POLICY IN INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 December 1940, Page 5

POLICY IN INDIA

LETTER FROM BRITISH POLITICIANS APPEAL FOR CO-OPERATION. NEW ATMOSPHERE NEEDED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 24. An appeal for a spirit of co-opera-tion in bringing an end to the deadlock in India, which they are convinced is due partly to misunderstanding, is contained in a letter to the people of India “from friends in the British House of Commons.” The letter, which states what are held to be fundamentals of the British attitude toward the Indian desire for political freedom, is signed by nine Members of Parliament of various parties, most of whom have had experience of life in India. The British attitude is set out in the letter under four heads: 1. The British people are anxious io give India full political freedom. 2. The British wish to see India decide her own-Constitution. 3. The British Government has certain obligations which it cannot renounce. 4. The British people desire that an advance toward Indian political freedom should be made as rapidly as possible. On the fourth point the letter observes that India will certainly appreciate that it is hardly possible for Britain to take her part in a complicated constitutional settlement in the midst of war. But the signatories ask why the Indians should not get together now to hammer out a plan—the plan which would be the best not for only one community or party or political organisation, one class or caste, but for India as a whole and for her people. In concluding the writers say: “We are making this effort in the hope that it will help to create a new atmosphere and inspire leaders on your side to come forward and establish in this hour of common trial the spirit of co-operation which we firmly believe the people on both sides are longing to see.”