HC Deb 13 March 1935 vol 299 cc468-506

7.33 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I beg to move, in page 30, line 35, to leave out "The North West Frontier Province."

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I think it would be convenient if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman dealt with his Amendments to leave out the Province of Orissa and the Province of Sind as well.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

They are entirely different. Some people are in favour of leaving the North West Frontier Province in, while others would be in favour of leaving out the Province of Orissa and the Province of Sind. In each case the considerations are completely different. I should not get much support for leaving out the North West Frontier Province except from Members of the Labour party, but probably I should get a great deal of support for leaving out the Province of Sind.

Mr. GODFREY NICHOLSON

Is this the only place in which we can have a general discussion on the question of the separation of the North West Frontier Province and Orissa and Sind, or can we have a discussion on the matter on Clause 271?

Colonel WEDGWOOD

That Clause deals with the boundaries of Provinces and the method of dividing them. Let me deal with the North West Frontier Province. The question divides itself into two parts. In the first place, a good deal of the trouble in India to-day comes from the frontier, and behind a great deal of the Moslem backing is the idea of getting a federation of the four frontier Provinces, the North West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, the Punjab and Sind. You are handing over to the overwhelmingly strong Moslem inhabitants of the North West Frontier Province control over their own affairs and over the gate of India from the north west. I have seen agitation after agitation coming over from Afghanistan, the Khalifate agitation in particular. It was extraordinarily strong in Peshawar at the time of that agitation. The Hindus hate the Moslems, yet you are giving them an opportunity of forming a Moslem Federation amongst the most warlike tribes of India are dominated by the most fanatical Moslems in India. From our own point of view it is most unwise to establish the same form of home rule in the North West Frontier Province that you are giving to a province 200 years further on in civilisation, like Madras or Bombay. It seems to me to be madness. There is an iron similarity about the treatment of all these Provinces as though there was no distinction whatever between them. The North West Frontier Province is the most backward politically and the most dangerous politically. It is aso the most intolerant, politically.

The question of setting up a frontier Province in the North-West Frontier has been one of the questions which has torn India for the last 15 years. It has always been a question whether it was in the direction of democracy that the North-West Frontier should have an independent government or whether it would mean the tyrannising of the Mohammedan majority over the Hindu minority. If the Punjab could be polled on the matter you would have a clear-cut division between the Sikhs and the Hindus on one side and the Moslems on the other. If the North-West Frontier could be polled you would have an overwhelming majority in favour of His Majesty's Government. We have to consider whether the majority will deal fairly with the minority. That is a question which we ought to put to ourselves whenever we give self-government to any unity in the Empire.

Earl WINTERTON

Would the right hon. and gallant Member apply the same considerations to Provinces where the Hindus are in a majority?

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Yes, I think I would. I am arguing now that Parliament has no right to hand over to a hostile majority a helpless minority who are afraid of the transfer. If it was a fact that the Mohammedan minority in Madras objected to being handed over to a self-governing Madras I think it would be a question we should have to consider closer, especially as to whether there was any evidence of the probability of ill-treatment. That is as far as I would go. Take the case of Cyprus as an example. There is a small minority of Mohammedans, about one-sixth of the population, the rest are Christians. We have all along resisted the idea of handing Cyprus over to home rule because we could not desert that 18 per cent. Mohammedan population, who were bitterly terrified that we should go out and leave them to the mercy of the Christians. The same principle is applied in Palestine. We do not set up representative institutions in Palestine because we are afraid, and the Jews are afraid, that they would not get a fair deal at the hands of the Arab majority. I could go through the whole Empire and give examples as to how we try to bear in mind, whenever we are extending self-government, the risks to which a minority may be involved if self-government is granted. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) will not deny that this should be a cardinal principle of the British Empire, that we should not remove our rule and substitute a rule which would be likely to be tyrannous and unfair towards the minorities.

Consider the case of the North West Frontier. About a year ago a horrible massacre of Hindus by the Moslems took place in that area, a massacre so similar to the pogroms against the Jews in other parts of the world that it is almost exactly the same problem. In Constantine we had the butchery of the Jews by Moslems. It represents exactly the same feeling. It is not a difference in race, caste, or religion. It is a depressed agricultural population suffering from severe economic depression revolting against the mercantile and town population who sell them goods and lend them money. The feeling between the Hindus and the Mohammedans is almost exactly the same as the feeling between the Arabs and Jews in Constantine and Algiers. In both cases you have a civilised government looking on. The French Government is constantly alive to the fact that the Moslem finds his national and spiritual animosity revived when he sees his natural prey in the hereditary and historical enemy, the Jewish population. Let us realise that the more firmly we establish self-government in the North West Frontier Provinces the greater the risk; greater there than it is in Algiers or in Palestine. The massacres of 15 years ago may fall into significance by what may happen in Peshawar and other towns on the frontier across the Indus. So long as Pax Britannica runs they are safe. So long as they have British troops and police, controlled by the kind of commissioners we have had in Peshawar, peace is maintained and the safety of the minority is ensured.

How long is that going to continue? Is it the essence of this Bill that you should take a step as dangerous as that which you are taking in the case of the North West Frontier? I say to the Secretary of State that if the Bill goes through as it is he will be responsible for what may happen in that Province. The desire for self-government there is practically nonexistent. They are not a people clamouring for democracy, on the North West Frontier. They are clamouring for a great many other things which have nothing whatever to do with democracy. The situation of the Hindus is not an imaginary danger voiced by me; it is a danger ever present to the mind of every Hindu in the Punjab and throughout India. They know the treatment that they are likely to get when once law and order are in the hands of this new Administration, when all the machinery of civilisation is in the hands of people who regard them almost exactly as the Jews are regarded in the East of Europe, in Iraq or Algeria. There Jews are regarded as hereditary enemies, as they have been regarded for centuries. I think that if we knowingly take that step we shall be risking great dangers and flying in the teeth of the wishes of 270,000,000 Hindus. The case of the North West Frontier is perhaps worse. A remedy is most difficult because the area has already been set up as a Province.

Mr. G. NICHOLSON

May I now have an answer to the point of Order I raised.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

Since the hon. Member directed my attention to it, I have been looking at Clause 271. It appears to me that it might be more convenient to deal on that Clause with the question which the hon. Member wishes to raise.

Sir S. HOARE

Now.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The right hon. Gentleman would rather take it now?

Sir S. HOARE

Yes.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Surely if we leave in Orissa and Sind now we cannot discuss the question later. It would be quite impossible, if we agreed now to include these Provinces in the Federal scheme, to discuss Clause 271 as if we had not included them. I think the only possible course is to take them now.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I am in the hands of the Committee.

Mr. NICHOLSON

It is a big question. I thought we were rather hurried just now.

7.49 p.m.

Sir S. HOARE

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) wishes, I know, to be fair to all, but I cannot help saying that, no doubt quite unintentionally, in his speech he was very unfair to the Moslems. He seemed to suggest that the communal troubles in India were exclusively the result of Moslem intolerance. I do not wish to assign the blame more to one community than to another.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean the communal troubles or the communal question?

Sir S. HOARE

The communal troubles. We all regret the communal excesses. Not one single community is responsible for them. There is a black history behind Hindus as well as Moslems, and it does not help better feeling in India if a right hon. Gentleman in this House takes the side of one community and implies that the fault is with one community and not with the other.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I do not want to be unfair. In every case it is the majority who hammer the minority. In the North West Frontier the Mohammedans happen to be in the majority and there is trouble there on one side. In Lucknow or in the case of the Moplahs you have a Hindu majority, and they do the same thing.

