“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1937. INDIA’S CONSTITUTION.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 400, 6 April 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1937. INDIA’S CONSTITUTION.

It has been the declared policy of Great Britain since 1919 to provide for ‘‘the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and gradual develepment of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in British India as an integral part of the British Empire.” That policy was implemented by the Act of 1935, which provided an all-India Federation with provincial autonomy, and this great advance towards self-government came into force last week. Two new provinces, Sind and O.rissa, have been created, and Burma has been separated from India. The provinces of Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the United Provinces, Bihar, and Assam will have a legislature of two Chambers, whilst the Punjab, the Central Provinces and Behar, the North-West Frontier provinces, Orissa and Sind will have one Chamber. There will also be seven chief commissioners’ provinces. The Federal House of Assembly will be in the main elected by the provincial assemblies. It was a hopeful sign that ear’y in February the elections to the new provincial legislatures passed without dangerous incidents, notwithstanding that there are thirty-five million electors on the roll and that six million of them are women. Ihe magnitude of the reforms may be realised in the fact that there are 1 585 seats to be filled in the provincial assemblies. Of these, however, only 808 are general seats, open to free partv competition, and of these 1 5 I are reserved for representatives of the Depressed Classes. The rest of the seats ate “tied,” and will be filled by the representatives of communities such as the Moslems, Sikhs or Indian Christians or of special interests such as women, Labour and the commercial community. There is lively opposition in India to the whole scheme of reform, and it comes from an extremist body kno ivn as the All-India Congress Party, which has been promoting a strike in Delhi as a protest against the introduction of the new constitution. The Congress Party is hostile to federation, knowing the strength of the conservative forces in the Indian States, and will attempt to wreck the reforms by producing deadlocks within the legislatures and promoting unremitting agitation utside them. But there can be no doubt that the present reforms will be accepted gratefully by India. I low the balance of power will swing in any province or in the Federal scheme of things cannot be predicted, but it is likely that Britain will have to sustain the white man’s burden for a good many years yet.