§ Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. CAMPBELLWhen the House rose just now, I was speaking of another aspect of the question of propaganda, namely, the anti-British campaign by Indians in America. We all know that a tremendous propaganda is going on throughout the whole Continent of America. The utmost efforts are being made in certain cases to make the Indian case appear very different from what in fact it is, and, as was said by the hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, it is very easy to start a rumour and very difficult indeed to catch it up. It is for that reason that I have raised this question of propaganda to-day, and I am very anxious that we should hear from the Secretary of State the exact position, and what he considers his office is in a position to do to counter such propaganda. Apart from this question of propaganda, I wish once again to say that I believe that never before has India been better governed than under the present Secretary of State. He has grasped the position; he has made up his mind that law and order must be maintained in the interests of all concerned; and, therefore, in making any criticisms on this question of propaganda, I wish him and those in India to realise that to my mind this is the only weakness in the position. However difficult it may be, I believe it ought to be tackled energetically, not only in India but in other parts of the world where people are not anxious to run down the British, but where, when they only hear propaganda from one side, they are far too apt to believe it. I shall be very pleased if the Secretary of State can reassure us on that subject from the point of view of the Government.
§ Lieut.-Colonel APPLINI do not rise for the purpose of dealing with the points referred to by the hon. Member for 1216 Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell), but he mentioned that, as a Welshman, he sympathised with small, oppressed peoples, and I thought, as a brother Welshman whose ancestors probably stood shoulder to shoulder with his to repel the brutal English in those old days, that perhaps he might accept from me a few words about our now united people in the United Kingdom, in relation to British India. The hon. Member began by saying that he had never been in India, and, as I spent some years there, he might, perhaps, accept from file a few remarks on points which I have observed with my own eyes. He mentioned the Indian nation, but India has never been a nation. The nearest to nationhood that it has ever got it has got through the British occupation. We have united various races, consisting of peoples of different nationalities, speaking different languages, practising different religions, eating different food, and living altogether different lives. We have united them, if they are united at all, to the extent to which they are united to-day in demanding from us a Government similar to our own. They have done so because they have found how well our Government in this country works, and they believe that, if they have our institutions, they will be the happier for them.
Of these vast masses of peasants, from 85 to 90 per cent. live by scratching the soil and growing their food. They live entirely on the soil, and in no other way. The hon. Member spoke of the British working-man spending shillings where the Indian working-man spends pence. He is entirely mistaken if he thinks that the two are in any way comparable. An Englishman requires clothing such as we are wearing, firing, housing, food of an extraordinarily complicated and expensive kind, whereas the ordinary peasant of India lives on a few grains of various kinds of food grown on the land; it may be millet, rice or wheat according to the part he is in. I say deliberately that a penny with an Indian peasant goes further than a shilling with an English working man. His necessities are extremely limited. He neither requires these other things nor asks for them. He requires only a few palm leaves or some grass to form a hut. He lives a simple agricultural life, very similar in many 1217 ways, except for the cold, to the life our mutual ancestors lived in Wales about 400 or 500 years ago.
India has been conquered over and over again. Alexander the Great conquered India right down to Calcutta, and he was up against the very thing we are up against to-day. He behaved in an extraordinarily generous way to many of the Indian kings, giving them back their territory and rule. There is a story, well known to many Members of this House, of a king whom Alexander had conquered and who was asked what he expected. He replied, "I expect the treatment that one king should receive from another." Alexander was so pleased, that he restored him his kingdom forthwith. At the hands of the Mohammedan conquerers and the other conquerers from the north the Hindus w ere greatly oppressed. They received treatment such as they have never received in any circumstances since Britain has occupied India. We ihave brought peace, justice and contentment to 300,000,000 inarticulate people who had never before found peace, justice and contentment.
Those are the facts, and I do not want to go into details any further, but I do want to say a word about a matter which is a very difficult subject, and one as to which, I hope, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India will be able to give us some sort of an answer. I refer to the breakdown in the agreement as to communal representation in India, and the request that the British Government should decide what the Indian people are unable to decide for themselves. I think that they are asking us to do the impossible. If the people of India themselves sitting round the table here, sitting round the table in India among their own people, in the course of nearly two years have been unable to solve this problem, how on earth are we going to solve it for them, and to give a decision to which both parties are willing to agree? If there is an agreement which both parties can accept, obviously they would have found that method of solution long ago. But I do ask the Secretary of State for India to consider that if we are asked to come to a decision on this matter, let us at least go back to that report which, after all, I think, everybody admits was the most wonderful report that has ever 1218 been made on the great Empire of India. I refer to the Simon Report.
