The Dominion THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1928. A STOCK-TAKING IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 88, 12 January 1928, Page 8

The Dominion THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1928. A STOCK-TAKING IN INDIA

1 'There is about to be undertaken in India a constitutional investigation of far-reaching importance, not only to that Empire, but to the greater Empire which at present exercises over it a sovereign authority. This is the Indian Commission, of which Sir John Simon is chairman. The Commission has been set up in accordance with a provision in the Montagu-Chelmsford Act of 1919, unanimously agreed to by the House of Commons, that in due course the operation of the constitutional changes and piivileges which conferred upon India under that Act an important measure of self-government, should be fully investigated by a Royal Commission.

The report of the Commission is expected to reveal any anomalies and weaknesses which experience of the working of the new Act may have demonstrated, and to submit constructive suggestions for amendments. Before any of the results of the Commission’s work are given legislative effect, however, its report is to be examined by a joint commission representative of Great Britain and India.

The present Commission is entirely British, and on that account has been adversely criticised by native Indian opinion. But. no other form was considered practicable. It might seem at first sight that it would have been an easy matter to have appointed a select number of representative Indians. But there is no such thing in India as an Indian representative of his country in a truly national sense. The great number and variety of sects and other interests make that impossible. The Commission has, therefore, been authorised to conduct its investigations in all conceivable directions, leaving it to the joint Anglo-Indian Commission to be set up later to revise its suggestions from both angles. The agitation for Indian self-government has been growing stronger during recent years, and it appears to our own statesmen that its consummation cannot be postponed indefinitely. To make the best of an exceedingly difficult task, it has been wisely decided, therefore, to advance in that direction by easy experimental stages. The position was admirably stated by Earl Winterton (Undersecretary of State for India), when moving for the concurrence of the House of Commons in the appointment of the Commission:

“We saved India,” he said, “from going into a welter of anarchy, and when we ' assumed this responsibility we assumed it as trustees for the present and for the future of the Indian people —especially as trustees for the various minorities of that country, religious minorities, minorities of people who, as the result of the Indian system, were subjected to a degraded standard of life as the result of the conditions imposed upon them by custom, and that trusteeship has been upon our shoulders all the time we have been in India. As I understand the position by the Declaration of 1917 and by the Act of 1919, which implemented that Declaration, we stated clearly and emphatically _ that we were prepared gradually to hand over that trusteeship to the Indians themselves as and when they were in a position to exercise it with due regard to the interests of all concerned.”

The first instalment of self-government has now been in operation for nearly nine years. By the time the’ Commission has reported, and from the recommendations of the ensuing joint commission the Government is able to formulate proposals for a further instalment, a decade will have passed. At this rate of progress there can be no suggestion of rush legislation. Rather is it an educative process for both parties. And it is well that this should be so. It we are to reclaim India from the more sordid aspects of its social conditions, it clearly must be by a process of education rather than by forde.