HOME RULE FOR INDIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19197, 13 June 1924, Page 7

HOME RULE FOR INDIA

THE NATIONAL DELEGATION. COMMISSION OF INQUIRY URGED. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, June 11. Mr V. S. Sastri, Mrs Besant, and other Indian leaders now in London presented a memorandum to the India Office demanding the establishment of dominion Home Rule and urging the despatch of a Commission of Inquiry to India with wide terms of reference.—Renter. The National Conference of Liberal leaders held in Delhi in February ( last appointed Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr V. S. Sastri, and Mrs Annie Besant as a deputation to England to canvass support for the demand for the appointment ot a Royal Commission to grant immediate self-government to India. The form of self-government demanded would not encroach on the control of the army or foreign political relations, but would provide a scheme for the automatic control of these departments within a reasonable time. The speakers at the conference warned the Swarajists that their policy of obstruction -was suicidal. They also warned the Government that its failure to respond to the popular demand would make India’s future cloudy. Following upon the' conference a con l vention was held in April to draft a. scheme for India’s constitution. MRS BESANT’S PROPHECY. LONDON, June 1. Dr Annie Besant, the well-known iheosophist, has arrived in ixmdou from Juaia to embark on a lecture campaign, in which she will advocate Indian homo rule. She will aiso participate in an Indian conference which is to prepare a scheme of home rule lor presentation to Parliament in the autumn. Dr Besant says that Gandhi is optimistic, and that he hopes for home rule within a year, but she adds: “1 would not prophesy concerning the acceptance of the scheme', but for India it is home rule or revolution.” Bishop Tabbo, speaking at a missionary conference at Wembley, said he regretted that India had been swamped With sensational American films dealing with murder and- divorce. These, by giving a degrading impression of white women, were doing great harm. The Eastern nations, he said, regarded the (Ireat War as a civil war among the whites. It was a tremendous blow to the prestige of the white nations, whose supremacy over the coloured races was beginning to be seriously challenged. This threatened a collapse of civilisation.