§ VISCOUNT BURNHAM had the following Notice on the Paper:—To ask His Majesty's Government whether, having regard to Lord Irwin's statement at Simla on the 9th July, the Report of the Indian Statutory Commission will form the main subject of consideration and discussion at the Round-Table Conference which is to assemble here in November next; and to move for Papers.
1002§ The noble Viscount said: My Lords, earlier in the afternoon we had an important if somewhat belated declaration from His Majesty's Government as to how the so-called Round-Table Conference was to be made up. But it was so limited that I regret to say it has not relieved me of the necessity of putting the Question that stands in my name. I may, however, be allowed to congratulate His Majesty's Government upon the fact that they have not yielded to the threats of the Indian Nationalists as to putting representatives of the other Parties on the Conference. I read in the Indian News that Sir Chimanlal Setalvad had telegraphed to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Liberal Association in India slating that "if all Parties" were included "in the British representation" he and his friends might have to abstain. I am bound to say that this struck me as a very extraordinary thing, for the British representation surely is wholly and solely a matter for this Parliament to determine. I am very grateful to the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition for his reply to the Government and, both in regard to him and my noble friend Lord Reading, I shall await with interest what the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State has to say in reply and as to how far he accepts all the implications of their arguments.
§ It is almost unnecessary for me to tell you that I speak for myself alone and in no sense on behalf of the Statutory Commission of which I was a member. I have only tried, however rightly or wrongly, to do my duty as a Member of Parliament, speaking in a House which is still able to exercise freedom of debate without being fettered by the Executive. A week ago in another place the Prime Minister characterised this Question as "lacking in helpfulness." With all respect, I confess that I am unable to understand what he meant. The Prime Minister is a strong and an almost fanatical believer in the virtues of Parliamentary government. I am bound to say that it seems to me to be almost inconceivable that in other and more spacious days of Parliamentary annals a Conference fraught with such grave issues, not only to the peoples of India but to the British Empire, should be held without it having been the subject of inquiry and debate in both Houses 1003 of Parliament. If I am told that this has to be because the Prime Minister is afraid of the ebullience of a certain number of his own followers in another place, I say that is a matter for the House of Commons with which I have no concern. But it certainly ought not to affect the action of your Lordships' House which, surely, may be trusted to discuss Indian affairs with reticence and moderation.
§ In face of all these facts, I only wish to have a plain answer to the plain Question which I have set down upon the Paper. I want to rescue Indian affairs from a mystification which, in the long run, is bound to be as injurious to India as to British interests. That this mystification exists I have not the shadow of a doubt. I have here a whole sheaf of cuttings and interviews from the Indian Press with which I do not think it is necessary to trouble your Lordships, but which I shall be very glad to show to any noble Lord who wishes to see them. It is not really with them a question of the Report of the Statutory Commission being condemned. It is a question of its being ignored altogether. As a matter of fact, it has been the subject of long and acrimonious debate in the Indian Legislative Assembly and inside and outside the leaders of the various political groups have been denouncing the Report of the Commission as reactionary and retrogressive and an insult to India, or, to use a favourite phrase of their own in India, it is as obscene, they say, as Miss Katherine Mayo's book. The Acting President of the Indian National Congress said that they were not going to pay the slightest attention to what the Commission recommended or did not recommend.
§
Your Lordships will realise that the Congress Party is the only organised party in India, and the conciliation of these Congress leaders is exactly the aim and purpose which is now being pursued by His Majesty's Government. Then Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, as an ambassador of peace who has been sent to carry on negotiations between the Government of India and Mr. Ghandi, expressed himself immediately in these terms. He said that the Report of the Commission was
a piece of unparalleled political humbug and chicanery.
