DEBATE ON INDIA BILL

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 July 1935, Page 5

DEBATE ON INDIA BILL

Opponents of Measure Predict Serious Consequences APPEAL FOR COOPERATION BIG CONTRIBUTION TO MAKE (British Offioial Wireless.) Received 2.0 p.m. to-day. RUGBY, July 24. The Government of India Bill passed the third reading in the House of Lords without a division. Lord Zetland anounced that the King had placed at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill His Majesty’s interests in territorial and' other revenues at the disposal of the Crown in India.

Lord Snell said the Bill had serious defects, but he asked the Indian people to accept it and work it to the full. He hoped Indian workers would set themselves against non-co-operation and violence of any kind. Lord Lloyd said that years of successful British rule in India were at an end. He and other opponents of the Bill predicted serious consequences from its passage.

Lord Zetland made a serious appeal for co-operation. It was inevitable that opponents of the Bill figured more prominently than supporters, and Indians might misunderstand that. He assured them there was behind the Bill a great measure of goodwill on the part of the British people. AVhat was actually contained in the Bill was of less importance than the spirit in which it was offered. India had a great contUbution to make to the advancement of mankind, and he desired to see the two peoples co-operating for that end. The next stage of the India Bill will be that the Government will issue a memorandum regarding the House of Lnids’ amendments, which are not drastic and which will be discussed in the House of Commons on Tuesday.