STATUS OF INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1942, Page 4

STATUS OF INDIA

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS BRITISH GOVERNMENT URGED TO ACT. SOME CONFLICTING OPINIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, February 3. The Government should unequivocally say when it intended to give India self-government and take steps to implement that right,” said Lord Faringdon, in opening a debate on India in the House of Lords. India, he said, was pictured as a land of vast wealth. That was wrong. India was the poorest country in the world. Appalling poverty was an outstanding feature of Indian life. It was a reflection on Britain that, after a hundred years of British rule, the Indians’ living standard had not risen. The average Indian income was £6 3s a year, compared with £2O in Japan, whose industrial competition was often attacked on the ground of the workers’ abominable wages. Mr Churchill’s announcement that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to India was only another disastrous British move in dealing with the Indian problem. Lord Crewe said it would be folly to give India self-government without some substantial hope that civil war would not be immediately produced. The most useful move at present would be to extend the powers of Provincial Governments and limit the functions of the Central Government as far as possible. Lord Rankeillour said fundamental questions such as the rights of independent States and minorities must be settled before either Dominion status or self-government could be granted. Britain's responsibility was to the vast masses, not too rganised political bodies’ pressing demands.