DEBATE ON INDIA

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 115, 8 February 1935, Page 11

DEBATE ON INDIA

Bill Before House of Commons

SECOND READING Progress Toward Dominion Status LABOUR AMENDMENT (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, February C. The four days’ debate on the Government of India Bill began in the House of Commons before a very large House and crowded public galleries. The Secretary for India, Sir Samuel Hoare, moving the second reading, described the main features of the Bill. The Federal Government to be set up under the Bill was bound to be more complicated than a unitary Governihent, and in the case of India the complications were greatly increased, as the proposed federation included units so different as the Provinces of British India and the Indian States. In the case of the Princes they were dealing with voluntary agents who were not British subjects and complications must affect the constitution of the Executive and of the Legislature, relations between the two Chambers, the list of Federal subjects and, indeed, almost all the proposals dealing with federation.

Taken together, these complications made a formidable list of difficulties, but probably 99 out of every 100 members regarded an All-India Federation as their objective, whether immediate or ultimate, and these difficulties were inherent in an All-India Federation, whether it came now or in 20 years’ time. Question of Method. Therefore, whether Federation should come into being in the same Bill as provincial autonomy was a question of method, not of principle. So was the question whether the kind of federation machinery proposed was the best in the circumstances. On, the latter point the committee had weighed arguments and concluded that indirect action was a wiser plan, any other being in the nature of an experiment In a federal system there must be a Federal Court for the purpose of interpreting th 6 Constitution.

In regard to two other Federal organs, proposed as the result of long expert investigation, he thought a division of opinion would be met, whether there should be a Reserve Bank or a Railway Board, but the proposals in the Bill ensured that these two institutions in order to fulfil their purpose should be kept as independent as possible from political damagenient and interference. In the provisions for provincial autonomy he anticipated the issue of the controversy would be whether law and order should be transferred to the Provincial Ministers, but political autonomy on any other basis was a contradiction in terms.

The proposals connected with the special responsibility of the GovernorGeneral and Governors was also likelv to cause differences. Almost everyone agreed that defence and foreign /affairs must be reserved departments. As to the question of commercial discrimination. the majority of the committee had found it necessary that the wording should be precise and the Bill provided: (1) Reciprocity of treatment for British and Indian traders; and (2) power of intervention in cases where Indian tariffs were being used for political and not for iiscal purposes. Forty clauses of the Bill were devoted to thesp services. The main issue would probably be whether or not recruiting was to continue on present lines. The committee very wisely took the view that if the new Constitution was to have a fair chance of starting in favourable conditions, it was essential to refrain from disturbing the services upon whose co-operation they would so greatly depend in the difficult years of transition. Financial Aspect. The question of finance was fundamental to the whole scheme. The actual cost of the new Federal machinery was estimated at £5OOlOOO annually, and the new provincial machinery a similar amount. The rest of the burden thrown on the Federal Budget, £4,000,000, was not new expenditure, but merely a transference of the burden to the centre. He did not think they need take a pessismitic view of the financial basis of the scheme. The main’ problem in connection with the separation of Burma would be that of her new economic relations. Referring to the instruments of instruction to the Governor-General and Governors,' he said it was proposed to circulate draft instructions in the form of a White Paper when the committee stage was reached. The Parliamentary sanction of both Houses would be sought for their issue. Nothing had occurred to- alter his view that thp majority of Indians would adopt the ill and that BritishIndian relations would as a result improve. He was genuinely sorry that the recent Indian Assembly debate on the supplementary trade agreement showed that so many Indians should seem to misunderstand the Government’s motives. He attached full importance to criticisms, but he asked the House to note that the main critics were members of the Congress Party, who had always declared that they would accept only proposals emerging from an Indian Constituent Assembly. In the Provincial Councils, on the other hand, there had been very reasonable discussions among the very men upon whom so much of the work of the future Federation would depend. As for the Princes, they had in no way recoiled from the position of four years ago, claiming merely that they must see the proposals before giving final assent or dissent. The Real Danger. The real danger in India was not Congress, or commissions, or misgovernment, but irresponsibility. As long as the Indian Legislatures had little or no responsibility, so long would they be the centres of agitation and negative obstruction. Concluding, Sir Samuel Hoare said that there was no need for a preamble to the Bill, as no new pronouncement of policy or’ intention was required. The Government stood firmly by the pledge contained in the preamble to the 1919 Act and by the interpretation put by the Viceroy in 1929 on the authority of the Government of the day on that preamble. “The natural issue of India’s progress as there contemplated is the attainment of Dominion status.”

Rightly, understood the 1319 pre-

amble, which would stand unrepealed, was a clear statement of the purpose of the British people, and the present Bill was a definite step—indeed, _a great stride—toward the achievement of that purpose. Preliminary to Self-Government. “It is clear that we can only reach the end we have plainly set before ourselves when India has succeeded in establishing conditions ppon which self-government rests. Nor will this attainment be delayed by any reluctance on our part to recognise the conditions when they actually exist. The first and most conspicuous problem India has to solve is her cleavages of race, caste and religion. Again she can safely assdme in a much larger degree responsibility for her own effective defence.

“An Indian Government cannot be, in the full sense of the word, autonomous. Our policy, as will be seen in this Bill and the instructions that will accompany it as to the manner the provisions are to be applied, is to do all we can by sympathetic help and co-operation to enable India to overcome these difficulties and ultimately take her place eventually among the self-governing members of the British Comihonwealth of Nations. If there are still those who impugn our motives or doubt our word, we are ready to be judged by our actions of which this Bill is a visible sign, a Bill that holds the balance fully and honourably between conflicting interests and competing parties, that comes in the line of direct succession to great Imperial measures of the past.” Labour Amendment.

Major Attlee (Lab., Limehouse), following Sir Samuel Hoare, moved Labour’s amendment regretting that tne Bill failed explicitly to recognise India’s right to Dominion status or provide for the enfranchisement of workers and peasants to enable them constitutionally to work out their own social and economic emancipation. Major Attlee complained that the Bill gave representation to land and capital, but very little Jo labour. !•: would establish in India a House of Lords more powerful and more reactionary than Britain’s, and a bank similar to the Bank of England. Sir Herbert Samuel said that the Liberals welcomed the Bill as based on the best principles of the British political system. It was interesting to hear a Conservative statesman preaching the pure doctrine of Liberalism in the matter of Imperial Government. He regretted that the Bill did not mention Dominion status. Sir Samuel Hoare interposed to say that he undertook at a later stage to embody Dominion status in a preamble from the Government of India Bill, 1919.

Sir Herbert Samuel said that the only alternative to the Bill was coercion, a revival of civil disobedience, and commercial boycott, to which Mr. Winston Churchill’s policy would inevitably lead. The real issue was: Can democracy maintain an Empire? Only an Empire treating all citizens with equal justice, irrespective of race and colour, could, endure.