GOVT. OF INDIA ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1935, Page 7

GOVT. OF INDIA ACT

HISTORIC NEGOTIATIONS. [BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS,J RUGBY, August 2. The Government of India Bill became an Act. to-day, when it received the Royal assent in the Lords. Many members of the Commons attended at the Bar to witness the historic scene. Preparations for passing the measure occupied nearly eight years. The publication of the report of the Simon Commission in May 1930, was followed by various sessions of the Round Table Conference and the issue of the Government’s White Paper in March 1933, indicating the greatest common measure of agreement was reached. As a result of these investigations and consultations, a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee sat for eighteen months, and its recommendations in October last, were largely incorporated in the Bill, tho proceedings in connection with which occupied G 1 Parliamentary days this session. The Act is to set up in place of the present form of Government in British India, an''All India Federation, linking together the eleven BritishIndian provinces and such Indian States as are prepared to join. Both at the Federal centre, and in the provinces, the Government will bo formed of Ministers responsible to the Legislatures, in much the same sense as the British Cabinet is responsible to Parliament at Westminster. Burma is separated from India, and given a constitution on the same general lines. Tho more notable amendments accepted in the course of the Bill’s passage through Parliament are the reservation of six seats in the Council of State for women, and the substitution of direct for indirect election to the Council of State. The Federation does not come into being without the essential pre-requisite .of accession of the Indian States, containing not less than half the total of the States’ population. The welfare of the people in India and Burma, numbering already three hundred and fifty million, is involved in the Act, added to the Statute Book.