Let us go back to that report, and at least start where they said we ought to start. Let us give self-government to the Provinces as recommended in the report as the first thing. If we give self-government to the Provinces one by one at once, we then have the question of representation experimented upon on smaller scales in different parts by different communities, and if they succeed in governing themselves in the Provinces, it may be possible that out of that they themselves will solve the greater problem of finding a solution to the communal representation for the election of a federal government. Never in the history of this world has there been a federal government established, as far as I know, until provincial governments have been formed. Take the United States of America, which ended in a great war before they got a complete federal government. Take Australia, an instance in which one people, our own people, speaking the same language, without any foreign interference, took years before they were able to have a federal government, and it is only in the last few years that they have had a federal Parliament. Take South Africa. Take any country you like, and you will find that history shows you must have provincial self-government before any kind of federation is possible or practical. That, I think, is the solution of the problem as I see it to-day.
I want to say a word about the smaller communities. There is said to be a pact made between the Anglo-Indian community and the other smaller communities. I may say here—and I hope that the Secretary of State will note what I say—that that pact is not acceptable to the Anglo-Indian community. They fear greatly the result of that agreement, and unless some protection can be found for that Anglo-Indian community in India, and also for the Untouchables and those other minor communities, I fear that no settlement will be permanent and lasting. Last of all, we have our own people, those men and women who are resident in India, the British community there. I do not think that it would be right or just for us to accept for them a worse position than the Indian enjoys to-day in Great Britain. Think of the position of the Indian to-day. He has the abso- 1219 lute rights in law and in the community which every Englishman enjoys, without any disability. Indians have even the right to sit in this House, and have sat in this House when elected by a constituency. Those rights are given to Indians by us. Surely the least we can ask, when the settlement comes, is that our people should have an equal right under the law and—to use a Latin word—commercium—I mean the right to trade and live under the law on the same scale as we give it to the people of India resident in this country.
§ Mr. MORGAN JONESI was very much interested in the remarks which fell from the last speaker. I am sure that he holds the points of view which he expressed with very great tenacity and sincerity. I was interested in it because, in point of fact, he was expressing not merely his own point of view, but a point of view which is very generally accepted by a large number of people both here and in India. I think, however, the hon. and gallant Member will not controvert this proposition, that the appeal which he was making for the implementing of the Simon Commission's proposal was, in fact, an appeal for us to go back upon more recent declarations concerning our relationship with India. I do not think he will deny that the declarations which emerged from the Round Table Conferences were from my point of view —not perhaps from his—certainly different from the proposals now put forward.
I would like at this juncture to invite the Secretary of State for India, who, I think, cannot complain of the spirit in which this discussion has taken place so far, to make it abundantly clear yet again—I know that the declaration has been made previously—that there is no idea whatsoever on the part of the Government to recede by one iota from the declarations which were made at the end of the Round Table Conferences. Much of the trouble that exists between ourselves and the Indian people finds its origin in the lack of faith that the Indians have in the declarations of British statesmen. There is a whole series of declarations by statesmen when in office of one character and another of an entirely different character by the same statesmen when not in office. May 1220 I remind the House of a declaration made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), not at a hole-and-corner meeting, but in addressing representatives of the Governments of the Empire on 15th June, 1921. He said:
We well know how tremendous was the contribution which India made to the War. We owed India that deep debt and he looked forward confidently to days when the Indian Government and people would have assumed fully and completely their Dominion status.That is not a statement of one of our party. It is a statement by one who was, at that time, a responsible Minister of the Crown. Compare that statement with speeches that he subsequently made in which he said he could not visualise Dominion status being granted to India within the range of 100 years from now. If you develop that attitude of mind, you make cordial co-operation almost entirely impossible. Take the declaration of the late Lord Birkenhead when he said the idea of holding the gorgeous East in fee must now be abandoned entirely. That was in 1925 when in office. In 1929 he said again he could not visualise Dominion status being granted to India within a century. How can we expect these people to trust us when we say one thing in office and quite a different thing when out of office? Take again the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He spoke about gratitude to India in respect of their contribution to the War, but last year he spoke in terms almost entirely different. Similarly Lord Reading made one statement in the House of Lords and completely changed his point of view at the Round Table Conference. The cumulative effect of all these changes of front is to endanger the permanence of good faith on the part of the Indian people in our declarations. I invite the Secretary of State once again to make an explicit declaration that the position of the Government remains precisely as it was at the end of the Round Table Conference.We have heard this morning some observations concerning the condition of affairs in India at the present moment.