Sir S. HOARE

I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has made that addendum to his speech. In his speech he talked about the Moslems, and the general impression that he left on my mind, and I think on the mind of many others, was that these excesses invariably started with Moslems and not with anyone else. Let me turn to the Amendment. It is intended to abrogate the present position of the North West Frontier Province as a Province, and not to make it a federal unit under the Bill. I cannot imagine a more unwise or more dangerous action for the Committee to take than to go back upon a decision that we came to about three years ago after a great deal of consideration.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Who were "we"?

Sir S. HOARE

The Government here.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Not Parliament.

Sir S. HOARE

The Government here, after the fullest possible consideration and after a lot of consultation with Indians of various schools of thought. One of the great troubles upon the Frontier in India was the inferior status of the North West Frontier Province. I went into the question with an unbiassed mind, and the more I did so the more I was convinced that a great deal of the trouble in the North West Frontier Province was due to that cause. If hon. Members will look back three years they will find that the trouble then was very serious. The whole Province was rife with agitation under the Red Shirts. A great many hon. Members thought that that was a Communist movement. It was nothing of the kind. It was a movement the force of which arose from this feeling of inferiority amongst the Pathans.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

The Pathans never feel inferiority and never will.

Sir S. HOARE

The right hon. Gentleman knows that he is quite infallible about all these things. I can only tell him, from such information as I have been able to gather, with much less access to the facts than he possesses, that I gathered the view, and it was the view of all my responsible advisers in India, that the Pathan, thinking himself superior to many other people in India, resented intensely the fact that other Provinces had constitutions of their own, and that he had a very inferior imitation of a constitution. Very wisely I think we took the view that the time was overdue when the Province should be constituted a full Governor's Province. We did that, and the result has been almost the total elimination of the very dangerous Red Shirt movement. That is sufficient justification for the action we took.

If we now went back on that action and put back the Province into a position of inferiority compared with any other Province, we should be making the gravest possible mistake. I do not believe that the Pathans will not be able to manage their Constitution extremely well. They are a very vigorous race. Although the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme may deny it, they have a good deal of aptitude for democratic government—more aptitude than some of the other communities. I do not at all look forward with anxiety to the future of the Constitution in the North West Frontier Province. In that Province no less than in the others there will be safeguards for the minority. The Governor will have the special responsibility to safeguard their position. Further than that, the Governor of the North West Frontier Province will act as Agent-General to the Viceroy, and will have a special position in the tribal districts. In those districts he will act at his own discretion. I hope I have said enough to impress upon the Commitee the gravity of the mistake they would make if they differentiated between the North West Frontier Provine and other Provinces, and the grave unrest that would be created from one end of India to the other if we went back on the decision taken three years ago.

7.56 p.m.

Wing-Commander JAMES

I would like to refer to one point in the argument of the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood). I think he was under a misapprehension in assuming that the Hindu-Moslem trouble of the North West Frontier would be more acute because of the smallness of the Hindu minority. I do not in the least wish to underrate the problem. It happens that I passed through the bazaar at Kohat in 1924, on the night of the massacre to which he referred just now. The mere fact that the Hindu minority is small does not increase the danger to it. I suggest that the mere fact that it is a very small minority tends the reverse way. It may well be that the Hindu minority are in a position of greater danger now when they are, so to speak, under the protection of outside authority than they will be when they have to mind their p's and q's, for under more responsible Government they will not dare to do some of the things they do now under the shelter of the British Raj and thereby incur the hatred of the Pathans.

There is in point of fact a very high degree of toleration among the Pathans for minorities of all kinds. For example: Pathans vis-a-vis sweepers, etc. show a high measure of tolerance, and their intense antipathy to the Banias at the moment is largely due, as I have just said, to the fact that these latter get uppish relying upon special Protection, the Hindu minority are an essential economic factor, and the Mohammedans know it. It is in areas like the United Provinces where we get a fairly even balance between Mohammedans and Hindus that the, communal problem is the most troublesome.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. G. NICHOLSON

The Secretary of State made a statement of the first importance before he sat down. He said that the Governor of the North West Frontier Province would fulfil the functions of Agent-General of the Governor- General for tribal areas. I wish to ask whether he means that the agent of the Governor-General must inevitably be Governor of the North West Frontier Province? On page 834 of the Order Paper the right hon. Gentleman has an Amendment which I interpret as meaning—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

We had better deal with that Amendment when we reach it.

Mr. NICHOLSON

I wish to ask the Secretary of State whether it is inevitable that the Governor of the North West Frontier should be the agent of the Governor-General for the tribal areas, or whether it would be in the power of the Governor-General to make other arrangements.

Sir S. HOARE

We contemplate that the same official would hold both posts when it is possible.

8.0 p.m.

Sir A. KNOX

I would like to ask if it is impossible to go back on the arrangement we made three years ago and constitute the North West Frontier Province a Chief Commissioner's Province. I cannot believe that the ordinary Pathan as I know him is really thinking about his status at all. As a good fighting man he knows he is better than the non-fighting races and he knows he is far better off under the jurisdiction of the English. He has not worried about getting representative government and when the right hon. Gentleman says that the Red Shirt movement was because the Pathan wanted to be represented, he is wrong. The Red Shirt movement prospered because the Government of India at the time was the weakest Government the country had ever seen. There was such concern that the "Times" newspaper, as usual not very well informed in Indian matters, said that if anyone touched Abdul Ghafur it would raise a blaze all along the frontier. That agitator was arrested one morning and nothing happened. All that was wanted was the firm government to which the Pathans were accustomed. The right hon. Gentleman said that the last election, when the Franchise Committee were in India, was a great success. We know from other sources that it was an absolute farce. People could not get to the polling booths. They went in terror of their lives and had to creep there at night. I cannot think that if the people of England knew the conditions of the North West Frontier they would believe that it is fit for representative government.

8.2 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

The right hon. Gentleman is always very scornful of every contribution I make to the Debate. I am certain he is not always right and I always wrong.

Sir S. HOARE

I would not say that for a moment.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

We are all trying to bring to this problem the best knowledge we have of India. I do not pretend to have any great knowledge of India. I only pretend to a knowledge of English history and the principles on which we govern ourselves. The real thing is the speech of the hon. and gallant Member opposite. He knows these people, he has lived there. His view is that the Bunya Hindu is more likely to get knocked on the head because he is under English protection and that when English protection is withdrawn he will not be knocked on the head. That may be so or not, but I do not think we ought to take that as a good reason why we should remove our protection. If the prospective knockee is afraid of what will happen when we go, I think that we should be guided by that in the course we pursue. The right hon. Gentleman said that I feared the Moslems and not the Hindus. The Moslems have an enormous superiority complex; it is the Hindus who have an inferiority complex. A Mohameddan knows he is capable of taking on six Hindus. That is the danger from people who are so superior; that is the real risk in India. Both sides have contributed to the murders, but I should say that the greatest risk always comes from the man who thinks he is able to do it. The real issue is this absurd system of communal representation.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

We are not really dealing with that subject to-night.

Amendment negatived.

8.4 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I beg to move, in page 30, line 36, to leave out "Orissa."

