VALUED SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 103, 4 May 1931, Page 7

VALUED SERVICE.

LORD IRWIN'S TERM. Memorable Period of Office as Viceroy. FRUITFUL YEARS IN INDIA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, May 3. In connection with the great national welcome to Lord Irwin on his return Home after a memorable period of office as the King's representative in India, " The Times," in a leading article, pays a high tribute to his work as Viceroy. It says that he has laboured incessantly to break down the two great obstacles to peace and prosperity in India, the violent dissensions among the Indians themselves and their common deep-seated suspicion of British good faith. By his own force of character he has succeeded in winning the confidence of all reasonable elements in every quarter of that vast assemblage of communities, for his reputation stood as high at his departure with his colleagues in the Administration, with the Princes and with Europeans, as with the various leaders of British Indian politics.

No one, and least of all he himself, Would suggest either that the Indian feuds have been brought to an end in his time or that the wave of antiBritish agitation has subsided just because he has compelled Gandhi to recognise his sincerity, but at least India knows the broad outlines of the progress which is open to her if she is capable of making it, and the immediate and absolute limitations upon selfgovernment which her own interests, no less than the interests of others demand. Lord Irwin has not solved the Indian problem, but he has pointed the way by which courage and faith and , patience like his own will solve it in the. end. His Majesty the King has conferred the Order of the Garter on Lord Irwin.