HC Deb 03 December 1919 vol 122 cc524-38

(1) There shall be a legislative council in every governor's province, which shall consist of the members of the executive council and of members nominated or elected as provided by this Act.

The governor shall not be a member of the legislative council, but shall have the right of addressing the council, and may for that purpose require the attendance of its members.

(2) The number of members of the governors' legislative councils shall be in accordance with the table set out in the First Schedule to this Act; and of the members of each council not more than twenty per cent, shall be official members, and at least seventy per cent. shall be elected members:

Provided that—

  1. (a)subject to the maintenance of the above proportions, Rules under the principal Act may provide for increasing the number of members of any council, as specified in that Schedule; and
  2. (b)the governor may, for the purposes of any Bill introduced or proposed to be introduced in his legislative council, nominate, in the case of Assam one person, and in the case of other provinces not more than two persons, having special knowledge or experience of the subject-matter of the Bill, and those persons shall, in relation to the Bill, have for the period for which they are nominated all the rights of members of the council, and shall be in addition to the numbers above referred to; and.
  3. (c) members nominated to the legislative council of the Central Provinces by the governor as the result of elections held in the Assigned Districts of Berar shall be deemed to he elected members of the legislative council of the Central Provinces.

(3) The powers of a governor's legislative council may be exercised notwithstanding any vacancy in the council.

(4) Subject as aforesaid, provision may be made by rules under the principal Act as to

  1. (a)the term of office of nominated members of governors' legislative councils, and the manner of filling casual vacancies occurring by reason of absence of members from India, inability to attend to duty, death, acceptance of office, resignation duly accepted, or otherwise; and
  2. (b)the conditions under which and manner in which persons rosy be nominated as members of governors' legislative councils; and
  3. (c) the qualification of electors, the constitution of constituencies, and the method of election for governors' legislative councils, including the number of members. to be elected by communal and other electorates, and any matters incidental or ancillary thereto; and
  4. (d) the qualifications for being and for being nominated or elected a member of any such council; and
  5. (e) the final decision of doubts or disputes as to the validity of any election; and
  6. (f) the manner in which the Rules are to be carried into effect:

Provided that Rules as to any such matters as aforesaid may provide for delegating to the local government such powers as may be specified in the Rules of making subsidiary Regulations affecting the same matters.

(5) Subject to any such Rules any person who is a ruler or subject of any State of India may be nominated as a member of a governor's legislative council.

Colonel YATE

I beg to move, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "at least" ["and at least 70 per cent. shall be elected members"], and to insert instead thereof the words "not more than."

Under the arrangement in the Bill only 10 per cent. is left for non-official members for the whole Province. Surely that ought to be altered!

10.0 P. M.

Mr. OMAN

May I point out that as matters stand at present it is quite possible that 70 per cent. might come up to 99, and that "not more than" 20 per cent. of official members might be 1 per cent? With the object of getting some stabilisation and some form of preventing the absolute exclusion of official members, I propose to take 70 per cent, of elected members and leave 12 per cent. to be divided between the official and the nominated members who do not come within the category of elected members. It seems to me to be a very fair arrangement.

Mr. MONTAGU

I would ask hon. Members not to endeavour to alter the composition of these councils, which will come before us again when the Rules come up for sanction. Hon. Members will then have the opportunity of investigating as to the satisfactory or other nature of these councils. The Amendment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman throws overboard at once the whole of Lord Southborough's work. Lord Southborough's Committee worked this matter out with great skill. I give the House the assurance that what we want to get in these councils is the largest possible numbers of elected members, but there must be sufficient nominated members to represent those people whom we wish represented. There must be some nominations, as suggested by the Joint Committee, for representatives of "depressed classes." There must also be a sufficient number of officials to make sure that business is properly transacted, and to make sure that the case is properly presented. Nobody knows better than my hon. and gallant Friend opposite the dislocation of business which has gone on in India during the past few years from the necessity of having in the Councils more officials for voting purposes than are needed for other purposes. It prevented them doing the work for which they were appointed. Under this scheme every Governor will desire to nominate only as many officials as are required. The composition of these councils will be embodied in Rules which will come before this House. Then if any apprehensions of the hon. and gallant Gentlemen do materialise they will be able to raise the point. For that reason I do think, when investigations are going on and consultations are proceeding with the local Governments themselves, it would be far better not to try to stereotype the forms.

