THE FUTURE OF INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20716, 8 November 1930, Page 11

THE FUTURE OF INDIA.

ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT. WARNING BY LORO BURNHAM. DANGERS OF SURRENDER. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. LONDON. Nov. 6. Tho delegates to the Indian RoundTable Conference are conferring informally at St. James' Palace. It is pointed out that the speeches by the Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, referring to Dominion status commit Britain to conceding what ever tlie conference unanimously demands. It has been clear for some time that the Government lias decided to use the report of Sir John Simon's Commission merely as a work of reference. It is also understood that the Government of India's recommendations regarding a constitution, which will be published probably next week, go further than the Simon Commission regarding the Central Government. Some of the delegates join in affirming that they expect immediate Dominion status, with safeguards regarding defence, including the maintenance of the British Army, foreign relations, finance, and the preservation of the interests of minorities Viscount Burnham, who was a member of the Indian Commission, in a foreword to the abridged edition of its report, calls attention to tlio danger of a " surrender policy." He declares that India, which is at present in ft state of crisis and incipient, anarchy, will bo the scene of a titanic struggle concerning the- relationship of the Asiatic and Western peoples. He adds that the main purpose of the commission had been to prevent the dissolution of tho British Empire in India.

OPENING BY KING. SECRETARIAT AT PALACE. TABLE FOR 86 DELEGATES. British Wireless. RUGBY, Nov. 6. King George will open the Indian Round-Table Conference in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords next Wednesday. Subsequent meetings will bo held at St. James' Palace, where preparations for the conference have now been completed. ' The secretariat of the conference has been housed at the palace for some time past, and in the last few days the palace has been used for preliminary informal meetings of the delegates from the Indian States and British India, as well as for smaller groups. The table round which Iho 86 delegates will sit has been specially constructed for the purpose, and is now in position in the Queen Anne's drawingroom of the palace, in which tlio plenary sessions of the recent London Naval Conference were held.

CONFERENCE PROBLEMS STATUS AND CONSTITUTION. REVIEW BY VISCOUNT PEEL. British Wireless. RUGBY, Nov. 6. Viscount Peel, a former Secretary of State for India, who is a member of tho forthcoming Indian Round-Table Conference, in a speech dealt with the difficulties which the conference would have to face. One of the difficulties of the existing situation was that thero had been some confusion in tho Indian political mind between questions of status and of the constitution. Indian thought was anxious that there should be no question of inferiority, and that India should bo placed on a complete equality with tho great Dominions. Unfortunately, some of tho constitutional problems had been considered, to some extent, not merely from tho point of view of what under present conditions would be tho best constitution for India, but whether tho new constitution did or did not placo India 011 an equality with tho Dominions.

The relations between tlio Hindu and Moslem communities, tlio protection of minorities, and the relation of {he Princes and their States to the more self-governing parts of India, all presented great problems for the conference. Lord Peel said ho did not think it would bo the duty of tho conference to frame a constitution for India, but to indicate clearly to tho Government what were tho general lines upon which it wished the constitution to be framed. Nor did he think that it would make decisions hy vote. The conference was not representative, in tho senso that it had been elected by constituencies. Another great difficulty was that tho extremist Congress section was irreconcilable, and would not bo represented at all. A great responsibility would there fore bo thrown upon the parties who were represented.