12.30 p.m.
I wonder if the House will forgive me if I invite them to hear a statement made by a late Member of the House, Mr. Peter 1221 Freeman, who returned from India last week. He was a personal witness of one of these most unfortunate incidents, and this is a record sent to me personally:
I was going along Mount Road, the main street of Madras, about four o'clock when I saw on the other side of the road about a dozen Indians walking quietly along, one of their number carrying a flag. On inquiry I was informed that they were members of Congress. Such action is illegal in India, so that when they reached a policeman, the flag was snatched out of his hand and, without further ado, the police officer started hitting him repeatedly with a heavy lathi as hard as he could hit on every part of his body, including many blows on his head. The man was knocked down and became unconscious after a short time, but the rain of blows continued even while he was lying maimed and helpless on the ground. By this time a carload of about 20 additional police had arrived, all armed with heavy lathis. Other members of the little group were then attacked and beaten mercilessly, but without any kind of retaliation from the Congress men. In one case the man's nerve gave way and he attempted to run away but was chased by four or five of the police officers and hit ruthlessly on every part of the body, including the head. How he was able to stand the heavy blows without losing consciousness I do not know, though he attempted to ward off the blows with his bare arms, but with little effect. Eventually he was able to escape and made his way amongst the crowd.I admit that I am presenting to the House a statement handed to me, but I have known Mr. Freeman for many years and he would not commit himself willingly to a. statement knowing it to be untrue.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENHas the hon. Gentleman ever seen a lathi If the policeman hit him as hard as he could, his head would have been cracked like an eggshell.
§ Mr. JONESI accept that from the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I put his statement side by side with that of Mr. Freeman and the House can judge for itself. I have here a series of photographs taken on the spot of lathi attacks. I am sorry to have to say it, but I glow with shame as I see these pictures and read some of these accounts, which I hope very much are grossly exaggerated.
§ Lieut.-Colonel APPLINAre these police Indians or the same class as the people struck?
§ Mr. JONESI have been trying to make that out from the photographs and, as far as I can see, there are Dative police here and there are also Europeans. The hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. Campbell) directed out attention to a. certain type of propaganda. I addressed a public meeting in the outskirts of London a fortnight ago, and there were a number of Communists present. The hon. Member will be interested to hear that Mr. Gandhi came in for violent denunciations from the Communists. Mr. Gandhi is anathema to the Communists both here and in India. Therefore he really ought not to saddle Mr. Gandhi's organisation with the responsibility for what the Communist organisation may or may not do.
§ Mr. JONESBut I want to make a distinction. There is Communist propaganda in India as there is here, and the point I wish to make quite clear is that there is a distinction to be drawn between Mr. Gandhi's organisation and the Communist organisation itself. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the right which ought to be granted to British as well as to other people to trade in India. The hon. and gallant Member for Enfield (Lieut.-Colonel Applin) made the same point and with that I cordially agree. Surely nobody can have any sort of dispute with that. But, after all, let us remember that we are engaged in this country at this moment in a tremendous campaign—let us hope that it will acquire strength as the days go by—namely, the buy British campaign. We are invited to buy British goods and thereby to boycott, or to buy only British goods in the sense that we are not to buy foreign goods as a voluntary act. But if an Indian gets up in India at this moment and says, "Buy Indian" he can be put into gaol. Indians have been put into gaol. Not only have grown up Indians been put into gaol, but it is upon record that boys who have been found guilty of some alleged offence have similarly been punished.
§ Mr. WARDLAW-MILNECan the hon. Member give the House a single instance in which any person has either been imprisoned or sentenced for propaganda in favour of buying Indian goods when no 1223 boycott of other goods of a special character was intended?
§ Mr. JONESWhen the last Debate was held I came fortified with a number of instances, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it is very difficult to cover a very wide field giving instances of that character in a short speech, and I do not propose to do so this morning. I am sure that he will take it from me that I have been supplied with instances which are alleged to be in accordance with that statement. I get no pleasure, and my hon. Friends, and, I am sure, the Secretary of State for India get no pleasure from a recitation of those allegations—I will not put it higher than that—from time to time in this House. If I know the Secretary of State for India well, I believe that I shall be right in saying that he would rejoice to see the day come when this condition of affairs will be done with in India for all time. But here it is present in India. He will not deny that one of the effects of this situation is, not merely that the Congress people are alienated, but that a much more serious thing has taken place. Moderate opinion not associated with Congress at all has been disclosing acute feeling.
