NOVEL SUGGESTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 4

NOVEL SUGGESTION

ADVANCED IN INDIA THAT WAVELL SHOULD BE MADE VICEROY, AS MEANS OF OVERCOMING DEFENCE DEADLOCK. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) NEW DELHI, April 5. Sir Stafford Cripps told Mr Azad (Congress President) that Britain would reply on Tuesday to the Congress Party’s communication on the India proposals. The Congress Working Committee, after, a two hour sitting, adjourned until tomorrow. Mr Azad said the committee's main resolution probably would be released on Tuesday. The British United Press correspondent in New Delhi says it is believed that Mr Azad and Pandit Nehru told General Wavell that Congress would emphatically reject the British pioposals until an Indian Defence member were appointed. The Congress demands include control over military provisioning, ordnance and finance Congress is prepared to allow Genera Staff control and strategy to remain in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. The British War Cabinet is believed to be meeting tomorrow to consider communications from Sir Staffoi Cripps and General Wavell, possibly also from the Viceroy. Some Indian circles consider that a suggestion that General Wavell should also become the Viceroy might solve the present difficulties. It is claimed that this would assure that an Indian Defence member would not interfere with the Commander-in-Chief. Mr Azad and Pandit Nehru deny that they have received a letter from President Roosevelt.

GANDHI’S IDEAS

WOULD NOT RESIST JAPANESE. THINKS CHINESE MADE A MISTAKE. (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) LONDON, April 5. Interviewed by a “Daily Express correspondent ’at New Delhi on the subject of whether India should fight, Mr Gandhi said: “I would let the Japanese land and fight them with nonviolence . The Chinese made the mistake of fighting the Japanese and fighting still goes on in China. If the Chinese had not opposed the Japanese, but had merely stood by, neither raising their arms nor destroying crops, and had simply refrained from co-operating with the Japanese, then the Japanese would have been defeated. This, carried on to its logical end, might have meant the death of the last Chinese, but I do not think it would have come to that. The Japanese would have stopped. It is not human to go on killing where there is no resistance. The whites in America and Australia all but wiped out the natives who made the mistake of resisting violently. There are 350 million Indians. The Japanese cannot destroy them all. The Indians are not armed. What is the use of them resisting an armed people like the Japanese? The Indians and Japanese, if equally armed, would simply destroy one another, and there would still be no point in the fighting, but if the Indians were better armed I would still not fight. I don’t want to destroy the Japanese.”