INDIA’S FUTURE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 11

INDIA’S FUTURE

Preparatory Steps to Federation FINANCES OF STATES Official WlreleM. Rugby, July 2T. With the issue to-night of the report of the Indian States Inquiry Committee the work of all the three committees appointed after the second session of the Round Table Conference has been completed. The next important stage in the Indian situation will be the announcement promised during the present summer of the Government s decision on the communal question. The States Inquiry Committee, oyer which Mr. J. C. C. Davidson presided, reached unanimous conclusions after a 10,000 miles tour among Indian States, during which personal discussions were held with 88 rulers or their Ministers, as well as with deputations representing whole classes of the smaller States. The purpose of the committee was to explore the specific financial problems of each State, bearing in mind the principle that the ideal system would be to arrive at an arrangement by which Federal units would ‘on a uniform basis to Federal resources.

The work involved the examination of the existing rights of each State under its particular Treaty with the Crown and the examination in detail of the contributions which certain States make and the value represented by the territories which some of the States have ceded to the Crown in return for guarantees of a military nature. The committee has prepared a balance-sheet for each Indian State, debiting amounts in respect of certain immunities enjoyed and crediting it with its contribution to the Crown, which will eventually pass into the revenues of the Government of India. The object of the committee has been to suggest the terms which could be fairly and reasonably accepted by both the States and British India as the basis of a mutual and voluntary association. So far as the States are concerned such association must be achieved with each individually as only in a very general sense is it possible to speak of the common interests of States as contrasted with the interests of British India. The recommendations of the Committee are thus intended to provide material for settlement with each State on its entry into federation on the basis of the balance-sheet, taking into account individual credits and debits. The committee, however, points out that by the very fact of their entry into federation the States would be making a contribution “which is not to be weighed in golden scales.”