Some hon. Gentleman below the Gangway a few minutes ago said that he knew Mr. Malaviya, and because he claimed to know Mr. Malaviya it seemed therefore sufficient to reject any allegations he makes. That is not the proper approach to make to this question. I am told that Mr. Malaviya, though personally a Nationalist in sentiment and outlook, is nevertheless a moderately minded person, and that he will not commit himself to the most violent statements without some form of inquiry. I invite the Secretary of State for India to examine this proposition. Are we not in fact alienating moderate opinion in no way associated with the Congress movement, including people like Mr. Sastri, and Mr. Sapru, and Mr. Jayakar, whose services this Government have rejoiced to use from time to time, and who have been useful to us upon many a highly dangerous occasion and have helped us out of many seemingly insuperable difficulties? Are we not alienating these people, or running the danger of doing so? It is said that the path to Hades is paved with 1224 good intentions. If this country should at some future date have to tread the path to separation, that path will be paved with misunderstandings. I want the Secretary of State to realise that we are in no way anxious—far be it from us —to make his work in any way more difficult—Heaven knows that it is sufficiently difficult already—but we are anxious to see a change take place in the attitude, not of the Secretary of State perhaps, but of the Government generally in regard to this matter, so that moderate opinion may be reconciled, and, being reconciled, become useful as a source of assistance to the Government in bringing happiness and contentment once more to this most distracted country.
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare)I have no reason to complain of the fact that we are having another Indian Debate, and still less have I any reason to complain of the tone with which the two hon. Members raised many important questions from the Front Opposition Bench. Let me begin, before I deal with the grave considerations which they have brought before the House, by referring to one or two specific points which have emerged during this morning's discussion. I take first of all, the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. Campbell)—the question of propaganda. I am very conscious of the fact that for many years past almost all the propaganda in India has been on one side. The propaganda to a great extent has been of a very extreme kind. If the hon. Member, for instance, would read some of the Indian vernacular Press he would see that in India the Press goes to even greater lengths than the Press of this or any other European country, and that is saying a good deal.
Anyone who has studied the question of propaganda in recent times is bound to come to the conclusion that, time after time, the Government case has never been adequately put before the people of India. The trouble is that in a Continent as vast as India, and in conditions such as Indian conditions, it is very difficult to apply the same kind of methods that we should apply in smaller centralised countries in Europe. I can, however, tell my hon. Friend that the Government of India and the Provincial Governments are very much alive to the need for greater propaganda. I have had a num. 1225 ber of reports from both the Government of India and the Provincial Governments on the question lately, and I can tell him that they are actively engaged in taking whatever steps they can to put the Government case to the country. I will give an instance or two of what has happened. When I say that Government officials have gone touring about the districts and explaining to individuals in the villages what has really happened, I think he will agree with me, with his knowledge of India, that there is no better propaganda than the propaganda of the local official who knows his district and states the actual condition of affairs to the people with whom he comes into contact. The Government are very alive to the necessity of that. Further, they intend exploring the possibility of propaganda by the cinema. One or two Indian Departments, for instance, have now got travelling cinemas, and the reports that I have of the results show that they are satisfactory.
So far as the Press is concerned in India, we have been doing what we could —I say it quite frankly to the House—to suppress the outrageous abuses of the vernacular Press, of which there have been so many instances in recent years. So far as the foreign Press, and particularly the American Press, is concerned, I think every hon. Member will agree with me when I say that we have to act wisely and cautiously. By that I mean that it is no good trying to circulate partisan propaganda in regard to the American Press or the foreign Press or any other Press. What we are trying to do is to give foreign correspondents in India every opportunity to see the conditions for themselves and to learn the facts on the spot, and I think the hon. Member will find, if he will scrutinise the American Press and the foreign Press, as I have scrutinised it during the last few months, that the actual facts of the situation in India are being far better reported in the American Press and the foreign Press than they were some time ago. Having said that, I think I have said enough to show that we are very much alive to the question that the hon. Member has raised, but if he has any other suggestions to make in connection with it I shall be only too glad to transmit them to the Government of India.
1226 Let me pass to the wider issues that have been raised in the Debate. The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell), in a very interesting and carefully expressed speech—I should like to thank him for the tone of it—and the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. M. Jones), in a no less moderate statement of his case, have brought two charges, as I understand them, against the Government. First of all, they point to the Ordinances that are in force and say that we have unnecessarily introduced a chapter of extreme repression in India. They go further and say that we have broken up the atmosphere of the Round Table Conference, that we have ended the period of conciliation in which all three parties were attempting, in collaboration with representative Indians, to create, by mutual agreement, an Indian Constitution. Let me deal with both those charges. I will deal first with the charge that we have unnecessarily introduced measures of extreme repression in India.
