HOW IT SHOULD BE OBTAINED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 9 October 1942, Page 5

HOW IT SHOULD BE OBTAINED

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTIES | BILL IN HOUSE OF COMMONS t.Rec. 10.5 a.in.) Rugby, Oct. 8. “We are not quitting India under anyone’s orders. It is we who wish India to go forward, not lly apart,” declared Mr Amery, Secretary of State for India, in the House of Commons, moving the second reading of the India and Burma (temporary and miscellaneous provisions) Bill. He said its main cause raised directly the whole issue of the present political outlook in India. The Bill was only intelligible in the light of the fundamental difference between the Congress Party on the one hand and the rest of India and the British Government on the other as to the method by which India’s freedom should be attained. In the name of the British Government Mr Amery repeated the pledge already made before India and the woild of the desire to see India’s destiny directed by Indian hands free from all external control. "The policy to which we arc committed is not one of reluctant retreat but of willing advance to a free and proper partnership in freedom. It was not Sir Stafford Cripps’s rejection of Congress demands for unlimited, unqualified power that wrecked a settlement. It was the demand, not the rejection.” Mr Amery added that the Congress Party, in recent years since coming under Gandhi's autocratic influence, had become a party of revolution. There was nothing more interesting or more dangerous in modern political phenomena than that of a revolutionary leader who by direct personal appeal to the masses was able to control an immensely powerful political organisation and make resistance to his arbitrary wishes by his associates impossible. This appeal might be to the German passion for brute force or to the mysticism of the Hindu rhetoric, but its aim was a type of dictatorship. It was idle to suggest that anything could possibly have resulted from negotiations with Gandhi after the passing of the Congress resolution except even a more complete disorganisation of communications. The Government of India had had no option but to take the prompt and firm action it did. thereby saving India and probably the whole Allied cause from grave disaster. The responsibility of the whole tragic business lay with Gandhi and his associates. Mr Amery said to the present it was known that 846 had been killed, ana 2.024 wounded in the disturbance. The killed included 60 Government servants.-

Mr Amery continued that there could be no question of the Government of India entering into negotiations with the Congress leaders or allowing others to do so so long as there was any danger of recrudescence of the troubles for which they had been responsible or until they made clear they had abandoned illegal revolutionary methods and were prepared to come to an agreed settlement with the rest of their fellow-countrymen. There was no prospect of appeasement with Congress in its present outlook. The question was whether any immediate interim solution could be found. Apart from Congress, the door remained open for favourable consideration of any proposal agreed upon by the leaders of other main parties within the framework of our declaration subject to the retention of ultimate responsibility of the Viceroy and Parliament pending the framing of an agreed constitution. Was it too much to hope that Indian lea leaders would still get together and seek a solution of the present deadlock which was essentially a deadlock not between India and the British Government, but within India—a deadlock which only the Indians could solve. REJECTION OF BILL MOVED Mr Maxton (1.L.P.) moved the rejection of the Bill on the ground that it failed to attempt to solve the main difficulties of the Central Government which were the main cause of the deadlock with the Provinces. Mr Maxton believed that India could solve these problems only after she was free. Mr Campbell Stephen (1.L.P.). seconding the rejection, urged the release of the Congress leaders and calling a conference of all parties to enable them to set up a provisional government. Mr Oliver Stanley, Minister of Production. said in the next few months a battle would be fought out in India deciding the country’s future for many centuries. If it went the wrong way it might put an end to discussion on India’s freedom for many 3 r ears.

Mr Attlee, Secretary of State for the Dominions, replying to the* debate, pointed out that it had yielded very few practical suggestions. He added that no one knew better than Gandhi that in India civil disobedience led to violence. Terrible things had happened and Gandhi himself expressed repentance. It was most regrettable that at the end of his life Gandhi should again have taken action which resulted in the deaths of innocent people. Mr Attlee reiterated that we were prepared to go l'ully into the question of the principle of our proposals which he believed everybody agreed were generous and wise—B.O.W.