THE NEW INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 185, 6 August 1936, Page 23

THE NEW INDIA.

BUILDING A NATION. BRITAIN'S ACHIEVEMENT. BRIGHT FUTURE PREDICTED. The charter of self-government for India, the problems involved in its application and the success predicted for the new constitution were dealt with by Sir Joseph Smith in an address on "Can Britain Make a Nation?" given at yesterday's luncheon gathering of the Auckland Creditmen's Club. Sir Joseph spent many years in India. Mr. T. U. Wells presided.

"Is it a practical proposition for India, with her diversity of races and mass of contradictions, to act as one unit and one nation ?" asked Sir Joseph. He proposed to show that it was. For 75 years it had been the desire of Britain to fashion some kind Of self-government for India. In spite of the difficulties of India being heterogenous, disintegrated, uneducated and illiterate, Britain had set her hand to tlie task.

Reviewing the salient features of the new Act, the speaker said it was a definite step to the ultimate goal of selfgovernment. Next year the provinces were to manage their own affairs. Provision was made for an All-India Federation, to which the British Indian provinces would be linked with the ruling Indian princes, who were to come into the federation system on their own volition. Half of the total number of residents in the Indian States must be agreeable. Special authority would be vested in the Governor-General.

| In the 75 years Britain had built a structure on the foundations of peace and order. The central pillar was the central Government, the other pillars the eleven British Indian provinces, and the subsidiary pillars tlie some five hundred States—some but a little larger than the Auckland Domain—over which the Indian ruling princes had authority. All were to be welded together, so as to relieve the central pillar of responsibility. As an engineer, he could best explain the constitution by using that simile.

Sir Joseph concluded by reviewing in detail the successive movements toward self-government for India, and problems, such as religion, still to be faced. He was sanguine, however, of ultimate success.