I admit that the Ordinances that we have approved are very drastic and severe. They cover almost every activity of Indian life. I do not on that account make any apology for their introduction. They were introduced, and they were introduced in this comprehensive form, because the Government, with the full knowledge at their disposal, sincerely believed that we were threatened with an attack upon the whole basis of Government, and that it was essential, if we were to prevent India drifting into anarchy and disorder, that we should give the Government of India and the Provincial Governments the drastic powers that they needed in so extreme a crisis. Therefore, I do not apologise for the comprehensiveness of the Ordinances. Indeed, I would say that if we had not introduced comprehensive Ordinances we ran the risk of letting the whole machinery of Indian Government fall into pieces.
The two hon. Members went further. They said: "Not only have you introduced these very drastic Ordinances, but, from the instances which we have at our disposal, we say that they have been carried out in an extreme and sometimes almost in a tyrannical manner." I have been at pains to inquire very carefully into a number of cases in which the charge has been made that the police 1227 and the Government authorities have abused their powers. So far I have discovered very little foundation for any of those charges. A case was brought to my attention by an hon. Member of this House from which it seemed to me that a mistake had been made. I was the first to admit that mistake, and the Government of India admitted the mistake.
§ Mr. MAXTONAgainst a Britisher.
§ Sir S. HOAREI do not care whether it was against a Britisher or an Indian.
§ Mr. MAXTONThat case was of a Britisher.
§ Sir S. HOAREI may tell the hon. Member that if a similar case is brought to my attention in regard to an Indian and I find that a mistake has been made, I shall make the same apology.
§ Mr. BUCHANANYou will not have the same pressure as if you bring it here.
§ Sir S. HOAREPressure or not, I think I can rely upon the two hon. Members below the Gangway to bring any such case to my notice. Take the cases that the two hon. Members on the Front Opposition Bench have raised. I do not in the least criticise their good faith in raising them. They said that they had no means of directly checking the accuracy of the charges that were contained in them. I will take those two cases as typical of the many cases that are hurled backwards and forwards from one side of the House to the other in attempting to show that the police are abusing their powers under the Ordinances. The hon. Member for Gower alluded to a telegram from which he read a number of extracts written by Pundit Malaviya for the purpose of describing what he considered to be the state of affairs in India.
The hon. Member told the House that that telegram was stopped by the authorities. He is misinformed. What actually happened was this. Pundit Malaviya brought to the Post Office a telegram of 1,100 words. It contained what we believe to be a great deal of very inaccurate information, and if I had time I could go through the telegram sentence by sentence and show how very inaccurate that information really was. None the less, the Post Office officials said that they were perfectly prepared to send it on.
1228 They raised no objection on the ground that the telegram was inaccurate. But they asked the Pundit to pay the fee for the telegram, a very reasonable request which any Post Office makes of its clients. The Pundit demurred and said that he wished to send it at press rates. It was pointed out that he had no connection whatever with the press, and under Post Office regulations in India nothing is sent at press rates to papers outside India for anyone but an accredited press representative. The Pundit, seeing the very high charge which was involved in the transmission of 1,100 words to this country, said that he did not wish to send the telegram. That is the whole story of the Pundit's telegram.
§ Mr. MORGAN JONESIs it not a fact that Pundit Malaviya returned later and that the Post Office authorities said that it was too late?
§ Sir S. HOARENot according to my information. I have given the House all the information that I have received. Take another example of the danger of fathering these statements without very careful investigation. Take the case referred to by the hon. Member for Caerphilly. It was concerned with a former Member of this House, Mr. Freeman, whom I well remember in the last Parliament. According to the description given by the hon. Member for Caerphilly, a number of harmless people were brutally beaten in the streets of Madras; one man in particular was beaten when he was actually on the ground. I have made inquiries into this case, and these are the facts as given to me by the Government of Madras:
On the 2nd February, 1932 the 'Hindu' published a copy of a telegram from Mr. Freeman to the Prime Minister in which it was alleged that on 26th January, so-called Independence Day, certain processionists in Madras City were mercilessly beaten until they became unconscious. The facts are that local Congress leaders organised a procession in defiance of an order under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The police dispersed the procession by using light canes, and arrested some of the processionists. A volunteer carrying the Congress flag stoutly resisted its seizure and was overpowered with some difficulty. No more force was used than was necessary, and no one was beaten into unconsciousness.Some hon. Members may say that that is a biased account of the incident, that it is the account of the officials of the Government of Madras.