The next Province I would save from the Constitution is Orissa. The case for Orissa is completely different from the case for the North West Frontier Province. We can safely say that there will be no communial riots in the new Province. There are few Mohammedans there, and the issues involved are completely different. I have heard it said that the Government are setting up a Province in Orissa to balance the North West Frontier Province. However that may be, the argument for Orissa is different. The population is perhaps 16,000,000. Of these nearly half are aboriginal tribes in the North and the West, some of the most prehistoric tribes in India, the sort of people about whom Kipling wrote. These people are in reserved tribal areas, and the great part of the Province of Orissa is of that backward description which requires direct administration. The rest of Orissa on the South has been cut off from the Province of Madras on the ground that they speak a different language. In Madras they speak two completely different languages, Tamil in the South and Telego in the North, and English everywhere. Half the Province is tangled jungle, and on the coast you have a Hindu Orissa population which has hitherto been attached to Madras or Bihar. Why has the Government set up this new Province. If you establish a Governor's Province you establish inevitably an extraordinary expensive system. The Governor and all the Ministers have to be paid at the same rate as if they were Cabinet Ministers here. The entire establishment is an expensive establishment, and the whole population of Orissa cannot be more than 10,000,000 excluding the savage tribes. That is an extremely small unit to have inflicted upon it the most expensive form of Indian administration.

Why is it being done? They have cut off the Southern part of Bihar and the Northern part of Madras to create this new Province. What has been the object? I think it is true that in times past the Congress party have been working on the idea that the Provinces of India should be remodelled on units that speak the same language, and there have been resolutions in favour of an independent Orissa for some time before the Congress. Latterly the Indian desire to have a separate Province of Orissa has died out, and there have been protests from the inhabitants of the seaport whose name I cannot pronounce in the South. The Hindus are objecting to it. The Orissa population are not anxious for it, and the inhabitants of the jungles do not know about it. Why is it being done? There really must be some idea for establishing this Province. We have to set up there a new governor, new salaries and new jobs, in order to carry out promises that may have been made by the Joint Select Committee to some representations they may have had.

I am told that the desire for self-government in Orissa is very much like the desire for self-government in Scotland—that they have a desire to preserve their culture, and a desire to be united. If the desire for union in Orissa is about as weak as the desire for Home Rule in Scotland and comes from the same source—the intelligentsia—I think it may be discounted a little. How can you expect a population as small as that to meet the expenses of Government similar to those in Bihar or Bengal. What is the object of inflicting upon a new constitution so big a charge as this? There is no pressure of public opinion in favour of it except from the intellectuals. There are protests from everybody in the country who will have to pay the taxes and the greater part of the country has a population which would be better governed by Englishmen in the interest of a number of uncivilised tribes.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. ATTLEE

I have a little difficulty in recognising the geography, the population, the fianance or the opinions of the inhabitants of Orissa in the account given by the right hon. and gallant Member. I have taken a certain interest in this question for some little time, ever since I served on the Simon Commission. We came to the conclusion that there was a case for a Province of Orissa. Orissa is not a very large part judged by Indian standards. I think its population is something between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000. I do not know why the right hon. and gallant Member should be so scornful of it. He is a great supporter of Palestine. Why should he not hand back Palestine which is very small, and with a small population? There has been a continuous agitation in Orissa for many years. The Oriya speaking peoples were divided. A small number come under Bengal. The majority of Oriyas were at the time of the repartition of Bengal united with Bihar and Chota Nagpur areas quite dissimilar, and without' common interests with them.

When on the Statutory Commission I saw their representatives, they told me that if they wanted to get to their capital they had to travel 650 miles. Another portion of them were in the Central Provinces. Another large portion of them formed part of Madras. Madras is an enormous Province straggling right away round to Malabar and the Oriyas are included in it as a small minority. I do not believe that in these very large Provinces, these 45,000,000 and 50,000,000-Provinces in India you do get adequate self-expression and self-government, particularly when you have a people, as disconnected as those in the Presidency of Madras, speaking not two but five languages. What the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said as to the large number of aborigines is true. There is a large number of aborigines collected together more or less loosely and extending up towards the north, but at present those people are cut up into sections and in different Provinces. Surely for their future development it is better that they should come together. Also, in so far as they speak any language apart from their own, they speak Oriya. These backward areas will be kept apart from the direct administration area. Whether they are in Madras or Orissa they will have special administration which I think is very necessary to prevent their exploitation. It is very necessary that they should be looked after properly. If you have an aboriginal population cut off in a Province of, say, 40,000,000 population, their voices are not likely to be heard nearly as much as if they formed part of a Province where there is a very strong feeling of racial and almost national sentiment. That is the case in Orissa, where the people have an outlook and a language of their own.

Then the right hon. and gallant Gentleman says that they cannot afford the expense of setting up the new Province. That is an extremely fallacious argument. It is true that Orissa is a deficit area at the present time but there are many such areas, and why should the deficit of Orissa be borne by Bihar? By a mere administrative act Orissa and Bihar were tied together and Bihar had to pay taxes in order to keep Orissa. I do not see any reason why that charge should be put on Bihar. If necessary, it should be put on the whole of India. But if you take the line of having au administration which depends upon each separate entity being financially self-contained then you get right away from any idea of popular self-government. You have what you had in the days of bureaucratic rule, parts of the country joined to others for purely financial considerations so that the richer may contribute to the poorer parts. That may be all right under a bureaucratic system, but under a system of self-government it is quite unfair that a certain deficit area should be placed on the finances of another wholly distinct area just because they happen to be contiguous.

I admit that there will be some increased cost under the new arrangement. There is bound to be, but the increase will not be as much as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has made out. I have gone into the figures many times and the increase is pretty small, taking into account the charges which will be necessary when Orissa becomes a separate Province. Even suppose it to be necessary to impose more taxation on Orissa you will get it from them far more willingly if they are running their own show than if they are merely part of a heterogeneous province such as are Bihar and Orissa. The only point that remains is that in regard to protests by minorities. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to difficulties in connection with some seaport which he did not name and which I did not recognise. No one knows the minorities question better than he does and while I admit that there are objections from some of the peoples on the borderline of these territories, it is the case that in trying to demarcate territories you are always bound to have a little slopping over of the border here and there. You cannot divide people absolutely according to language, race or religion.

The Simon Commission went into this question in great detail and on the Joint Select Committee we examined it very closely and came to certain conclusions with regard to this border line. There is bound to be a certain amount of objection wherever you draw the line and you have to try to draw it, as best you can, so as to have the minimum of objection and inconvenience. I think on the whole the objections to the new Province in this respect are very small and I think that such objections as exist are offset by the great advantages of the change. In most of the Provinces of India you will have these different problems, linguistic and otherwise, but I think that in Orissa you will have a more homogeneous people probably than anywhere else in India. You will have the backward areas under a special administration, you will have a body of people overwhelmingly Hindu and overwhelmingly Oriya-speaking. I think there will be a chance there of starting off the Province free from a great many of the troubles which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman indicated. The claim of the people of Orissa has been put forward for many years—right back to the time of Lord Curzon and even before—and has often been acknowledged to be founded on justice, and I hope that this Committee will not disappoint them now.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. G. NICHOLSON

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) is to be congratulated on what is for him a really auspicious occasion. I hardly like to refer to the hon. Gentleman as the father of the Oriyas but he can certainly be called the godfather of the new Province of Orissa for I understand that he was chairman of the subcommittee which originally recommended the setting up of this Province. I agree with him that there has been a real popular demand in Orissa for some machinery to preserve the national culture and the language of the Oriya. They have suffered very much from cultural invasions by other races. It is claimed that in the Midnapore district of Bengal, 40 or 50 years ago, there were over half-a-million Oriya speakers and Oriyas by race, while, in 1931, there were only 45,000 Oriya speakers. It is true, I believe, that unless something is done to preserve Oriya culture it will be swamped.