Colonel YATE

That is the very point I have raised. We shall have no power to do anything when these Rules come before us.

Amendment negatived.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the words "shall be elected members," to insert the words "of whom at least 60 per cent. shall be elected by territorial electorates."

When the report came out on communal representation this representation of minorities by special representatives was reduced to a minimum. There were special reports for some other classes, but the Southborough Report and the Joint Committee have between them widened enormously the scope of this special representation, and it is that against which I wish to enter my protest by moving the Amendment that the generally elected members elected by geographical constituencies should be at least 60 per cent. of those Provincial Legislatures. Observe the variety in this representation. In the first place, you have people nominated to represent the depressed classes and Indian Christians. You will have people nominated by the Government to represent those classes, and those people ought to appear on the list of general voters as well. Most of them are so poor that they will not be on the voting list, but if it was a proper franchise to include the wage earners, the depressed classes and the Indian Christians would have their interests looked after in the ordinary way, just as we look after the interests of minorities in our own constituencies.

The next class of communal representation is even worse, because it may be per- manent. There is a special voters' list provided for Europeans, and they have a special list and special representation, and a European will have a much larger proportion of representation than anybody else in India. The Europeans and Mahomedans and Sikhs have a special list and a special representation, and so have the Anglo-Indians. Having started these different minorities with special representation, you are very likely to have that grow into a permanent vested interest for that kind of voter, and all subsequent developments of Indian self-government will perpetuate this system of the representation of minorities. We know perfectly well that to represent minorities special representation is the very worst thing for the minorities. If the Eurasians or the Sikhs were in a minority, the Member for the constituency would look after them much better than if they had two representatives of their own. The minority vote has a very great influence even in this House. Supposing there had been two or three Members representing Roman Catholies in this House, does anybody imagine that we should have had all that difficulty over the Education Bill? You can see this illustrated when you observe the activities of the hon. Member for Devonport (Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke), who is a typical communal representative of Workers. in the Devonport Dockyard, and, when he speaks, everybody else yawns, and they go out of the House. The same thing will happen when these representatives get up, because every other hon. Member will know that they are only going to voice the views of a particular sect.

The principle on which English representation has been based is that the Members represent the whole of the community, and to adopt for India an entirely different system, whereby the representatives represent different sects and religion, is going back on all the principles which have made representation in the House of Commons a model for all other Parliaments in the world. It is most unfortunate that this Bill has been whittled down to establish this communal representation. It is part of the eternal desire of the governing classes in India to divide and rule. They think if you split up the people into castes you will be able to carry on the Government better. What is proposed seems not only contrary to English principles, but it is a peculiarly annoying way of treating a problem which Indians would prefer to have treated in the ordinary way. Besides this representation of Europeans, Eurasians, Sikhs, Mahomedans and the depressed classes, you have special provision for the landlords, the universities, the chambers of commerce and industry, all of which have special representation, and, if we do not take care, this will push out the ordinary representative system from the Assemblies of India altogether.

In the case of the landlord they are also on the general list. They have the ordinary vote and also a special vote as a landlord. It is the same with the universities and the Europeans. They have votes on their own lists, and for the chambers of commerce as well. I do not think that is a fair system on which to start India. Then there is that most beautiful system of reserved seats. In the case of the Brahmins and the Mahrattas you have introduced this new system of reserved seats. This means that whoever is elected for a constituency, if he is a non-Brahmin he will be elected, but if he is a European, a Sikh, a Mahratta or a Hindu, he will not be elected, and the only person who can be elected is a non-Brahmin. I think that is a farce. The Sikhs may be gerrymandered and they may cut up the constituency, and the reserve seat is one in which there would be naturally a strong Brahmin majority, and yet it would be allocated to a non-Brahmin, and therefore all Brahmins would be disfranchised. A system like that cannot be permanent, and I think we might, instead of inventing all these fancy representations, go back to the old English principle of giving them a, wide and generous franchise.

