REFORMS IN INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1938, Page 8

REFORMS IN INDIA

RECENT CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES

LORD ZETLAND'S SURVEY.

CONSIDERABLE EXTENSION OF FREEDOM.

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 28,

Lord Zetland, Secretary for India, was the principal guest at the annual Bombay dinner held in London. Lord Zetland took the opportunity to make an important statement on the working of reforms and the position regarding the setting up of the all-In-dia Federation.

Speaking of the magnitude of the changes that had been made in the constitutional field, Lord Zetland said that they could look back with considerable satisfaction on great changes having taken place with so little dislocation of the machinery of Government.

A review of the work of the Congress Ministry in Bombay during its first six months showed a record of immense legislative and administrative activity. Lord Zetland said he could find in it no suggestion of any kind of undue interference by the governor. The record was sufficient justification for the claim which he made last summer that Ministers would be free to pursue their own policy in internal administration. We now had the task, said Lord Zetland, of preparing in the constitutional sphere a dwelling-place for the new consciousness of nationhood stirring in the peoples of India. We had to bring beneath the dome of a single political edifice the new democracies of British India and the ancient autocracies of the Indian States. In view of the current criticisms he hoped that room might be found within the framework of the Act of 1935 to accommodate the reasonable requirements of both. Lord Zetland said he could understand the views of those who would represent the provinces in Federation as a result of the election that some element of popular choice, as distinct from nomination, should enter into the selection of the States’ representatives. That was for the princes themselves to decide. There was nothing in the Act to _ prevent it, nor would paramount power be found standing in the way of any prince who sought to temper the rigid autocracy of bygone days with a more liberal system. Suggestions had been made, continued Lord Zetland, that the Viceroy during his coming leave was to discuss with His Majesty’s Government the changes in federal structure embodied in the Act. So far as he was aware, there was no foundation for any such suggestion. The federal provisions of the Act were the outcome of prolonged and exhaustive examination and discussion, and, in his view, there was not the least likelihood of the Government or Parliament being willing to consider, even before the Federation had come into operation, any alteration in its structure. Both the Viceroy and he were ready at all times to listen to comments on these provisions, whether by princes or those who spoke for British India. But within the framework of the Act there was ample scope for providing the peoples of India with a degree of political cohesion which they never before possessed.