The Daily News FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1934. FEDERATED INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1934, Page 4

The Daily News

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1934. FEDERATED INDIA.

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It appears evident that the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee will he the foundation of the new Constitution of India Bill, and that the measure will be approved by the Imperial Parliament. In some respects the committee has departed from the suggestions contained in the famous White Paper issued to show the boundaries within which the Government of Great Britain was prepared to grant self-government. It seemed a few months ago that India might prove the rock upon which the National Government might founder. A section of the Conservative Party was strongly opposed to certain suggestions contained in the White Paper. The dissidents contended that if acted upon British rule in India would be weakened and the end of the Indian Empire begun. They claimed that the White Paper was doctrinaire, that it assumed that a constitution suitable for Great Britain would be equally suitable for a sub-con-tinent of Asia, and that it lost sight of the fact that whatever beginnings of a national spirit there might be in India owed their genesis and the possibility of their development to the strong, impartial central government of the British Crown. The dissenters maintained that even where certain features of the British system of government had attracted the admiration of other countries, the plain truth was that except in the British Dominions nations adopting English political institutions have changed them almost out of recognition, and that to imagine those institutions could be transplanted to India was to show ignorance of the real position that might lead to danger. The Parliamentary Committee’s report has done a good deal to remove the fears of the malcontents, It has as its central feature a federation of all India in which adjustments will be possible as the years show where they are needed, and into which all parts of India, including the autonomous Native States, can enter, if and when they are convinced that it will be for their own benefit and for that of India as a whole that they should do so. There is to be a strong central Government, partly subject to a Legislature to be elected by the Provincial Legislatures, but retaining overriding powers in certain important matters until the transition period is over and India has proved herself capable of self-government. Around the Central Government there will, if the committee’s recommendations are accepted, be a group of provincial governments, and possibly Native States, largely autonomous, but owing allegiance to the Central Government just as in the case of the Provinces of Canada oi* South Africa, though the degree of autonomy may not be so wide. The committee had the force of experience, *'for of its 32 members all except six had a personal knowledge of Indian affairs, and its findings are evidently to receive the endorsement of the majority of the Conservatives in the House of Commons. That will ensure the passage of the Bill, for the criticism from other quarters is that the recommendations do not go far enough in the grant of self-governing powers, and it is scarcely likely that the two extremes would join to defeat the Bill. The committee appears to have recommended the federal system be-

cause it gives room for growth. Reserving the important functions of foreign affairs, army, finance, and domestic peace for the review and, if necessary, the authority of the Viceroy, the Central Government is to have real authority in Indian affairs, with autonomous provincial governments handling local matters. The proposed federation is loosely-drawn. It is to be regarded as a living organism rather than a perfect machine. In that conception lies the strength of the scheme, also its danger, unless the development of self-government is guided with discretion. The fact that the committee’s recommendations are winning approval from moderate opinion in Great Britain should have its effect in India. The Dependency is not likely to receive a more generous offer from Britain whatever political party holds authority there, a fact that true patriots might ponder when listening to the vagaries of extremists.