Mr. MONTAGU

As a matter of fact, under the proposals of the Bill in every case of what my hon. Friend calls "territorial electorates" more than 60 per cent. of the total will be elected. I hope it will be quite possible to ensure that. It is important, however, to note that "territorial electorates" is a term that requires a definition to be put into the Statute, and that definition will have to be carefully considered when the occasion comes for framing the Rules. It will then come before Parliament. I therefore do not consider any useful purpose would be served by assenting to the Amendment. Nobody objects more than I do to communal representation. I believe it to be a great mistake, but there is one mistake which would be greater and that is to get Legislative Councils in India that are not properly representative of all classes, and if communal elections are provided for temporarily in order to ensure that, I believe they are well worth having. As regards the proposal of the Joint Committee for the representation of non-Brahmins among the many arts my hon. Friend possesses that of compromise apparently is not one. I think with two evils confronting a population which is really apprehensive that it is not going to get its fair share of representation in the immediate election there are two alternatives; one is to have communal representation, and that, I think, would be a great misfortune, as it would drive the people into separate camps. It would give separate communal representation to the Brahmins who have never asked for it. The alternative is to reserve seats by agreement between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins, and that certainly is in no way analogous to the illustration advanced by the hon. and gallant Member in regard to Chester-le-Street and the election of a minority representative. Surely the hon. Member has heard of a plan which secures for the minority a certain share of the representation. I would like to ask the House with great respect whether it cannot see its way to pass this Clause without trying to put into it details of the franchise which have never yet been put into any Statute passed about India. My hon. and gallant Friend complains that there is no guarantee that these points will come before the House. But as the Bill now stands one way or the other they must do so.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

You told me we should see them before the Bill came before the House.

Mr. MONTAGU

I said efforts would be made, and they have been made, to secure Parliamentary control. That I think will be done. I also said I hoped that the Select Committee which considered this Bill would also consider the principle of the Rules. The Report furnished to Parliament shows that they have considered thoroughly the spirit of everything that is to be drafted into the Rules. In one way or another the Rules will come before Parliament. The only question between us is whether or not they should all come by affirmative Resolution. I would suggest to my hon. and gallant Friend that he can raise that on Clause 44, when we can discuss it and see whether these Rules will have to have an affirmative Resolution. I submit that they are not suitable subjects for trying to incorporate them in this Clause. I earnestly suggest to the Committee that they should let us have this Clause.

Mr. SPOOR

I am very glad this Amendment has been moved, if for no other purpose than to secure from the Secretary of State such a definite pronouncement against communal representation. All of us who sat on the Joint Committee were impressed by the great conflict of evidence we had on this very thorny subject. I think I am stating the truth when I say that, taking the evidence generally, both from Indian witnesses and from British witnesses, it did seem to indicate that communal representation was going to be a decidedly reactionary step if it were enacted in any great degree in the Bill. One of the difficulties in dealing with India—I am sure it is a difficulty which every hon. Member who has considered the Indian question at all will appreciate—has been the complexity, not to say the conflict, of the religious situation there. I know that there are those who believe that the problem is almost insoluble, because of the deep gulfs that exist between one section of religious opinion and another. Yet the very fact that within quite recent times—evidently under the influence of an extraordinary wave of Nationalism—Hindu and Mahomedan have united and found common ground does seem to suggest that the religious differences which, to our Western judgment, have marked India for so long are not necessarily going to continue. I am extremely glad that the Secretary of State has been so definite in the opinion he has expressed against communal representation. The caste system in India is one which those of us who have never been to that country cannot fully appreciate; indeed, I very much doubt whether Britishers who have been resident in India for many years really understand the inwardness of that system. The evidence did tend to show that the caste system was breaking down. Certainly it was borne in upon my mind that any form of communal representation was neither desirable nor necessary, even in the early stages of this transfer of powers.

I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment that the only solution of this question will be the securing at the earliest possible moment of a very much wider franchise than is suggested by the Franchise Committee, upon whose recommendations we are going to act. When we remember that out of 315,000,000 people it is proposed to enfranchise only 5,000,000—

Sir J. D. REES

It is out of 260,000,000.

