CLAUSE 84.—(Rules of procedure.) (Hansard, 22 March 1935)

§ Sir S. HOARE
I beg to move, in page 51, line 7, after "State ", to insert "or the Ruler thereof."
This is to make clearer what has always been the intention of the Government, namely, that no discussion can take place in a Provincial Council on any matter connected with any Indian State or connected with any Indian ruler without the previous assent of the Governor. It is really a drafting Amendment to make clear what has always been the intention, namely, that we should prevent discussions upon the conduct of an Indian ruler by a Provincial Council, the council having nothing whatever to do with the internal affairs of the Indian Ruler's State.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
I can quite understand the provision that a Provincial Council should not discuss what is happening in an Indian State or even what the Ruler is doing in that State, but this Amendment applies also when the Ruler is out of his State, travelling about. He is then more or less an ordinary person, and why should he have this privilege?

§ Sir S. HOARE
The answer would be the same answer as I have just given. It has nothing to do with the Provincial Council. The position would be just the same whether the Ruler was in his State or out of it. The Provincial Council has not a locus standi in the matter.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
Suppose that a Ruler stays in a town in British India and 1526 some event occurs there, and some question arises which affects him not in his capacity as Ruler but as a private individual, such as a debt due to a tradesman. The clause puts a sanctity around him as an individual and not as the Ruler of a State. Would it be possible to discuss that matter in the Provincial legislature?

§ Sir S. HOARE
I do not think that that is the position. We are really continuing the present position. Neither now nor in the case contemplated by the hon. Member would there be any locus standi for the Provincial Council to intervene. It it were a legal case, for the collection of debts, and so on, it would have to be dealt with, I assume, in the ordinary legal way, though off-hand I cannot remember what exactly is the legal position of the courts in the case of Princes. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General reminds me that as a sovereign a Prince is exempt from legal proceedings of that kind in India just as he is in this country.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
If he is exempt from legal proceedings is not that just a matter that ought to be raised in the Legislative Council? Suppose there were a case of instigation by a Ruler to assault and kidnapping in a British Indian Province. Could not the Ruler be brought up and the case dealt with?

§ Sir S. HOARE
We do not contemplate that in the provincial councils it would be possible to make criticisms of the personal conduct of a Prince. Where intervention is necessary owing to gross misrule, the intervention no doubt will always be taken in the field of paramountcy. The intention here is to safeguard the persons of the Indian Princes from possible attacks in councils that really have no locus standi in the matter at all.

§ Major MILNER
Is there power in the federal legislature to discuss these matters?

§ Sir S. HOARE
The procedure there is exactly the same.

§ Miss RATHBONE
This seems to be another move in what I regard as the rather dangerous direction of shielding the Indian States from all breath of 1527 publicity. The Secretary of State has described this as a purely drafting Amendment, intended to carry out a suggestion already agreed to but are we wrong in supposing that the insertion of these words has something to do with one of the complaints made by the Princes in those speeches, of which an unofficial copy was recently circulated. I am not anxious to oppose any reasonable safeguarding of the rights of Indian Princes as to protection against impertinent comment on their behaviour but when the Secretary of State tells us that the Provincial Councils have no concern whatever with the internal administration of the Indian' States that that is a matter solely between the paramount power and the States themselves, there are two things which ought to be remembered. In the first place if there is any general disorder in an Indian State, whether caused by the misbehaviour of the ruler or by his public conduct in the administration of the State, it concerns the British Indian taxpayer. The British Indian taxpayer is apparently expected to pay for intervention should intervention become necessary. I asked the Secretary of State a question last Monday as to the charge at present incurred upon the revenues of British India owing to interventions of the paramount power in the affairs of the Indian States. The right hon. Gentleman's reply showed that the amount could not be exactly ascertained but that according to a rough estimate made in 1932 the expenditure came to £600,000 a year.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Is not the hon. Lady now dealing with what is really a Federal question? The Committee is considering the Provincial Legislatures.

§ Miss RATHBONE
I realise that, but I do not know how the taxation is distributed. I know that in future this will come out of the Federal taxes—

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
If it comes out of the Federal taxes the matter cannot be raised here.

§ Miss RATHBONE
I merely wanted to make the point that, broadly speaking, it is the British Indian taxpayer who bears the burden whether he pays the tax in his capacity as a Provincial taxpayer or 1528 not. It is one and the same individual who has to bear the taxation. I want to suggest that there are dangers in going as far as we seem to be going in the direction of shielding the Indian States from publicity. We have the curious anomaly that the Provincial Legislatures are going to be hampered at every turn by the power of the Federal Legislature to block legislation—

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I cannot see that that is a matter which arises on this Amendment.

§ Miss RATHBONE
I do not want to say any more about it. I merely want to point out that we seem to be making a very one-sided bargain. The Indian States can interfere in the affairs of British India but the representatives of British India may not even ask a question or raise a discussion either in the Central or Provincial Legislatures on any matter affecting the Indian States. Yet in the long run, if things go wrong in the Indian States it is the British Indian taxpayer who will have to meet the cost.

§ Sir S. HOARE
I beg to move, in page 51, line 23, to leave out "or partially excluded."
The Committee will remember that under the Bill there are two types of excluded area—excluded areas being backward tracts, not susceptible to Parliamentary institutions. Under the proposals in the Bill there will be totally excluded areas and partially excluded areas. The totally excluded areas which are very few will be administered by the Governors. There are, really, only two substantial tracts as far as I can remember in the whole of India, which, being so remote from association of any kind with Parliamentary institutions, are, it is considered, better kept out of the Parliamentary system altogether. In the case of the totally excluded areas therefore, there would be no discussions on administration in the Provincial Councils. The Joint Select Committee took the view 1529 that very often discussions of that kind would be extremely dangerous, say, in connection with tracts like the hill tracts in the North East of India. My Amendment proposes to draw a distinction between those areas and what we call the partially excluded areas, the areas which are not so backward and concerning which Parliamentary discussion will not be a risky affair. The Amendment proposes to allow freer discussion of the affairs of the partially excluded areas. It will enable the Councils to discuss those affairs without the previous assent of the Governor.

§ Mr. RHYS DAVIES
Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say whether, in view of the fact that discussion can sometimes take place in respect of the partially excluded areas, there is any provision for bringing them, in due course, within the purview of democratic government?

§ Sir S. HOARE
Yes Sir, the boundaries can be altered under Clause 272. Supposing one of these backward tracts advances and becomes capable of inclusion in the ordinary administration of the Province there are powers under the Bill and those powers would be used.