The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1933. INDIA’S PROGRESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 July 1933, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. T UESDAY, JULY 25, 1933. INDIA’S PROGRESS.

The action of Great Britain in controlling India ig continuing to bear good fruit, and despite the agitation going on. British rule is making beneficial advance. The Secretary of State for India last week reviewing the general situation there told the Commons that the position was one for general satisfaction. 'Sir Samuel Hoar© took a cheerful view of the general outlook. He said the questions interesting Administrators in India to-day were not so much questions connected with civil disobedience or law and order, but the general field of administration, and particularly important questions in the social and economic fields rather than the political field. Thanks to the efforts of a great body of officials in India—both British and Indian—backed in recent months by the growing body of public opinion which had expressed itself in provincial councils, civil disobedience had notv become a matter of secondary import' ance. Referring to the fine record of India in regard to health, the Minister said a new drug had been discovered which as far as his medical 'advisers could judge would be effective in preventing relapses that for years had been at the back of a malaria epidemic. Stall further 'advances had been made with irrigation and work was being continued on various projects, four of which, at present in hand, covered areas of more than 1,000'OOO acres. When they’ were completed the total area irrigated would he 40,000,000 acres. The crops last season and the prospects for this year were satisfactory. Probably the most difficult problem facing the Indian agricultural community, apart from the question of price, was that of land n-venue and taxation. Thanks chiefly to the faa--eighted initiative of the provincial Governments, involving in a space of three months a reduction in rents and taxation to the extent of over £6,000,000, a readjustment in agricultural holdings had been made which seemed to- have been accepted as fair by both landlords and tenants. Trade reports were becoming mor« encouraging, and the prices of several commodities had risen. Trade in India had- increasingly resumed its normal course, undisturbed by political agitation. Dealing with the financial position, Sir Samuel said the Government of India might look back with satisfaction on the improvement effected, although it had entailed high taxation and civil retrenchment. Government securities had risen, and borrowing had bee n effected at' declining rates. The improvement in the general feeling toward law and order was demonstrated by the provincial legislatures’ passage of legislation-to replace the ordinances, and hv the fact that interest in civil disobedience had fallen to such a low ebb that its suspension at the beginning of Gandhi’s recent fast had made little or no practical difference. There was only a fifth of the civil disobedience cf a year ago and a tenth of that of three years ago, although the great, majority of the Congress Comm itee were not in prison at all.