Mr. SPOOR

The percentage is not seriously affected by that change. Somewhere about 2 per cent. of the population will actually be enfranchised. We are not going to secure anything like representative government or give the people in India a chance to govern themselves by any system of communal representation, whatever form it may take. Later on in these Amendments we shall have an opportunity of making suggestions with regard to widening the franchise, suggestions which, in my opinion and that of many other Members, are quite practicable, and I sincerely hope the Secretary of State will give us an opportunity, when we reach that point, of actually including within the Bill, and not leaving to Rules, important matters which will secure this wider franchise that is so very necessary. Reference has been made to the supreme necessity for getting some measure of representation for the industrial workers of India. We have been told they form a very small percentage of the workers, but it is a percentage that is growing, and it will grow a great deal more. I am sure, apart altogether from any question of political peace, it is imperatively necessary in the interests of industrial peace that industrial workers of India have a franchise which is real and which will give them an effective voice in determining the conditions of their own industry. I wish to express the pleasure I feel that my right hon. Friend has spoken so definitely against what I regard, as a democrat, as a very reactionary method of representation—communal representation—which we have unhappily to accept in some forms in connection with this transference of power. I hope one result of this discussion which will gather round the subsequent franchise proposals will be that when the Rules actually are made an honest attempt will be made to secure a very much wider franchise than is at present proposed, so that from the very beginning the people of India will have a fair start and we shall not have that bureaucratic control of India that has already been hinted at to-night. Again and again we have been told there is a real danger of simply changing from the control of British bureaucracy to that of an Indian bureaucracy. That can only be avoided as we get a very much wider electorate in India. Give the people of India a chance to secure, in the course of years, that political education which will enable them to use their power wisely, and to bring to their country those better and happier conditions which it certainly needs at present.

Mr. OMAN

It is a pity that the facts are against the arguments of hon. Members who are supporting the Amendment. Communal representation has undoubtedly been clamoured for in the strongest way, and sectarian differences have been during the last year more bitterly general in India than at any time during the last fifty years. Last year, in the district of Arrah, only fifty miles from the. town where I was born, there was a rising of Hindoos, in which 133 Mahomedan villages were burned with enormous slaughter and every possible atrocity. Unfortunately, it was a district where there was no garrison available, and several days of most awful trouble prevailed. It is not the only sectarian trouble that has occurred during the last year. There was at Katapur a bad riot, where Mahomedans were massacred by Hindoos, and at Nellore, in the Madras Presidency, within the last few days there has been another life-losing outbreak, caused by the procession of one sect going through the quarter inhabited by another. You have to look at the fact that these sectarian differences are still very bitter, and communal representation is the only possible way out of it. I am not a very well-known person, but within the last four days I have been called upon by three separate Indians all extremely excited and wishing to demonstrate to me that communal representation was the only thing that would save their own sect or their own class from extreme oppression. One was a Madras Christian native editor. The second was a Madras non-Brahmin Hindoo. the third was a Rajput nobleman from the Bombay Presidency. They all expressed themselves in favour of the absolute necessity of protecting communal representation. Look at the evidence of Sir Michael O'Dwyer in the second volume of the Report. He says that not only is communal representation being clamoured for in the Punjab, but more clamoured for lately than ever before. You must face the facts and remember that they are clamouring for it loudly. If you examine into the credentials you will find that those who ask for communal representation. represent some body of the people who say they did not want it turn out to be creatures of straw put up by political associations.

Colonel YATE

I am sorry to see how mistaken the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Spoor) is in his idea that caste is decreasing in India.

Mr. SPOOR

I said that was the tenour of the evidence.

Colonel YATE

The hon. Member has never been in India so far as I know. He has come under the influence of a lot of the Brahmin and other highly-educated Indians who have come over to England; men who have lost all sense of their own religion while they have been over here, who are partly Europeanised if not wholly Europeanised, and have no possible standing in their own caste and will have to go through a purification ceremony when they go back to India before they can be admitted back into their own caste. They come over here in an airy way and say that caste is decreasing, whereas every evidence shows that all the associations in India are getting their caste more and more stable, and that the influence of caste is increasing. Anybody who knows India knows that the idea which has been spread about here by these Indian gentlemen is an entire misrepresentation. We have had the hon. Member (Mr. Spoor) going about with these Indian gentle-men—

Mr. J. JONES

Why not? How dare he?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must nut interrupt. We have come here to listen to opposing opinions.

