AGREEMENT WITH INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 87, 14 April 1942, Page 5

AGREEMENT WITH INDIA

"DEPENDS ON THE INDIANS"

(ByvTelegraph—Press Association —Copyright.)

LONDON, April 13.

"I have not lost hope that India will one day come to an agreement," said the Lord Privy Seal, Sir Stafford Cripps, in an interview in Karachi, where he has arrived on his way back to London. "There will always be chances," he said. "We must come to some agreement some day, -but I have no idea when it will be. It depends on the Indians themselves. "We offered everything we could, and there was nothing more to offer. Congress wanted all or nothing. The.y could not have all, so they got nothing." Sir Stafford Cripps said that if the | Indian leaders arrived at an agreed solution, the Government would certainly consider it, but the initiative* must come from them. Asked whether there would be more repression in India following the breakdown, he said that if there was any interference with the war activities there would be trouble. "After all, somebody has to carry on the war," he added.He emphasised that the participation of Colonel Johnson, President Roosevelt's representative in India, in the talks was entirely unofficial. It was Congress which first- approached Colonel Johnson for help, and President Roosevelt had no part in the ■matter. NEED TO CREATE CONFIDENCE. "The Times," in a leading article, says: "The replies of the various parties are typical of the universal lack of confidence which has long poisoned every Indian political issue. Congress mistrusts Britain, the Moslem League mistrusts Britain and still more distrusts Congress, and the small and less powerful groups mistrust one or other or both of the major Indian parties. "It is idle to censure the Indian politicians on this account; modern India is so much a creation of the British Raj that nothing in it can be wholly dissociated from the past course of British policy. Confidence must be created or re-created from the top. The Cripps mission has been a vital first step in this process. "Britain's task of retrieving the setback is not hopeless or discouraging. The first and most urgent part of the task consists in manning and equipping the defences of India against the coming assault. The New Delhi discussions have not altered the mandate of the British military authorities or weakened their capacity to fulfil it. On the contrary, there is every hope of a fresh access of strength derived from the sympathy of the many Indians who have recognised the sincerity of the British offer."