NEED IN INDIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 425, 17 November 1930, Page 8

NEED IN INDIA

FIRM GOVERNMENT BUSINESS VIEWPOINT There has recently been a display of renewed activity on the part of the Indian Congress extremists in their efforts to paralyse the government of the country, writes a prominent British business man in India to the Dail Mail.

Bombay, which has long been the centre of intense activity, is now in a parlous condition, and this is wholly due to the weakness of the Government. P is apparently utterly unable or unwilling, to put forth ■ ny effort to cope with the situation. The result is that the Congress has almost taken charge of Bombay—in the sense that although it is an illegal body it is able to impose its will on the people.

The latest instance of this is the “black-listing” of European-managed cotton mills. Unless these mills are 75 per cent. Indian owned, unless they bank and insure with Indian concerns, and unless they give an undertaking not to take an active part in opposing the Congress, they will be completely boycotted.

There is where your Indian shows himself in his true colours. If and when he gets the power he will undoubtedly seek to expropriate everything British. 1 hope the British mercantile public are alive to this probability. What we in this country demand before everything else, in any scheme of Dominion status, are adequate and satisfactory safeguards for tho interests we have built up, which we claim to be allowed to carry on without hindrance.

We insist ‘hat we shall not be the subjects of discriminatory legislation, and that we shall enjoy equal rights with Indians as subjects of the Crown. These are points that cannot too forcibly be brought before the notice of the home public and especially before Parliament.

We are now suffering as the result of the unspeakably rotten government we have in India. One is almost tempted to speak of it as not government at all, but as a series of concessions to the Congress mob.

What prestige we had is rapidly disappearing and those among the weaker and illiterate classes who have always looked upon us as their protectors are beginning to lose their faith in us.

From one end of the country to the other the Congress appears to do as it pleases, and never a word from those in authority.

Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, carries conciliation too far and in Eastern nations that is often interpreted as a sign of weakess. We need supremely a man of firmness, one who will stand no nonsense and having given a decision will sec it is carried out.

Had we had such a man nine months ago there would have been none of the deplorable happenings that have been so characteristic of the Congress propaganda.

These are the views of every European in Calcutta. As one put it at a recent meeting, “We are sick to death of weak government.” The forthcoming Round-Table Conference in England will, in my opinion, be abortive. There are too many conflicting elements to hope for anything better. In that event, what will Parliament give us?