HISTORIC MEASURE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 210, 3 August 1935, Page 7

HISTORIC MEASURE

RULE IN INDIA. BILL BECOMES AN ACT. EIGHT YEARS’ PREPARATION. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph. Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received August 3, 11.30 a.in. RUGBY, Aug. 2. The Government of India Bill became an Act to-day' when it received the Royal Assent. In the House of Lords many members of the House of Commons attended at the bar to witness the historic scene.

Tho preparations for passing the measure have occupied nearly eight years. The publication of the report of the Simon Commission in May, 1930, was followed by various sessions of the Round Table Conference and the issue of tho Government’s YYliito Paper in March, 1933, indicating that the greatest common measure ot agreement had been reached as a result of these investigations anil consultations. The Parliamentary Joint Select Committee sat for 18 months, and its recommendations in October last were largely incorporated in the Bill, the proceedings in connection with which occupied 61 Parliamentary days this session.

The scheme of the Act is to set up in place of the present form or government in British India an All-India Federation linking together the eleven British and Indian provinces and such Indian States as arc prepared to join. Both at the Federal centre and in the provinces, the Government will be formed of Ministers responsible to the Legislatures in much the same sense as the. British Cabinet is responsible to Parliament at Westminster.

Burma is separated from India and given a Constitution on the same general lines. The more notable amendments accepted in the course of the Bill’s passage through Parliament are the reservation of six seats in the Council of State for women and the substitution of direct for indirect election to tlio Council of State. 'l’he Federation does not conic into being without the essential pre-re-quisite of the accession of Indian States containing not less than half the total States’ population. The welfare of the people of India and Burma, numbering already three hundred and fifty million, is involved in the Act added to the Statute Book to-day.