DOMINION STATUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1940, Page 6

DOMINION STATUS

BRITAIN’S AIM FOR INDIA

STATEMENT BY MR AMERY.

SOME RESTRICTIONS ON ACTION.

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright! (Received This Day. 12.45 p.m.) LONDON. August 8. The Secretary for India (Mr L. S. Amery), in the House of Commons, said: “Dominion status for India remains Britain’s aim. Differences between the India communities which has prevented the achievement of national unity can no longer postpone the proposed expansion of the Viceroy’s Council, nor the establishment of a body associating Indian public opinion more closely with the Central Government.

“Lord Linlithgow is inviting a number of representative Indians to join his council and is also establishing a War Advisory Council, representing the States and other interests of India as a whole. Full weight will be given to Minority views in any revision. Britain could not contemplate the transfer of her present responsibilities for the peace and welfare of India to any system of government whose authority large and powerful elements directly deny, nor be a party to the coercion of such elements into submission to such a government. Britain sympathises with the contention that the framing of any new scheme should primarily be the responsibility of Indians themselves and should originate from Indian conceptions of the social, economic and political structure, to -which Britain wishes to see the fullest possible expression given, subject to Britain's obligations to India, of which the Government could not divest itself. The present is not a moment in which fundamental constitutional issues could be decisively resolved, but the Government would very readily assent to the creation, with the least possible delay after the war, of a body representing the principal elements of India's national life, with the object of devising a new constitution. The Government will lend every aid to hasten decisions.”