BRITAIN IN INDIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 12, 15 January 1932, Page 7

BRITAIN IN INDIA

REVISION OF FRANCHISE PERSONNEL OF COMMITTEES. [ British Official Wireless. ] RUGBY, Jan. 13. The personnel of the three committees shortly to' commence work in India in continuation of the discussions at the Round Table Conference has been announced. The Marquis of Lothian is chairman of the Franchise Committee, the committee comprising seven other English members and seven representative Indians, most of whom were members of tho recent Round Table Conference. The Federal Finance Committee of six members is under tho chairmanship of Lord Eustace Percy, and the chairman of the States Inquiry Committee of seven members is Air. J. C. C. Davidson, AI.PIt has been explained that the States Enquiry Committee in the course of a tour of the principal centres of the Indian States will adopt the procedure of meeting representatives of the States in conference with a view to a common discussion on the questions involved before drafting its report. The Prime Minister has nominated seven of the State’s delegates and thirteen British delegates to the Round Table Conference to be members of the Consultation Committee under the chairmanship of the Governor-General as deputy for himself. It is the Government’s intention that the Conference should succeed through this working committee, with which through the Government His Majesty’s Government would keep in effective touch. It is tho intention of the Government that this working committee of the Conference be brought into effective consultation on the recommendations of the three committees above named before the conclusions on the recommendations arc adopted by the Government. Besides this, it will participate in much constructive work which, can be undertaken independently.

The terms of reference for the three committees, which sail from Marseilles on Friday, arc set out in letters to the chairmen in a letter from the Prime Minister. ‘To your Committee the Government will look for complete and detailed proposals on which to base a revision of the franchise and the arrangement of constituences for the now Legislatures, central and provincial, which are to form part of tho Constitution, and the Government hopes the Committee will be in a position to so frame their proposals as to present a complete detailed scheme for the forming of each of the provincial Legislatures and of the Federal Legislature. The principl c of a responsible Federal Government, subject to certain safeguards, has been accepted by the Government. INDIAN MURDER THE CASE COLLAPSES WITNESSES RETREAT CALCUTTA, Jan. 13. Tho case against Bimal Das Gupta, charged with murdering Air I’cddie, tho district magistrate at Midnapore, Bengal, on April 7, collapsed owing to witnesses going back on the statements orginally made before the magistrates. The prosecutio ■ was withdrawn. Gupta is serving a sentenc of ten years for the attempted murder of Edward Villiers, president of tho European Association.