INDIA'S DEMANDS

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1940, Page 8

INDIA'S DEMANDS

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.

COMPROMISE HOPED FOR NO CHANGE DURING WAR

British Official Wireless. Rec. 5.5 p.m. Rugby, Sept. 25. The Secretary of State for India, Mr. Li C. M. S. Amery, in a speech to the Overseas League at London, to-day referred to the meeting which Mr. Gandhi will have with the Viceroy of India, the Marquess of Linlithyow, in the next few days. "One can ohly hope the outcome of the discussions may be an agreement consistent both with Mr. Gandhi's conscientious objections to war in general and with the Viceroy's no less conscientious conviction and duty to allow no thing to stand in the way of India's wholehearted effort and part in the struggle which concerns her present welfare and security and all the ideals her peoples hold dear." Dealing with the constitutional position, Mr. Amery said: "The Act of 1935 was in its essentials the work of the British Government and Parliament and based on the existing structure of Indiah government and inspired by British ideas. The main pennanent framework of the future constitution of India as a Dominion is now a matter for Indians to settle for themselves. The whole constitutional field, the relations of the various parts and elements of India to the whole, methods of election and representatlon, all these matters are open to re-examin-ation. Consent Behveen Parties.

"Only, as in the case of every Dpminion or, for that matter, of any federation in the pest, there must be that measure of agreement of consent, and necessarily therefore of compromise, between the main constituent elements that have in future to live and work together, which is the preliminary condition of free selfgovemment. "In this matter Britain has now made clear one of the essential implications of India's future status, while imposing upon Indians one of the first responsibilities of that status. It is obvious that a change so far-reaching both in structure and in the very basis of the authority of India's Government cannot take place at' a mornent when the whole commonwealth is in the throes of a struggle for its existencg. "The Nazis' doctrine of direct attack is upon the spiritual basis of all religion," he added. "It is as profoundly opposjed to Islam, with its insistence on the equality of all men before God and on the supreme virtues of justice and mercy, or to Hinduism, with its, deep-seated hatred of violence and cruelty, as it is to Christianity. The Nazis' onslaught threatens the soul of India as it threatens qurs, and there is no Indian who does not realise. that menace."