INDIAN REACTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 9

INDIAN REACTION.

SPEECH TACTLESS.

National Congress and Marquess

Of Zetland. NO MOVE TO END DEADLOCK. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 9.30 a.m.) NEW DELHI, April 9. National Congress leaders describe yesterday's House of Lords speech by the Secretary of State for India, the Marquess of India, as unsympathetic and tactless, declaring that it will effectually prevent a compromise. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, president of Congiess, declares that Congress will approach the Viceroy, the Marquess of Linlithgow, to end the deadlock. In his speech, cabled yesterday, Lord Zetland said Gandhi's statement, which had helped to form Congress policy, had been so astonishing that it appeared "Pliable only on the assumption either that Gandhi never read the Act or instrument of instructions or the report of the joint select committee, or that if he had done so he had completely forgotten the provisions embodied in those documents in respect to the special responsibilities vested in the Governors.

It was all the more unfortunate that Gandhi should have made such a statement, because large numbers of people in India were accustomed to accept any statement of his as necessarily correct. Ministries Are Constitutional. The House applauded when Lord Zetland paid a tribute to the public spirit of other political leaders in the six provinces who had undertaken the difficult and distasteful task of serving in minority Ministries so that the Government might be carried on. The Ministers were absolutely constitutional and their future depended on-the Legislatures. The policy of the Ministries might meet with the approval of the Legislatures, but if not it would be open to the majority, in accordance with the universally accepted practice under the system of responsible Government, to form a Ministry and so to accept responsibility for their action in displacing those in office. In conclusion Lord Zetland said the reserve powers of the Governors Were an integral part of the Constitution and could not be abrogated except by Parliament itself. The Governors could not treat the Congress party as a privileged body, exempt from the provisions of the Constitution by which all the other parties were bound. He added, however, that there was no reason why the reserve powers should ever come into play. Whether they did or not must depend on the policy and action of the Ministries themselves.