LABOUR AND INDIA

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2377, 2 December 1929, Page 7

LABOUR AND INDIA

“FULL DOMINION STATUS'*

Says the Sydney Bulletin: It is understood that the Ramsay MacDonald Government is anxious to grant to India “full Dominion status’’ at an early date, which will put it on a. level with Australia, Maorilaud, Canada and South Africa in the matter of self-responsibility. Tills is presumably considered a Christian duty, Parliamentary institutions being regarded as ot divine origin and tending to save the Labour party’s soul. Perhaps the Government won't go the whole liog. in the matter; but even the tail alone seem s a serious risk. There are 30 languages in what is called India, counting only those

OJiicli are more widely spoken than English, j Thirty sets of. people wlio mostly doi not understand each other are something; of a difficulty. There are seven or eight principal religions, and tho two that are more principal than the others, the Hindus and the Mohammedans, don’t speak to each other. The subdivision into castes tends to leave a really caste-ridden sect hardly speaking itself. There are some 700 native princes of exceedingly different gradations of importance, though all possessed of dignity, some of them to an uncomfortable extent. At least a quarter per cent, of these mixed characters make a noisy demand for self-gov-ernment, but probably very few crave for real Dominion status and tho tremendous responsibility it would imply. It would be rather like getting a large quantity of unfriendly cats into a room described as Paarlia ment House and leaving them there to settle their differences, after the'

long established arbiter and keeper of tho pe{i<ce lmd left the neighbour liood. For there can't he true Dominion status unless the arbiter and keeper of the peace removes himself and his armaments and other implements of interference. To' hang round ready to burst in when the liberated people show theiuselvcv unfit for that kind of liberty would destroy the illusion, aud make thestatus a hollow pretence.