BRITAIN’S PARTNERSHIP

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1930, Page 9

BRITAIN’S PARTNERSHIP

GRATITUDE FOB LOYALTY \ POSITION IN INDIA REVIEWED EFFECTS OF SIMON REPORT REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENT British Wireless. Rugby, Nov. 18. Lord Peel, the first British delegate to speak at the India conference, said, whatever might be the constitutional issues they felt most deeply the contributions that In dia had made to the' Empire* and gratitude for the great devotion with which the Indian princes and people threw themselves into their, great contribution to the war. •Quoting the Viceroy’s statement to the Legislative Assembly last January, Lord Peel, said some political circles in India had misinterpreted it, regarding the statement of immediate purpose. There was no promise in that statement of immediate translation into the fact of full measure of Dominion status. Dominion status was pointed out as the goal that might be at . tained in a swifter way or in a shorter time if things went well with the political development of India and, therefore, while they were united on the goal they might differ as to the pace in which it might be attained. . .When talking of the British position in India let the delegates remember that the British had been there a long time. Do not talk of the British in alarm but as those who contributed greatly to the constitution and growth, moral and material, of India and- as those who have won a place in India of consideration or of partnership on account of previous services. Lord Peel described the Statutory (Sir John Simon) Commission’s report as a great contribution to the Indian problem and as a revolutionary document. As an indication he recalled that it swept away the dyarchy and the councils in the provinces were furnished with exceedingly wide powers over great populations. Really they were not provinces but countries with 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 people. Lord Peel asked if it was nothing that those wide powers were to be fully transferred to Indian Ministers, whose laws and whose administrative acts would, touch most closely the intimate lives of those millions of people in the different provinces in education, in local government, in wealth, agriculture and even in taxation, In those circumstances was there really anything inherently unreasonable in proposing that while the were adjusting themselves to these new conditions, settling down and learning their new powers and applying the arts of government to these great populations, that during that time, not a long time perhaps, there should be no substantial change in the central Government. Lord Peel said the transfer of police was viewed with great anxiety in many quartern, not only here , but by . some Governments in India.’ While they all hoped that with an agreement all the old difficulties and communal troubles would disappear yet the impartiality of the British police was an advantage. They felt that this was not front any desire to delay in India realisation of its aspirations, but because Parliament did feel a tremendous responsibility towards India.