CLAUSE 5.—(Proclamation, of Federation of India.)

HC Deb 19 February 1935 vol 298 cc275-321

8.17 p.m.

Viscount WOLMER

I beg to move, in page 2, line 33, to leave out from "Majesty," to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert: to declare by proclamation that as and from the day therein appointed there shall be established an advisory council styled the Council of Greater India, constituted in accordance with the provisions of the. Fourth Schedule to this Act. This is the point in the Bill at which we are advised it is appropriate to raise the whole question as to whether it is right and wise at this moment to commit ourselves to the Federation plan proposed in the Bill. The form that the Amendment takes is to put forward an alternative Schedule which embodies the recommendations made in the Conservative Minority Report of the Joint Select Committee. The Schedule that we have put down is only what can properly be described as a skeleton Schedule. I make no complaint against the Government, because I realise the difficulties with which they are faced, but I ask them to recognise that private Members are faced with very great difficulties indeed in drafting Amendments without all the resources at the disposal of the Government. They have rushed on the Committee stage, for reasons which no doubt seem to them perfectly proper but which enormously increase the difficulties that confront private Members. I wish to make this caveat at the beginning of the discussion, that it will be no answer to us to point out any gaps in the proposed Fourth Schedule. If the Amendment were accepted, it would be perfectly easy for us to confer with the Government and other interested parties and substitute a new form of Schedule which works out much more fully the scheme that we have in mind. The Schedule is merely put down to bring the Amendment into order and to indicate generally the type of advisory council that we have in mind. I hope it will be clear that we do not stand in the least by the letter of the proposed Schedule. We want to raise on the Amendment the fundamental question whether it is right and wise, when we are proposing this great extension of democratic government to India, to combine it at the same time with Federation. Even at this eleventh hour I want to make an appeal, not only to the Government but to all Members of the Committee, to think once and twice before we commit ourselves to this plan. The more I consider it the more certain it seems to me that it will land India and the Empire in disaster.

I want, in the first place, to review quite fairly the argument that led so many of my hon. Friends to believe that Federation is necessary at the same time that you are extending Provincial Autonomy. We have been told that it is impossible to combine Provincial Autonomy with an autocratic Centre. That, I think, is not an unfair summary of the argument. My hon. Friends contend that, in order to get harmony and consistency and coherence, you must have democracy at the Centre when you are establishing democracy in the Provinces, and they have affirmed that the present Government of India at the Centre is much too weak to work well with autonomous Provincial government. If that was the only argument, there would be a very simple answer to it. It would be perfectly simple to strengthen the present Government at the Centre. I am no lover at all of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. I think in many respects they were very ill-conceived and over-hasty, and I am not in the least wedded to maintaining the Centre in its present form. It would be quite easy to strengthen the powers of the Viceroy in regard to the Centre without following the plan proposed in the Bill. But my hon. Freinds and the Government go a great deal further than that. They say not only is the present Government of India not strong enough to fit in properly with autonomous Provinces but it is also not democratic enough, and they go on to say that you cannot get efficient working of Provincial Autonomy unless you combine the autonomous Provinces in one vast Federation with responsible government.

This matter was debated to a certain extent in the general discussion that we had before, and I remember that this led to a very interesting speech from my Noble Friend the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy). I do not think I am misrepresenting him when I say that the main argument that he stressed was that the legislation of the Provinces was so intimately bound up with all-India questions, especially in regard to taxation, finance and trade, that it was perfectly impossible for any Province to have a healthy political life unless it had a fair voice in the Government of India at the Centre, and that by no other means could you get contented Provinces and harmony in the working. He gave it as his opinion that if the central finances of India and the general central legislation of India were dictated by an autocratic, or, as he insists upon calling it, but which to me it is not, an irresponsible Government, then, at the very start this scheme will have no prospect of success. I hope that I am not misrepresenting his argument. If we accept that argument at the commencement, our first reply to-day is that the Government have not in the least got out of that dilemma by adopting the Federation which they are proposing in this Bill, for this reason. The powers of the Central Legislature are not self-governing powers. They are called responsible, but they are, in fact, a very crude and very had form of dyarchy. No one who has studied this question can fail to be impressed by the Report of the Simon Commission on the breakdown of dyarchy in all the Provinces and the reasons which they gave, which showed that dyarchy inevitably must break down wherever it is tried.

Take the question of finance, and this is really fundamental. Of the central budget of 1933–34 of £58,000,000, no less than £49,000,000 would be non-votable under this Bill. The cost of the Army was £34,000,000, pensions £2,500,000, and debt £12,000,000, which gives a total of £49,000,000 out of £58,000,000. What sort of responsible Government is it that has two-thirds or three-quarters of the budget outside the choice, scope and authority of the popular assembly'? What should we think in this House of Commons if in our Budget of £800,000,000 or £1,000,000,000, £600,000,000 or £700,000,000 was beyond our control? These items are far more beyond the control of the Indian Assembly than anything like the National Debt is beyond the control of the House of Commons. I know quite well that Chancellors of the Exchequer in the past have been at pains to show that a very high proportion of our own Budget is settled by matters largely beyond their control, but that is only true in a certain limited sense. For instance, it used to be argued that the Debt services, which form such a large part of our Budget, were quite beyond the control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that was never really so. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer has shown that it was not true, because by his wise administration and sound policy he has reduced the rate of interest at which the Government can borrow and has so enormously reduced the Debt services.

But when you come to an item like £34,000,000 for the Army in the Indian Budget, it is a matter which is absolutely beyond the control of the Indian Legislature. I ask hon. Members, and especially hon. Members opposite, who believe in democracy a great deal more than I do, especially democracy in the East, how they think that any such legislative assembly could be set up as being democratic, which claims to be democratic, and which has the title "Democratic" conferred upon it. If hon. Members when they talk about responsible government do not mean democratic government, I do not know what they do mean. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are the same."] Certainly in modern politics they are the same. What does responsibility mean? It means responsibility to the electors. Unless that be the case, you have no right to call the Viceroy irresponsible as you have done. That is a point on which I ventured to make a protest before Christmas. You have absolutely no right to call the present Government of India irresponsible unless you can confine responsibility to democracy.

Mr. AMERY

This is rather an important point. I do not think that any of us has described the position of the Viceroy as being irresponsible. We have pointed out that a legislature, in which the elected majority is not, and cannot be, responsible for the carrying out of any of the policy it has advanced, is an irresponsible legislature.

Viscount WOLMER

That is exactly the legislature you are setting up by this Bill. You have an elected majority, and it cannot control one farthing of the Army expenditure, which is more than half the budget by itself. Therefore, by the showing of my right hon. Friend you are setting up an irresponsible legislature and calling it a responsible legislature, and that will land us into far greater difficulty that admitting the fact that you cannot have a properly responsible legislature in the Centre of India at the present moment and telling the Indians so candidly and fairly. In my short political experience I have never known politicians get out of their difficulties permanently by telling lies. I have known a great many politicians tell a great many lies thinking that they could thereby get out of difficulties. Very often they get out of their difficulty for a moment, but inevitably the lie comes home to roost, and that is exactly what is going to happen. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite have had bitter experience of that fact, and they know the truth of what I am saying. That is exactly the sort of difficulty into which you are going to land yourself at the present moment. The Constitution, which you are forming and calling responsible, containing a legislature which you are trying, as the accredited representatives of the people, to invest with all the panoply and jargon of democratic politics—that is a body which will at once find itself unable, in the phrase of the right hon. Gentleman, to have any decisive influence on the greater part of its budget, which every hon. Members knows to be the core and kernel of one's internal policy. It is for that reason that we feel that this experiment of Federation is bound to end in disaster. That is the argument which is urged in the Conservative Minority Report of the Joint Select Committee, and the argument which we tried to advance before Christmas and on the Second Reading of the Bill. I should like to ask my hon. Friends opposite to review the course of events since then and to say whether there is any glimmer of hope that what we then foretold will not come true. We told the Government quite clearly that what they are now proposing will in no wise satisfy Indian political aspirations. Do they deny that now? Have they got a single responsible Indian politician who will bless this Bill?

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Sapru.

Sir H. CROFT

The lonely Sapru.

Viscount WOLMER

He did not bless it in the Minority Report which he wrote and signed himself. Certainly the Government can find no important section of Indian political opinion that will take the slightest responsibility for this Bill, or will even say "thank you," for it. On the contrary, they spit it back in your face; they reject it with scorn, and with all the expletives that the Indian can muster, and that is saying a good deal. Exactly what we foretold has happened. The Congress is going to enter into the electoral machinery in order to try and smash it, and in doing so they will have the support of so-called Moderate Liberal opinion in India, because Moderate Liberals will never have the courage to stand up to the popular cries that Congress use. Moderate Liberals in India, as far as I can make out, are very much like Moderate Liberals in England. They use a great many phrases which go a great deal further than they mean, and when they are confronted with those phrases by more logical, resolute people, whether it be the Congress party in India or the Independent Labour party, the Clydeside Group, in this House, they find themselves in a very difficult position.

