DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 75, 30 March 1933, Page 11

DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

SAFEGUARDS IMPORTANT

CBITICS IN COMMONS

(Brituh. Official Wireless.) KUGBY, March 28. The House of Commons today resumed the debate on the Government's motion asking for authority to set up a Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the Hjuse of Commxms on constitutional reform in India before Parliament is asked to take a decision. " Sir .Robert Home, who was among the speakers, emphasised the vital importance of safeguards, as they were giving a system of Parliamentary democracy to 350 million people at a time when, many countries were being deprived of Parliamentary democracy and resorting to dictatorships. He criticised from this viewpoint many features of the "White Paper. Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary, declared that it was ' perfectly plain that the Government of India Act, under which the statutory Qomniissioi was appointed,''with its preamble deliberately conceived that Britain was as a matter, of policy pledged to fair pursuit of the policy presented, to the House by the late Mr. Montague when Secretary for India. Methods «nd con-1 ditions were open for -consideration, but j the goal was beyond question. A risk undoubtedly existed in r. cry attempt tv raise the conditions of peoples. He wanted to see tha prosjject of this new development of Greater India much, more thoroughly investigated so that there would be an opportunity of the great Indian Princes playing a larger part than before.

Having stated the points *m- which there might be said to be differences between the report of the Commission, of which he was -chairman, and the White Paper, Sir John Simon declared that he would feel more difficulty if the Secretary of State for Endia. were today or* tomorrow to ask th& House to vote- in favour of the White "Paper, but he was not doing that. The. Secretary for India, was saying: "We must set up now without further delay a Joint Committee, and in order thai; that committee may not wander at large over tho field we who have worked for many months on the subject present a connected and articulated scheme in the White Paper, which we do . not say is to be the Bill that we will introduce, but which will give everybody the view which the Government putis forward with every opportunity of its being examined, criticised, and improved." Sir John Simon describe & the burden which lay on the shoulders of the present Parliament as one wf the most tremendous cvent3 in history.