world and it was precisely due to this reason that the country had been able to absorb and withstand the shock of unprecedented increase in the oil prices internationally, he said. —The News

Women may lose shelter

PESHAWAR: The All-Pakistan Women’s Association (Apwa) is contemplating closing down its decade-old shelter in Peshawar following allegations that women living there are forced into prostitution. Apwa chairperson Begum Zari Sarfaraz in a letter to general secretary Ayesha Bukhari, who looks after the affairs of Darul Aman, hinted at its closure after she heard rumours about the alleged involvement of some staff members in immoral trade.

“Apwa has not yet decided to close it down and is waiting for the inquiry into the allegations to complete. But most of the board members are in favour of closing the institution as these allegations have earned it a bad name,” said Ms Bukhari, who has been associated with Apwa since 1976. — The Dawn

From the pages of

July 19, 1890

No justice in Punjab

THERE is no justice in the Punjab. A man issues orders under which thousands of men and women — many of whom have never been convicted at all and others convicted of the pettiest offences — are made naked in public streets and minutely examined even in the private parts of their person, and he is let off with a half-hearted reprimand. Then he is charged with large indebtedness in his own district, and we offer the Government to supply it with the names of his principal creditors, who from fear of persecution dare not openly claim repayment, but it declines to have those names, promises an inquiry, which never takes place, or take place sub rosa.

What does this show? Anxiety, not to find out whether Mr Warburton is indebted, but to allow him time to arrange with his creditors. We are attributing motive, we know; but we should not have done so had the Government been good enough to enlighten the public as to the motives which have governed it in its refusal to accept our offer to furnish it with the names of Mr Warburton’s creditors and in making no inquiry so far as the public is aware of.

REFLECTIONS

— Vauvenargues