INDIAN REPORT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21968, 27 November 1934, Page 10

INDIAN REPORT

CONSERVATIVES' VIEWS . i ■ TESTING OPPOSING STRENGTH British Wireless RUGBY. Nov. 25 Much importance is attached to the approaching meeting of the Conservative Party in London when the report of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform will be debated, and the strength of the section of Conservatives opposed to the proposals tested. 'The meeting; will be held on December 4. The principal speaker for the Government will be Mr. Stanley Baldwin.

In a speech at Glasgow, Mr- Baldwin said that hi view of the forthcoming meeting, and the fact that it was only 48 ho'urs since the report had been received, he urould not say anything on the great problem, but he invited all to study the report with impartial minds. '

The opposition to the report will be led at; the Conservative meeting by the Marquess of Salisbury, who signed the minority report of the Select Committee. The resolution which he will move will be-to the effect that constitutional reform .in India should for the present be confined to provincial autonomy. • * .// BOLD IN CONTRIVANCE MAGNITUDE OF PROBLEM ■ • t MR. '/]■. L. GARVIN'S COMMENT LONDON, Nov. 24 Mr.' J. L. Garvin, writing in the Observer, describes the India report as bald ip practical contrivance and slurring no difficulties. When tho Australian Commonwealth Bill was brought to Westminster a generation "ago it was called a now thing in history, being ; a Constitution for a continont. It was framed for about 5,000,000 souls, but tho • India report concerns over 350,00p,000 pooplo. No/ is Jtidia usefully described as a sub-continont# It is less bo than Europe. Its land frontiors are demarcated by stupendous ramparts, wheroas by comparison tho elevations between Asia and Europe aro low and easily crossed. The Timor Sea, in tho presont ago of aviation,, will be flown daily when the icy chains of tho Himalayan and the trans-Himalayan rangos long remain a sky-cleaving obstacle. The design of the system of federalism with safeguards is by necessity equals* colossal and complex. Under it India is offered far more freedom than exists in some of the most highly civilised nations of Europe.