§ Mr. BUCHANANHear, hear!
§ Sir S. HOAREHon. Members below the Gangway seem to take that view. If that is so, perhaps they will be impressed by the fact that shortly afterwards there was a debate in the Madras Legislature on the conduct of the police and an attempt to censure the police was defeated by a large majority. Eventually the police vote in the Madras Legislature was carried unanimously.
§ Mr. BUCHANANThat might happen here, too.
§ 1.0 p.m.
§ Sir S. HOAREI have given these two cases in some detail to show the danger of any hon. Member making himself responsible for charges which have not been most carefully investigated. I really think that the hon. Members for Gower and Caerphilly take a much too depressed view of the actual results of these Ordinances. I do not agree with them that the situation in India is worse to-day than it was at the end of the year. I take the view, and I base it upon evidence of all kinds, not only official, but unofficial as well, that the situation is in many respects substantially better. One hon. Member went so far as to say that the financial position of India was worse than it was at the end of the year. I was astonished to hear that charge. By every possible test, whether it be the stability of Indian credit, the gradual rise in prices of primary commodities, or whether it be the internal revenue of India—I do not mind by what test you judge the financial and economic position of India—I say that any impartial investigator will come to the conclusion that it is substantially better to-day than it was last December.
I pass to the second of the charges brought by the hon. Member, that we have terminated the period of good will and that the atmosphere of the Round Table Conference has been brought to a premature conclusion. If the House will allow me I will go a little into detail on this very important side of the Indian question. The House is very much concerned in a charge of this kind. The Round Table Conference policy was not only the policy of the Government but the policy of the House of Commons, approved by an overwhelming majority of the House last December. The House of Commons, therefore, has a right to 1230 know whether or not we are proceeding with the Round Table Conference policy on the lines set out in the Prime Minister's statement last December. Let me, therefore, make a report to the House of the progress we have actually made since the Debate last September.
I am glad at the outset to be able to assure hon. Members that we have been proceeding with the policy of the Round Table Conference exactly as we said we would proceed last December. Take first the pledge we gave that for the purpose of continuing the Round Table Conference work we would at once appoint a number of committees to investigate on the spot certain very important details connected with the All-India Federation. Those Committees were appointed without any delay. They were composed for the most part, or to a great extent, of Members of this House and of another place, and they went off to India at the beginning of the year. I am glad to be able to tell the House to-day that each of those Committees has made substantial progress. They have been working under great pressure. For instance the Franchise Committee, presided over by the Under-Secretary of State for India, and the States Inquiry Committee, presided over by the Chancellor of the Duchy, have been travelling from one end of India to another. They have been facing constant changes of climate and interminable railway journeys, and all this time they have been making substantial progress with the inquiries in which they are engaged. I go so far as to say that every Member of this House who is interested in the question of All-India Federation ought to be grateful to these Committees, and particularly to their chairmen, for the great efforts that they have been making to complete in a comparatively short time work that in the normal course of events might have taken many months, or indeed many years.
There is a third inquiry with which also considerable progress has been made. My noble Friend the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) has been making inquiry into the relations between federal and provincial and States finance at Delhi. Hon. Members who know my noble Friend will not be surprised to hear that he has impressed everybody at Delhi by the intensity of the concentration of his labours. The House will 1231 forgive me for going into some detail into one question, the importance of which they will see at the end. I come to the Consultative Indian Committee. That committee also emerged as a result of pledges that we gave at the Round Table Conference. It is a committee composed' of very representative Indians. It was our intention, and we carried out the intention both in the spirit and in the letter, that we should ask this committee to give us an Indian opinion upon a whole series of questions dealing with the constitution. The committee have already had two sessions and they will have another session in the course of the spring. There again, while I do not for a moment say that they have reached or nearly reached an end of their labours, they have already been able to collect information upon a series of points that will be very valuable to us when we come to draft any Constitution Bill.