We have seen happening exactly what we foretold. We have seen the whole popular democratic movement in India fighting this Constitution line by line and at every point they can. What prospect does that open out when you get your Federation going? How are you going to get the harmony which my Noble Friend the Member for Hastings speaks of between the Centre and the autonomous Provinces? How are you going to get that strong government which is going to bind the autonomous Provinces of India together? You are going to get nothing of the sort. You are going to get a bear garden, with Governor baiting, Viceroy baiting as the chief occupation of the Federal Assembly at Delhi.

Sir H. CROFT

As in Ceylon.

Viscount WOLMER

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) says, "As in Ceylon." Certainly, and as we have seen in all the Provinces under dyarchy, especially in the more difficult Provinces like Bengal. The Central Assembly is going to be the focus for all the political forwards of India. It is going to be the great arena, the great battleground of the most ardent spirits, the most extreme leaders, who are going to the Centre in pursuit of the biggest game, the Viceroy. Therefore, it seems to us to be flying in the face of all the facts that are emerging about India, flying in the face of the teachings of history and flying in the face of all our own experience in India during the last 15 years, to think that you can get this contentment or efficiency by setting up a Legislative Assembly based on a democratic franchise, claiming it to be democratic but withholding from it the power of really being able to take a responsible share in the government of the country which it is supposed to represent.

That is the dilemma which has been before us all the time. The only people who really faced this dilemma were the Simon Commission, before they were squared. I do not wish to use a bad expression, and I say, before they were converted. I do not wish to attribute any unworthy motive to any of my hon. or right hon. Friends who disagree with us on this subject. The question is far too serious and difficult for us to bandy charges of that sort about. We all realise the difficulties with which we are faced, from whatever angle we approach this question. In their original report the Simon Commission faced this problem and said that you cannot have responsible government at the centre in India at the present time, that it was no use thinking of a democratic assembly, and that if you do you will only get exactly the same evils of dyarchy as they were then exposing in the Provinces. If we had only been allowed to proceed on the lines originally suggested by the Simon Commission we should have avoided this great fraud, because that is what it is, nothing more and nothing less, of a pretended democratic federal centre, from which we have necessarily to withhold vital power.

Mr. COCKS

The Noble Lord keeps on talking about a democratic assembly at the centre. We repudiate the idea that it is a democratic assembly. It is a reactionary assembly; an oligarchy.

Captain CAZALET

The Noble Lord says that politicians in India dislike the proposals of the Government. Does he suggest that they would like any better the proposals that he is advocating?

Viscount WOLMER

I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend puts us in any dilemma by that question.

Captain CAZALET

I was only asking for information.

Viscount WOLMER

If my hon. and gallant Friend can point out to me a single policy on which the Indian politicians are agreed which would have any chance of acceptance by public opinion in this country, there would be some point in his interruption, but he and I know perfectly well that anything which this House can propose is totally unacceptable to the Indian politicians. Therefore, if we are going to do anything which would be acceptable to this House and would commend itself to public opinion, we have to do something for which we shall not get thanks but for which we shall get abuse from the Indian politicians. That being the case, is it not better to be perfectly honest with them and not give them cause to say that we have acted ingenuously and have proposed something which is different from what it pretends to be Is it not much better for us to say, quite clearly, how far we are prepared to go in Indian self-government, and to give them something which has a chance of being honestly worked.

I have always felt that there is a strong case for making a bold experiment in regard to Provincial self-government. It would be far wiser for us to say: "We are prepared to give you these great powers which will enable you to show how far you are sufficiently experienced to use even greater powers. It is true that there must be some questions which affect all-India which also affect your Provincial legislation which we are not prepared to put into the hands of Indian politicians at the present moment." The Government are not prepared to put these matters in the hands of Indian politicians. If this House and the Government would only have the courage and straightforwardness to tell the Indians so we should have far less trouble in the end. But by erecting a legislature, which is supposed to have power to pass laws, and call it responsible government, and to dangle prospects in the future of Dominion status, as if India was in any description comparable to Australia or Canada, is simply asking for trouble in the future. It is the sort of make-believe attitude which has gained Englishmen the reputation of being hypocrites. The English people like to talk about aspirations which they do not regard as practical at the moment, such as discussing a Scottish Tem perance Bill, but in dealing with other nations we have to be careful about not pretending to give, or do, or say, more than we really mean. We shall never satisfy the Indians with this Federal machinery. We shall merely incite their contempt, lead them to think that we are dishonest and that with a little more pressure, obstruction and 'agitation, they can get what they want.

The whole of this machinery is going to be used as the thin edge of the wedge by which the controlling powers of the Viceroy are to be whittled away until complete swaraj has been obtained. I do not mean to say that these powers of the Viceroy should be permanent, but I say that not in the lifetime of any one present can we divorce ourselves from responsibility for the Indian Army, the defence of India, the debt services and pensions, and matters of that sort. As far as this generation is concerned the thing is not practical politics. But erecting a Federal Assembly, which is not allowed to deal with these matters, is like putting a boy in a bun shop and tying him up so that he cannot reach the buns, he can only smell them. You do not satisfy the boy by doing that, you only excite his anger and wrath. That is precisely what we are afraid is going to happen by the plan of the Government. We suggest, following the recommendation of the Conservative minority report, that it would be much better to have an advisory council to make the Viceroy aware of the feelings in the various Provinces and States in regard to all-India questions, but to leave the settlement of these questions in the hands of the Viceroy and his advisers.

I know that Indians will not accept such a proposal, but their objection to it cannot be more violent than their objection to the present scheme. You are not going to lose anything in that way. On the other hand, Indians who reject it would never be able to obstruct such a machinery or prevent its smooth working in the same way as they can obstruct and wreck your Federal Legislature. If you have this central assembly on an advisory basis you will know where they stand, and the Viceroy need not take their advice. The only protest they could make would be a boycott and a decision not to tender advice, but it would not mean the breakdown which would inevitably occur in the working of the federal assembly proposed by the Government. In spite of all the adverse criticism which we should undoubtedly get from Indians and hon. Members opposite it would be far better, for a generation at least, to allow Provincial Autonomy to be tried before attempting to confer central responsibility on the people of India. You cannot, it passes the wit of man, it was beyond the brains of the Labor party even, to devise a plan by which this central responsibility can wisely and rightly be entrusted to Indians at the moment, and, therefore, it is far better to put the whole of your central machinery on an advisory basis, to allow experience to be accumulated in the ordinary day to day working of the Parliamentary machinery and ministerial responsibility in the Provinces before going on with this much greater and more difficult experiment.

It has been said that there is no finality in such a position because the Labour party would not accept it, and that if they came into power they would repudiate it. The Labour party do not accept the Bill. They have divided on every occasion they dare; we have no sort of political unity in England on this question. The Labour party are perfectly free to do everything they can to introduce their idea of the way in which India should be governed, they are not bound by the Bill in the slightest extent. Therefore, we have nothing to gain in the conciliation of Indian opinion or in the conciliation of Socialist opnion by following the plan of the Government. On the contrary, we shall be landing India with a Constitution which is absolutely without parallel in the history of Constitutions throughout the world; a country which is three times as great as the United States of America and far more complicated than the whole of Europe put together, and you are making this vast experiment at a time when the greatest political unrest exists and in a form which will lay yourselves open to the just reproach that the whole of your grant of so called responsible government is a fraud and a sham. We feel that a Constitution based on these lines can only end in disaster, and we can have no part or lot in such a business.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. CADOGAN

I shall not detain the Committee long because I intend to confine myself to the narrower issue which is embodied in the Amendment and to which the noble Lord did not make much allusion. I am sure he will agree that it is not of much avail to criticise the Government's proposals unless you have an alternative set to put in their place. The proposal of the noble Lord is not original. I will not deceive the Committee. I and my colleagues on the Indian Statutory Commission were originally responsible for it. The report of the Commission is a remarkable document because it appears to be used as a foundation for all the various conflicting proposals which are brought forward from all sides on this question. I remember that when we first returned from India it might have been thought that we had brought back the plague instead of a very acceptable set of recommendations. I would refer the noble Lord to two passages in our report. The first occurs on page 9 of Volume II and in it we say: In the course of our enquiries we became more and more convinced of the impossibility of continuing to look at one-half of India to the exclusion of the other. The trouble was that although we were able to look at the other, we were expressly debarred by our terms of reference from making any recommendations as to the interests and concerns of the States. However, early in our deliberations we came to the conclusion that a Federation of all India was the only ultimate possible solution. For that reason we made a very tentative recommendation in the paragraph in which we recommend this proposal of the noble Lord. I would point out that it is very tentative indeed. We made that recommendation because although we felt that it was not possible for us to make any recommendation with regard to the Princes we wanted to open the' door by which eventually they might enter. The second passage in the report to which I want to draw attention is this: The whole scheme for the Council (for greater India) as we conceive it, is designed to make a beginning in the process which may one day lead to Indian Federation. What we are proposing is merely a throwing across the gap of the first strands which may in time mark the line of a solid and enduring bridge. Had we known how expeditiously that bridge would be constructed by the Princes themselves we would not have thrown strands, whatever that may mean, across the gap.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR

The hon. Gentleman has said that the Simon Commission dealt with this question and recommended All-India Federation.

Mr. CADOGAN

No, it was not within our terms of reference to recommend All-India Federation, but we did the best, possible with a Federation of British-India and also made recommendations, with a view to bridging the gap, if I may use that phrase.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR

Yes, I understand the point as to Federation and bridging the gap, but can the hon. Member tell the Committee when it was proposed by the Simon Commission that Federation should be brought into being, which is quite another point.