All these things show a confusion of mind and understanding which I hope very
1004
much will not be allowed to continue to the bitter end. It is not all on one side. I do not wish to bring the name of the Viceroy into this debate, but I am bound to say it is very difficult for any plain man to understand what he said on July 9 in the Address of which I have a report, and particularly the sentence in which he said:—
From such a definition of the scope of the Conference it is clear that His Majesty's Government conceive of it not as a mere meeting for discussion and debate, but as a joint discussion of representatives of both countries on whose agreement precise proposals to Parliament may be founded.
How does that tally with the free and open Conference which, whatever it is, would not have a power of decision? I say that these things make it very difficult for the plain man here or in India to understand what we are about.
§ It has often been said that this Tripartite Conference was suggested in the beginning to the Prime Minister by the Statutory Commission. Your Lordships will have read in the first volume of our Report the correspondence that passed between Sir John Simon and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know full well that this was not the proposal as it was originally made by the Commission, although I do not feel myself justified in going into details and telling your Lordships what the proposal actually was. As a matter of fact, I fully accept the letter of Sir John Simon as expressing the final views of the Commission. If your Lordships turn to it, I would ask you to note that Sir John Simon's letter was exclusively confined to adjusting the relations between British India and the Indian States, and that the further enlargement of the references to include the domestic affairs of British India and the political arrangements which might be necessary, only appears in the Prime Minister's reply of October 25 last year and not in the original letter. I say this because Sir John Simon, no doubt, fully interpreted the ultimate opinion of the Commission.
§ There has been a good deal of talk inside and outside, particularly outside, as to the expediency of the Round-Table Conference being free and unfettered in its methods and procedure. That is all very well but the Round-Table Conference, like all other conferences, must have an agenda paper for its proceedings, 1005 and for that agenda paper His Majesty's Government will be responsible. The agenda cannot spring, in all its bearings, by some process of mass incubation from the spontaneous energies of the seventy or eighty Indian gentlemen who are coming over here for the purpose. The Government itself must draw it up, and it is obvious that they must ask the Conference not to lay down general propositions, but to formulate concrete and practical proposals for renovating the constitutional arrangements of India. Generalisations, however high-minded and high-sounding, will not serve, and catchwords have been tried too often in India and have failed. It has been very truly said that catchwords not only catch but also imprison their victims, and that is a maxim which I should like the Government to ponder over. That is the reason why I venture to suggest to your Lordships that the Conference should found its discussions upon the Report of the Statutory Commission set up by Parliament and responsible to Parliament.
§ I have seen some mention of this Conference being engaged in treaty-making, but there is no question of treaty-making. The Indian Delegations of course are to be drawn from the various Indian groups and Parties, and a desperate effort has been made to bring them on to a common platform. That effort may be more successful than some of my noble friends think, and I am not one of those who believe that they are immediately going to break up into fragments. On the contrary. I think there will be sufficient agreement to scheme out some phrase or other and then to refer to the reports of the Nehru Committee and of the Indian Central Committee as embodying the principle and policy.
§ The first Question which I put to His Majesty's Government if they will answer it, but anyhow to suggest it to them, is, what sort of proportion is the British Delegation going to bear to the rest of the Conference? We know that they are coming over to the number of 60 or 80, and I have seen it suggested—of course I have no authority for this—that the British Delegation should be confined to two of the Government and one each for the Opposition Parties.
§ THE MARQUESS OF READINGNo; the Prime Minister said to-day in the other House three or four of each Party.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMMy noble friend corrects me, but that I hold to be in itself neither adequate nor complete. I venture to suggest that in no circumstances should the number of the British Delegation be less than twelve. It is quite true there would be no counting of heads. Possibly, in spite of what I have read out, no decisions will be arrived at, but there may he provisional decisions which will be brought up as an agreed solution of the Indian problem, and we always have to provide for the unforeseen. You have these huge Delegations coming from India, and surely Great Britain ought to have such a proportion of the representation as will enable us to meet the Indian representatives on a footing of equality, if not of numbers at least of dignity? I wonder what His Majesty's Government think the Conference would be like in order to cover all the diversities of Indian opinion; but at any rate it would be so large that a few more will make little difference either as to its nature or as to its proceedings. What is of the first importance is that we ought to be able to hold our own in the sight of the world. Out of the goodness of his heart the Viceroy is always expecting miracles to happen. But they never do happen. I am very sorry it should be so. I do not think they are going to happen now.