Lastly, we here at home have not been idle. We have been having daily meetings with all the expert opinion available, and we have been considering, detail by detail, the points that are likely to emerge in any Indian constitutional measure. I hope that I have said enough to convince every hon. Member, wherever he sits, that we have gone forward with the best good will in the world with the inquiries that we undertook to make last December, and that these inquiries have been progressing in spite of the great difficulties with which we are faced, and have been progressing very satisfactorily. That does not mean that we do not realise to the full the very great difficulties that are inherent in the problems with which you are faced. I have told the House over and over again that we do not create difficulties for the purpose of blocking constitutional progress. These difficulties are not of our creation; they are inherent in the present conditions in India. Let me say a few words about two of them that have emerged several times in the course of this Debate. First of all, there is the great and ever-present communal problem. Secondly, there is the great complexity of the whole question of an All-India federation; that is to say, a federation for a continent of 350,000,000 people, living under different 1232 conditions, having different ideals, members of different religions, governed under different polities. Those are two great difficulties with which we are faced. I should be the last person in the world to underrate their complexity.
Let me say a word or two about the communal question, in response to the invitation of the hon. Member opposite. The hon. Member will not be surprised when I tell him that since I have been at the India Office never has a day passed without my attention being drawn in some sort of way to the complexities of the communal question. The longer I am at the India Office the more difficult I realise the problem to be. "Why then," some hon. Members say, "do you touch the question at all? Why, if Indians will not agree among themselves, does the British Government not stand aside? Why should it embroil itself in a controversy out of which probably nothing will emerge except that the British Government will satisfy very few and dissatisfy very many?" That is a very natural kind of argument. But let me put the alternative to my hon. Friends. The alternative is that if the communities do not agree among themselves and His Majesty's Government stands out of the controversy altogether, there can be no constitutional advance of any kind. Not only will there be no constitutional advance at the centre, but there can be no constitutional advance in the provinces either.
It stands to reason that if you are to have provincial autonomy—almost everyone is agreed that, whatever may be the ultimate constitution of India, provincial autonomy will form part of it—you cannot have provincial autonomy without some kind of decision, even though it may be provisional, that enables the electorates of the provinces to be determined. That being so, the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, said quite categorically last December that we still very much hoped that the Indians would agree among themselves; that without that agreement the position was bound to be much less satisfactory, but, that supposing they did not agree among themselves, the Government at any rate would have to intervene to the extent of making some kind of provisional decision which would make it possible for constitutional advance to take place. We were not pre- 1233 pared, in a word, to admit a complete deadlock.
That is exactly the position in which His Majesty's Government stand. They made their position perfectly clear last December. They said that by far the best solution was that the communities should agree among themselves and that if the communities failed to agree the Government would be compelled to give a provisional decision which would make it possible for constitutional advance to be undertaken. In this contingency I think we are all agreed that as much as possible of the constitutional structure should be left to be settled by agreement between the Indians themselves and ourselves. It would, indeed, be a sorry commentary upon Indian statesmanship, if His Majesty's Government had to give a decision upon a, whole series of vital questions which enter into the problem of all-India federation. If His Majesty's Government had to give so comprehensive a decision, the result would be that we here should be dictating the terms of an Indian constitution and we should be abandoning the attempt that we have so persistently made during the last two or three years, to build up an Indian constitution upon a foundation of mutual agreement.
I am exceedingly sorry that the communities have not agreed among themselves. I am also very sorry that our Moslem friends should appear to be worrying about the future. I had many talks with there during the Autumn. I think I know their point of view and I think I know the point of view of the depressed classes, of the Christian communities of the Anglo-Indians and of the European residents, and I think, particularly, in the case of the Moslems their fear is this. They are very anxious lest they should be drawn on into a whole series of discussions about the central Government of India and that, in the meanwhile, no communal decision should be given at all; that at the end of those discussions they should find that adequate safeguards had not been given to them, while meantime they would have involved themselves with a number of agreements connected with the central Government. I think that, in a sentence or two, is their attitude. I should like to say to them this morning that we have not the least intention of repudiating the pledges that we gave 1234 last December. We said categorically that in any new Indian constitution there must be adequate safeguards for the minorities. We stand by that statement both in the letter and in the spirit and I venture to say to them to-day, that if they believed our word—as they did believe it—last December, there is no reason why they should not believe our word to-day. The Government have given a definite pledge. That pledge has been approved by an overwhelming majority of this House. We have not the least intention of repudiating it.
In the meantime I venture to suggest to the leaders of the communities that they should concentrate their efforts on organising their forces for the inevitable elections of the future rather than upon heated discussions as to what the British Government are or are not going to do. There is a real need in India to-day for the effective organisation of political parties and the time is short between now and the date of the future elections when grave issues have to be decided. I must apologise to the House for having taken up so much time—
§ Mr. BUCHANANBefore the right hon. Gentleman concludes, will he say something about the Meerut business? Is there any chance of bringing this trial to an end soon?
