Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 19, 1930. THE INDIAN ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 70, 19 September 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 19, 1930. THE INDIAN ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE

A slightly more favourable impression of the position in India is given by the latest of the Government's weekly surveys which we published on Wednesday. Outside of Congress circles the blame for the failure of "the recent peace negotiations" is placed upon the Congress leaders. Their inability to provide anything in the nature of a practical constructive programme has further illustrated the distance that divides them from the realities of administration. Aptly enough, this comment of the Government of India was followed yesterday by a summary of the scathing criticism which the Punjab Government had passed upon the general character of the municipal administration in that province.

The report refers to corruption and systematic frauds in every Department in Lahore, jriiile at Ambala the members were always actuated by personal and communal motives, and seldom take a broad liberal view of their civic duties.

Lahore now supplies object lessons' in two widely contrasted aspects of Indian politics.

It was, at Lahore that on the last day of 1929 the Indian National Congress carried Mr. Gandhi's resolution, which included the following proposals:—

A demand for complete independence instead of Dominion status; boycott of the coming Round Table Conference with the Imperial Government in London; boycott of the Central and Provincial Legislatures, with resignation by present members; and the threat of a campaign of civil disobedience.

By the "corruption and systematic frauds in every department" of its municipal administration Lahore now indicates what admirable use the Indian people have made of the measure of self-government already in their grasp. The American newspapers, which have been likening Mr. Gandhi to Washington and Jefferson and his illegal salt to the tea that was spilled in Boston Harbour, may find in the municipal activities of Lahore another parallel to American models. There is, of course, |no ground for suspecting the ConI gress leaders, and least of all Mr. Gandhi, of promoting or profiting by this corruption. But they have certainly not stopped it, and from the Western standpoint, which is the common-sense standpoint, they would supply better evidence of their countrymen's fitness for self-government by teaching them to use what powers they haye than by baying at the moon. It is, "however, perfectly clear that common-sense does not count for very much in India just now, and there is unfortunately good reason for fearing that at Westminster it does not count for so much as it once did.

One of the favourable symptoms mentioned by the Government of India is that the desire of the Congress leaders to continue picketing, even if the civil disobedience movement were called off is unpopular,

since it represents action 'in restraint of trade, which would prejudicially affect the interests of thousands of Indian, traders -without any limit of time. The trading community is realising more than ever the significance of Congress tyranny, and this particular threat is likely to hasten a revolt against their methods.

There is, however, no suggestion that this revolt is imminent, and the position of Bombay, where trade is stagnant, the mills are closing one after another, and the growing number of idle hands adds daily to the difficulties of the police, must by this time be almost desperate from the business standpoint. The progressive decline which the official survey notes in the enthusiasm of the civil disobedience campaign does not apply to the economic boycott, which has proved by far the most efficient weapon in the hands of the Nationalists and the rtfist baffling for the authorities. ; /

Moderate opinion, the survey proceeds, is rallying in. support of the Indian Round Table Conference as the agency through which practical issues can be examined and discussed in an atmosphere of reason and goodwill.

Pursuant to the resolution already quoted, the Conference is included in the Congress boycott, and the aim of the Moderates who were recently in negotiation with Mr. Gandhi and two of his fellow-prisoners was to get this boycott lifted in time to have the Congress party adequately represented at the Conference and with a less impossible programme than that propounded as an ultimatum at Lahore. With a similar object in view Lord Aberdeen and a number of other representative Liberals and Radicals have been urging the British Government to emphasise the representative character of the Con-' ference, the equality of all its members, and its object of "the attainment of Dominion status, subject to transitional safeguards," and also to spare no effort to secure the attendance and cooperation of Indian leaders, both men and women, and, with this end in view, to grant an amnesty to all political prisoners not guilty of violence.

That men and women of light and leading should have put their names to such a requisition as ihis indicates the lengths to which some representative people are prepared to go in order to conciliate the Congress iradrvp. Had ihe ■Government taken

the course proposed they would obviously have run a very great risk in India, and would probably have added to it by making it impossible for any Conservative leader or any less elastic Liberal leader than Mr. Lloyd George to attend the Round Table Conference. The unconditional amnesty has surely been made impossible by the outrageous demands which Mr. Gandhi, and his colleagues have put forward as the price of peace, but the Government had come perilously near to the express exclusion of the other British parties out of complaisance to the Indian demands. Indian patriotism was equally eager to have an All-Indian representative at the Conference, and to deny Britain a similar privilege. A Labour Government would be so much more easy to deal with than a delegation representing all parties that this point was very strongly urged, and emphasis was naturally laid on the fact that Mr. Mac Donald's original suggestion in October last was of a Conference with the Government. But after much hesitation a Government which represents a minority only in the House of Commons and in the nation decided that to secure a national representation it must seek the co-oper-ation of the Conservatives and the Liberals. But it is a very deplorable thing that neither as a Liberal leader nor as Chairman of the Statutory Commission will Sir John Simon be present at the Conference.