REFORM FOR INDIA.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20538, 13 February 1935, Page 1

REFORM FOR INDIA.

Bill Passes Second Reading. United Press Assn.—By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, February 11. Topflight, at the conclusion of four days’ debate in the House of Commons, the Government’s India Bill passed its second reading. The Labour amendment, regretting that the Bill failed explicitly to recognise India’s right to Dominion status or provide for the enfranchisement of workers and peasants to enable them constitutionally to work out their own social and economic emancipation, was defeated by 404 votes to 133, the figures being received with cheers and countercheers. A summing up of the divergent views on the principles of this important measure was provided by Mr Winston Churchill, who was the last speaker for the dissentient Conservatives, the leader of the official Opposition (Mr George Lansbury), Mr Isaac Foot, a prominent Liberal who was a member of the Joint Committee on India, the Attorney-General (Sir Thomas Inskip), and Mr Stanley Baldwin (Lord President of the Council). Sir Thomas Inskip dealt in particular with the problem of the depressed classes, the inclusion of law and order within the sphere of action of the Ministers, and the question of Dominion status. Conservative Criticism. Mr Winston Churchill prefaced his criticism of the Bill by referring to the Dominion status declaration as a grave new fact. He admitted he himself had loosely and unwisely used the phrase immediately after the war, but later it was felt in many quarters in politics that such a vague, indefinite phrase ought not to play its part in the revision of the Indian constitution. He contended that they were entitled to a clarification of Sir Thomas Inskip’s statement. There was no doubt that the Statute of Westminster would apply the Dominion status to India which the Government contemplated. They had been told that if they did not accept the Bill, Mr Churchill continued, they would put the Socialists in power and get a worse one, but whenever the Socialists attained office it would be easy for them to tear away all safeguards. Labour Criticism. Colonel J. C. Wedgwood (Labour) said that none of the supporters of the Bill had answered the Indians’ objection that it was removing Great Britain’s hand and introducing the deader hand of the princes and the aristocracy, which had stood since the seventeenth century.

Mr Lansbury said that his party regretted to enter the same lobby as Mr Churchill and his supporters. The Opposition would like to go alone into a third lobby. Labour’s view’ was that the Bill did not give the people of India that advance in self-government to which they were entitled. After Mr Baldwin had replied to the debate the Labour amendment was put and defeated by 404 votes to 133. The Bill was read a second time. The minority consisted of eighty Conservatives (including Mr Winston Churchill, Sir Henry Page Croft. Lord Hugh Cecil and the Duchess of Athol), fifty-one Labourites and two Independents.

Not on Last Legs. Mr Stanley Baldwin (Lord President j of the Council) said that a section of the newspapers next day would doubtless infer that there would be an election at Whitsuntide. He was in nowise conscious of the Government being on its last legs and had not begun to consider the question of an election. If they failed to pass a Bill based on . the conclusions of successive inquiries | spread over several years they would be open to reproach for a breach of faith. (Cheers.) All the invaluable services which Great Britain had established in India would be continued, but the Indians alone could deal with the profound changes in religious and social customs rendered necessary bv the increase of population and the struggle for subsistence. Great Britain already’ had begun an attempt to make trade agreements with India in the same way as with the Dominions Bound by Pledges. Great Britain was bound by her pledges of 1917 and 1919 to make as big an advance in the direction of selfgovernment as circumstances in India permitted. If the Empire to-day was loyal it was because Great Britain had conceded in good time the reasonable claims of its units to become controllers of their own affairs. The same principle must be applied to India. The

majority in India had no greater ambition than to become a permanent partner in the British Commonwealth.

“ Let us welcome her in no huckstering spirit, but willingly and generously,” Mr Baldwin concluded. ' “ The Times.” in a leading article, says: “The overwhelming majority' on the second reading of the India Bill sufficiently' answers the absurd sug gestion that it should be withdrawn and recast to please the Conservatives. Mr Baldwin clearly’ is not rattled by the clamour for. radical change in the Government’s personnel and policy. He is unlikely to yield to a sudden impulse, although there is no reason to think that he is not profoundly convinced of the necessity for Cabinet reconstruction sooner or later, certainly long before the Government appeals to vhe country.”