I am not so sure, however, that you will get perfect homogeneity, even under the new system. I was at a High School prize-giving in Orissa recently and I heard recitations given by the children in six languages including, I must admit, English and Sanscrit. The others were Urdu, Bengali, Oriya and Khond. My quarrel with the provisions of this Clause is that I do not think it was necessary to set up all the expensive machinery of a Governor's Province. I do not believe that the creation of a separate Province is the only way of preserving national culture, and I fear that the consequences of this Clause may be disastrous all over India. I do not think that the name of the hon. Member for Limehouse will ever be forgotten in Orissa when they have to pay for all the cost of setting up a Governor's establishment with separate headquarters for winter and summer and all the rest of it, and the whole set of services attaching to a Province.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

It will give employment.

Mr. NICHOLSON

The aspect of the question to which I was referring has only been touched upon very lightly so far, and I hope that whoever replies for the Government will tell the Committee what the extra cost will be. Though the question of the boundaries of the Province hardly arises on this Clause I should like in case we are not allowed to discuss it later on to say that some people think they are very unsatisfactory. But my real point is this. In acceding to the undoubted demand of the Oriyas and in agreeing to provide the machinery for the creation of a new Province we are striking at the whole structure of India as it exists to-day and at Federal India as we envisage it in the future. If you accede to the demand of the Oriyas for a separate Province I cannot see what on earth there is to prevent you from acceding to the demand of the Telegus, or the Kanarese or the Mahrattas or any other of the many races of India who may think that they would do better if they had separate Provinces of their own with the consequent increase in the loaves and fishes. I think it would have been possible in the past to have created some sort of sub-province, complicated no doubt, that would have retained the Oriyas' self-respect and would not have separated them from Bihar. Bihar has been paying for a lot of Oriyas ever since the creation of the Province, and I do not see any point in disturbing what has worked satisfactorily simply for the sake of the pleasure of creating a new Province. I hope the Committee will not pass this Clause without realising that it contains the germs of many Home Rule movements and of many Irelands all over India, and I hope the Committee will insist on the Government stating clearly what the extra cost of Orissa will be, how it is going to be met, why it is necessary to have a separate summer station at Puri for the new Government, and so on. While congratulating the hon. Member for Limehouse on the success of his scheme, I hope the Committee will not pass it with its eyes shut.

8.27 p.m.

Sir R. CRADDOCK

This is a scheme which, from any knowledge that I possess of India and the system under which it has been governed, is almost ridiculous. You take an area which has been run by one Commissioner, and you turn it into a Governor's Province, with a full-fledged legislature, with a governor, so many ministers, advocates-general, financial advisers, and what not of various kinds. It is a most extravagant step to take. As far as I can recollect, though no doubt the Under-Secretary of State could give me more figures, there will be a perpetual deficit of 30 lakhs a year. You may ask any Bengal or Bihar officer you please, but it is well known the contribution of Orissa to the Bihar Legislative Council is small and not equal to holding their own in the rest of the Province, and that means that they are very backward. The Oriyas in the Sambalpur petitioned to join with the rest of Orissa, which was then part of Bengal and had been ever since the British rule began there until 1912, and directly the district was transferred there because it was the only district in the Central Provinces which was an Oriya district, they have done nothing but regret it, because other Oriyas came up there from Cuttack and more or less ousted the local Brahmins.

These movements are mostly agitated by a few people, and if you can make new capital and many of that kind see themselves and their relatives provided with a great many more jobs than before, or see the value of land rising, that is good enough for them, but the vast majority of the people of Orissa will be backward wherever they are and large numbers of the ordinary aborigines do not understand these things and do not care twopence what form of government their Province is under. There is, of course, an exception in the case of a small intelligentsia, who are naturally anxious to get the loaves and fishes. I am not blaming them. It means that the new Province is largely fomented by the particular class who can see they will benefit by it, and as for looking after the aborigines any better than they were looked after before, I cannot see them doing it. They are bilingual on the borders, and everyone claims to be an Oriya. If you want to go over to that side of the border, a man will claim that he is a Telugu, and if you want to go over the other side, he will claim he is an Oriya. Whenever you come, as the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) said, to a place where there is no actual natural boundary, you will find all over the place different kinds of people, and if you please one lot here, you displease 50 per cent. of the population there. It is not worth while; and the Government should have taken some areas over without offending the Telugus, which would have made a Chief Commissioner's Province, and they would have been very lucky to get that form of government for which they can afford to pay.

For administrative reasons this scheme is sheer folly, for financial reasons it is extravagant, and for political reason's it is mostly make-belief. When you begin to take these half-and-half people, you cause far more discontent than satisfaction, and there is no particular gain in that. It is all interlaced with the Oriya States, which were hitherto managed by a commissioner and a political agent, who also belonged to the Province. Now I understand that all these States, instead of being managed by those who have managed them all these years and who thoroughly understood the Oriya people, are going to be put under a political agent at Ranchi, which is far away. As for the Government of India, they will not know where these people are or anything about them. All their political side was managed in the past by a commissioner and a political agent. They are doing the same thing elsewhere.

Mr. G. NICHOLSON

They are in indirect relation with the Government of India.

Sir R. CRADDOCK

They have their political agents there. Then, of course, besides these objections there are the finances. I do not fancy for a moment that the estimates put up cover all the expenses that arise through making a new Province. You may just cover the claims of the new Governor and of a certain amount of buildings, but when you create a new Province it soon demands its own university and a high court, and it wants to have its own experts. If it is going to be a separate Province, they ask what is the use of being a separate Province, having to go to Calcutta for a university and having to share experts with another Province.

Mr. ATTLEE

As a matter of fact, where you have a smaller Province like Assam, they use Calcutta universities.

Sir R. CRADDOCK

Orissa will surely demand more than Assam does. The last point I have to make is that you are letting yourself in for every kind of similar claim. How are you going to make a Gwalior Province in Orissa for 6,000,000 Oriya speaking in that Province, and what answer will you give to Telegus if they say they want a new Province? That makes 18,000,000. How can you deny that? Then, for anything I know, Malabar will say they want to be transferred, leaving the Tamil areas. A still stronger claim will probably arise from the Hindi-speaking districts of the Central Province to be separated from the Marathi-speaking districts that I know very intimately.

Here we are talking about India as one nation; that is the argument; and yet you are going to separate it off into Provinces so that you cannot have even two races in one Province without their wanting to have separate Provinces. If two races cannot get along well enough in a Province as they have done under British rule for years, how are all the races of India to make one solid Indian nation? It is a contradiction in terms, and entirely illogical. If you had given them a chief commissioner, all would have been well, provided that you had said so from the first. For these reasons, I support the omission of Orissa.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. BUTLER

I shall do my best to answer the right hon. Gentleman and those who have intervened in this important discussion about the future of the province of Orissa, and I shall endeavour to answer some of the points that have been raised as to the extra cost involved and give any details that come to mind in answer to the points that have been raised. I was not able to follow the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle- under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) who moved the Amendment in all his geographical descriptions. He described Orissa as having been the scene of the "Jungle Book" by Kipling and described by him, and he alluded to the various tribes—

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Surely the Waingunga lies on the western edge of the United Provinces adjoining the new Province?

Mr. BUTLER

I do not want to enter into a literary discussion, but I believe that Kipling's famous visit when he described so many of these things took place at Jhodapur on the other side of the province, and the Waingunga river, I understand, is in a different portion of India from that which we are considering to-day. I am a great lover and student of Kipling, and we all appreciate the "Jungle Book," and I hope that we shall in considering this question have regard to literary accuracy, as well as to the importance of the subject before us. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to say there had been a great many protests from Orissa. With regard to the protests of the population, that is not the intelligence that has reached us. We found that the suggestion that there should be a separate province for Orissa met with satisfaction from the Oriyas, to whom it gave great relief that their age-long desire to be regarded as a separate province and a separate unit of India would at last be achieved if Parliament agrees to the proposals of this Clause.

