MOMENTOUS CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 46, 18 November 1929, Page 11

MOMENTOUS CRISIS

ORDEALS APPROACHING IN INDIA DOMINION STATUS AT PRESENT IMPRACTICABLE MR. CHURCHILL ON THE SITUATION (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Rec. November 17, 5.5 p.m.) London, November 16. “It is time the nation faced without illusion the momentous crisis and ordeals wiiich are approaching in India,” says Mr. Winston Churchill in an article in the “Daily Mail.” Mr. Churchill proceeds: “Already in Egypt the Government has made proposals to the Nationalists which will consummate a long process of abdication of moral and practical responsibilities. The British garrison which has ensured peace and progress in Egypt for half a century is to dig in along the Suez Canal, leaving the country a confusion of foreign intrigue. The first fruits of this policy of evacuation were witnessed in the Palestine riots. Egypt, though important, is tiny compared with India, whose rescue from ages of barbarism was the finest achievement in British history. “Mr. MacDonald has formally assured Mr. Baldwin that'the Viceroy’s declaration does not involve a new departure, but a misunderstanding has nevertheless arisen in India. It is therefore the duty of public men and political parties to make plain without delay that the extension of dominion status is at present impracticable. The idea that home rule can emerge from anything now being done is not only fantastic itself, but will have criminally mischievous effects. It is necessary to marshal the sober resolute forces of the Empire against the perpetration of such a crime as the immediate grant of dominion status.”