UNREST IN INDIA

Wairarapa Daily Times, 24 December 1932, Page 5

UNREST IN INDIA

DEFINITE IMPROVEMENT MINISTERIAL REVIEW. Press Association Electric Telefiraph—Copyright RUGBY, Friday. During the debate on the adjournment of the House of Commons for the Christmas recess the Secretary for India, Sir Samuel Hoarc, made a statement on the situation in India and the progress of the Round Table Conference. He said that, as far as he could judge, the situation in India was definitely better. The Ottawa Agreement had been passed by the Legislative Assembly by 77 votes to 35 —a very significant evidence of goodwill between the Indian Legislature and the Imperial Parliament. As to the emergency orders, he had always hated them, and no one wished to see them imposed unless absolutely necessary. Some months ago the Indian Government came to the, view that it would be much more satisfactory if the responsibility of dealing with the grave threats to law and order was imposed on the- Legislatures rather than on the ordinances of the Governor-General. Ho was glad to be able to announce that, so far as he could see, by the beginning of the New Yead there need be no further emergency orders. Referring to the suggestion of a previous Opposition speaker that there had been a change in the attitude of the, Government to the Conference, Sir Samuel said ho could sav quite categorically that there was no difference at all. They were trying to get exactly the same results as before. They had not departed from the-White Papers of last year, either in letter or spirit. The Conference would end just as the Conference of last year and the year before had ended, with a series of reports, and when the Opposition read them they would agree that much useful work had been done.

A great measure of agreement had been reached not only between the Governments in Britain and India, but also with the Indian delegation in London. The Government would do everything in its power to increase the forces of goodwill, and would show its willingness to co-operate with India, if India, would co-operate with it. With regard to the labour conditions revealed in the Whitley Report, he said that the administration, of labour questions was a. transferred subject, and the India Office therefore had little or no control, but his advisers and he himself were fully alive to the need for a great improvement, and all the influence they could exert would be in the direction of helping both the Central and Provincial Governments to do everything possible to raise the standard of labour conditions generally.

BURMA’S CONSTITUTION. (Received Saturday, 10.15 n.m.) • CALCUTTA, Friday. At the conclusion of six days’ excited debate, the Burma Legislative Council rejected, by a majority of ten in a House of one hundred members, a motion urging separation from India, and recommending the Round 'Fable Conference to define Burma’s future constitution.

A motion proposing Burma’s entry into the India Federation, with the right of secession, was carried. This is not likely to be agreed to by the British Government, as the last days have been reached of the Round Table Conference, which decided the future constitution of Federated India, not including Burma. The Premier has already stated that conditional entry into the Federation is impossible.