HOPES OF SUCCESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 March 1942, Page 3

HOPES OF SUCCESS

SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS STATEMENT ON ARRIVAL IN NEW DELHI. •ff ~ APPEAL FOR ENERGY AND GOOD WILL LONDON, March 23. In a statement to the Press on his arrival in New Delhi, Sir Stafford Cripps said there was no time to be lost and no time for long discussions. He intended to stay in New Delhi for two weeks and believed that with energy and good will the essentials of success should be reached in that time. He had come to India, he added, to discuss with Indian leaders the conclusions which the British War Cabinet had reached as to the method by which it should carry out its promise of self-government for the people of India. Sir Stafford Cripps said he believed the lines of a settlement could be laid down now which would remove obstacles to the full co-operation of all sections in India against aggression.

CONGRESS MEETING COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE SOUGHT. (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) NEW DELHI, March 23. Coinciding with the arrival of Sir Stafford Cripps, the governing committee of the Indian National Congress met in Allahbad and discussed its attitude toward Indian reform. No formal resolution was passed, but the general view expressed was that nothing short of complete independence would satisfy Congress. Mr Gandhi, in an article in the “Harijan,” said the Government would ease the situation and allay anxiety if it unequivocally declared that it will not apply the scorched earth policy in India. Indian opinion opposes the scorched earth policy.

CHINESE VIEW ADVOCACY OF PACIFIC CHARTER. PLEDGE OF INDEPENDENCE FOR ASIATICS. LONDON, March 22. Dr. Sun Fo, President of the Legislative Department of the Chinese Government, writing in the official Chungking “Central Daily News,” urged President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill to proclaim a Pacific charter pledging the United Nations to recognise the independence of India, Indo-China, Korea, and the Philippines. It is noteworthy that this is the first authoritative expression of the attitude of the Chungking Government regarding the question of India’s independence, and that it is made on the eve of Sir Stafford Cripps’s arrival in New Delhi for conferences with the Indian leaders. Dr. Sun Fo said that Asiatics cannot be expected to play a decisive role against aggression unless they are freed. He attributed the Filipinos’ vigorous resistance to the fact that the United States promised them their independence, and he added that the Indians and other down-trodden Pacific nations would fight similarly if they received pledges of freedom from foreign rule. Dr Sun Fo intimated that if Japan were defeated, then China must be considered the major Asiatic Power — a role which she was now assuming by supporting the demands of the Indian Nationalists for immediate independence from British rule.“China will not cease fighting till victory is won,” was an assurance given in Washington today by the Chinese Ambassador, Dr Hu Shih, over the radio. “My people, who have been fighting over four and a half years, single-handed,” he said, “will never desert you and the other United Nations, but will fight with you till the day when, in the cheering words of Mr Roosevelt, the sun shines down once more upon a world where the weak will be safe and the strong will be just.”