INDIAN PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 15 June 1936, Page 11

INDIAN PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY

NO DELAY SUGGESTED (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) RUGBY, June 12. The House of Commons to-day debated a number of draft orders-in-council under the Government of India Act, which have the effect of bringing into operation the whole of the act except Part 11., relating to the Indian Federation. The Under-Secretary for India, Mr R. A. Butler, moving the approval of the orders, said that if provincial autonomy was to be inaugurated on April 1 the timetable which the Government had in mind was that the general elections should be held aproximately eight months hence. Spokesmen for the Labour Opposition and the Liberal party joined in wishing the scheme the fullest measure of success, and Sir Samuel Hoare, who, as Secretary for India, piloted the India Bill through the House of Commons, speaking for the first time as First Lord of the Admiralty, added his blessing. He said the significant and satisfactory fact of the debate was that no one suggested the initiation of provincial autonomy should be delayed, although there had been criticism of some of the financial proposals. As a result of the orders the provinces, several of which were of greater magnitude than some European countries, would have the opportunity for the first time on an extended scale of developing their own provincial life.

The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill and the Rt. Hon. L. S. Amery, the two principal critics of the bill, also spoke. Mr Churchill said that he and his friends would do. nothing to obstruct the carrying out of the policy which Parliament had approved, and Mr Amery expressed the wish that there might go from the House a message of goodwill to the new provinces and to India as a whole.