VICEROY DEFENDS PLAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26479, 5 June 1947, Page 7

VICEROY DEFENDS PLAN

ALTERNATIVE TO COERCION LONDON, June 3. Lord Mountbatten, broadcasting over the All-India radio, said nothing he had seen or heard in the past few weeks had shaken his firm opinion that with a reasonable measure of goodwill between the communities a unified India would be the best solution of the problem. “It has ' been impossible to obtain full agreement on any plan that would preserve the unity of India,” he said. “ There can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one commun-

ity has a majority to live against its will under a Government in which another community has a majority The only alternative to coercion is partition.’”

He added that there was no time for bickering, much less for a continuation of the disorders and lawlessness. They must not forget what a narrow margin of food they were all working on. They could not afford- any toleration of violence. An India Office spokesman said that the plan definitely did not take into consideration the question of the corridor between Pakistan and Hindustan. With a great predominantly Hindu area separating them, he did not for one moment suppose a corridor possible through that area.