Mr. CADOGAN

Does the hon. and gallant Member mean the Federation of All-India?

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR

Yes.

Mr. CADOGAN

Of course, that was not possible for us. Within the terms of reference on which we were working we were not able to concern ourselves with the accession of the States. It was not possible for us to make any recommendation at the time before there was even the possibility of All-India Federation. But perhaps I may return to the point which I was making in answer to the Noble Lord. As I have said, our proposal was a very tentative one, but the proposal which the Princes made at the Round Table Conference rendered it entirely obsolete.

There is just one other point to which I would refer. It is true that in the Statutory Commission's Report there is an unequivocal statement with regard to dyarchy. I do not think that it is a statement which even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) would be able to explain away I remember warning some of my colleagues that that statement was a rash one. It was too categorical, and I now say frankly that the Noble Lord is right that we recommended against dyarchy in any shape or form at the Centre. The reason why we did so—rather rashly as I think—was because we thought we had discovered a means by which it could be circumvented. I need not go into that question now, because it is not relevant to this Debate, but I wish to say that when the proposals were examined by the Joint Select Committee that Committee came to the conclusion that, although our proposal was not dyarchy in form, it certainly was so in fact. I admit that we were wrong and that dyarchy at the Centre was inevitable.

9.3 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I support the Amendment, and I think the Committee ought to appreciate the fact that it has two great advantages. It is honest, and it leaves India some hope. We are apt to under-estimate the harm that is done, not so much abroad as in India itself, by the pretence that we are giving them something which they want. I believe that at the present time they have more tender feelings for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) than for the Secretary of State. That is simply because they know what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping is after, while on the other hand they resent this perpetual habit of saying that we are giving them something and of treating them as though they were children. It is undignified to go on pretending that by this Constitution we are providing something for the benefit Of India. We may be producing something—and I am sure hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite think they are producing something—which will be of permanent advantage to India, but, as far as India is concerned, what we are proposing is obviously worse at the Centre than the present situation. It is because of that fact, that we have got such a bad name in India, and the Amendment, therefore, has the enormous advantage of being honest. The other advantage is that it leaves to every Indian hope for the future. If this Bill becomes an Act, as it is, being a treaty between the British Crown and 800 Princes in India—

Duchess of ATHOLL

No, 560.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

There used to be 800, but in any case it is a treaty between the British Crown and a large number of Princes who are going into the Federation on the strength of this Bill and, in exchange for a share in the Government of India, they are sacrificing certain rights under the Bill. The drawback is that never can we alter it. It is futile and useless to talk about putting in a Clause about Dominion status in the future, because we know, as they know, that the Bill cannot be altered once it is passed. Once this Bill goes through in its present state, there is no chance of any further step towards freedom, towards Dominion status, towards a democratic franchise. All those things are barred out for all time. Even if you had a Labour Government in office consisting solely of the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), no change could be made. This Committee does not know that, but everyone in India knows it, and it is because of that that they are so desperately against the Bill.

It must have come as a. surprise to most people that even the Mohammedans, the special darlings of this Bill, have turned it down in the Assembly, that the Congress party, which is so anxious to be united with the Mohammedans, is also against it unanimously. That is not mere cussedness. It is not the desire to get more, either. It is the fear that here is the end for all time of the aspirations for a united India, of the aspirations for freedom, the fear that the Constitution is cast-iron, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, and can never be altered. The Instructions can be altered if the Indian Assembly asks for an alteration and both Houses of Parliament here agree, but, if you look through those Instructions, you will see that they carefully avoid touching on all the fundamental objections that the Indians have to the Bill. It is true that under the Instructions you can, I think, extend the franchise, but you cannot touch the principal vice, which is the communal system of elections, and it is to that more than to anything else that the Hindus object.

If this Amendment is carried, it is true that the Indians will object to the Constitution and will vote against it as unanimously as against the present Bill, but at any rate it will be a more honest declaration of what England is prepared to do. It is true that every single scheme for the next step forward in Indian self-government will be objected to by the Indian people, by the politicians in India. That is bound to be so, but that does not alter the fact that it is our duty to put forward what we believe to be the best scheme for India, and then let them take it or not, as they like and when they like. That would be meeting all our promises and doing our duty by this country and by India. But here, in this scheme, we know and they know that we are putting forward a scheme which we do not think to be the best for India. We are putting forward this horrible system of "Divide and rule," of division between Mohammedans and Hindus, a system which would not be tolerated in this country, which we, with all our 900 years of experience, would not dream of imposing upon any civilised country. We are imposing it on them, not because we think it is right, but because we believe that, by imposing this scheme on India, we can continue to rule India behind the shelter of those people who stand to benefit by the scheme. That is not honest, and I prefer this Amendment. I prefer autocratic rule at the Centre by a Governor and his Advisory Council rather than a permanent, eternal settlement on an unjust basis, on an un-English basis, which no man can alter and which no man in this country can honestly support.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. AMERY

I agree with one thing which the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has just said. It is our duty to frame the best Bill we can for India, and in doing so we are also bound to give some consideration, not to what is said about our Bill, but to whether, when it is on the Statute Book, it is likely to work. From that point of view, I believe the scheme at present before the Committee is the one which is most likely to be effectively worked.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Does the right hon. Gentleman really mean to tell the Committee that he approves of communal representation?

Mr. AMERY

Yes, certainly. It is the only form under which you can have democratic elections without a complete breakdown, but I do not wish to touch on that point now. I wish to point out that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has supported this Amendment from a point of view entirely different from that from which it has been moved. He objects on principle to the Indian States and their rulers coming into any form of Indian Federation, because he dislikes their type of rule and believes their influence will be bad for the future government of India. My Noble Friend the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer), who moved this Amendment, moved it from an entirely different point of view. He wants to keep the Indian States out of the picture, not because he believes at bottom that Federation for All-India is a bad thing, but because he believes that bringing in the Princes at this stage will involve responsible government at the Centre, and he is himself violently opposed to that responsible government. Indeed, his speech in moving an Amendment whose object is to exclude the Princes from Federation and only give them a position on an advisory council, was from first to last devoted, not to the desirability of excluding the Indian States, but wholly to a condemnation of the new Constitution that is to be set up. Of that condemnation, every word was an even stronger condemnation of the Government of British India as it exists to-day and as it presumably would continue to exist if his Amendment were carried.

The Noble Lord raised the issue that under the proposed Federal scheme there would still be a large field in which the members of the Central Legislature would not be responsible. That is perfectly true. They would not be responsible for the control of defence or of foreign policy. They are not so to-day, but they would at any rate have some responsibility and exercise it in respect of an enormously large area of duties where the Centre is in constant contact and possibly at variance with the Provinces. My Noble Friend described the position of an irresponsible Legislature as comparable with that of a boy shut up in a bun shop and not allowed to touch a bun, allowed to scream and jump about, but not to touch a bun. Well, at any rate, under the Bill now before the Committee the boy will have a reasonable chance of touching a bun or two, will have something to keep him occupied, will have something that involves training and responsibility.

It is true that that does mean in some sense a system of dyarchy, but the trouble is that, do what you will, you must have dyarchy somewhere in India to-day, Dyarchy only means a division of functions, a division of responsibilities, and so long as any responsibilities are exercised by this Parliament and controlled from here, and other responsibilities are exercised by Ministers or representatives responsible to an electorate in India, you will have a dyarchy. But the worst form of dyarchy, as experience has shown in every part of our Empire, as well as in America, is when you have a dyarchy between an irremovable executive on the one side and an irresponsible, vociferous majority in the Legislature on the other. There you have the kind of Government that creates the maximum of friction and produces irresponsibility on the one side and alternatively creates violence and timidity on the other. It is a system that has never worked in this country or anywhere in the British Empire. It is far better, if we are to have dyarchy anywhere, to make your point of contact or line of division between two great functions like defence and foreign policy which, after all, touch the daily life of India very little, and then to give to Indian responsibility the whole field of their internal social, domestic and economic affairs.

That is, at any rate, the cleanest cut you can get, and from that point of view I venture to say the system which is contemplated in this Measure is infinitely superior to the present system. Surely our experience of the last 15 years has been that the present system breeds irresponsibility, and how things are to work once you set up effective autonomy in the Provinces and you have the Central Legislature with nothing else in mind and no opportunity to do anything, except make mischief, I find it very difficult to perceive. It is a fundamental mistake on the part of my Noble Friend to assume that if you keep the Indian States out and leave the situation as it is to-day, you can for long prevent such a state of affairs arising in the Central Legislature as will force responsibility at the Centre in the most undesirable form. It will mean a responsibility which will seriously prejudice the whole relations of British India to the States. It is in the interests of the States and in the interests of the Viceroy's moral responsibility to the whole of India, that the affairs of India should be dealt with by all who are affected by them.

