ORDEAL IN INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1929, Page 11

ORDEAL IN INDIA

DOMINION STATUS

DANGER TO THE EMPIRE

CHURCHILL'S OPINION

United Press Association—By Electric Tele-

graph—Copyright.

LONDON, 16th November.

"It is time the nation faced without illusion the momentous crisis and ordeals which are approaching in India," says Mr. Winston Churchill in an article in the "I>,xily 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. Mac Donald has formally assureed Mr. Baldwin that the Viceroy's declaration does not involve & new departure, but a lnisunderstanjiUng has nevertheless arisen in India, It is therefore the duty of public men and political parties to make plain without delay tliat 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."