INDIA

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 161, 27 June 1930, Page 5

INDIA

SIMON REPORT BASED ON CERTAIN PRINCIPLES. RECOMMENDATIONS EXPLAINED. [British Official Wireless.] (Received 27, 11.20 a.m.) Rugby, June 26. In his broadcast speech last night, Sir John Simon emphasised that the Commission’s recommendations were those not of one individual, but of seven, representing all parties and drawn from both Houses of Parliament. The proposals were not a bundle of vague expressions, they constituted a detailed and connected scheme dealing with every aspect of Indian Government. They were based on important principles of which the first was that there should be no more commissions, they presented a scheme designed to meet present practical necessities, while leaving room for later adjustments and developments. The proposals for provincial government and the commission’s treatment of the central executive were illustrations of the method of providing now for the possibility of future growth. Party Indian comment had entirely missed this point Parliament could not possibly abandon all its responsibility for central government of India at this stage, but the extent to which this responsibility could be handed over would depend on the future. The proposed method of reconstituting the central legislature had three great advantages. It provided a centre body of reasonable size that would be really representative of the numerous inhabitants of vast areas. Secondly, the plan of representating provinces rather than individual states in the federal assembly permitted of the adoption of a scheme which would give much needed assistance for provincial exchequers, and enable provincial Ministers to go forward with plans for improving education, public health, and other services in provinces which are now starved for want of money. Thirdly, the plan gives the best prospects of associating the Indian States more closely with the affairs of India as a whole. Turning to some concrete matters, Sir John paid high tribute to the police force which, however, tended to be regarded as the agent of an alien bureaucracy, although, in fact, the whole neighbourhood would without it fall into utter anarchy. Only by the abolition of anarchy and by making the Government as a whole responsible for the administration of all departments, with safeguards against abuse, could the cause of this distrust be removed Sir John then dealt with plans for the protection of minorities and proceeded to discuss them. First there would be the October conference to which various bodies of opinion in India would be invited for free expression of opinion before the proposals were laid before Parliament. He believed that the Commission’s recommendations would satisfy all the tests which must be applied to any constitution before its ultimate adoption. The lesson to be learned from an analogy of the dominions was that in every case the ultimate form of every dominion government had been the result of natural growth. They had arisen not because an Act of Parliament said so, but because in the life of a growing organism a stage had been reached when it had been found that this was tho way to express the responsibilities of citizenship.