At present, owing to the purely accidental arbitrary division between British India and the Indian States, the States are more and more affected by the legislation of British India. It was that consideration, not any sudden wave of emotion, which led the Princes at the Round Table Conference to declare that they wished to come into the Federation. It was because by that means alone they could effectively protect their interests. It seems to me that from the constitutional point of view my Noble Friend and those who support hint are really failing to realise that by keeping the Indian States out they are in no way helping the cause which they want to promote. I do not want to lay excessive stress on the argument which is the main ground of the opposition of my right hon. Friend opposite, that the Princes may be a very conservative and reactionary element. I do not want to overstress the fact that their position, their history and their interests bind them to the British Empire and the Crown; but I want to stress the fact that we have there an indigenous tradition of government and responsibility.

There are among the Princes and their ministers men who made their mark at the Round Table Conference as practical statesman and who will make their mark in any Central Indian Legislature. Therefore, from the point of view of responsibility, from the Conservative point of view, I should have thought he would have welcomed the accession of the Princes, as well as from the point of view of the good Government of India as a unit, which it is fundamentally for defence purposes, tariff purposes, railway purposes and all purposes that are covered by the Central Government. India is a unit, and to break it up would be as absurd as to take a dozen counties of this country out of England and leave them under a separate administration. The only objection to the Princes coming in is the entirely mistaken idea that by keeping them out you will prevent responsibility arising at the Centre. You cannot do it. The only difference is that in the one case you will get a system suited to India and more effectively responsible, and in the other case you will get agitation by an irresponsible Legislature leading to conditions under which this Parliament, whatever Government is in power, will be forced to make a change. The result of that change would be far less satisfactory than the Measure which is now before us.

9.21 p.m.

Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOX

In listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), I often wonder why he was not selected for the Joint Select Committee. I always think that his type of mind would have come to its natural fruition in those 18 months of extended study of this subject. He has certainly given a lot of time to it since. Why, I may ask him, is there any objection to hon. Members—the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer), who moved the Amendment, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood)—supporting the Amendment from different points of view? Surely there is nothing criminal in that. Every point of view can be supported from different sides. Personally, I am inclined as a Conservative to the point of view of the Noble Lord who proposed the Amendment. I was very much interested in a speech of the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan). He has told us—it is not the first time we have heard it, not from him but from other members of the Statutory Commission, who spent such a long time in India and furnished such a valuable report—how they arrived at their conclusions when they were in India, and how they came home and spent a year and a-half in the hot air and stuffy atmosphere of a Committee Room upstairs and changed the opinion to which they had come when they were in contact with the facts in India. They told us that the reason was that they had listened to the arguments of the other side.

Then, of course, there is a declaration of the Maharaja of Bikanir at the First Round Table Conference; that is all important. But surely, since then he has heard of other declarations by other Princes which are not on the same lines at all as that of Bikanir. Surely he forgets when he quotes, as he often does, and as his leader on that commission does, from the report of the Simon Commission some of the phrases we have so frequently heard that even if the Princes were to come into a system of Federation there are other pre-requisites to Federation. It is necessary that the Provinces of India should become self-governing entities. Have we got any nearer to that I In this wonderful Federation which we are going to propose for India we are going to have 11 Provinces. Two of them do not exist to-day. Has such a thing ever been proposed in the history of the world? When the States of America were joined together in Federation, Virginia had been self-governing for years, and they were people of our own blood and not like the Indians, new to the forms of Western government. We are at one stroke to force these people into a Federation before the Provinces have shown themselves able to govern themselves. After all, what degree of provincial government there is now is merely there under the careful nursing of British officials.

Then suddenly this is proposed. Do the Princes like this scheme? Princes of importance such as Diholpur, Bahawalpur and Patiala have spoken of the proposal very doubtfully. From the point of view of the British Government it would be most advantageous if the Princes came in, for it is hoped they would preserve the principle of conservatism necessary for a policy of continuity in India. Is it in keeping with the best traditions of this country that we should give to these people this responsibility untrained as they are? We have so far forgotten our traditions that in the Province of Punjab, which was created by the British, we should only have a single representative in the legislature. The difference between the section of the Conservative party who agree with this Amendment and the Government is that we believe, like some of our Socialist friends, in the inevitability of gradualness, while the Government believe in immediate chaos. We propose that you should have this joint Council to let the Princes get into their stride, while Provincial Autonomy is being worked out.

Has this proposal even been put directly in front of the Princes who have been exposed to all kinds of pressure to bring them into this scheme? When we are told that the Viceroy has advised them in their own interests to come into the Federation we know what that means. We know the whole history of the outburst of the Maharajah of Bikaner. The Princes went to the Viceroy to ask him what was going to happen, and whether the British were going to leave India. Did he not advise them to make friends with the politicians of British India and that it would be better to put up a scheme pleasing to the politicians? The Princes want us to remain in India to protect their rights and to save the country. I would like to say what I can in support of this proposal, because it is one of the most important, involving as it does the whole question of the immediate Federation or a gradual scheme by which these people can become accustomed to their work. I should ask the Government to think twice, for the scheme put forward has not been received with any degree of favour by politicians in India. I allow that no scheme would be accepted with favour in India. They will work any scheme as long as they know that the Government will not give them any more, but they will bluff to the extreme to get more from this Government. In the interests of the people of this country, of the 350,000,000 of people in India who have no idea. of politics, but want to get on will their job in peace and quietness, I would urge that you see how Provincial Autonomy works before giving Federal Autonomy at the Centre.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. COCKS

The short answer to the hon. Member who has just sat down is that the Princes have let it be known that they would not come into any scheme at all unless it gave responsible Government.

Sir A. KNOX

Which Princes?

Mr. COCKS

All Princes.

Duchess of ATHOLL

Has the hon. Member read the full report of the speech of the Maharaja of Patiala which made it clear that they have by no means made up their minds, and are not enamoured of Federation?

Mr. COCKS

I was simply saying, not that they were enamoured of Federation, but that they refused to come into any scheme that did not give responsible government. They cannot, therefore, come into any scheme with an advisory council of the kind proposed in the Amendment. The Noble Lord who moved the Amendment spoke a great deal about democratic government, about democracy in the Provinces and at the Centre. We on this side of the Committee do not agree with that. We do not think that even in the Provinces democratic government is being given. We do agree that a step towards it is being made, but at the Centre we do not think there is any democratic government at all. There is nationalism, oligarchy and wealth, but not democratic government. We on this side of the Committee are not enamoured at all of the scheme for the federation of all India. I think I am right in saying that the Labour party would prefer a federation of British India which left the Princes out. I believe that is the general view in my party, an atmosphere I feel within the party. I am saying that because I have no definite resolution of the party in my mind at the moment, but I believe that that is the opinion of most of those with whom I am associated.

I recognise that sometimes the spirit of nationalism must be placated in order eventually that democracy may be attained. I think that is the teaching of a good deal of the history I have read. Looking at the scheme in a practical way, I think it is a cautious, creeping movement towards the better government of the millions of people in India, and a move towards the goal of Dominion status which the Indian people want. I think it is a scheme of that kind, but that all the safeguards and machinery can be enshrined in that deathless phrase "Safety first." It is a "safety first" scheme for India. I do not understand the motives or the reasons which have caused the Noble Lord and his friends to take the line they do on this question of federation. I can understand them thinking that in the Provinces the Government are going too far and too fast. I can understand them wanting to go back to the time before the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, to the old form of Indian Government which existed then, but I cannot understand them approving of the principle of allowing the Provinces to go forward to wider schemes of activity and power and democratic government and leaving the Centre unsupported by the Princes and unsupported by a representative assembly—not a democratic assembly, but an assembly representing various interests of India and the Provinces—leaving that Centre absolutely unsupported by an assembly of that kind, and bobbing about like a cork upon the waters of the unknown future.

9.36 p.m.

Mr. DONNER

I had not intended to intervene in this Debate, but I should like to give an answer to some of the arguments raised this afternoon, and in rising to my feet I would claim the indulgence of the Committee, because, without long Parliamentary experience, it is not easy to rise to one's feet and make a speech after sitting here for several hours without even having had something to eat round about 8 o'clock. I have no set speech to deliver, but I should like to take some of the arguments and to answer them if I can. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) supported the idea of federation on the ground that matters affecting the whole of India should be dealt with by all those people who were affected. I hope I am not misrepresenting him in describing his point of view in a sentence. Surely that is a very remarkable argument in favour of Federation as it is proposed to-day. It has been made perfectly clear by the Princes of India that they will not allow laws emanating from Delhi, federal laws, to be applied in their own States except at their own discretion, and even then by their own machinery. Therefore, I do not think that argument stands. Then we had a speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) in which he dealt with the same subject of federation in relation to the Simon Commission. He will forgive me if I say that he omitted to mention that the Simon Report specifically referred to Federation as an "ultimate" goal, not as a proposal of to-day or to-morrow. Then I think he went on to describe dyarchy at the Centre as being a suggestion which the Simon Commission rejected, and as he said "rashly" turned down. The Simon Commission may have produced a report with many faults—personally I think it was a most remarkable, indeed a monumental, document—but whatever the demerits of the report I fancy the word "rashly" as an adequate description would scarcely receive the support of many Members of this Committee. Therefore, I think that that part of his speech, if he will forgive me for saying so, lacked conviction.

