India’s Problems Not Unbridgable, Amery Says

Northern Advocate, 16 August 1940, Page 6

India’s Problems Not Unbridgable, Amery Says

[British Official Wireless ] Received 9.30 a.m.)

RUGBY. August 15

Speaking in the House of Commons during a debate on India the Secretary of State for India (Mr L. S. Ameryh said it was five years since the passage of the Government of India Act.

The Act was still working successfully in four of the 11 provinces in India.

It was due purely to extraneous causes that the Act was not being worked in the other seven provinces.

The constitutional deadlock in India today, said Mr Amery was not so much between the British Government and the Indian Opposition, as between the main lines of India's national life.

It could not be solved by the easy method of bilateral agreement, but by the much more difficult method of multilateral agreement among the parties, of which the British Government was only one. Many Differences.

Mr Amery illustrated the many differences which existed between the various sections of the Indian populace and which prevented any single party from claiming the right to speak as the voice of India. Had such a party existed, the task of the British Government would, of course, have been rendered far easier.

Nevertheless, he refused to regard India's constitutional problems as unbridgeable. In spite of the discouraging attitude shown in Congress quarters to the offer of the Viceroy (the Marquess of Linlithgow), to the Indian leaders of an opportunity to take an immediate and effective part in the Government of India, Mr Amery said he still hoped they would all be willing to play their part.

Paves Wav for Ultimate Goal

If the contrary should unfortunately prove to be the case, Lord Linlithgow would still go ahead, prepared to work with those who would work with him and with each other. "The Viceroy's offer has been also concerned with paving the way for the speedy attainment of the goal to which the British Government is aiming—the goal of Dominion status for India." Mr Amery continued. "The desire of the British Government is that the new Constitution for India should be devised by Indians themselves, and should originate from Indian conceptions cf the social, economic and political structure of Indian life. "That task is to be undertaken with the least possible delay after the war. by a body representative of the principal elements of India's national life. "Within the limitations imposed by the necessity of securing agreement the 'whole constitutional field is open to re-examination. Opportunity to Assist. "It may, indeed, prove to be the case that it is by entirely novel departures from the existing scheme, whether in relation to centres, provinces or states, or methods of election and representation, that an agreement might be reached, which cannot be attained within the framework of the existing Act." Mr Amery emphasised that the Viceroy's offer gave Indian leaders an opportunity uf assisting in the conduct of the war without prejudice to tlftdr political positions. The Congress demand that all members of the Viceroy's Council should be dependent on the elected members of the Legislature meant changing the whole basis of Government in the middle of the war. and was prejudiced. because, while it was favoured by the Congress it was rejected by the minorities.

Question in Lords,

In the House of Lords, Lord Strabolgi asked whether those Indians whom it was proposed should be coopted to the Executive Council would join the Governor-General in Council in an executive or an advisory capacity.

The Under-secretary for India (the Duke of Devonshire) replied : "Those Indian gentlemen who have been invited to join the Council will become executive members and will be chosen by the Governor-General.''