Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1929. INDIA’S STATUS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 96, 22 March 1929, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1929. INDIA’S STATUS.

Affairs in India are not working out at all satisfactorily for the Indian Statutory Commission, which left .London six months ago for its longest and most important visit to India. The commission is charged with the duty of evolving a system of government which, while satisfying the aspirations of the Indian Nationalists, will ensure the peace and safety of the population as a wliole«and do away with the fierce rivalry existing between Hindus and Moslems, whose sporadic outbursts give rise to much of the unrest tnat has been so apparent in India since the war. .Before leaving London on September 27, Sir J ohn Simon, the chairman of the commission, expressed himself very hopefully .concerning the work of the commission as, in spite of the opposition shown at first, eight out of tne nine provinces had decided to accept tne plan of co-operation, which appeared to meet with general approval, and the ninth nad not tnen finally decided. “In more than one case,” he said, “a Provincial Council, which at first resolved not to co-operate with the commission had reVised its first decision and hadj appointed its committee.” The commission, he further said, was “in the happy position of knowing that it had the steady backing of all parties in the State,” and its duty was “not to enact or decide, but to bring home to the British people the realities of the Indian problem, and to act as interpreters to the British Parliament of the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of India.” While the commission has the backing of all parties in the British Parliament, it is not, unfortunately, meeting with that measure of success in India which Sir John Simon and his colleagues could wish for. The Communist element is still very active throughout the provinces, especially in the north, and Ghandi is again to the front with his non-co-operative policy, his latest attempt taking the form of boycotting, by sending his followers into every country town and village to collect and burn all foreign cloth materials and to replace them with native tweed. “In the north,” a recent visitor to India states, “one still sees many posters ‘Simon Go Back’,” and the Nehru report, recently issued, “is taken by many as an attempt to co-operate with the

commission, by placing before it the explicit aims and arguments of the Nationalists, but in such a nSanner as to avoid being charged with having actually assisted the commission.” The co-operation with the commission is at best half-hearted, and appears to be designedly calculated to render its work abortive. It is somewhat significant that two very important measures, introduced in the Assembly by the Government of India, have not been proceeded with owing to the opposition shown to both. The first of these, the Public Safety (Removal from India) Bill, for the expulsion of immigrant Communist agitators, which had been under consideration by a select committee whose report was unanimous, maintaining the drastic character of the measure, with added safeguards against extrajudicial action by the executive, and recommending that it shcmld be allowed to proceed, was held up when the Assembly divided on the motion for the consideration of the Bill, the division lists showing 61 each way. The president, under the circumstances, refused to give his casting vote in favour of the measure, stating that, in his opinion, “if any party or Government member sought to place an extraordinary Bill on the Statute Book, he must convince the House in his favour.” The other measure -Was a Bill for the investigation and conciliation of trade disputes, but the obstructive tactics pursued by those opposed to the Bill led to its abandonment for the time being. The Nehru report, already referred to, was adopted by the Calcutta session of the National Congress, together with its demand for Dominion status for India, and it is, to say the least, curious that, just about the time this gathering of Indian Nationalists was held there was serious rioting in Bombay between Hindus and Moslems. Although the two cities are over 1200 miles apart, and there may seem no possible connection between the two happenings, two years ago, when tlie Nationalist Congress was meeting at Gauhati (Bengal province,) there was a similar outbreak, Hindus and Moslems being again at grips. The bitterness and strife, amounting to positive hatred, which exists between the two races is possibly the greatest barrier to the development of India on selfgoverning lines. The demand for Dominion status is set forth in the report plainly and unequivocally in the following terms: “India shall have the same constitutional status in the comity of nations known as the British Empire as the Dominion' of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand,- the Union of South Africa, and the Irish Free State, with a Parliament having powers to make laws for the peace, order and good government of India, and an executive responsible to that Parliament, and shall be known and styled as the Commonwealth of India.”