The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1930

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1930

INDIAN AFFAIRS. Pubeic attention will bo centred immediately on the Indian Conference at Home, There are hopes that something tangible will emerge from this all important Conference, but after the Imperial Conference on Dominion affairs generally, so pregnant with such possibilities at the outset, early anticipations may prove rather premature. India is in a state of unrest at present. Really tho general situation seems to he rather grave. As fi commentator on events remarks, though the periodical Government reports on the internal condition of India claim, from time to time, that the position is improving, one alarming feature of the situation is the tendency toward violent crime. '.Several attempts at deliln'i'.’ite murder have been directed again*t prominent Europeans, and the Calcutta police has unearthed a “terrorist plot’ of a very formidable character. “Large quantities of live bolides and bombshells, revolvers, daggers, ammunition, detonators, gun cotton, seditious literature and chemicals” were seized; plans were discovered <>i police stations, power-houses and European clubs, all doomed to destruction; and some of the prisoners ultimately revealed the existence of “a widespread conspiracy to manufacture explosives and collect arms for the indiscrimi.-

nate killing o|' Europeans and high police officials.” It is not necessary to suppose that the rank and file of the Hindus, or even the majority of t.lie Nationalists, anticipated in those plots. A significant fact is the arrest of the English wife of the Nationalist Mayor of Calcutta—formerly a student of Cambridge—as a member of an unlawful assembly. Mrs ■fen Gupta (once Nellie Gray) evidently belongs to the class of doctrinaires from who.se ranks “parlour Bolsheviks” and'other anarchist militants nre so constantly recruited. If only progressive movements could be kept clear of the “intclligonzia” coteries that always bang on to their skirts, the world would lie much safer for democracy and civilisation than it is to-day. As the time for the opening of the Round Table Conference on Indian affairs approaches, speculation as to its probable or possible outcome ie growing active at Home. In particular, the part to be played in the debates by the Simon Report is being vigorously discussed, and the Royal Empire Society, which includes a number of prominent Anglo-Indians, has issued a warning against accepting the recommendations of the Simon Commission in undiluted form. The Royal Empire Society, through its Indian Committee, condemnn the Simon scheme on the ground that “the proposed provincial and Indian Parliaments would be too large and the electorates too small.” Though it approves the gift of the vote to 100,000,060 villagers, it condemns the enfranchisement of several million women “without a grasp of political problems;” it favours a Second Chamber in each province; it demands the, retention of British control in the army; and it concludes with the isol- - reminder that “the premature introduction of responsible government in India is hedged with the gravest risks.” Tn suite of all these difficulties, we find Sir T. Bahadur Sapru, one of the Indian delegates now in London, demanding straightout “Dominion Status” for India as it stands to-day; and Mr C. F. Andrews, a well-known Anglo-Indian and personal friend of Gandhi, lias written a book to prove that “India cannot govern herself till she is free.” But the “Manchester Guardian,” which is certainly not, a reactionary paper, has reminded Mr Andrews that “though there is a Nationalism in Lidia there are still Hindus and Mohammedans at each other’s throats,” and there are istill native States and rajahs with their own ideas about what is due to them and their sovereign power. What; is. needed just now, says the “Manchester Guardian,” is “some coherent plan that will carry India ov6r the period oi transition” to tlm final triumph oi Nationalism and the goal of autonomy which, no loubt, the future has in store. But Gandhi has never constructed such a policy, and the Congress loaders who have refused to take part in t|ie Round Table Conference aye apparently neither willing nor able to devise it and with all this conflict there is much complexity and ground for fearing that the difficulties of the situation ■ are an almost impossible barrier to a successful i£sue.