The Mover of this Amendment, the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer), spoke of responsible and irresponsible government, and much has been said on that subject. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said that Indian politicians would have certain powers at the Centre; that there were "certain buns" to be eaten. I agree that there are a certain number of buns to be eaten, but they are only to be eaten by the rich boys, by the Brahmins, by the foreign educated Babu. The masses do not get a bite, let alone a bun; the peasants do not come in, the inarticulate folk, the untouchables, do not come into the picture. It is the rich boys only who get the buns. [Interruption.] Yes, I know that special seats are to be allotted to the Depressed Classes, but it does not follow that their lot is to be improved. It is both curious and remarkable that in all the Debates and arguments we have had those who support the proposals of the Government expect virtues in the Indian politicians which are conspicuously lacking in our own. We are told that the whole trouble in India at the present time arises from the fact that the politicians there have not got responsibility, that it is because of their irresponsibility that they behave in this irresponsible manner, as, for instance, turning down these proposals at the present time. It has been pointed out that we are to have dyarchy at the Centre, which has been turned down by the Simon Commission. Surely nothing is plainer than that if these proposals go through, whatever we do, the elected members of the Central Legislature will learn to regard Great Britain as an obstacle to their onward march towards a home-made Utopia, and will therefore learn to hate us.

So much has been said to-day about responsible and irresponsible government that, with the permission of the Committee, I would like to analyse the question of responsible government in the East, particularly as members of the Labour-Socialist party have expressed faith in a democratic form of government in India. As I understand it, responsible government means that the masses who are in a majority are ruled by a minority. The welfare of the masses ruled by a minority depends entirely on that minority carrying out the prejudices and the fanaticism of the majority which put them into power. That means that responsible government can only work, as it has only worked in this country, if it is worked with a spirit of consideration and toleration and, possibly, of kindness. That is why, if it has not been a success in the United Kingdom, at any rate it has worked; but if we attempt to transfer this system to India, a sub-continent of Asia, where there is no spirit of tolerance, where there is no spirit of kindness, and where the people are not homogeneous, as in this country, how can we hope that it will work? It is not common sense to expect it. Not only are the essentials and ingredients of this system lacking, not only is there no toleration and no consideration, but there is the greatest hostility, the greatest hatred, between various sects, both religious and racial.

We have seen various attempts made at giving democracy to the East, and know that in every case the system has gone down in a turmoil of misery and bloodshed. The hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), who spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill, drew attention to the fact that in Mesopotamia the attempt at democracy had ended in oligarchy. We know what has happened in Egypt, in Persia and in Turkey, and in China we have seen the retreat of civilisation from Hankow and Wei-hai-wei. We are always told that we are to gain something by giving up some British interest, but at the end of it all we have witnessed the misery of the people. The hon. Member for Chertsey (Sir A. Boyd-Carpenter) made an eloquent and moving speech the other day in which he drew attention to the position in Egypt. I, too, have been in Egypt I went there after we had relinquished power in that country, and I know that what he said was perfectly true. The peasant will come to you at night and say, "Where are the English? Why are they here no longer? When so- and-so was here we could at least get water, but now, unless we can bribe the Mudir and the Omda, we can get nothing."Now we are going to do the same thing in India on a far greater scale, repeat the same disastrous error and more terrible disasters will come.

We were told by the, Attorney-General in the Second Reading Debate that we need not fear for the Untouchables, be cause they would be given the vote and would be able to take care of themselves. Those illiterate people are to be given the vote and told by His Majesty's Government to take care of themselves: What will they be but demagogue fodder, to be exploited by every subversive politician and revolutionary who comes along? What of the Bramins? Will they fail to look after their own interests? What of the Mahommedans? Will they keep the peace with the Sikhs? What of the Hindu moneylenders Will they not oppress the Untouchables if they get an opportunity? This is the underlying philosophy of the whole proposal that if you have different sets of people with conflicting interests striving for power at each other's expense, then you will bring peace and well-being to the peoples of India. I must apologise if I have spoken too long or with too great feeling, or have expressed myself in a manner which I should not, but some of us who have opposed these proposals, and who have done so even before the White Paper was published have not done it for fun, but because we are sincerely opposed, and wish to save the British Empire if we can from terrible ruin, suffering and disaster which we fear are impending.

I would like to say a word in support of the Amendment. The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot has put forward this constructive suggestion. Whatever may be said against it, the hon. Member for Finchley admitted that the Simon Commission were responsible for it. Whatever may be the demerits of the proposal, it is at any rate a form of government which is understood in the East. It is an oriental form of government, and we are dealing with the East and not with the West. It is a form of government which has been worked in the East for many thousands of years. Therefore, I shall vote for the Amendment, which I hope will be pressed to a Division. The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot dealt with the Centre and Finance, and pointed out that the largest part of the Budget will not be in the hands of Indian politicians. Therefore, he said, we are setting up irresponsible government but calling it responsible. We are nevertheless giving to the professional Hindu politician certain powers over finance. That is common ground, and not disputed.

May I draw the attention of His Majesty's Government to one very startling fact, and if the Secretary of State would explain the principle underlying it, I should be very much obliged to him. For years, people of our own stock, of British race and British blood, have been refused any kind of control over finance in the Legislative Assembly at Nairobi. We are assured that Englishmen in Kenya are not capable of dealing with finance, but we are told that your Hindu, your nominee of the Princes, your moneylender, your priest or your Brahmin, elected to the Central Legislature at Delhi, are to have powers which are refused to Englishmen in Kenya. What is the principle of that policy? If we are told that, regardless of all human experience, democracy is the best form of government in the East, what about democracy in Africa? Are Englishmen alone in the British Empire to be given no consideration? Is it always to be the Boer in South Africa, the Turkish aristocrat in Egypt, the nationalist in China and now the Brahmin in India? Where do we come in? I should really be obliged if I can have an answer to these questions. I hope I am not misrepresenting Members of the Socialist party when I draw attention to their assertion that the Tory party sometimes thinks in terms of a colour bar. If there has been any question of a colour bar as regards policy in India, prejudice has been against the white man.

9.52 p.m.

Sir EDWARD GRIGG

The hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Donner) has manifested great spiritual force and conviction, even in the absence of material refreshment and support, and he almost won me to his side when he passed from India to East Africa, and argued very properly that you cannot proceed on certain principles in some parts of the Empire and deny them elsewhere. It is on that basis that I would appeal to him to consider the position of India. Running right through his speech, and right through most of the speeches, not only supporting this Amendment but in support of the whole opposition to the Bill, is the feeling that we are going to allow the character and quality of government to deteriorate unduly in India, that we are abandoning people to whom we are most definitely responsible, the masses of India who cannot speak for themselves, and that this represents a dereliction and an abdication of our duty in the Indian Empire. It is from that point of view that I would ask those who are supporting this Amendment to consider what they are doing. They would agree that the welfare of the masses in India must, to a large extent, during the experiment which we are now introducing, depend upon the morale and the spirit of the great Services. Here is a new pilot being put in charge of a delicate and complicated machine, or a series of complicated machines, and during that period there must be some system of dual control, so that we shall be able to resume control if by any chance the pilots whom we are putting there find themselves unable to steer the machine properly.

I agree that one of the fundamental considerations which ought to guide our decision in this matter is the morale of the Services. From that standpoint I would ask hon. Members to consider this Amendment. It is generally agreed, in spite of arguments which, in point of fact, are destructive, not merely of the Federal Clauses of the Bill but of the Bill as a whole, that we are committed to Provincial self-government throughout British India. There is no dispute upon that.

Duchess of ATHOLL

It is on the question of the preservation of law and order.

Sir E. GRIGG

I do not think that the question of the preservation of law and order affects this argument. Every Member of the House is committed to trying the experiment of Provincial self-government in India on a very large scale, but I would suggest to my hon. Friends who support this Amendment that Provincial self-government in itself does not answer the main question which is disturbing the Services. The Services are, I believe, prepared to work that experiment loyally. They have shown immense powers of adaptation during the last few years. They have responded loyally to the great strain which has been put upon them, and they are quite prepared to make any further response which may be called for. But they ask, and I think they are entitled to ask, where are we going, and what is the aim in view of this great experiment? Is it, they ask, true, as is said in so many quarters, that the British are going to leave India; and, if not, what is to be our role in India? Provincial self-government alone provides no answer to that question. Obviously, it commits India to a line of development which makes control at the Centre more difficult. It means that you are going to develop one of those things which have always given rise to difficulty in all Federations, namely, the claims associated with State rights; that you are going to make a greater difference between British India and the Indian States. We are for the time being setting India upon different lines of government, and I think the Services are entitled to ask how these two processes are to be reconciled. If there is not going to be established a firm control at the Centre, what of Indian unity, and what of our role as the unifying central authority? That is the question which the Services are asking.

What answer do they get from this Amendment? The only answer that they get is the answer once given by a great statesman in this House: "Wait and see." They are left in greater obscurity than ever before. They cannot tell what the future is going to be in India. I suggest that the right course is to tell India definitely here and now the broad lines upon which we intend to proceed in regard to the central authority in India—to tell the Princes in India, even before they meet next week, to tell the Provinces and to tell the Services, the broad lines on which we intend to proceed. After all, this Federation is novel in character. It establishes a triple partnership between Provinces, Princes and the Crown, with the great Services, directly appointed by and responsible to the Crown as the unifying impartial authority, hold executive power at the Centre. I believe that the assurance given to the Services by the main principles of this Bill will do much more to restore and to steady their morale and sense of security about the future than leaving the whole question as hon. Members who support this Amendment wish to do. I would appeal to them in particular on the basis of an example which has some relevance to our argument this evening. In Ireland I think we made one vital mistake in that we failed to settle Ireland while a settlement in Ireland was still compatible with Irish unity. We failed to make a settlement in Ireland which would prevent division between the North and the South—

Mr. CHURCHILL

At what moment in English history was such a settlement possible?