Orissa has had a long history. It is one of the most ancient centres of Hindu culture and religion. In Orissa, as the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. G. Nicholson) will know, are some of the finest, oldest and most venerated temples in India, which were the centres of the early pilgrimages from all parts of India. The great feature of Oriya civilisation is that, in spite of the fact that they have very often not formed one unit, so strong has been the nationalism of the Oriyas that they have always clung together and looked forward to the great day when they would be united in one province. On the strength of this historical perspective, I think it is probably realised by the Committee that there is a long history behind this matter.

Coming to more recent events, nobody can speak on this subject with more authority than the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee), who took such a prominent part in investigating this matter for the Statutory Commission. I do not think that the hon. Member for Morpeth exaggerated in any way the responsibility of the hon. Gentleman in regard to this Province, and I do not doubt that there is a proper sense of gratitude among the Oriyas towards him. In his contribution to-day the hon. Gentleman touched on many of the arguments in favour of this new Province. He reminded us that the Statutory Commission felt that the present link between Orissa and Bihar is a glaring example of the artificial connection of areas which are not naturally related, and he could have told us from his own personal knowledge, and indeed he suggested it, that when the Oriya delegation visited the Statutory Commission, they actually travelled by sea via Calcutta in order to reach Patna, which was the head of their Province.

These facts have a large bearing on the question of how Orissa is to be administered in future. Besides these reasons—the awkwardness of the link with Bihar and the strong Oriya feeling—there is the fact that in Orissa there will be a greater homogeneity of population than in any other single unit in India. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment always dislikes anything to do with the communal question, and I should have thought he would be the first person to welcome this opportunity to have a Province in which the communal question will be as small and as little to the front as in any other part of India. That is a cause for satisfaction and it is another reason, together with his other reasons, for proceeding to set up a new Province of Orissa. With regard to the question of future expense, the expense of the new Province of Orissa can be clearly stated as follows: The new overhead charges resulting from running Orissa as a Governor's Province will amount to approximately 15 lakhs of rupees. Besides this, an extra amount of 15 lakhs will be necessary for running the Province. A total subvention of 30 lakhs will be neces- sary from central revenues for the purpose of running the new Province.

I think it would be wise to remind the Committee that we shall be discussing on Clause 139 the problem of subsidies to deficit Provinces, and therefore I shall go no further into the matter now. Besides this there will be an extra sum for establishing the requisite buildings for the new Province at Cuttack, which was referred to on page 51 of Volume 3 of the Records of the Joint Select Committee, which have already been presented to the House. There will be a small extra sum over this involved in the probable readjustment of boundaries at certain points in the new Province of Orissa. But the Committee may take it that the round figure of 30 lakhs of rupees which I have given as the necessary subvention from central revenues approximately covers the new cost of the Province of Orissa, apart from the actual establishment of new buildings. Of this sum 15 lakhs of rupees is what the new Province requires in the way of overhead charges when run as a Province, and 15 lakhs is the sum required for running the Province. That extra sum of 15 lakhs would have had to be found by Bihar in any case, and so it is merely a case of the transference of a burden of 15 lakhs from Bihar to the Centre, a point which the Committee will consider when we come to the specific Clause dealing with these transactions. That gives the Committee a clear indication that the extra cost falling on the revenues as a result of making the new Province is only somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 lakhs.

When the Committee appreciate that Bihar has recently suffered a great drain on its resources owing to the earthquake, they will see—without wishing to exaggerate this argument at all—that it will materially assist Bihar that she should, at this moment, be relieved of the sum which is necessary to finance the new Province of Orissa. I have endeavoured to answer as shortly and as concisely as I can the various points raised, but I sincerely hope that the Committee will realise that intense disappointment would be aroused in the Oriyas if the Committee were to accept the Amendment. Anticipations have been aroused. The future Orissa Province has been discussed since the statement of the Statutory Commission and the report of the committee over which my hon. Friend opposite presided. The matter has been reviewed by several committees and the general consensus of opinion is that it would be wise in this case to establish the new Province of Orissa, and in view of the great advantage which we think will be taken by the inhabitants of this new Province and the new opportunities afforded, I sincerely hope the Committee may come to a favourable decision.

8.50 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

The hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) was scornful about my geography and politics generally, but as far as I could see he was merely re-stating all the facts and figures I had given, with the exception of the site of Rudyard Kipling's adventures, and on that point he was joined by the hon. Gentleman opposite. I am prepared to stand an examination against any hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have been there. All I venture to suggest is that that place and Chota Nagpur are not very far apart when one comes to look at the map. But whether Chota Nagpur is there or somewhere else is not very material to the issue, although I admit the importance of literal accuracy. I understand now that we are to have a separate Province of Orissa because it is 600 miles to get to Patna from Orissa, but I suggest that for less than 30 lakhs of rupees aeroplanes could be hired to carry people backwards and forwards. The sum of 30 lakhs of rupees for a population of 10,000,000 seems to me to be excessive. The real objection is to be found in the Southern boundary. When the godfather of the Oriyas was drawing up the boundaries I will bet that he put that boundary as far south as he could. There are many who are suffering from the godfather of the Oriyas, and why the Telugu should be torn off from Madras in order to provide a tax-paying population for the Oriyas I cannot understand. But they are people who might be considered when we come to Clause 271 and the boundaries for the Provinces.

Mr. ATTLEE

I would like to reply to my hon. and gallant Friend on one point. He accuses me of having pushed the boundary as far as possible south. On the contrary, I was severely criticised by the Oriyas, who, like all oppressed nationalities, wanted to take in all the surrounding areas, and we cut down the extent of the area.

Amendment negatived.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I beg to move, in page 30, line 36, leave out "Sind."

Sind is the third Province we wish to save from the Constitution. I dare not give the exact population, or I shall be corrected, but we can say with some degree of accuracy that 15 per cent. of the population are Hindu and 85 per cent. are Moslems. Anybody who has been there may correct me, but not if he has not been there. The minority is small and there is no Province in which the communal question comes up more prominently. The minority of 15 or 20 per cent. have no votes for the people who will rule that Province. They have communal representation, but they are not allowed to vote for a Moslem. That is the prime fact which the Committee must realise before they can understand the agitation there is among the Hindus all over India to save Sind from being created an independent Province. Sind is not like the North-West Frontier Province, it is a Province which is developing rapidly. The Lloyd barrage and all the irrigation works down the Indus are opening up an enormous new area for settlers from the overcrowded parts of India. The land there is Government land and the Government sell it to the people to settle upon. An enormous immigrant population is pouring into the country. The immigrants are Hindus very largely, whereas the indigenous population are largely Mohammedan. It is a small minority at present, but it will grow with the development of irrigation.

To that population, all of it dependent entirely upon agriculture, the question of the legislation that is likely to be enforced in that Province is of enormous, even transcendent, importance. They know perfectly what their danger is. It is not that they will not get justice, not that they will not get education, but that they will be excluded from cultivating the land. The sort of legislation that prevails in the Punjab is what they are afraid of. For the Committee to understand why Sind does not want to be a Governor's Province it is absolutely essential that I should make clear the meaning of the land alienation Clause, which looks harmless and desirable because it merely enacts that no one who does not belong to an agricultural caste or clan shall be allowed to buy land. The agricultural caste can sell to other members of the caste but they cannot sell to a person who is not a member.

