GENERAL REGRET

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 103, 28 October 1939, Page 10

GENERAL REGRET

REJECTION IN INDIA

VICEROY'S PROPOSALS

COMMONS DEBATE

(British Official Wireless.) (Received October 28, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, October 27. The debate on India in the House of Commons revealed that regret was general that the Congress working committee had rejected the offer contained in the Viceroy's recent statement, in which he announced that the Government was ready at the end of the war to regard the federal scheme of 1935 as open to modification in the light of Indian criticism and that meanwhile, to promote the association of India with the prosecution of the war, it is proposed to form a consultative [body representing the Indian States and the chief political parties in British India. For the Opposition Captain Wedgwood Benn (Labour), in opening the debate, while agreeing that legislation for amendment of the 1935 Act was not possible during the war, urged that that did not preclude preparations for a change being made. Sir Samuel Hoare, who was Secretary of State for India when the Act was passed, said that the Government wished to close no doors but rather to explore every possibility, within the ambit of the Government of India Act,, but no one could contemplate amending the Act when they were in the throes of the present terrible struggle. The Government saw no reason, pro-' vided that these difficulties were re- I membered, why this proposal should not be reconsidered. He felt that the Congress' leaders had been too hasty in their repudiation of the proposal of a consultative committee. It was the definite intention of the Viceroy to take the Indian political leaders into his confidence on many problems that arose out of the conduct of the war. Their advice would carry the greatest possible weight with the India Executive. If the great possibilities of consultations were fully used, said Sir Samuel Hoare, they might well prove to be the bridge that was needed to carry the Indians over the great divide of constitutional bitterness which at present stood chiefly in the way of constitutional advance. Such wartime meetings would make much easier the constitutional discussions that were bound to take place at the end of the -war. The exact method of consultation was essentially a question to be settled between the Viceroy and political leaders. The Viceroy proposed without delay to send them invitations to meet him for ..discussions. Until those took place, Sir: Samuel Hoare claimed, it would be a blunder of the first magnitude for the political leaders to take up an irrevocable* position.