REQUEST TO VICEROY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1939, Page 6

REQUEST TO VICEROY

REGARDING REFORMS IN RAJKOT RESIGNATION OF MINISTERS THREATENED. IN BRITISH INDIAN STATES. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, March 5. “The Times” Delhi correspondent says Press reports state that the Congress'Tvlinistries in Bombay, Bihar, the United Provinces and the Central Provinces have asked the Viceroy to intervene in the Rajkot controversy, both from the viewpoint of Mr Gandhi’s life and the possibility of the Ministries resigning. The dispute is causing widespread concern and much criticism of the ruler of Rajkot, whose removal the newspaper ‘“Statesman” advocates. The Rajkot Advisory Council issued a statement that Mr’ Gandhi’s ultimatum contained unreasonable demands and implied a surrender of authority to outside dictation. Mr Gandhi did not express a word of regret .when he found that his allegations of terrorism were unfounded. Mr Gandhi retorts that the statement is full of evasions and misrepresentations. The Secretary for India, Lord Zetland, stated in a recent speech that the present trouble in India concerned the India of the Princes rather than the Provinces of British India. There were great States in India like Hyderabad, Mysore and. Baroda where the level of the administration was extremely high, but there were other States where the standard of the administration was susceptible to considerable improvement, and in his view the time had come when the paramount Power should intervene a little more actively than it had done in the past, not with a view to derogating from the sovereignty of the Princes but to giving them advice with the object of raising the standard of their administration.