There are agricultural castes which are Hindu as well as others who are Moslems, but the resident agricultural caste consists of Mohammedan peasants and, unfortunately, Mohammedan landlords. The landlords are gradually acquiring more and more land, so that the peasant is being driven to work and the landlord is becoming the owner and the latifundia of Sind. That is all assisted by the fact that in the Punjab the agriculturists can only sell to the agricultural caste. They only touch a certain amount, because the Mohammedan landlord is a member of the agricultural caste, although he does not use a spade. These are the only persons available. The alternative, which is always held out with such horror, is that of a Hindu bunnia, the friend of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Kirkpatrick) and the enemy of the Mohammedan, himself buying the land. He would not cultivate it, but he would let it to somebody else. That is another form of landlordism, but not a worse form than the ownership of the land by Mohammedan landowners.

This legislation has been passed in the Punjab largely because of the universal prejudice against the Hindu landlord, and that legislation is what the Hindus fear in Sind. It does not matter in the Punjab, because there are more of the Hindu agricultural caste, but if you extend that legislation to Sind, where the agricultural Hindu population is nil, and where you get the vast Sukkur and Lloyd barrages, irrigating millions of acres which were never irrigated before, the question, "Are we to be allowed to cultivate the land?" becomes of far greater importance than in the Punjab. If legislation is to be brought into Sind which shuts out not an existing population but all the immigrant population which was poured into that Province, a grave injustice will be committed also against the Hindus of the over-populated and overcrowded places all over the rest of India, such as the population in Cutch, where, according to the latest census, they are packed 400 people to the square mile, all engaged in agriculture, an area probably more densely populated and cultivated than in any other part of the world. That population is being driven out of those overcrowded areas and is spreading away to the only possibility, a newly irrigated land.

That land will, of course, be Government land, and the Government will let it on hire purchase systems to both Hindus and Mohammedans. Both will start, but directly they acquire their rights, if legislation such as has been enforced in the Punjab is introduced into Sind, they will be limited, and they can only sell that land to people of the agricultural caste of that Province. Nobody else will be able to come in, the market will be tied down and the Mohammedan landlords will then begin to buy, and to create large estates and establish the curse of landlordism in that Province. That fear would be completely obviated if it were possible to allow the growing Hindu population the right to vote for the Legislative Council at Karachi. If they had the right to vote for their masters they would get an elementary form of justice. Can the Committee understand what it means to them to be in such a position that no Mohammedan will ever ask them for a vote because he will not demean himself by doing so? The system of communal recommendation is not the protection of a minority but the protection of the majority against ever having to consider the minority.

The CHAIRMAN

I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is going too far. I cannot pass that.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I admit I was travelling rather wide, but it is absolutely necessary if Members of the Committee are to understand the opposition which exists in India to the setting up of a separate province of Sind, that they should understand the reason of it. The reason is partly fear of that legislation and partly the knowledge that they are not likely to have a fair deal in the representative institutions of that Province. We could put it all right if we could have a province where the majority desires to have communal representation and no separate electorate. We should have in that province no opposition to the establishment of Sind, and a great many other things in this Bill would go.

The Government have given no indication that they are prepared to carry out the desire of the Joint Select Committee, or to take into account the desire of the minority to be protected from this pseudo-protection of separate representation. Sind should not be a separate province. Until now it has been part of Bombay, and under Bombay it has had an increasingly prosperous time. As long as it is part of Bombay, the province is balanced fairly and evenly between Mohammedan and Hindu. Take it away and establish an overwhelmingly large Mohammedan government in Sind, and you injure the rest of Bombay by making it proportionately more Hindu. You leave all the seeds of dissension in your communal representation, and you injure the population both in the North part and in the South part of the Bombay Presidency. I hope this matter will be reconsidered. The pressure for a separate province of Sind comes from Mohammedans, from that Moslem agitation and Nationalism which is spreading throughout the East at the present time. It is a desire to have one more Mohammedan Province, one more State, so that a Mohammedan federation of States should spread all over the North-East of India. I hope the Government will consider whether it is not possible, even at this hour, to save India from trouble and Sind from disaster.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. DONNER

I must confess that I had not expected that this question would be debated to-day, and, unfortunately, like many other Members of the Committee, I have come without the notes which I had carefully collected and without the evidence submitted to the Joint Select Committee, and therefore I am unable to quote from that evidence, as I had hoped and intended to do when the subject of Sind was to be discussed on Clause 271. I must, therefore, in speaking to the Committee, depend entirely upon my memory, and I hope the Under-Secretary will correct me if I am wrong in any of the facts which I put forward.

I would ask the Committee seriously to consider this question of Sind. Here you have in miniature the whole picture of the Bill as it stands at present. The proposal of the Government is really quite simple; it is a proposal to remove Sind from the Presidency of Bombay and create a separate Province. The position is that in the Presidency of Bombay there is a big Hindu majority, and in Sind there is a big Moslem majority. Therefore, naturally the Hindus of Sind are very much opposed to being transferred from the Presidency of Bombay to a separate Province, and equally the Mohammedans in Sind are, naturally, delighted. I would like the Committee to remember the evidence, which I am sure all hon. Members have read with care, which was submitted to the Joint Select Committee on this subject. Of all the evidence submitted to the Committee, none presents a more tragic or pitiable spectacle than that submitted on this proposal. The fear and terror which inspire this minority in Sind is, to me at any rate, a dreadful thing to read about. The minority are terrified, and in their terror they tell the truth as they see it. May I draw attention, first of all, to the financial difficulties? Here again I have not my notes with me, and do not remember the figures, so perhaps the Under-Secretary will be good enough to deal with that side of the question, as he is naturally more fully aware of the financial difficulties than I can be. All I can say is that they are very great.

In the evidence submitted to the Joint Select Committee it was made perfectly clear that the minority, the Hindus, were terrified as to what would happen to them, and I remember that in that evidence particular mention was made of the preservation of law and order. What would be their position, they asked, if, in some other part of India, there were a massacre of Mohammedans by Hindus? It was pointed out that of course, if there were a breakdown of law and order, the Governor would intervene, but they were not satisfied with that, and asked that the police should be a reserved subject in that Province should it be created, and, of course, they were told that that could not be done. The question which was emphasised in the evidence was at what point could the Governor interfere to save the lives and property—

The CHAIRMAN

I must ask the hon. Member to be very careful that he does not travel beyond this particular Clause, which deals merely with the inclusion of Sind as a Province. He has referred already to certain matters that occur in later Clauses of the Bill, but he must not go into those in detail.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT

On a point of Order. I believe it has been ruled that this point cannot be raised on Clause 271—that the implication of my hon. Friend would be an impossible one to put forward on that Clause.

The CHAIRMAN

That is quite right. As I understand it, the point cannot be raised again as to whether Sind shall be a Governor's Province. But I want to warn the hon. Member that there are certain matters to which he is quite justified in referring—as for instance the problem of minorities—but that he must not go in detail into the question of how communal minorities are treated under this Bill. I do not want the hon. Member to think that I am making a serious complaint against him, but I wanted to warn him that he was developing some of his points, to which he is quite justified in referring, just a little too much.

Mr. DONNER

I am sorry if I transgressed the Rules of Order. I assure you, Sir Dennis, that I had no intention of doing so. I was only trying to give reasons why a special Province should not be created, and I will endeavour, with my limited knowledge of the procedure of the House, to keep within the bounds of order. I hope I am not out of order if I point out, as the reason why this Province of Sind should not be created a separate Province and cut away administratively from the Presidency of Bombay, the fear of these people as to what is going to happen to them. In the evidence before the Joint Select Committee particular mention was made of the kidnapping of women and children, and a question was asked as to how many women and children are to be kidnapped, how many houses burned and destroyed before the Governor can intervene? I only mention that to show the fear which exists in the minds of the people who gave evidence against this proposal. If only a few were kidnapped the Governor would not feel entitled to intervene. What, therefore, they asked, was the formula? On this question of the fear of minorities I think the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton)—I am sorry he is not in his place at the moment—made an interruption earlier in the day with regard to Sind. He said that, after all, an objection of that sort applied to all the other Provinces as well as to Sind. But surely that does not rob the argument of any of its strength; it is only an added argument against the whole Bill, and not an argument in favour of making Sind a separate province. Again, it was pointed out in the evidence before the Joint Select Committee that there was a scarcity of men sufficiently capable to sit in the proposed new Legislature, and I believe that even Mohammedan witnesses agreed that that was so.

