INDIAN COMMISSION.

Grey River Argus, 28 November 1927, Page 5

INDIAN COMMISSION.

“TO HAVE A FREE HAND.”

<Ans. and N Z. Cable Assn),

(Received November 27 at 5.5 p.m.) 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 be 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 opportunity of emphasising their case before the Commission. No part of the Empire, before receiving partial or complete self-government, 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 suggestion for 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.