The Future of India.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19196, 30 December 1927, Page 6

The Future of India.

We printed a few days ago an account by our London correspondent of the personnel and terms of reference of the Statutory Commission which is to go to India and report on the rei forms necessary to give the Indian people a greater measure of self-gov-ernment. As most people arc aware, the fifteen provinces of British India are each governed by a diarchy consisting of the Governor-in-Council and the Governor acting with his Ministers, this being the first instalment of the reforms foreshadowed in the MontaguChelmsford Report. The Governor's Executive Council is nominated by the Crown and his Ministers are elected members of the Legislative Council, the functions of government being divided between the two bodies. The diarchy has been loudly condemned in India as a failure, but it was never intended to be permanent, and the very fact that it has aroused opposition indicates that it has achieved a part of its purpose by awakening the political intelligence of the Indian people. There is a counterpart to the diarchy in the early history of nearly all the British Doi minions, but here the problem before ithe Home Government was much [simpler, since it was dealing with people ! whose political aspirations were clearly iunderstood; the trouble in the case of India is to find out what India wants and to what extent Western political institutions can be adapted to Indian needs. The task of the Statutory Comi mission, therefore, is to interpret the ! desires of the Indian people rather than | to impose reforms from without, and in view of this it came as a surprise to [many to discover that the Commission included no representatives of Indian races and no British officials who have served in India. Yet the reasons for this are sound: all Indian politicians who might have been appointed are committed to definite views, and officials are also liable to somewhat fixed opinions. The Commission consists exclusively of members of Parliament: two Peers, two Labour members, and two Conservative members, with a Liberal, Sir John Simon, as chairman. There was a storm of protest when the personnel was first announced, and in India an agitation was begun for a complete boycott of the Commission, but it is noticeable that most responsible journals, whatever their political colour, warmly approve the Government's action. Indeed, one of the consoling features of a very difficult and dangerous question is the manner in which it has been removed from any suspicion of partv politics. "Mr Baldwin, Mr

"Mac Donald, and Mr Lloyd George "might differ as to the precise steps "that ought to be taken at this juncture," remarks the Radical New Statesman, "but it is not easy to predict which of the three would take "the more 'advanced' position, from "the point of view of the Indian " Swarajist politician." The problem of India's future is too complex to be solved in the light of existing political formulas or constitutional precedents, and that, perhaps, is why the British Government has entrusted it to a body of men with no qualifications except their impartiality and mental acuteness, and their very earnest desire to be useful.