FRIEND OF INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1943, Page 3

FRIEND OF INDIA

FIELD-MARSHAL WAVELL

SYMPATHY WITH POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS. »■■■'" ■ VITAL NEED OF REMOVING JAPANESE MENACE. (British Officii Wireless.) RUGBY, June 22. “I am a sincere friend of India and am wholeheartedly in sympathy with her aspirations to political development and a firm believer in her future,” said Field-Marshal Wavell, speaking at the India, Office. Saying it was obvous that India's progress must depend on the successful prosecution of the war, FieldMarshal Wavell commented that a complete fulfilment of hei’ aspirations required the removal of the Japanese menace.

“India is a vital supply' base for the strategy of the United Nations in the East and the more fully and rapidly India can develop and extend the great effort she is already making, the sooner will the shadow of war pass from her and the earlier can be achieved the aim of full self-government,” he said. “There is certainly no intention to set up anything in the shape of military rule or to withdraw or weaken in any way the pledges and offers already made to India by the British Government.

So much attention had been focused on the problem of India’s political development, he added, that he thought there were many who did not realise how much had been done, how much was being done and how much remained to be done in India’s social and economic progress. That, of course, was mainly work for the Indians themselves, but he hoped sympathy on his part would assist in furthering it. It was to the troops from India that he was largely indebted for such military successes as he had been able to win, and he would always have a warm spot in his heart for India’s fighting men. So too had his wife, who had done much work for soldiers’ welfare in India. “I have confidence in India's future and hope that men of wisdom and good will may be found to help her to a position in the world to which her history, the size of her population, her importance and the traditions of her industry and kindness entitles her,” Field-Marshal Wavell added.

The Secretary of State for India, Mr Amery, said there had been a realisation of the fact that Mr Churchill and his colleagues had been most anxious to secure for India the very best man they could and to find a man who, like Mr Churchill himself, could guide a great country in the throes of a world war with a profound understanding of war in all its aspects and at the same time find someone who had the personal gifts of wide outlook and human sympathy which were required in dealing with the great problems which, war or no war, still occupied India.