Sir E. GRIGG

I am astonished to hear that question from the right hon. Gentleman, for I can remember him moving strongly, just before the War, in favour of a settlement intended to preserve the unity of Ireland. I remember the arguments which he used in that behalf, and I am surprised that he does not remember them himself.

Mr. D. D. REID

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman think that at any time a settlement in Ireland was possible on the basis which he suggests Does he not realise that, when Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was brought in, Lord Salisbury, Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Hartington all realised that, if that Bill were passed, power would fall into the hands of the extremists, as it has done to-day? They were right. Unity of self-government in Ireland in those circumstances was impossible.

Sir E. GRIGG

If I were to pursue that argument, I am afraid I should take the Committee a very long way from the subject which is now before it. I will only say that I am absolutely convinced that there was such a time. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I would remind hon. Members that that view was held by a Liberal Unionist who gave great strength to the Conservative party—

Mr. REMER

You were then a Liberal.

Sir E. GRIGG

I do not want to pursue the argument about Ireland, because obviously it would not be in Order, but let me, before I sit down, repeat the statement which caused these interjections. I am convinced that there was a time when the unity of Ireland could have been preserved, and I hope we shall not make the same mistake in India.

10.2 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL

I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) will not mind my saying that I do not think I ever heard so many surprising statements from him in the course of one speech as in that which he has just delivered. It seemed to me that he did not make clear the distinction between dyarchy in the sense of a division of powers between a Government and the Legislature, and dyarchy or division within a government. He said that dyarchy was unavoidable in India, by which he seemed to convey the idea of dyarchy in Government. But at present India has a unitary government. There are differences between the powers of the Government and of the Legislature in India which are not in existence here, but the Government is a unitary government, and there is all the difference in the world as regards strength and efficiency between a unitary government and a dyarchical one. I would also remind my right hon. Friend that there are very few Governments—I think only those of France and the Dominions besides this country—in which all the members of the Government are responsible to and members of a Legislature, and are therefore liable to be put out of office by the Legislature.

I was also very surprised to hear my right hon. Friend speak as if he thought there was as much unity in India as there is between the counties in England. He said that you might as well refuse to unite India as refuse to keep the English counties united. That statement leaves out of account all the tremendous differences of race, language and religion in India, and the fact, which perhaps is even more striking, of the great differences between the Provinces, which are governed to-day on a more or less democratic system, which it is proposed shall be completely democratic, and the States, which are under autocratic rule.

The only other statement of my right hon. Friend which I feel I must challenge is that in which he told us that the Princes feel that through Federation alone they can protect their interests. I will read to the Committee what was said by the Maharaja of Patiala in the Chamber of Princes about a month ago, as reported in the "Hindustan Times." He said: We are not enamoured of a Federal Constitution as such. We have never approached His Majesty's Government, and requested them to devise the Federation to safeguard our future. He went on to say: The circumstances under which some of us agreed to consider a federal proposal, as providing a suitable scheme of cooperation between British India and the States, are indeed well known. It was not from any desire on our part to hinder British India in the realisation of its legitimate aspirations but rather to help India in her constitutional progress and political development, without sacrificing our own sovereignty and internal autonomy. But to-day responsible men in British India, men who I know hear no towards the States, have not hesitated to say frankly that in the present scheme of things Indian States have become a positive hindrance rather than help to British India. I would not have taken such an expression of views from however eminent a quarter seriously but for the fact that it seems to be widely held in all sections of political opinion in British India. And if that is the view of men of moderation in the country it is a matter for Your Highnesses seriously to consider whether we should put ourselves in the position in which practically every important body of opinion in British India considers us unwelcome partners, and looks upon our entry into Federation with suspicion.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

Would the Noble Lady speak a little louder so that we can hear?

Duchess of ATHOLL

I am sorry. This is the most important point. He went on to say: The benefits of a Federal scheme to the Indian States are in any case not so over- whelming that whatever the opinion of British India, it would be in our interests to go in. I therefore would ask my right hon. Friend when and where it was that the Indian Princes made clear that they could only serve their interests by coming into a Federation. It is quite clear from that speech that the Maharaja was feeling anxiety about this question, anxiety which had been clearly expressed by two of his colleagues, the Maharaja of Dholpur and the Maharaja of Jhalawar, about a month or so earlier. Their anxiety may very well be greater now. Since then the Indian Assembly has rejected a proposal for All-India Federation, and we have had the declaration of His Majesty's Government on Dominion Status as the goal of India's development.

There is a very interesting letter in the Press to-day from Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who during his long service in India served in many of the States and is still in close connection with many of the rulers. He writes that many of the Princes regard this goal of Dominion Status as incompatible with the proposed Federation and the discharge of our treaty obligations to the States, and that these Princes regard it with considerable apprehension. Therefore the statement made by my right hon. Friend, and, of course, made most explicitly in the Report of the Joint Select Committee, that the Princes are willing now to enter an All-India Federation, but only if the Federal Government is a responsible one, does not hold water. I think most of us must deplore the fact that this Debate should take place and that this Committee should be asked to come to a decision on this very important question of Federation before the Princes have met to consider it.

It seems quite obvious that the proposal we have put forward offers an opportunity to the States and their representatives of consultation with the Government of India in regard to Customs, railways, posts and telegraphs, and all matters of common concern, and what would be of great benefit to the people of India, namely, a common policy in regard to diseases of men, animals and plants, without exposing them to the influences which they fear from entry into a Legislature with politicians from British India, and without exposing British India as a whole and the interests of this country in India to the dangers which we see from the proposed transfer of powers. I have already said something about the insecurity of defence that seems to be inevitable from the separation from the control of the Viceroy of all the communications on which the efficiency of the Army so largely depends. On another Amendment I hope to say something about the financial burden the proposals will put on the masses of the people.

Let me now say a few words about the transfer of control of commerce, a transfer which I am sure, if the thousands of people in this country who depend for their livelihood on trade with India understood, they would not hear of for one moment. Of course I shall be told that the Viceroy has a special responsibility to prevent any tariff being imposed which is intended to penalise Britain more than it could be expected to help India. It seems to me obvious that if the Viceroy is to be able to read the mind of his Ministers and know what their aim is in proposing a particular tariff, he will have very often to be gifted with second sight, in which case perhaps the Highlands of Scotland will have to be searched for a Viceroy with suitable qualifications. But the question might well be put to-day whether the present tariffs on textiles going into India are imposed in India's interest or with a desire to penalise this country. Any Member who has taken the trouble to read the last Budget speech of the Finance Member of the Government of India must have observed that between the financial years 1932–33 and 1933–34 there was actually a drop of three crores, that is about £2,000,000, in the revenue from tariffs on textiles going into India.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I hope that the Noble Lady is not anticipating a Clause which is to be discussed subsequently.

Duchess of ATHOLL

I am most anxious not to do so, but I do not know what other opportunities there may be of discussing that particular point. The transfer of the control of commerce is a matter of tremendous moment to many commercial and manufacturing interests in this country, and I do not suppose that any proposal so vitally affecting the livelihood of thousands of our working people in the industrial districts has ever been proposed in this House, or is ever likely to go through this House, with so little knowledge on the part of the people concerned of what is being enacted.

Then I come to another danger inherent in this Federal proposal, of which even less has been heard. I refer to the danger caused by what I am told is the largely unexpressed but nevertheless very really felt dread of a great majority of Moslems in India at having to enter a Federation in which they see that Hindus must largely predominate, as Hindus predominate in the States even more than in British India. Knowing what one does of the antagonism that exists to-day between Hindus and Moslems, it seems to me that that inevitably must be the attitude of many Moslems if they realise what is being proposed. The Moslem delegates to the Joint Select Committee and the Round Table Conferences, I think, were induced to acquiesce in this proposal on account of the communal award, which gives them a majority in three Provinces and the largest block of votes in a fourth, and by the fact that Provincial Autonomy is to be so exclusive, so removed from any supervision by the Federal Government, that they will be able to have things their own way in the Provinces in which they are in a majority. But if hon. Members doubt the existence of these apprehensions, I would remind them that they have had two memorials from Moslems who are actually thinking of setting up an independent Moslem federation of the five areas in the North-West of India, in which Moslems predominate. This proposed federation is known as Pakistan, a name which represents the initials or other letters in the names of the areas concerned. And it should be noted that the "a" in the first syllable is said to stand for "Afghanistan." Hon. Members may have read in the Press a recent letter from Subas Chandra Bose, a Hindu Congress leader now in Rome, in which he spoke of Afghanistan as being the Piedmont of India's independence. When a prominent Hindu speaks thus of Afghanistan, a great Moslem country, as the Piedmont from which might come the inspiration for India's complete independence, one realises what a very dangerous situation might very easily arise if the Moslems in the North-West of India came to feel that they were not getting a fair deal under the Indian Federation. They very naturally might begin to look on an Afghan Kabul as their spiritual home rather than on a Hindu Delhi. It is only 120 years since an Afghan ruler was King of all North-West India as far as Delhi, and therefore anything that makes for disaffection among the Moslems of North-West India might easily lead to most serious trouble on the frontier, even to attempts to carve out a greater Afghanistan in North-West India.

