INDIAN STATES

Southland Times, Issue 21772, 29 July 1932, Page 5

INDIAN STATES

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS COMMITTEE COMPLETES INQUIRY RIGHTS EXAMINED (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, July 27. With the issue to-night of the report of the Indian States’ Inquiry Committee the work of all three committees appointed after the Round-Table Conference has been completed. The next important stage in the Indian situation will be the announcement promised during the present summer of the Government’s decision on the communal question. The States’ Inquiry Committee reached unanimous conclusions after its 10,000 miles tour among the Indian States, during which personal discussions were held with 88 rulers or their ministers as well as with deputations representing whole classes of the smaller States. The purpose of the committee was to explore the specific financial problems of each State, bearing in mind the principle that an ideal system would be to arrive at an arrangement by which the Federal units would contribute on a uniform basis to the Federal resources. This work involved the examination of the existing rights of each State under its particular treaty with the Crown, and an examination in detail of the contributions certain States should make and the value represented by territories which some States have ceded to the Crown in return for guarantees of a military nature. The committee prepared a balancesheet for each Indian State, debiting the amounts in respect to certain immunities enjoyed and crediting it with its contribution to the Crown which eventually passes into the revenues of the Government of India. The object of the committee has been to suggest terms which could be fairly and reasonably accepted by both States and British India as a basis for mutual voluntary association. As far as the States are concerned, such an association must be achieved with each individually, as only in a very general sense is it possible to speak of the common interests of the States as contrasted with the interests of British India. The recommendations of the committee are thus intended to provide material for a settlement with each State on its entry into the federation on the basis of the balance-sheet, taking into account individual credits and debits. The committee, however, points out that by the very fact of entry into the federation the States would be making a contribution “which is not to be weighed in golden scales.”