HC Deb 04 December 1919 vol 122 cc704-8

(1) The Legislative Assembly shall consist of members nominated or elected in accordance with. Rules made under the principal Act.

(2) The total number members of the Legislative Assembly shall be one hundred and forty. The number of non-elected members shall be forty, of whom twenty-six shall be official members. The number of elected members shall be one hundred:

Provided that Rules made under the principal Act may provide for increasing the number of members of the Legislative Assembly as fixed by this Section, and may vary the proportion which the classes of members bear one to another, so, however, that at least five-sevenths of the members of the Legislative Assembly shall be elected members, and at least one-third of the other members shall be non-official members.

(3) The Governor-General shall have the right of addressing the Legislative Assembly, and may for that purpose require the attendance of its members.

The CHAIRMAN

I do not think that there is much in the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood) to insert the word "directly."

Colonel WEDGWOOD

It is very important. It is a question whether the Legislative Assembly is to be directly or indirectly elected.

The CHAIRMAN

Then, perhaps, the hon. Member might move.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "or," to insert the word "directly."

The Bill leaves it open. The recommendation of the Joint Committe was strongly in favour of direct election, but left it open to the Governor-General and the Council in India to decide whether it was practicable or not. I want to lay it down that the Legislative Assembly should be directly elected, and thereby make it comparable with the House of Commons, instead of having it indirectly elected and representing nobody but those upon it. We want to start this new Indian National Assembly upon the most democratic lines. It is true that we have not a decent franchise, but we shall get it. If you start this Indian National Assembly indirectly elected, it will be very difficult to get rid of that indirect election at the next stage. I know that there are all sorts of difficulties—the size of the electorate, and things of that sort—but there is no finality in the numbers that have been put down for the Assembly. The number put down is 140, but I have an Amendment to make it 240. In any case, we want to see that the Indian Legislative Assembly, when it gets into working order, is a directly-elected Assembly capable of expansion and really representative of the electors of the country, instead of some form of indirect election drawn from foreign countries, which is not in accordance with British traditions and which is wholly alien to our system of representative Government.

Mr. MONTAGU

I find myself in cordial agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend as to the advantages of direct election. I do not believe that you can really ever make a representative institution except by direct election, and I happen to know by telegraphic correspondence with the Government of India, that they are hoping to devise a system of direct election that is what they are aiming at, and in all human probability that will he the scheme that my hon. and gallant Friend will find will come before us. There is, however —and that is why the Joint Committee did not leave the words in the Bill—a possibility that a direct electorate cannot be devised in time for the first starting of the Bill. I do not think that it is likely to occur, but it will not be fatal to have for the first ten years or perhaps for a shorter time, indirect election. After all, the local Governments of India, time local Legislatures, are indirectly elected now. They have proceeded through indirect election to the direct election that they are going to get under this Bill. It would not be an incontrovertible disaster if, for instance, the first Legislative Assembly in India were indirectly elected by the members of the municipalities and the local Government bodies in the rural districts.

Colonel YATE

If the election is to be direct, the question in my last Amendment, which was ruled out of order, becomes very important. The first Bill said that the elected members of the Council of State should be twenty-four. In the second Bill the Joint Committee have entirely overruled that, I believe against the wishes of the Government of India. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us whether the Government of India agree to it. The Joint Committee have put in that not more than twenty shall be official members. We ought to retain the figures in the original Bill that not more than twenty-four shall be elected members.

Mr. MONTAGU

On a point of Order. This is really very difficult to follow. The hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood) suggests an Amendment relating to the Legislative Assembly, and the hon. and gallant Member for the Melton Division (Colonel Yate) is addressing himself to the question of the number of official members of the Council of State. I do not see how the two things are related.

Colonel YATE

I understood that we were talking about the Council of State.

The CHAIRMAN

I am sorry, but I am afraid that my attention was straying for the moment, and I did not notice.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. OMAN

I beg to move, in Subsection (2), to leave out the word "forty" ["one hundred and forty"], and to insert instead thereof the word "twenty."