The point that I wish to make before sitting down is that the real reason for this proposal seems to me to be that, unless this Province is created, unless this minority of Hindus is placed under the control of a Government of Moslems, there will be no safeguard against the misbehaviour of Hindus in other parts of India. But I would remind the Committee that the minority in Sind is a most aristocratic, civilised, and highly educated minority, and they are going to be exposed as hostages for the good behaviour of Hindus in other parts of India, when the Hindus are in a majority. In the evidence it is distinctly stated, both by Hindus and by Mohammedans, that this Hindu minority in Sind are regarded as so many hostages for the good behaviour of Hindus in other provinces. That seems to me to be a terrible thing; it seems to me to be a most cynical proposal to emanate from any civilised government, let alone a British Government, that we should be prepared to consider placing the minority of Sind in the position of hostages. That minority realises that that is the position; in their evidence they declare that the majority population regard them as so many hostages. If the Hindus who are in a majority in other Provinces in India were to turn round and massacre Mohammedans, then in Sind you would have this highly civilised and aristocratic minority at the mercy of Mohammedans who have been provoked and may work vengeance upon them. That seems to me to be a dreadful position.

I should like to make it plain at least that this is not the imagining or vapouring of a mere private Member of this House. It is the language used by the Mohammedans in their evidence, and it is the language used by the Hindus in their evidence. It is hard to believe that this Government with its great Conservative majority and its traditions of caring for the minorities and their welfare throughout the British Empire will insist on a proposal whereby it is willing to hand over as hostages these small minorities. Surely, here we come to the root of the matter, because this is the real safeguard. I suppose that it would be ironical to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the invention of one safeguard which cannot fail, because that is the real kernel of the matter. This safeguard cannot fail. If you create this Province you make it possible for Mohammedans all over India, where Hindus have great majorities, to say, "You can massacre us in many Provinces in India, but by Jove if you do, we know what to do in Sind."

I cannot believe that the Government will carry on with this proposal and that this Committee will endorse it. Although it is perfectly true that, if you are going to carry through the Bill, the only way you can safeguard Mohammedan minorities in other Provinces is to bring in this safeguard of hostages in Sind, I cannot believe that I am alone in taking a view that if you do this thing you are returning to Biblical days and to the principle of an eye for an eye, and a life for a life, and those were days we thought would never come back in this world. I must apologise if I have spoken with too much feeling on this subject, but it seems to me to be a dreadful thing to see not only a civilised Government but of all Governments a British Government and a National Government come with a proposal such as this, which is surely unrivalled in its cynicism.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. BUTLER

I shall endeavour to address the Committee on lines similar to those I followed on the last Amendment with reference to Orissa. The difficulties of the separation of Sind have been raised by the right hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Donner), and I would like to try to answer one or two of them and show that we consider there is a very strong case for the establishment of a separate Province of Sind. In the first place, there are those geographical difficulties which were included in discussing the previous Amendment in the case of Orissa and Bihar. The geographical difficulties in the case of Sind and Bombay are really more striking. The only satisfactory approach from Bombay to Karachi is by sea, and this takes, as hon. Members who have experienced it know, a very long time and is not at all easy. The method of conducting the administration of Sind at the present time is by a very marked, definite line from the Bombay Government, and we consider that the difficulties of conducting the administration of Sind, when there is a responsible government established in the Bombay Presidency, will be very more marked, and will make the difficulties very much greater.

The communal question has been raised by the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member in their speeches. The fact is that we consider that the communal difficulties will actually be enhanced by any delay in separating Sind. If a really responsible autonomous government in Bombay attempts to administer Sind—and we know that the communal difficulties are there, and it is no good trying to avoid them completely—we think that very much greater friction will result than by the proposal we suggest that Sind should, in fact, be a separate Province. We think that there would be worse struggles not only between the new government who would be established at Bombay and the Moslems in Sind, who would take up a very strong communal attitude, but also there would be communal reactions throughout India, which would render the whole communal outlook in India very much less satisfactory than if we were to proceed upon the lines we suggest. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member will realise that we fully appreciate their anxiety about the communal system, but we think that the difficulties would be worse if the Amendment to leave out Sind from this Clause were accepted.

The hon. Member for West Islington said that he had unfortunately come without some of his documents, and therefore I must not take undue advantage of him by quoting too extensively from the documents I have with me. I do not want to fight him with a particular weapon when he has not his weapons entirely with him, but I would refer him to one answer given by the Moslem representative before the Joint Select Committee when the question of Sind was being discussed. The reference is Answer A496 on page 2164. The Moslem representative there declared that he realised that Sind Hindus must take an appreciable share in the Government of the Provinces. We believe that the undoubted influence of the Sind Hindus, to which the hon. Member very rightly referred, will make itself felt. We believe that they have a contribution to make, and do not believe that there will be dire results from separation or that any complete or perpetual extermination of the Hindus in Sind will actually take place. The Sind Hindus have a great tradition, and we believe that they will exercise their influence in the future government of Sind. The Governor's special responsibility for the minorities must not be forgotten, and that special responsibility which is included in this Bill will operate to advantage in the cases of necessity which may arise in the future Province of Sind.

And now with regard to finances. The finances of Sind were considered by the Statutory Commission when they considered the question of future separation, and they suggested that this matter should be reviewed by an expert committee. The expert committee did review the question of the future finances of the Province of Sind, and came to the conclusion, which I can give very generally to the Committee, namely, that the future cost of the deficit of the Province of Sind would be approximately three quarters of a crore, of which some 10.26 lakhs would be the extra overhead charge directly attributable to the fact that the machinery for a Governor's Province was to be set up in Sind. There is also on page 50 of the records in volume 3 of the Joint Select Committee's submissions to this House, the actual sum necessary for new buildings in Sind, which amount to some seven lakhs. That, therefore, is the total financial deficit anticipated for the future financing of Sind, but it must be remembered—and the financial committee referred specially to this—that the financial future of Sind is bound up with that immense and future project of the Sukkur Barrage.

The Committee estimated that over the course of approximately 15 years the deficit would be wiped out by the increased takings resulting from the successful operation of the Sukkur Barrage. We believe that the effects of the operation of the Barrage will begin to be felt even in the next five years, and, through that, the deficit will be reduced gradually but surely. This deficit will be met by a subvention from the central revenue, and to that extent the Bombay Presidency will be relieved of the amount I have mentioned. The central revenues will be relieved as the takings from the Barrage come in. In order to be assured that the Barrage is administered in a true and proper manner, the Governor of Sind will have a special responsibility for its proper administration. The Committee, therefore, will see that the question of the finance of the future Province of Sind has been carefully and adequately examined, and actually will relieve the Bombay revenue. For these reasons, geographically, communally, and financially, we consider it sound to proceed with the proposal for a future Province of Sind.

9.27 p.m.

