GANDHI’S PEACE TERMS WRECK INDIA’S CHANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1071, 8 September 1930, Page 9

GANDHI’S PEACE TERMS WRECK INDIA’S CHANCE

PARLEY BREAKS DOWN GOVERNMENT SAYS “NO” United P.A. — By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 11.5 a.m. DELHI, SaL The talks which have been proceeding for six months between the moderates, Mr. M. R. Jayakar and Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, and the imprisoned Indian Nationalist leader Gandhi and other prominent Congress leaders, in an endeavour to effect a settlement of the political situation, have definitely failed. The Government has refused to accept the compromise terms of the Congress for calling oil the civil disobedience movement. These were:

(1) The recognition of India’s right to secede from the British Empire. (2) A complete national Government, including the control of defence. (3) The right to refer to an independent tribunal such British claims and concessions, including the “socalled public debt of India,’’ as may seem unjust to India’s people. It is emphasised, however, that the picketing of liquor and cloth shops and the manufacture of salt by the people would continue. Other demands included the release of ail civil resisters and political prisoners and the return of property confiscated under the Salt, Press and Revenue Acts, the remission of fines and securities taken from convicted resisters and political prisoners and the repeal of all ordinances. COMMENT IN LONDON A British Official Wireless .message from Rugby says the failure of the talks is due to the over-reaching demands by the Congress leaders. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, informed the intermediaries that the discussion of such proposals was impossible and commented upon the blank refusal of the Nationalist leaders to recognise the grave injury that was being done to India by the civil disobedience movement. The “London Times,” commenting on the correspondence, says it is clear that any tendency on the part of Gandhi to compromise was overborne, and adds: “It is quite unjustified to assume that the refusal of the Congress Party to attend the round-table conference, except on terms which no self-respecting Government could accept, will wreck the conference. “Well organised as it is, the Congress Party is no more than a party lacking in cohesion, united only in opposition to the Government which has so far given no evidence of constructive ability beyond a scheme for a constitution which all Indian minorities have rejected. "All other sections of British and Indian opinion will be represented at the conference in London, and it should be remembered that in essentials there is no great difference in the principles between the demands of the moderate Hindu party and those of the Congress Party. “It was desirable that Congress should be represented, but the presence of its delegates is not indispensable, and the Government and cooperators can continue their preparations for meetings in London with a clear conscience.”