Colonel YATE

The hon. Member asks why not. The hon. Member (Mr. Spoor) was a member of the Joint Select Committee. When this Committee was set up it was to examine into and report upon two separate ideas. the idea of the Secretary of State for India on the one hand, and that of the Governors of the Provinces on the other. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was a member of that Committee. He sat there every day from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock, and in the evenings at 8 o'clock went to the Albert Hall and other places where he held meetings under the red flag. with. these Indians and others.

Mr. J. JONES

Good old red flag!

The CHAIRMAN

This is getting away from the merits of the Amendment.

Colonel YATE

This is a very good point, because here is a member of the Committee who spends his nights—

The CHAIRMAN

We are not concerned with the person proposing the Amendment. We are concerned with the merits of the Amendment itself.

Colonel YATE

I am sorry if. I have strayed from the subject.

The CHAIRMAN

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member will not do it again.

Colonel YATE

I apologise if I have dilated too long on the merits of the hon. Member (Mr. Spoor), but I would point out that the idea that caste is decreasing is incorrect. We have all these franchise arrangements. If hon. Members will take the Report of the Joint Select Committee they will see a whole page of these questions. The Secretary of State himself dilated on the question of Brahmins and non-Brahmins and the other complicated questions, and the hon. Member for Nottingham spoke on the question. I hope that I shall be in order if I recall what was said by the hon. Member 'for Nottingham, who has taken a conspicuous part on the Joint Select Committee, on the question of Brahmins and non-Brahmins?

The CHAIRMAN

No. That would not be on the merits. If we have disposed of the merits of the question let us come to a decision.

Amendment negatived.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member for Durham (Major Hills) has put down an Amendment to insert the words "provided that in framing such rules no discrimination of sex shall be made." I would suggest that this Amendment should not come in in the place suggested.

Mr. OMAN

I have an Amendment to line 17. Is that not reached?

The CHAIRMAN

I was going to deal with that in a moment. I am suggesting to the hon. and gallant Member for Durham that where he has placed his Amendment is, not the best place for the purpose. With his permission, I suggest that the Amendment to line 27 in the name of the hon. Member for Widnes raises that question in a better place and a better form. Where it at present stands it would fail to cover paragraph (d).

Major HILLS

The position of my Amendment was very carefully considered, and it was put down as a proviso to (c)with the expressed intention of confining it to the qualification of electors. If it is put in in the other place, it raises the much wider question of membership as well. I submit that it is a matter on which the Member in charge of an Amendment is entitled to say which course he means to adopt, and whether he means to ask the Committee to grant only a modified extension of the Act by including the women as electors, and not the larger extension by including them as members of the Legislative Council.

The CHAIRMAN

That is the very reason why I drew attention to the point. Clearly, if the Committee negatives this proposition, we cannot take the larger one. Does the hon. and gallant Member see that point?

Major HILLS

Can we take the larger one first, and then the smaller one? If not, I am bound to move my Amendment.

The CHAIRMAN

I suggest again that line 27 is the better place. I see the point of the hon. and gallant Member. He has precedence on the Paper, and, therefore, I shall call upon him unless he gives way to the wide Amendment.

Major HILLS

I am sorry I do not feel able to give way.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Would not this cut out the wider Amendment which I and other hon. Members have on the Paper?

The CHAIRMAN

That is so. That is why I made the suggestion.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

May I appeal to the hon. and gallant Member (Major Hills) to postpone the Amendment until to-morrow? We can get women's suffrage debated to-morrow far better than tonight.

Mr. ACLAND

May I suggest whether, after what has lately happened in this House, it is not rather hard to have to move an Amendment as to whether women should be qualified to be elected?

Major HILLS

I quite see that.

