INDIAN COMMISSION

Southland Times, Issue 21087, 20 May 1930, Page 7

INDIAN COMMISSION

FIRST PART OF REPORT READY.

URGE EDITION BEING PRINTED.

(British Official Wireless.) Rugby, May 17.

The first part of the report of the Simon Commission on Indian Constitutional Reform which will be published on June IQ, is completed and a large edition is being printed. It will be available simultaneously here and in India. A large supply will be sent to India within the next few days. The second part of the report, setting out the commission’s recommendations, which are reported to be unanimous, is also stated to be ready for printing. It will be published on June. 24. The Secretary for India will be asked in Parliament to-morrow to arrange for the publication of the reports at a price that will not bar wide circulation.

Writing in the April issue of Headway, the monthly review of the League of Nations, Mr Warren Postbridge makes the following reference to India: It is not the policy of Great Britain to grant India independence full and unqualified, as Germany or Switzerland or Japan possesses it. British policy is to grant India, at a date still to be decided, self-government on the scale of that in Canada or Australia or South Africa, but within the circle of the British Commonwealth. The distinction between that and full independence is singularly small when it comes down to practical realities. The events of immediate moment in India’s evolution are the coming publication of the report of the commission which, under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon, has been studying the future form of the Government of India, and the “round-table conference” of representatives of all parties in India to be convened when the report has been issued. The year 1930, seeing as it will the publication of the Simon Report and the calling of the All-India Conference, promises to be as momentous as any in the history of British rule in India.