INDIAN COMMISSION

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1927, Page 3

INDIAN COMMISSION

APPROVED BY COMMONS.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.)

LONDON, November 25.

In the Commons, Lord Winterton, in moving the appointment of an Indian Commission, said that India would bear the cost, but Britain would contribute £20,000. In combating the suggestion that the Commission should include representative Indians, he offered the opinion that it would bo fantastic to imagine that any two Indians could possibly represent the various political, religious and racial factors of India. Accredited representatives of Indian Legislatures would be given every opportuinty pf emphasising their case before the Commission. No of the Empire, before receiving partial or complete selfgovernment, ever had such an opportunity of directly influencing Parliament.

Mr. MacDonald, supporting the motion,.on behalf of Labour, regretted the lack of consultation with representative Indians before the announcement of the Commission. It ought to be made clear that the Commission would meet Committees of the Indian Legislatures on the basis of a free exchange of views. Mr. Baldwin said the Government had deliberately left the Commission a free hand to shape its own procedure in India, though the British Parliament’s responsibility remained. The Government associated itself with Mr. MacDonald’s sugges*tion tor the freest consultation with, the sister Parliament. Mr. Baldwin added: “It is an unprecedented path we are walking, but we are relying on the instinctive sense of justice deep in every Briton’s heart. Milton wrote, ‘When God wants a thing done, He tells it to His Englishmen.’ No harder thing has ever been told an Englishman than this matter. We shall do it with courage, faith, strength and hope.” The resolution was carried without a division.