Finally—and then I shall simply put the Question as it stands—I may be allowed to say that there is only one line of policy in dealing with the affairs of the Indian Empire, and that I believe is the straight line. My only purpose in asking my Question is to clarify a situation that has become dangerously opaque and complicated. There is nothing that we should avoid so much in our Indian policy as the use of what Ruskin calls "masked words," words that have one meaning in one place and a different meaning in another; and it is just what we are doing now, and we shall suffer for it. I beg to put the Question that stands in my name.
EARL RUSSELLMy Lords, I under stood that some of your Lordships were going to join in this discussion and thought I had better reply when I had heard what had been said. The noble Viscount has said a good many things not all of them connected with his Ques- 1007 tion on the Paper, and I am bound to say not all of them helpful. He stated early in his observations that he took the view that a Conference of this sort should not take place without a very full debate in both Houses of Parliament. I am happy to say that that view of his is not, I think, very widely shared, and the proper time, it would seem to me, for a debate in Parliament would be after the Conference has considered matters and come to such conclusions as it may come to, and when Parliament will have again fully to consider them and come to a final determination.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMWhen it is too late.
EARL RUSSELLI am very much interested to hear the noble Viscount say "when it is too late," but I am not aware that the results of this Conference will bind Parliament any more than Parliament is bound by the conclusions of the Simon Report. It will be for Parliament to decide what is done after the Conference is over. Surely that is perfectly clear. The noble Viscount then made several suggestions. One of them was as to the number of persons who should be delegates in the Conference, and the proportion which they should bear to the Indian representatives. I am bound to say he did not give me any notice of the Question, and, for myself, it does not seem to me a very important one. Matters are not going to be decided, as he said, by the counting of heads or the counting of votes, but I take note of the fact that he thinks twelve is a proper number. His Majesty's Government will be very grateful to him for his advice, and will consider it in arriving at the numbers that they think proper, but I cannot say more about that because, first of all, as he very well knows, the matter is not settled, and, secondly, he gave me no notice of it.
Then he spoke about the British representation and the statement which I made earlier in the afternoon. That statement was a very carefully considered statement in very carefully considered words, and, I have nothing to add to it and nothing with which to qualify it. The statement must speak for itself. I cannot undertake to explain it any further. It seems to me to be perfectly 1008 clear. The noble Viscount went on to speak about the confusion of mind of many people, and the obscurity of the situation and of things that happened. I do not think that lie has helped to clarify the situation, as he suggested just now, himself. He spoke in what seemed to me a most extraordinary phrase of an ambassador of peace who had been "sent" to Mr. Ghandi. Sent to Mr. Ghandi: did the noble Viscount not read the letters which have passed between the Viceroy and the emissaries, and is it not perfectely clear they were in no sense of the word sent to Mr. Ghandi? I think the noble Viscount ought to be rather careful in these matters, and not misrepresent the action of the Viceroy.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMThey were authorised to see Mr. Ghandi—specially authorised.
EARL RUSSELLCertainly. They could not see him without an authorisation, as he was in prison. That was the only authority required, but they were in no sense sent to Mr. Ghandi. They merely asked if they could see him, and whether they could try and ease the situation in India, a situation which, I think the noble Viscount would agree, would be all the better for being made as easy as possible. Then he made a reference, which was obscure to me, to a letter between Sir John Simon and the Prime Minister in the Report which, I understood him to suggest, did not represent the correct facts, or did not represent the letter that was really sent, or was first sent. I did not understand that reference.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMI will explain. I do not wish the noble Earl to be under a misapprehension. I say it did not embody the original proposal of the Statutory Commission. It was an amended proposal.
