INDIAN REFORM

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 8

INDIAN REFORM

JOINT COMMITTEE S REPORT TO BE PUBLISHED THIS WEK (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, November 17. (Received November 19, at 11.30 a.m.)] Undoubtedly the main political event' next week will be the publication of the report of the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform. The Joint Select Committee consist* of members of both Houses of. Parliament. All parties are represented, and the members include three ex-viceroys, three former Under-Secretaries of 'State for India, two ex-Governors of Indian provinces, four members who visited India with -the Simon Commission, six members .of the visiting committee appointed by the Round Table Conference, and other > parliamentarians who have given long public service to India. The committee carries exceptional weight and authority, and it is doubtful if ever such a concentration of expert knowledge has been brought to bear upon any great Imperial question. The committee contains a proportion of men of such status as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Derby, and Sir Austen Chamberlain, who have not hitherto been directly associated with Indian affairs, and whose opinions must have in the main been shaped in the course of the committee proceedings. The report will supersede all previous documents, on which it will be founded. It will undoubtedly be closely scrutinised and cannot hope to avoid criticism, at least, from those whose opinions have already been, formulated in Britain. A large section of the Conservative Party has expressed grave anxiety that the measure of constitutional reform will proceed too far and too fast. The Congress Party in India is already criticising the White Paper even before its rigorously guarded contents are published. Nevertheless this all-important document will be issued at a time when the atmosphere in India shows an immense improvement on that of two or three years ago, when the Congress agitation was at its height. Now the Congress Party has returned to constitutional ways and is concentrating on obtaining votes to return its members to the next legislature, while Mr Gandhi, for so long a protagonist of non-co-operation, is using his influence with the electorate to bring them to the polls. Between these extremes of formulated opinion there is an immense body of moderate, if less audible, opinion, which will regard the report objectively _ with the sole intention of judging its effects upon the best interests of India and her continued association with the Empire,