Sir H. CROFT

I do not want to delay the Committee, but there are many who have had communications from the minority in Sind, and who do realise the very grave fears of the minority. I did not realise that this discussion was coming on now, but I believe the population is 27 per cent. Hindu and 73 Moslem. That, of course, is a very serious situation, for the Hindus were previously under the protection of a Government where their religious persuasions were involved. No doubt they view with great dread this transfer to a permanent minority position under Moslems in the new Province. I only wish to intervene for just one moment, because I think this may be a great mistake and one of the errors of the Bill. This reminds me of the errors of which politicians were guilty at the end of the Great War in creating lots of new communities. I cannot believe it is really wise to risk the possibility of considerably increased expenditure in this new Province. You say that you are only going to spend so many lakhs, but, before you know where you are, you will have all sorts of demands for all sorts of new projects. I wonder whether the poor population can really afford to bear that burden which is bound to come, for the moment a new Government is established hundreds of optimistic men who desire to take part in the job of Government will have all sorts of demands for various institutions. I for one, therefore, regret that the Secretary of State persists in this, for he must be aware of the intense dread of the minority in Sind.

9.29 p.m.

Earl WINTERTON

My hon. and gallant Friend holding the views he does has every right to object to self-government per se. No one quarrels with him if he does that. What he and the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway is not entitled to do is to attribute to the Moslem community what they do. There is no more reason to suppose that where Moslems are in the majority they will be less fair in their treatment than where the Hindus are in the majority.

Sir H. CROFT

Memories are very fresh in India, and, for example, in Moplah and Cawnpore certain things happened with lamentable results.

Earl WINTERTON

The hon. and gallant Gentleman must not slip my point. I am not arguing on the subject of communal differences, or whether or not communal differences are likely to be exasperated. I am speaking as one with considerable sympathy with the Moslem community. My statement is quite simple though I may be wrong. I ask him to apply the argument he has just used in a more friendly spirit, to apply it also to a Hindu majority elsewhere. He has no right to suggest that where Moslems are in the majority things will happen to Hindus, unless he thinks the same will happen where Hindus are in the majority. Holding the general views that he does about India, and also the Empire—which he and I share—he should be the last person to bring charges against the Moslems, for no community has been more loyal to the British connection. The hon. Member below the Gangway, whose knowledge is not very extensive, made several references to this. I think he used rather unfortunate language about two great communities in India, rather wounding language. In regard to the other matter that the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite raised—I should like to endeavour to answer it—was it really desirable on pure grounds of administration to make this separation. Dealing purely with the question of administration, anyone with experience of that would know that administratively it would be a good thing to separate Sind from Bombay. There is everything to be said for this proposal, though it may be possible to object to it on other grounds. I hope we shall hear the last of the suggestion about the Moslems and the Hindus, that either is going to punish or bully the other. Nothing is more calculated to make them do that than such irresponsible speeches.

9.34 p.m.

Sir H. CROFT

Many Members present heard my speech and will support me when I say that I really must take exception to the lecture of the Noble Lord on what he imagined I just said. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir S. Hoare) will agree that I uttered not one word in the form of a charge against the Moslems. Where you have great communal differences the Hindus, hitherto always protected by the Government of Bombay, will have dread now they are going to be placed in a permanent minority. The Noble Lord is well aware that that is a great problem in India, and I am simply stating a truth. I am making no charge. I had the same privilege of admiring the qualities of the Moslems when I fought side by side with them as the Noble Lord, and I will not have anyone suggest that I have ever said a word against the Mohammedan subjects of the King-Emperor. When the Noble Lord turned upon my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, West (Mr. Donner) and said that he had no right to talk of hostages, let me say that my hon. Friend, whose memory was so admirable in his extempore speech, was merely quoting words from the Joint Select Committee's report, which everyone must remember. Those were the views of the Hindu witnesses before the Joint Select Committee. I know that my Noble Friend was very assiduous in his attendance at the Joint Select Committee, but perhaps it was on one of the days when he happened not to be present that this evidence was given.

Earl WINTERTON

I accept most heartily my hon. and gallant Friend's admission that he did not intend to attack the Moslems, and I am sorry that I read into his speech what appeared to be the plain meaning of it.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

9.37 p.m.

Major MILNER

It is a rather curious feature of the Debate on this Clause that not one word has been said about the position of Burma. The Committee will appreciate that this is the Clause which says that Burma shall cease to be part of India. I rise in order to obtain a statement from the Government of the reasons which guided them in deciding that in future Burma shall be separated from India and shall not be a member of the Indian Federation. I should like to know the circumstances surrounding the whole of this matter. At the end of the Burma Round Table Conference in 1932 the Prime Minister indicated to Burma that a general election would be held at which the people of Burma would decide whether they would remain as part of the Indian Federation or be separated, with a distinct government of their own.

9.38 p.m.

Sir S. HOARE

On a point of Order. I want to ask whether we are to have a general Debate upon the separation of Burma now or whether it would not be better to have the Debate when we come, to the Clauses dealing with Burma. I am not saying this in any way with the object of interrupting the hon. and gallant Member, but I suggest that it might be more convenient to have the general Debate when we come to Burma.

Major MILNER

So long as we shall have that opportunity I am perfectly happy to accept that point of view.

9.39 p.m.

The CHAIRMAN

Perhaps it might be well if I reply to a point of Order and put a further point in this connection. It may appear to Members of the Committee to be illogical that, having dealt with the certain Provinces by Amendments on this Clause, we should suggest that the Debate on the separation of Burma from India should be deferred. May I point out to the hon. and gallant Member that the separation of Burma is a very much bigger community than Sind or Orissa and that this is one of the occasions when one has to decide where is the most convenient place to raise the discussion. Although I cannot prevent references being made to the separation of Burma on this Clause, I think it would be for the general convenience of the Committee that the question should be raised on the earlier Clauses of Part XIV, which deal definitely with Burma. I may say in regard to that matter that, if it meets with the general approbation of the Committee, I shall confirm on the note which I have already made that the passing of this Clause is not to be regarded as a bar to the raising of the question of the separation of Burma on Part XIV.

Mr. LANSBURY

We want to be quite sure that when my hon. and gallant Friend and others desire to raise to the fullest extent the question of Burma we shall not be prejudiced by allowing this Clause to go through now. I understand that to be your Puling. Therefore, I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will postpone his remarks on the Burma question until we get to the point that you have just mentioned.

The CHAIRMAN

I thought that I had said that. I had hoped to save the right hon. Gentleman the trouble af rising.

Mr. LANSBURY

We must not be in too much of a hurry. We want to be sure that if my hon. and gallant Friend desires to move Burma into the Indian Federation he may do so. If that right is safeguarded, then it will be all right.

The CHAIRMAN

If I can remember them correctly, I will repeat the exact words that I used. I shall confirm the note I have already made that the passing of this Clause is not to be taken as any bar to a Debate on the question of the separation of Burma. Other questions relating to Burma will be distinctly out of order on this Clause, but they will be distinctly in order when we come to Part XIV.

Mr. LANSBURY

It will then be in order to move Burma in in the same way that hon. Members have moved to leave out Sind and Orissa. We only want to be put in the position that we can make a Motion to that effect and that the right to do it will be safeguarded, in spite of the fact that this Clause which we are now passing leaves Burma out.

The CHAIRMAN

It will be in order when we come to Part XIV of the Bill to move an Amendment which would result in negativing the proposed separation of Burma from India.

Major MILNER

In those circumstances I am content to allow the matter to lapse now.

Mr. A. SOMERVILLE

I should like to ask a question in regard to Madras. Hitherto, the City of Bangalore has been within the jurisdiction of Madras, and I should like to know whether in the new reorganisation Bangalore will remain within the jurisdiction of Madras. There has been a question of the cession of Bangalore to Mysore. Bangalore is a city of 137,000 inhabitants, and a large number of them are Moslems who very greatly object to being ceded to Mysore, and so do the traders of the city.

The CHAIRMAN

I think that question would come definitely on Clause 272.