When we remember how many of these Moslems of the North West fought for us loyally and gallantly in the late War, it seems to me tragic that they should be forced into a position in which many of them may find it difficult to remain faithful to their loyalty and may be tempted to begin intriguing with their fellow Moslems across the frontier. I believe, therefore, that the dangers of this Federation are infinitely greater than most of us have realised. Men with long experience of maintaining order in India have assured many Members of the House that the dangers involved in these proposals are far greater than the difficulties and troubles that we may have to face if we do not go further than I. and my hon. Friends propose. I believe myself that it is impossible to exaggerate the danger to which we expose India, and our rule in India, if so much power is given at a time when there is such bitter antagonism between these rival communities and when much the strongest political party in India is, the Hindu Congress party.

May I say a final word in reply to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet), who asked my Noble Friend the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) whether any politicians in India desired anything less than what the Government were offering. Only a few days ago I saw an extract from a letter written by a responsible person in India in which a comment was made on the number of men there were who in public were calling out for Dominion status and independence, but who in private were expressing grave apprehensions in regard to it. There is considerable other evidence to show that many Indians find themselves in a position in which it is much more difficult for them to say in public what they really feel than it is for us here. I think that all hon. Members who are honest with themselves must realise what a tremendous test of moral courage public life makes. We here are tested every day in this matter. But in India there are fetters of community, of caste, of tremendously strong family ties, and all these things mean pressure on men in public life, so that we should not blame Indian politicians, or blame them too much, if sometimes they find it difficult to come into the open as we should certainly think it was our duty to do.

Finally, many men who have served long and recently in India say that the East, above all things, desires security and will accept the ruler who will give her security. The masses there have suffered so much in the past through lack of it that they now most greatly desire security and impartial justice. Both these benefits have been brought to India in full measure in the past 70 years, and both, I believe, will be greatly imperilled if the proposals of the Bill go through. And because fear so greatly the dangers involved in the Bill and feel that this Council of Greater India is a practical measure of meeting the desire of the Princes in these matters of common interest without exposing India to the dangers I have mentioned, that I have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment.

10.23 p.m.

Miss RATHBONE

In the course of this discussion there is one aspect of the subject upon which we have not heard a single word, and that is the effect of this Clause upon Indian India,, not on the Princes but on the people of the Indian States. Many speakers have speculated as to whether the Princes will or will not come in, and several speakers have offered their opinion as to whether it is or is not to the advantage of the Princes to come in, but I have not yet heard any speaker discuss the question of how coming in will affect the people of the Indian States. As I see it, in the past the Indian States, that is the Princes of the Indian States, have been buttressed upon the British Raj. In the future the British Raj will be buttressed upon the Princes. The relation between the two will be like the two sides of a corn stack, each leaning upon the other.

The extent to which the smooth working of the whole proposal is dependent upon the Princes has been made clear throughout the discussions. Supporters of the Bill have laid stress upon the loyalty of the Princes and argued that the known conservatism of the Princes is a guarantee of stability and order and resistance to subversive and revolutionary forces, but it is not equally clear how that new relationship and intimacy is to affect the Princes' own subjects. I know that it can be argued that it is going to make no difference. Already the dependency of the Princes upon the paramount power has been quite clearly defined. It is defined in Treaties and Sanads. In the words of the Harcourt Butler Report: It also depends upon usage and the promise of the King-Emperor to maintain unimpaired the privileges, rights and dignities of the Princes. Elsewhere it is stated that: The promise of the King-Emperor to maintain unimpaired the privileges, rights and dignities of the Princes carries with it a duty to protect the Prince against attempts to eliminate him and to substitute another form of Government. That has always seemed to me a strange kind of dependency; the dependence of autocratic Princes upon the greatest and most successful democracy in the world.

When on the Second Reading of the Bill the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) told us that the ideas which maintain a democracy at home will not maintain any form of tyranny abroad, and that a free Britain and a coerced India cannot go together, he was talking in terms of British India. I wonder whether he remembered that in fact our democracy at home is pledged to defend several hundred little coerced Indias, in the States. It is true that, by general consent, some Indian Staten are as progressively governed and as contented and happy as any part of British India. Some who have visited both tell us that the States are happier than British India, but how many of those States, and what about the rest?

I do not pretend to know the answer. but I am increasingly uneasy at the mist that hangs over this great subject and at the small knowledge that a great majority of Members of this Parliament and of the British public have of the conditions of life of these people towards whom we are taking such great responsibilities. From that point of view it may be said that the responsibility is not changed, that we have done it already, that we have set our names to these Treaties and Sanads, but it appears to me that a new situation is being created in two ways, first, that a new relationship is being set up which is, in effect, a reinitialling of Treaties many of which were made generations ago, Treaties of which the effect has been, as the Harcourt Butler Report has pointed out, that many States owe their continued existence to the solicitude of the Paramount Power. That has been so in the past. Under the new arrangement is it still to be more so in the future? It appears to me that the danger is of two kinds, first that by this new arrangement the Princes may feel that we have given a kind of guarantee that we are in the future, as in the past, going to hold them up on their gadis, and, secondly, shall we not almost be obliged to maintain the power of the Princes by the very fact that the smooth working of the machine is going to be so dependent upon their good will? That is an aspect of the question that has been increasingly oppressing my mind.

There is another aspect of the question, and that is how far the introduction of the Princes is going to affect the subjects in British India. We know that in the Lower Chamber alone the representatives of the Princes, who are to be their nominees and not the choice of their people, are to be three times as numerous as the representatives of Labour, women, and the depressed classes put together. That is in the Lower Chamber.

Mr. CHURCHILL

What about the British?

Miss RATHBONE

If the right hon. Gentleman means the British British I think that they can feel safe. An Indian writer said only last week that we are taking away the white bureaucrats and putting brown autocrats in their place. As far as British interests are concerned I think that the Princes will take care they are protected, because if we are swept away they would meet with something far worse from their own people. Consider the kind of powers which are being given to the Princes in this central government. They are to include power to legislate on such questions as marriage—a very suitable question on which to invite the opinion of the Princes—divorce, the custodianship and guardianship of children, factory legislation, and a number of other questions which vitally affect the interests of the poorest and least protected classes of the community in India. Suppose the majority in the Council of State, in which there is not to be a, single representative of women, the depressed classes or the Labour party, joined with a minority or majority in the lower chamber of the Federal Government, they would be able, absolutely and for all time, to block any progressive legislation however much desired by the Provincial Government, and where the views of the 'Central Government on any of these subjects, conflict with the Provincial Government, the former has priority.

We shall have an opportunity of discussing the details of this relationship on future Amendments and I merely allude to it now to make this point. Are hon. Members right in assuming, as many of them do, that if Indian politicians are so roundly condemning these proposals as they say, then it is mere factiousness on their part to do so. They do so because they are not getting enough and want more. It is difficult from the kind of information which is leaking through to know what is really working in the minds of most of the statesmen in India whose opinion one respects. It seems as if many of them really mean that they would rather have no Bill than this Bill, and if that is the case it is a consideration which should make us pause. To my mind there is all the difference in the world between offering to India a measure which falls short of her national hopes and aspirations, which she yet recognises as a small step in advance, and in forcing upon India a measure which she regards not as a step in advance but as a definite step backwards on a path leading to a morass. It is a doubt of that nature which led me to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill.

I confess I am not certain even yet as to whether I was right or not. I feel at present that it is extremely difficult to judge. When the report of the Committee was discussed a month ago my own opinion was that these proposals represented an advance, certainly for those whose interests I have studied most closely, namely the women. I believed that they represented a considerable advance in the Provinces generally, but the two stops in my mind, to use a Quaker expression, are these. Do those Indians whose judgments we most respect, such people as the- members of the Servants of India Society and Mr. Shastri and Mr. Gandhi himself who, whatever faults he may have, really and truly cares for the interests of the poor and oppressed, regard it as an advance? Is it their solemn and considered judgment that this Bill is a step in advance or do they consider that they would rather have no Bill than this Bill? I feel that on that question the evidence as yet is inconclusive.

The second thing which causes a stop in my mind is the question of the effect of the proposals regarding the Princes. Are we solemnly reaffirming a former alliance which is in the long run, an unnatural alliance an unreal alliance, an alliance to which a democracy ought never to consent if it means that we are pledging ourselves once again to maintain autocracy in its place where there should be freedom, and to resist the aspirations of people "rightly struggling to be free"? As I understand our obligations at present, however justified the people of the Indian States may be in objecting to autocratic rule, however much they may desire democratic institutions, we are pledged to resist that desire. We ought not be so pledged. Our treaties with the Indian States should be subject to reconsideration and adaptation to changed conditions. The fear that sticks in my mind is: Are we, instead of making that change more possible, making it less possible by this Measure?

10.38 p.m.