Mr. SPOOR

If the hon. and gallant Member for Durham is agreeable we are quite agreeable—those of us who have our names to the wider Amendment—to allow him to lead off with that Amendment. I agree as to the desirability of having the fullest possible discussion on women's suffrage.

Major HILLS

I can assure hon. Members opposite that it is not any personal wish to lead in the debate which makes me insist on this Amendment. I think I have the best chance of persuading the Committee to accept the smaller Amendment, and it is in that spirit I appeal to the Committee. Unless you tell me that I am not in order, or exercise your power to hold over the Amendment, I feel obliged to insist on dividing the Committee on the Amendment.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE

Would it not be possible for the hon. and gallant Member (Major Hills) to move an Amendment to that to be proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Widnes (Mr. Henderson) limiting the qualification to be electors, and then when a decision had been taken on the Amendment to the proposed Amendment we could have the discussion, which I think the House desires, on the plain issue as to whether women are to be qualified as voters in India or not.

The CHAIRMAN

That would be a possible method.

Major HILLS

I have not considered that Point. I take it the House could vote on the smaller Amendment first and then on the larger one.

Mr. E. WOOD

The larger Amendment might be defeated and then it would not be open to my hon. and gallant Friend to move.

The CHAIRMAN

No, that would not be the case, because it would be an amendment to the proposed Amendment.

Mr. RENDALL

Why is it not possible for the hon. Member to move his Amendment about suffrage and then to have the other Amendment moved as to candidates?

Major HILLS

It seems to me if I adopted the suggestion to move an Amendment to the proposed Amendment of the right hon. Member for Widnes, I would have against me those opposed to the proposal altogether and those in favour of the wider Amendment. Is there not some way whereby we could obtain the decision of the Committee on the two questions, first on the narrower question whether women should be entitled to vote, and then the bigger question as to whether or not they should be eligible to be elected.

The CHAIRMAN

I think if the Committee negatives the narrower question we must take that as a decision. May I make a suggestion? I have a manuscript Amendment by the hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Oman) at the same place. If we dispose of that to-night, then the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment would remain upon the Paper, and perhaps he could have some consultation about it before we approach it.

Mr. OMAN

I beg to move, in Subsection (4), at the end of paragraph (c), to insert the words and such Rules shall provide for the election by communal electorates of members belonging to all important sects and communities, such as Sikhs in the Punjab, Mahomedans in all provinces, Christians wherever they shall amount to 5 per cent. of the total population, non-Brahmins in the Madras Presidency, Mahrattas in the Bombay Presidency, and Europeans in Bengal; and also for the representation, whether by communal election or by nomination, of the 'depressed classes' of Hindus in all provinces. This is a very simple Amendment which I am in hopes the right hon. Gentleman may possibly accept. It is merely to put into the text of the Bill that which has already been promised us in the report.

Mr. ACLAND

May I express the hope that the Secretary of State will not accept this Amendment. I cannot conceive anything which could give rise to more difficulty. Take the words "such as." You have to provide for the representation of minorities "such as" so and so. That is extraordinarily difficult. It is utterly unnecessary to put in anything of the kind, and to use words "such as" is an extraordinary way of legislating.

Mr. MONTAGU

I take the hon. Member's proposition to be rather by way of a joke. He wants me again to express my objection to communal election be cause he asks me to assent to an Amendment contrary to all the arguments I have used. It is. a little hard to expect that this Committee should put into statutory form the whole governing principles of the Indian electorate on a manuscript Amendment which I do not believe has been seen by any Parliamentary draftsman, and which may contain words quite impossible to translate into practice. This House has to make up its mind. Is it going, for the-first time in the history of India, to insist upon having a franchise in a. Statute, or is it prepared to accept the-course which has been laid down in every Statute that we have had up to now, that it shall be laid down in rules out of the Statute? The trouble is that we lave always—I am the worst offender—to make the same speech. This is a portmanteau attempt to get into the Statute a large number of provisions which it is intended to provide in some form or other, because the hon. Member knows that I would never assent to communal elections for non-Brahmins.

Amendment negatived.

Committee report Progress; to sit again. To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.