ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21217, 24 December 1930, Page 12

ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE.

FUTURE OF INDIA. AN ALLEGED INTRIGUE. (From Oub Own. Cobrespondehi. ) LONDON, November 6. The Indian Round Table Conference ia to be opened by. the King on November 12, and preliminary work has already begun. It is understood that the Indian Princes have accepted the idea' put forward by the Simon Commission of a federated India, but desire closer association with the Central Government than is foreshadowed, on the Commission’s Report. As regards the delegates from British India, it is understood (writes a special correspondent of the Morning Post) that 95, per cent, of them, whether Hindu or Moslem, intend to demand the immediate recognition of dominion status as an aim in the near future/ . This new < alliance of ■ natural opposites has a significance which cannot be ignored. These British Indian delegates have, as. yet* come to no decision as to how Dominion status is to be arrived at or what it really means., Some of, them, accept the federal idea put forward in the- Simon Report, but all demand the practical elimination of British control in the provinces. DOMINION STATUS. “On the eve of the,Round Table Conference it ia not surprising to hear,” says the Morning Post, in a leading article, “that there has been a little intrigue by way of preliminary. The Hindu- delegates—so the report "goes — have persuaded the Mohammedans to agree with them in demanding a pledge of ‘ dominion status * as a preliminary to negotiations -with the British Govern--xnnet. It is, of course, notorious that for years the astute politicians who work the Congress movement have been angling for Mohammedan support; but the Indian Moslems, as a body, understand the conspiracy too well to be misled by such blandishments, As a minority in -India they have every reason to fear majority rule, and they know that what stands between them and the ferocious enmities of racial and religious fanaticism is the impartial hand of the British Raj. Withdraw that, and the Mohammedans would have to fight fox their existence in India, AN EMPIRE QUESTION. “ The Congress have declared that they will be content with nothing less than sovereign independence, and that they regard ‘dominion status’ a§ a mere step in that direction. They have also insisted that that term involves ‘ their right to secede.’ There is no excuse, then, for any misunderstanding on this subject: dominion status means the loss of India, and that includes, as we have also been told, repudiation of the British debt, and a hostile policy generally. We can hardly, believe that any British Government would be so false to its trust as to yield such terms, still less that the Conservative representatives would agree to them. Such a surrender ia beyond the scope of the. Conference and of Government. Not only does it concern the Imperial Parliament, but the other partners in the British Empire, as, for example, Australia and New Zealand, which are vitally involved. Here, let. us point out that so little has the question of Imperial, defence been consi dored- that there is not even a representative- of the Indian Army • at the Conference. In the circumstances, we can hardly believe that the intrigue will succeed, but it ia important, to know that it is afoot.”.