EARL RUSSELLI am afraid the letter as printed in the Statutory Commission must speak for itself. The noble Viscount may have sources of private information.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMI was there.
EARL RUSSELLBut I think the letter must speak for itself as it stands in the Report of the Statutory Commission. He then went on to ask about the agenda paper of the Conference. Well, I really do not quite know what the noble Vis- 1009 count is afraid of. It is perfectly obvious that the Conference must settle down to the discussion of something. As he says, you cannot have a body of sixty or eighty or a hundred people meeting just to discuss things in the air. There must be subjects, there must be questions before them. As a matter of fact we are, and we shall be until the time comes, engaged in settling the agenda paper and the form in which matters shall be discussed. If the noble Viscount wishes to render any assistance to my right hon. friend the Secretary of State on this matter, I have no doubt he will be glad ref any suggestion for the agenda paper or the shape it should take. But, unfortunately, I cannot give the noble Viscount the agenda paper to-day. It does not exist.
The other Question asked was the one on the Paper. It is—
whether, having regard to Lord Irwin's statement ….the Report of the Indian Statutory Commission will Form the main subject of consideration and discussion at the Round-Table Conference.Well, my Lords, how can I tell? Naturally, that Report, as was said earlier this afternoon by the noble and learned Marquess, Lord Reading, is a Report of very great authority and of an authority so much the greater that it is unanimous. It is the result of very careful inquiry. It obviously is entitled to the greatest possible respect. To suggest, as the noble Viscount seemed at one stage to suggest, or as was suggested I think earlier this afternoon, that anybody was anxious—no, I think he himself used the words that the Report was being ignored —to suggest that anybody would ignore—
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMIn India.
EARL RUSSELLYes. The noble Viscount referred to a great many remarkable statements from people who have no connection with the Government, and extracts from the Press, and he appeared to think that those statements must necessarily be adopted by the Government. Why, I could not tell. I should imagine hundreds of statements could be obtained from the Indian or even the English Press in connection with this matter, but the Government have no responsibility for them. We could not ignore the Report, and it has never as far as I know been suggested 1010 that the Simon Commission Report could possibly be ignored. It is obviously a document of the first importance. The noble Viscount went on to ask whether it will be the main subject of discussion. Really, I scarcely understand what he means by that. It is obvious that none of the subjects in the Simon Commission's Report—and it deals, I think, practically with all possible subjects—could be discussed by anybody in the Conference without reference to and consideration of all that appears with regard to them in the Simon Report. If he means will the Delegates devote the principal part of their time to criticising and amending the Simon Report, or will they devote he principal part of their time to making some other suggestions of their own, neither I nor any other person can tell. The Conference will settle that for itself. We cannot be responsible for what the Delegates to the Conference are likely to say or what line they are likely to take.
As has been said, this is a Free Conference; that is to say, neither the Government Delegates nor any other Delegates to this Conference know what this Conference may do. They will be free. I understand that is the spirit in which the members of the Opposition Parties will join in the Conference. They will be anxious to hear what is said and then they will make up their minds at the end of the day when these things have been said. But if the noble Viscount means by these words—they are not quite the same, I think, as in the original form of the Question; the Question I think originally was "form the basis of discussion"
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMExactly the same.
EARL RUSSELLIt does not seem quite the same to me. If the noble Viscount means must the discussion be on the Simon Commission Report and nothing else, quite obviously the answer is in the negative. On the other hand, if it means is the Report to be put aside and never looked at, again the answer is in the negative, and I should have thought the question hardly requires answering. But I do not really understand the Question. Obviously the Conference must consider a Report which carries great weight. But the Report 1011 cannot bind the Conference and it is no more intended to bind the Conference than it is intended to bind Parliament. It is a Report which will be given proper weight at the proper time and the Conference will be entirely free to accept it or to reject it or to modify it. That surely is the only possible meaning of a Free Conference. I do not know what else the noble Viscount means and I think that these suggestions which have been made that the Simon Report is going to be ignored, or, on the other hand, that it should be treated as the Tables of Stone, are both very harmful suggestions quite inconsistent with the idea of an entirely Free Conference.
