Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1933. FUTURE OF BURMA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 257, 11 August 1933, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1933. FUTURE OF BURMA.

Sir Samuel Hoare’s scheme for constitutional reform in Burma, making that province a separate colony, has been received with general satisfaction in India and Burma, where the belief is held that the offer will be accepted and the agitation of many years pacified. The subject has been necessarily related to the problem of India, of which, as indicated, Burma has been a province since 1897, though not under the same status all the time. The Burmese themselves were perfectly content under British rule, but when the constitution of India was subjected to examination with a view to amendment, it became necessary to provide for the future of the province. Difficulty arose owing to the inability of the people to decide on the form of government most suitable to their country. When the Indian Statutory Commission made its report it recalled the statement of the Montagu-Chelms-ford Commission which immediately after the war suggested various constitutional reforms for India: “Burma is not India. Its people belong to another race in another stage of political development, and its problems are altogether different.” The report of the Statutory Commissiom-the Simon Report, as it is called confirmed this pronouncement. It recommended, however, that Burma should be separated from India immediately. It was stated, incidentally, that Burmese sentiment in favour of separation was so strong that it overshadowed every other demand. The Burmese Round Table Conference assembled in London in 1911 to consider the question of a new constitution, and Mr MacDonald outlined very liberal proposals formulated by. the British Government. There were to be two Houses of Parliament, the upper partly elected and partly nominated, the lower entirely elected, and a Ministry of eight was to be appointed by the Governor on the advice of the leader of the majority in the Lower House. With the exception that certain subjects were reserved for the personal administration of the Governor, Burma was to receive parliamentary government in place of bureaucratic control. But when, after a lengthy campaign more remarkable for its party bickering than any clearcut enunciation of policies, a vote on the separation question was taken a majority was recorded against separation. The surprise and embarrasment of the British Government at such an outcome were nothing compared with the dismay that overwhelmed the anti-separationists themselves. The latter hastened to explain that permanent inclusion in the Indian Federation was the last thing they desired. Their hostility to separation had apparently been expressed with some wrong-headed notion that, by remaining within the Federation, Burma might, with India, attain to self-governing status more promptly than otherwise. In other words, in spite of the warning they had received that if the province elected to forfeit its opportunity for separation now it could not be permitted to leave the Federation later, the Burmese imagined they might “bluff the British Government. Subsequently the Legislative Council in Burma, which consists of 108 members —of whom 80 are elected, and the others nominated or ex officio, —-could not decide, even after a fortnight’s debate, what status it desired. Now, however, after further negotiations the Secretary of State has drafted a scheme for autonomy, the reception of which gives reason to hope that the aspect of the vast Indian problem may be removed, releasing the authorities for still more concentrated consideration of the major subject. _____