Commission Boycotted

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 283, 20 February 1928, Page 9

Commission Boycotted

INDIAN LEGISLATORS’ RULING

Decision by Narrow Margin By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright.

Reed. 11.45 a.m. DELHI, Sunday. The Indian Legislative Assembly, by 68 votes to 62, decided to boycott the Indian Commission of Sir John Simon. Lala Lajpat Tai, the Nationalist leader, in moving the boycott motion, said that Indians did not believe that those who appointed the commission were actuated by motives of justice and fair play, and acted in the interests of India. He had no faith in the commission’s competence. The ignorance of its members of India was its greatest disqualification, he said. \ CCORDING to a British official wireless message, Lord Birkenhead, speaking at Doncaster, said those who imagined they could defeat the purpose of the commission by boycotting it had no contact with reality. The assistance of Indian opinion officially represented and organised on the committees of the f/arious assemblies would be welcomed at every stage, hut if that help were not forthcoming the commission would nevertheless carry its task to a conclusion. The boycotters would gradually discover how little they represented the vast and heterogeneous community of which Britain was the trustee. . . They would discover that millions of Moslems, millions of. the depressed

classes, and millions of business men in the Anglo-Indian community, intended to put their case before the commission, and that the latter would ultimately report to Parliament.

They should consider whether the attitude recommended _by the mo.o extreme elements in India was likely to convince anyone that they were fit for any great extension of the present constitution. By co-operation they might easily so prove it. But he misread the situation if they had succeeded in proving that India was already ripe for an extension of the existing constitution by refusing, In the first place, to w<»’k it, and by declining in an organised boycott to examine its present workings with a view to it 3 reform and possible extension. —A. and N.Z.

The campaign to boycott the commission was launched in India early last August, under the aegis of Mahomed Ali, j who, it was rumoured, had been recently in close touch with Gliandi.