§ EARL PEELMy Lords, a number of points have been raised this afternoon both by my noble friend Viscount, Burnham and by the noble Earl. Some of those points I think I really need not discuss because they have been covered by the statement made earlier this afternoon by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. I only wish to mention very briefly two points. I entirely agree with my noble friend behind me, Viscount Burnham, that the representation of the different Parties—of course I am speaking now of the Opposition Parties—should be substantial. I am very glad indeed that the Government have decided—and I think, if I may say so, very wisely decided—that the different Parties should be represented. Otherwise, it would surely have been a very truncated and imperfect Conference, and very unrepresentative of the whole of British opinion. But I understand from the noble Earl that the Government have not yet arrived at a decision as to numbers and their minds on that point are to a certain extent open.
I would like to call the attention of the noble Earl to the fact that very severe labours and very heavy duties and responsibilities will be cast upon those members who represent the different Parties. This Conference is likely to take a very considerable time. To deal with these difficult constitutional matters, probably committees will be set up to deal with different aspects of the question, and it will be throwing I think an intolerable burden on the representatives of the different Parties unless you have such a substantial number that they may he able to relieve each other and dis- 1012 charge these special duties in s satisfactory way. I hope the Government will give full weight to what has been said on that point as to substantial representation. The Government, I understand, still have this question under consideration, and may I add that I hope the noble Earl will be able to make a statement on this subject before Parliament rises? We know how very unsatisfactory it is if these ragged ends are left and questions are left undecided, and we have not the opportunity of questioning him. I hope, therefore, we shall have a definite answer given to us on these matters while we are still able to discuss and debate them. Otherwise the matter will go over until October when Parliament meets again. Possibly there will be newspaper controversy and so on, and I think the noble Earl will realise that it is much better if we can have an answer before that date.
The only other point I wish to mention is that I am very anxious to reinforce, as strongly as I can, the suggestion already pressed upon the noble Earl to which, I think, he was not able to give an answer at the moment—that is the question of inviting the Chairman of the Royal Commission to take part in the Conference. It seems to me that it will be of immense value that you should have a representative on the Conference of the Royal Commission who is able—and nobody could do it better—to expound all the different points and all the constitutional aspects of every question, to explain to this large number of men assembled in the Conference why certain decisions were taken, or, what is perhaps more important in many cases, to say why certain decisions were not taken and why a certain course was adopted. I have seen—I am bound to say rather to my surprise—some of these criticisms and objections raised to the admission of Sir John Simon by eminent Liberal politicians and others in India. My noble friend mentioned Sir Chimanlal Setalvad. I do not understand what their objection is. Do they think that the forensic talents of Sir John Simon are so great that it will be impossible for any Indian politician to cope with them? A great many Indian lawyers will be coming over from India very well versed in all these matters and very capable of taking part in these debates. 1013 I should have thought it would be a great pleasure to them to meet with a man of Sir John Simon's calibre in these deliberations, and to have the pleasure of discussing these things with him.
What can be the objection to it? I can see none. After all, we want to get to the bottom of these problems. Surely, it seems absurd, when you have sent out a Commission which has reported unanimously, when you have appointed as Chairman of it a great lawyer, Sir John Simon, who spent two years over the business, that those people, the most competent to speak on the subject, are to be excluded from the Conference themselves. I hope that before Saturday the noble Earl and his colleagues will give consideration to this point. We all want the Conference to be as successful as it is possible to be, and nothing would contribute more to the careful elucidation of all these points than the presence, at the invitation of the Government, of Sir John Simon as Chairman of the Commission.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SANKEY)Does the noble Viscount press his Motion for Papers?
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMNo, my Lords, I do not press it. I have had my answer such as it is.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.