Hopes India Will Stay In Fellowship
(P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day
The New Zealand Government hasbeen following recent developments ■with close attention, particularly those relating to the process by which India is to assume independence, said the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) today commenting on the Viceroy’s statement on India.
Mr Fraser said he believed the United Kingdom Government was taking the right course in proposing to introduce legislation during the coming session for transfer of power on the basis of Dominion status. “As a member of the British Commonwealth New Zealand is naturally and deeply interested in any decision designed to give India, or parts of India, the same privileges as we ourselves enjoy. “It is, however, not for us to advise India whether she should remain within the fellowship of the Commonwealth or separate herself from it. “On behalf of the New Zealand Government, however, I would like to make it abundantly clear that we in New Zealand would welcome continuation of our partnership with India on this new basis.”
SOMETHING ADDED Mr Fraser said people of the British Dominions do not regard Dominion status as an imperfect kind of independence. On the contrary it is independence with something added, not independence with something taken away.
It carried with it membership of a free and powerful association from which every element of constraint had vanished, but one in which a way had been found for the practice of mutual confidence and cooperation in full respect for the independence, sovereignty and individuality ,of each member.
The New Zealand Government, in acclaiming the approaching consummation of India's independence, therefore expressed the hope that that independence might be exercised within the British Commonwealth of Nations to the greatly increased benefit of all members of the Commonwealth and of the whole world and the New Zealand Government assured the people of India, in all circumstances, of its friendship and goodwill.
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Northern Advocate, 4 June 1947, Page 5
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316Hopes India Will Stay In Fellowship Northern Advocate, 4 June 1947, Page 5
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