MUST LEND AID IN WEAVING EAST & WEST TOGETHER

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18576, 26 September 1928, Page 10

MUST LEND AID IN WEAVING EAST & WEST TOGETHER

SIR JOHN SIMON ADVISES BRITISH PEOPLE ON INDIA. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received September 26, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, September 25. . The Statutory Commission on Indian Reform is due to leave London on Thursday for a tour of India, during which evidence will be taken by the Commission at the various centres. The visit will last seven months. Sir John Simon, head of the Commission, was to-day entertained at a farewell luncheon

larewell iuneneon in London under 1 the chairmanship * of the Marquis of | Reading, late ViceI roy of India. I Sir John Simon I said that the BriI tish Parliament had lan immense re- | sponsibility to the I peoples of India I and it seemed to ** t h e Commission that they would best act as interpre-

. ters to the British Parliament of Indian needs and aspirations if there were associated with them in their inquiry in every province an Indian committee elected by the Provincial Legislature, who would act as their colleagues and assist in their investigations. It was a deep satisfaction to know that this plan had been generally approved. Eight out of the nine provinces had resolved to adopt it, and the ninth had not yet finally decided. In more than one case the Provincial Council, which had at first resolved not to co-operate, had reversed its decision and had appointed its committee. Sir John Simon added: “Our duty is not to enact or decide, but to bring home to the British people the realities of the Indian problem and to act as interpreters to the British Parliament of the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of India. This Indian question in the years now coming is likely to become the greatest of all cases, in which you will have to reconcile authority with freedom. Let us never forget that while Britain has conferred on India the blessings of order and settled government, a sense of unity and the experience of disinterested administration, it has also roused in the leaders of Indian opinion the desire for constitutional development and belief in the virtues of self-government, which are the inevitable consequence of a Western education and of parliamentary experience. No Briton should complain if the Indians should be eager to apply the lesson which our imperial history has taught. The British people have to lend their aid as sympathisers and as friends in what is perhaps the greatest external question laid upon the statesmanship of to-day—the tremendous weaving together of the East and West.”—British Official Wireless.