WARNING ABOUT INDIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 823, 18 November 1929, Page 9

WARNING ABOUT INDIA

HOME RULE IMPRACTICABLE, SAYS CHURCHILL PROPOSAL CALLED A CRIME LONDON, Saturday. "It is time the nation faced without illusion the momentous crisis and ordeals which are approaching in India,” says Mr. Winston Churchill in ail article in the “Daily Mail.” “Already in Egypt the Government lias made proposals to the Nationalists which will consummate the long process of abdication of our moral and pra ctic al responsibilities. “The British garrison at Cairo, which has ensured peace and progress in Egypt for half a century, is to dig in along the Suez Canal, leaving the country to the confusion of foreign intrigue. The first fruits of this policy of evacuation were witnessed in the Palestine riots.

“Though Egypt is important she is tiny compared with India, whose rescue from ages of barbarism is the finest chievement in the history of Britain.

“The Prime Minister, Mr. MacDonald, formally assured the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Baldwin, that the Viceroy’s recent declaration did not involve a new departure. Nevertheless, a misunderstanding has arisen in India. Therefore, it is the duty of public men of all political parties in Britain to make it plain without delay that the extension of Dominion status to India at. present is ail impracticable idea. That home rule can emerge from anything now being done is not only fantastic in itself but criminally mischievous in its effects. “It is necessary to marshal the sober, resolute forces of the Empire against the perpretration of such a crime as the immediate grant of Dominion status to India.”