INDIAN POLICY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 3, 3 December 1931, Page 7

INDIAN POLICY

MOTION OF APPROVAL. SUBMITTED BY PRIME MINISTER, DEBATE IN CROWDED HOUSE. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received December 3, 10.5 a.m. RUGBY, Dec. 2. The debate in the House of Commons on the motion approving of the declaration of the Government’s. IncXan policy began this afternoon in a crowded House and will be continued to-mor-row. The motion was submitted by the Prime Minister, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, who said that his statement on Tuesday had the full absent of the Cabinet. He observed that none who sat at the Round Table Conference could doubt that the political capacity in India was solid and widespread and had enormously, increased m recent years. The value of the conference had been that it had enabled them to better understand what was the Indian “mind,” and what were the big problems in translating the “mind” into a working constitution. The next stage obviously was to submit outstanding questions to a detailed constructive examination, and they accordingly were being referred to several committees working in India. There were certain points of the conference which they desired to be specially studied, including questions of franchise and safeguards. Alluding to the communal question, Mr MacDonald said that the Government took the view that it would not be justified in allowing failure to agree on this point to stand in the way of putting into operation a Constitution wliiclr otherwise had a rough, general agreement. He wanted to impress the House of his conviction without reservation that the work so far accomplished could never have been done except by the method of co-operative consultation, and if they tried, to change the method it would destroy the chances of continuing toward an agreement and in co-operation with India herself, but if they succeeded it would lie one of Britain’s greatest contributions to democratic institutions and human liberty. The Prime Minister criticised an amendment standing in the name of Mr Winsrton Churchill and four other members, and made an appeal, which was later repeated by Lord Wipterton, for its withdrawal. LONDON TIMES’S COMMENT. LONDON, Dec. 2. The Times, in an editorial, says: “It is to be hoped that Mr MacDonald’s plain declaration of British policy at the India Conference will send -the visitors back convinced of Britain’s good faith and sympathy, and that she is determined to complete the task. The Viceroy’s ordinance with regard to the terrorism in Bengal shows that the Government does not intend to abandon India to chaos. There is nothing inconsistent between the method of the conference and the repression of murder.”