Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1937. THE PROBLEM OF INDIA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 159, 7 June 1937, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1937. THE PROBLEM OF INDIA

Another appeal has been made by the Secretary for India to the Congress Party to accept the responsibilities of government which it has spurned since the elections this year. On April 1 the provincial portions of the constitutional reforms were brought into actual effect, an experiment in democracy that has caused serious misgivings among some people in Great Britain and opposition in the Congress, because it did not give India to the Indians —which is tantamount to the Congress Party—to govern. Many Indian administrators with lengthy experience of Oriental conditions also have expressed their doubt as to the feasibility of the reforms. This colossal task has involved the conferring of democratic institutions upon 350,000,00(1 Indians, many of whom are illiterate, and among whom totally distinct languages are spoken, while their customs and creeds are a fruitful cause of racial trouble. The reforms are both provincial and federal, the former creating individually responsible governmental units, while the latter will function once the provincial section has been proved a success. Eleven provincial governments were embarked on their separate functions on April 1. Each has an independent administration responsible to the elected legislatures, six of which are bicameral and five unicameral. "Voting was directed on a low educational and property qualification. By this Act was ended the system- of governing the provinces, which are each as big and as thickiv populated as a first-class European State —among them containing 2G0,000,0UU people—by officials responsible to the British Government. An electorate which had hitherto numbered six, million voters was expanded into one of thirty millions, of whom' five millions are women, by the franchise qualification. Organising its hostility to the reforms the Congress Party won somewhat surprisingly a large proportion of the seats, and in six electorates refused to take office with its absolute majorities. In the remaining five provinces control rests between combinations of sucli groups u,s the Moslems, the Liberals, the Depressed Classes, the Justice Party, and the Sikhs, who have uo objection to working the new system. To meet 1 lie situation created by the Congress Party the British authorities formed minority governments which will continue until the members of the Congress Party show a willing ness to co-operate. “Is it too much to ask that they should not 6puru the collaboration that Great. Britain in all sincerity Is-offer-ing them,” the Marquess of Zet-

land has asked, “or that they on their part should not withhold the co-operation -which Great Britain is asking from them in the common task, which is not only worthy of the united efforts of the two peoples, but also, in the light of history, is their obvious destiny?” The previous appeals of the Secretary for India have met with increased hostility to the Act, and Pandit Nehru, the Congress Leader, has resolutely refused to approach the Viceroy to end the deadlock. A serious consequence is that, as the Marquess of Zetland said, men d’f brilliant attainments and of high ideals are being lost to India’s service. A complex sitiiation has been created, but it should not be beyond the wit of British statesmen with the help of intelligent Indian people to clear away the difficulties. The Congress Party made promises to its constituents during the election. and so long as it remains aloof these cannot he fulfilled. In this way it must injure its own members, many of whom, it has been noted, have been attracted by the prospect of dwelling in the official tents of the ungodly. The Secretary for. India has made a brilliant appeal to the Nationalists and a compromise should not be impossible.