“NOT SATISFACTORY”

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 217, 11 June 1935, Page 8

“NOT SATISFACTORY”

Concessions in India Bill

Y.W.C.A. SECRETARY’S VIEWS

By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Hamilton, June 10.

Describing the concessions as most unsatisfactory to advanced Indian thought, Miss Jean Begg, national secretary of the Y.W.C.A,. in India, strongly criticised what she considered the hesitating steps toward self-govern-ment taken in the new India BUI when she addressed members of the Hamilton Rotary Club to-day. She . considered the tragic Indian situation could have been averted had political freedom in some measure been granted 15 years ago.

Miss Begg said the concessions in the India Bill were hedged about with considerable safeguards to meet possible emergencies. The Bill looked characteristicaUy British, and sought an easy middle path, but it fell far shor of what was desired by advanced political thought in India itself, although in England the conservative standpoint considered it as h rash experiment. It had to be acknowledged, however, that the provisions of the Bill were far in advance of what had been set down in the old Constitution, but many would have preferred the scheme to have, gone farther toward self-government Behind the strong criticism, even denunciation, that existed in India at the terms suggested there was (i feeling of bitter disappointment, for it was hoped that the new proposals might have been of the greatest help in cementing relationships between Britain and Ind.a. There was obviously no prospect of Dominion status for India, and this had hurt its countrymen more than a layman could tell.