All my Amendments on this Clause are linked together and are repetitions of the first Bill. I want to have from time right hon. Gentleman all explanation why the figures of the first Bill with regard to the Legislative Assembly have been varied very much in the direction of increasing the proportion of the elected members to the whole. I think that we are entitled to be told why this change has been made.

Mr. MONTAGU

The Committee came to the conclusion that the Southborough Committee's recommendations for election to the Legislative Assembly were not good ones, and they wanted to substitute a scheme of direct election. Now that you have an unofficial majority it does not really matter what the size is, and the advantages therefore are wholly in favour of these figures. My hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Yate) is continually saying that he does not know what the opinion of the Government of India is, though the opinion of the Government of India was treated at great length in the evidence be- fore the Committee. I have here a private telegram from the Viceroy addressed to me at the time that he was on tour at Madras and could not consult his Government, and I will read it— The Government of India are well aware of the immense difficulties of the task which has confronted the Joint Committee and are grateful for the patient care with which that task has been discharged. They have put their views fully before the Joint Committee, and now after much delay a decision at last seems about to be reached I feel sure that the Government of India would not wish to delay by one day the carrying into effect of the Joint Committee's recommendations. Speaking for myself, I feel sure that the Government of India will accept the decisions reached and will endeavour loyally to give effect to them. That was followed a day later by an official telegram from the Government of India, which I will also read. It begins m exactly the same way and continues: Now after much delay a decision at last seems about to be reached, they would urge no delay in legislation. They will cordially accept the decisions reached by Parliament and will endeavour to the best of their ability to carry them out. I take these two telegrams to mean that they have expressed their views before the Joint Committee, and they now want immediate legislation ad the result of the Joint Committee's Report. I only mentioned that because my hon. and gallant Friend continually asks the question, and now that I have read the telegrams that I have received perhaps he will be more satisfied.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

May I urge the vital importance of having this Indian Legislative Assembly as large as possible? We do not want the Indians to get the idea that we are trying to split up India into eight Provinces in order to play them off one against the other, or to denationalise the Indian people and make them Bengalese or inhabitants of Bombay. We want to keep right in the foreground the fact that India itself is an entity and a nation. Therefore, we ought to do all that we can to emphasise the importance of the Indian Legislative Assembly, and not give the impression that we are playing the old game of divided rule. It would be of the greatest assistance to the smooth working of the Bill in India if we could get some sort, of statement from the right hon. Gentleman that he realises that the Indian Legislative Assembly is the kernel of the whole Bill, and that increase. of power, and in time responsible government, will come to that Assembly, and that we do realise that we are not splitting up India, but that the Indian Legislative Assembly is going to be the House of Commons for the whole of India.

8.0 P.M.

Colonel YATE

I entirely disagree with the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken. We have a very curious anomaly before us at the present time. We have now a Committee sitting, a devolution Committee, trying to devise separate Houses and Legislatures for England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and here we are in a Committee of which the Secretary of State is a member trying to nationalise the whole of the 250,000,000 people of India. If we cannot make Ireland and England one nation, in one Parliament, in Heaven's name how are we to make India one nation? We have in India far greater diversity than in Europe. How are we to make one nationality of India? It is absolutely impossible. Every Presidency and every Province has its own particular difficulty. Look at Bengal with its 47,000,000 people, with the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal as distinct from the rest of Bengal. Everyone of these nationalities will require separate treatment. You can not make them all one nation. That is impossible, and we must try to give self-government to all the different nations and help to keep the peace between them, because the pax Britannica is once removed they will be at one another's throats. We rescued them from chaos 100 years ago, but if we should follow the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman we should soon again have them in the same state of chaos, and again we would have to rescue them, and to bring the pax Britannica to them a second time. I hope, therefore, the proposal of the hon. Member will not be accepted, but that we shall give them a form of self-government which will work properly as between men of all races, sects, and colours.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 20 (President of Legislative Assembly), 21 (Duration and Sessions of Legislative Assembly and Council of State), 22 (Membership of both Chambers), and 23 (Supplementary Provision as to Composition of Legislative Assembly and Council of State) ordered to stand part of the Bill.