§ Sir S. HOAREIf the hon. Member will permit me, I will answer that question at the end of my speech. I come now to the second of the great difficulties to which I have referred.
§ Mr. WARDLAW-MILNEBefore the right hon. Gentleman leaves the subject with which he has just been dealing, may I put this point to him. I entirely agree that we are, possibly, obliged to take action even when the communities themselves cannot agree, but in that case, if we have to give a provisional decision are we not entitled to ask for the same conditions as would apply in any other arbitration, namely, that both parties will agree to abide by that decision or award as they asked for it.
§ Sir S. HOAREI think I had better not be drawn further than what I have said about this very inflammable question. I assure my hon. Friend that I will keep his view in mind as I would keep in mind any views expressed by my hon. Friend on Indian questions. But 1235 let me proceed to refer to the second of the two great difficulties which I have mentioned, namely, the great complexity of all-India federation. Any hon. Member who has studied the question of all-India federation will agree with me that it involves some of the most complicated issues that can possibly be conceived in connection with any constitution. It is the fashion in certain circles to decry the advantages of all-India federation and to criticise any scheme of all-India federation as impracticable in so huge and heterogeneous a continent as India. While I fully realise the great complexities of all-India federation, I do not at all agree that the conception of all-India federation has disappeared into thin air. I am convinced that an all-India federation, comprising both the Indian States and the Provinces of British India, will give India much the best chance of constitutional development on safe and sound foundations.
For many months we discussed the bearings of all-India federation at the Round Table Conference. All our discussions were based upon the conception of all-India federation. After many months of these discussions the conception of all-India federation held the field, and it was upon the basis of all-India federation that we agreed to advance. I wish to say to-day, with the full authority of the Government, that we are as deeply interested in the development of all-India federation as we were last winter. We wish to see the Princes enter a federal system, and we believe not only will they best serve their own interests by entering it, but that they will best serve the interests of India and the Empire as well by doing so. Of course, there must be differences of opinion among 600 States upon so complex a question. Indeed, I should have been surprised if those differences had not made themselves felt. Each Prince is, in duty to his dynasty and his State, bound to scrutinise most carefully the terms upon which he is invited to enter a new form of government. States that differ so greatly in history, in size, and in resources cannot be expected always to think alike on the kind of questions that are raised by Federation.
When all these diverse elements are taken into account, it may well be that 1236 modifications will be required in the federal plan as it stands at the moment. Of course, we are ready to consider such modifications. We have not the least wish to impose, even if we could do so, a dictated scheme upon the Indian States. What we want is a workable scheme of effective federation, and by effective federation we mean, not a mere agreement to co-operate, but a scheme that will combine British India and the Indian States for agreed purposes in an organic, constitutional structure. I hope I have said enough to make it clear that the British Government are intensely interested in the success of an all-India federation. I am glad to think that my latest information from India goes to show that in spite of the obvious differences as to detail and method, there is a solid body of support, both in the Indian States and in British India, behind an all-India federal advance.
Let me now conclude, first of all, by answering the questions of hon. Members below the Gangway and by one final, general observation. They have asked me, not for the first time, about the Meerut trial, and I tell them in answer, also not for the first time, that I regret the delay as much as they do. The trial has lasted now for two or three years, and it might have ended two years ago had it not been for the repeated pretexts for delay that, time after time, have been put up by the prisoners. All, therefore, that I can say to my hon. Friends is that I am as anxious as they are to see the trial concluded. I hope that it will be ended in the next month or two, and I suggest to my hon. Friends that they might use their influence to avoid this constant repetition of pretexts for delay.
Now let me sum up what I have ventured to say to the House. I hope that I have said enough to convince the House of Commons that we are proceeding with our programme as we said that we would proceed with it, that we intend to proceed with our programme as we said that we intended to proceed with it, and that we do not intend to be deflected from that programme by threats, by fears, or by sudden alarms. In the meantime, we do feel it the primary duty of this or any other Government to maintain law and order and to prevent India drifting into anarchy and chaos. That does not mean that we believe that 1237 the country can be governed for ever by Ordinances. Ordinances are, in the nature of their character, meant to deal with an emergency. The Ordinances will be kept in force in India just so long as the emergency continues. I should not be candid with the House if I suggested to them to-day that that emergency has yet passed away. The emergency is still there, and as long as it is there the Ordinances must be kept in operation. We shall, therefore, proceed with our programme as we stated it last December and as I have stated it this morning. We shall go straight on with it. We believe that we shall carry it in our stride, and in the meantime we shall maintain, strongly and firmly, the foundations of stable Government.
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