GANDHI RELEASED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 104, 27 January 1931, Page 9

GANDHI RELEASED

Opportunity to Study

Britain’s Offer

VICEROY’S STATEMENT

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

Delhi, January 25.

The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, this evening ordered Gandhi and the other members of the Congress Working Committee to be released “in order to provide the opportunity for consideration of the statement made by Mr. Ramsav MacDonald on January 19. "In order that there may be no legal bar to any meeting they may wish to hold, notifications declaring the Working Committee as unlawful will be withdrawn.

“The release is unconditional, as we feel that the best hope of the restoration of peaceful conditions lies in the discussions being conducted by. those concerned under terms of ijnconditional liberty,” he adds.

Gandhi, who is the leader of the extreme Nationalists in India, declared defiance of the British power in an exclusive interview a year ago almost to a day. He sat working a spinning wheel while he said: “A trial of strength is at hand. Events entirely depend upon the British Government, for we will not participate in any conference now or in the future unless called to consider our complete secession from Great Britain. Tlie day has passed when we can accept anything less. You will find millions of our men and women in cottages spinning hour after hour. This means that the whole nation will boycott foreign-spun cloths. This must eventually mean the end of British predominance in industry, which is the chief reason for the presence of your troops.” The author of the interview was Mr. Ketchum, whose visit to Soviet Russia is described elsewhere on this page.

CONFERENCE WORK

Discussion in Parliament

CHURCHILL MAY SPEAK British Wireless. Rugby, January 24. On Monday in the House of Commons the work of the Round Table Conference will be discussed. The Government speakers will be the Prime Minister, Mr. Benn, Secretary for India, and Professor Lees-Smith, Postmaster-General.

Sir Samuel Hoare will speak for members of the Conservative delegation, and Mr. Baldwin may speak during the debate. Mr. Churchill is expected to express his personal point of view.

In a speech to the Indian Empire Society early in December Mr. Winston Churchill protested against the unwarrantable change in the estimation of the facts of the Indian problem which, he declared, had not changed. He stated that the truth was that Gandhism sooner or later would have to be grappled with and finally crushed. It was no use trying to satisfy the tiger by feeding him with cat’s meat. The loss of India, he added, would consummate the downfall of the Empire. ... Mr. Churchill was roundly criticised for his utterances.