Constitutional Reform in India

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 273, 21 November 1934, Page 4

Constitutional Reform in India

SELECT COMMITTEE PUBLISHING REPORT , (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Nov. 17. Undoubtedly the main political event next week will be the publication of the report of Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform. This important document is awaited with intense interest in Britain and India, and, indoed, throughout the Empire. In order to ensure its careful study by the largest possible number of people it will be issued in India and Britain, where it will be published simultaneously at an. exceptionally low price. Constitution of Committee. The Joint Select Committee consists of members of both Houses of Parliament chosen by their fellows with the task of revising tho draft constitutional scheme submitted, to it by the Government. All parties are represented on it, and the majority of-the members have long made a special study of the problem placed before them. They include threo ex-Viceroys, three former Secretaries of State for India, three former Under-Secretaries, of State for India, two ex-Governors of India Provinces, four members who visited India with the Simon Commission, six members of tho visiting Committee appointed by the Round Table Conference, and other Parliamentarians who have given long public service to India.,

If will thus be seen that the Committee carries exceptional weight, of authority, and it is doubtful if ever such concentration of expett knowledge

has been brought to near upon any great Imperial question. It should also be mentioned that the Committee contains a proportion of men of such status as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Derby, and Sir Austen Chamberlain, who have not hitherto been directly associated with Indian affairs, and whoso opinions must have in the main been shaped in the course of Committee proceedings. The report will, of course, supersede all previous documents on which it will bo founded. It will undoubtedly be closely scrutinsed, and cannot hope to avoid criticism, at least from those whose opinion have already been formulated. Reception Prospects. In Britain a large section of the Conservative Party has expressed grave anxiety that the measure of constitutional reform will proceed too far and too fast. On the other hand, the Congress

Party in India is already criticising the White Paper even before its rigorouslyguarded contents are published. Nevertheless, the all-important document wilt be'issued at a time when the atmosphere in India shows an immenso improvement on that of two or three years ago. . At, that time the Congress agitation was at its height. Now tbc

Congress Party has returned to constitutional ways, and is concentrating now on obtaining votes to return its members to the next Legislature, while Mr. Gandhi, for so long the protagonist of nonco-operation, is using his influence with the electorate to bring them to the polls.

Between these extremes of formulated opinion there is an immeuse body of moderate, if less audible opinion, which will regard the report, objectively with the sole intention of judging its effects upon the best interests of India, and her continued association with the Empire.