Mr. GODFREY NICHOLSON

The hon. Lady who has just spoken touched on two very important subjects in her interesting speech. She referred first to the position of the Princes. I think she fails to realise that the passage of this Bill will -not make any more binding the obligations already existing between us and the Indian Princes. What she is quarrelling with is what has been done in the far distant past, but, unless she is prepared to tear up our treaties and other engagements with the Indian Princes, she cannot get out of recognising our obligations towards the States in India.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Does the hon. Member realise that they are supported by British troops?

Mr. NICHOLSON

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asks me do I realise that these Princes are supported by British troops. They are supported by the British word given in our treaties and engagements. I think I heard the right hon. Gentleman say something about Kashmir. When our great grandfathers sold Kashmir to the present dynasty the British word was good, and it remains good. The hon. Lady also raised the question of the welcome which the present reforms might be expected to get from Indian politicians. I think the days have long gone by when we can consider the welcome which these proposals will receive or have received from any politician. That is due to the delay which has been forced upon us, very largely by the present opposition in this House to these proposals, Thanks to the years wasted in discussion and inquiry we have missed our chance of securing co-operation and agreement. I think that in the end we have to do what we think right, regardless of the reception it may have in India. I do not know if I shall be out of order if I endeavour to bring the discussion back to the Amendment before the Committee, but the Amendment is one that substitutes for the Federation set out in the Bill an Advisory Council. It was moved by the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer). I was sorry to hear him use the word "Hindu" as a term of abuse, and I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for Islington use the words "Brahmin" and "Babu" as terms of abuse, or at any rate not as complimentary terms.

Sir H. CROFT

In the absence of the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer), may I say that I was present when he was speaking, and he did not use the word "Hindu" as a term of abuse.

Mr. NICHOLSON

I am very glad to hear that, but he referred to Hindus as being masters of epithet, adjective, and disingenuousness.

Colonel GOODMAN

The hon. Member referred to the Member for Islington. Did he mean me?

Mr. NICHOLSON

I was not aware the hon. and gallant Member had spoken, but I meant the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Donner). I ask the Committee to consider the reasons that were adduced by the Noble Lord in support of his Amendment. I think that as a master of disingenuousness the Noble Lord has few rivals. We were asked, first, to reject the present scheme embodied in the Bill because it had not received the welcome of the Indian politicians. We have never claimed that it has. We were asked to reject the Bill because the Federation at the Centre was not democratic. We have never claimed that it was. We were asked to reject the Bill because it gave no power to the elected representatives of the Indian people, and a few sentences later we were asked to reject it because it gave too much power to the elected representatives of the Indian people. Finally, he accused us of deceiving the Indian people, and his suggested Amendment, he said, was better. He did not claim that it was welcome, he did not claim that it was democratic. His final proof that it was better was that it was a purely Advisory Council, and that the Viceroy would be under no obligation to accept its advice. I wonder who is deceiving the Indian people there. I think this Amendment may have formed a very convenient foundation for a most interesting Debate, but as a serious proposal I can not consider the arguments adduced in its support as being worthy of our serious consideration.

On the main question of Federation with British India, I want to say why I think it is essential. It is essential because there is no halfway house possible between responsibility and irresponsibility. We have heard a lot about responsibility to-day, but it seems to me that hon. Members have used the word in a mistaken sense. They consider that responsible government is responsible because the elected member is responsible to those who elect him. The Government is responsible or not according as the members of the Legislature are responsible for the consequences of their own actions. It is responsible in so far as their criticism is responsible criticism. We have got to make up our minds which way we are going. Either we must have no responsibility, or else we must say that critics must try to acquire a sense of responsibility by having to answer for the carrying into effect of their criticism. To return to the Amendment for a moment, nobody has claimed that it has been accepted by a single person in India or that it has been suggested to a single person in India. The Noble Lady blames us because we claim that the Princes are in favour of Federation. We may well blame her when she announces that the Princes are all against Federation.

Duchess of ATHOLL

The hon. Member must not misquote me. I read out a passage from a speech of the Maharajah of Patiala which showed that people were not justified in saying that the Princes were insisting on Federation.

Mr. NICHOLSON

I am not going to argue with the Noble Lady, or we shall have a serial addition to her speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] I apologise if I said anything I should not say. This scheme has not been suggested or accepted by anybody in India as the scheme embodied in the Bill has.

10.47 p.m.

Sir CHARLES OMAN

I would ask those who sympathise with the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) to vote with him on this Amendment for the simple reason that, although I think that it has many doubtful points in it, it is 4,000 times letter than the deplorable scheme of Federation which the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has brought forward. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman when he was at New College took up the Indian special period—which I do not think he could have done—but he has forgotten a great deal since then of the origin of the Indian and semi-independent Indian States. For many years people who were instructed in the history of these States were taught to treat them as a homogeneous whole. How they could be regarded as if one State were the same as another, I cannot imagine, for the Indian States are a most astonishing collection of anomalies. Like most matters in India, they are coloured yellow, while the British Dominions are coloured red. In other respects they have no similarity whatever. In the Himalayas human sacrifice is hardly forgotten and sometimes occur. Some of the 188 States of Kathiawar are about the size of an English manor and with a very exiguous population. On the other hand, there are States as large as France, which contrast with little States not much larger than your back garden. To regard these States as a homogeneous whole seems to me to be preposterous.

In every respect they differ from each other and represent a state of things which came into being in a critical period of the English conquest of India, when Lord Cornwallis, or Wellesley, or Hastings were tidying things up, and there were certain Princes who made pacts with them. These pacts made by the Princes represented the most extraordinary arrangements. In some cases the Prince was a kind of viceroy who was saving himself from obvious destruction by doing homage to the British power and hiring a mercenary army. In another State the newly-appointed Gov ernor, when the rest of the States attacked the British, made a pact with them, and to this day has transmitted the State to his descendants. Some of these Indian States are things one venerates, ancient States that have weathered a thousand storms of the Moguls and similar peoples. On the other hand, other States are, things of yesterday, a hundred years younger than the British Raj. There is no similarity, and you cannot treat them altogether.

Look at their anomalies. In one case you may have a large and discontented Mahommedan population ruled by very nearly the only non-Mahommedan—that is an exaggeration—the representative of a small non-Mahommedan population. In another State you may get a Mahommedan ruler of a State in which nine-tenths of the inhabitants are Hindus. The Bill treats all these as the same sort of thing, not seeing that the dissimilarity is extraordinary. We are bound to individual treaties, and we cannot ask those Princes to throw away privileges and merge them—commit what I can only call constitutional suicide in the body of a figurative India. Can you believe that certain Indian Princes—and some of them are very odd people—desire to be federated I There are certain Princes whom the Government have desired to absent themselves from their State; I do not know whether these desire to be federated. There was a very great Prince, the fifth greatest in India, and we do not know whether he desired to be federated. He reverted to primitive methods and sent his Adjutant-General to assassinate in the streets of Bombay a barrister who had run away with his favourite. That Prince was removed by the British Government—quite rightly. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill and the Government believe that a Viceroy, who will be either a superman or a dummy, will be able to deal with these people. Looking at the absolute anomaly of the whole thing, that no one State is like another, I should prefer a Central Government dealing directly with individual States, rather than handing over the whole of India, federated more or less, to a body in which there will be people, not in sympathy with the Viceroy, who will really be the supreme authority.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS

The Amendment we are now discussing is similar in principle to another standing in the names of myself and four other hon. Members, or rather there is a series of Amendments to Clauses 18 and 23, together with a new Clause which, somewhat crudely, I admit, explains exactly the lines on which it is proposed to work. The difference between my Amendment and the one we are discussing is that mine is within the framework of the Bill. I accept the electoral machinery which the Bill provides, but propose that that electoral machinery shall, for the time being at any rate, produce not a Legislative Assembly but a Federal Advisory Council. This is the first time I have taken any part in the Debates on this problem, though I have endeavoured for a long time to study the problem. I have taken very little part in the controversy outside, but I have always felt that if we are going to make an experiment we ought to make it on the condition that if we have made a mistake we can retrace our steps. That seems a practical proposition and a business-like way of approach. Therefore, I accept the general conception of Provincial Autonomy, subject to qualifications which will come up later on, but so far as the Centre is concerned I have always taken the view that it was a mistake to set up any measure of responsibility there in the first place. I cannot understand logically why, as dyarchy has failed in the Provinces, it should be desirable to introduce it in the Centre.

At the moment we have at the Centre what I think is a bad system. We have what I call the presidential system; not a system of democracy but the system which exists in the United States of America; not the system of responsible representative government as we understand it, but the presidential system of an executive, on the one hand, and a legislative authority on the other, the one having no effective control over the other. That I call the presidential system, and it is a bad one, so bad that every country that has copied it except the United States of America has had ceaseless revolutions as a consequence. If we examine the constitutional forms which exist in South America it will be found that to a very large extent the revolutions which have taken place there arose out of the fact that there is an irremovable executive and an independent legislature. That has always seemed to me fundamentally wrong, and therefore I have never applied the words "democratic government," in the sense in which we use them, to the system of government in the United States.

India to-day, apart from what changes may be made by this Bill, has a system of government which is substantially the same as that of the United States of America, with the one difference that instead of India having the very expensive process of a presidential election, we provide something which is just as efficient and probably more efficient. They have their States in the United States, each with a Governor and with a legislature, and the one irremovable by the other, exactly as we have at this moment in the Indian Provinces.

It being Eleven of the Clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.