REFORMS IN INDIA

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21976, 28 December 1936, Page 6

REFORMS IN INDIA

♦ EUROPEANS SAID TO BE FAVOURABLE DANGER OE EXTREMIST VIEWS EMPHASISED The constitutional reforms in India, which come into force on April 1 next year, are approved by the European business community in Calcutta, according to Mr F. Blick, formerly a member of the engineering firm of Martin and Company, Calcutta, who was a visitor to Christchurch yesterday. Mr Blick spent 30 years in India, and has kept in touch with affairs there through Indian newspapers since his retirement. Mr Blick said that he considered that the business men of Calcutta, which was the commercial capital of India, could be taken to be representative of those in other parts of India. The British residents held that business could best be done with a contented community in India, and the constitutional reforms had this end in view. With a population of 350,000,000, India bought three times as much goods from Britain as the rest of the British Empire, and he felt that a favourable view of the new constitution was held by the average European. “After all,” he said, “the British are in India for commercial reasons, and if the spending power of each member of the Indian population could be increased by one rupee a month, or £1 a year, this would amount to £350,000,000 a year for the whole of India. Consequently the British business man wishes to improve the condition of the Indian people.” The difficulty that might arise, however, according to Mr Blick, was that the Congress party, which held extremist views and considered that the proposed reforms were not farreaching enough, might secure the majority of seats in the assembly. The party, which was making a big bid for seats in the present election campaign, was aiming practically for absolute self government, and it was the intention of those who secured seats not to attend the assembly, with the object of wrecking the constitutional reforms. If they secured sufficient seats and adopted this policy the Viceroy and council had power to carry on the government. The members of the party, he said, were pledged not to co-operate in carrying out the reforms, which were supported by the Indian Liberal party, which contained much saner elements. The Congress party, however, was much better organised, and there was the danger, as in most countries, that an extremist policy would attract the electorate. Europeans could be elected only in the reserved European constituencies, of Which there were very few. Gandhi, an ill man, was now a waning force in India, said Mr Blick. The strongest leader was Panjil Nehru, the leader of the Congress party.