3.20 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare)

I beg to move, That, before Parliament is asked to take a decision upon the proposals contained in Command Paper 4268, it is expedient that a Joint Select Committee of Lords and Commons, with power to call into consultation representatives of the Indian States and of British India, be appointed to consider the future government of India and, in particular, to examine and report upon the proposals in the said Command Paper. Truly the lot of the Secretary of State for India is a very unhappy one. Everything that he says is taken down in evidence to be used against him. If he says something to reassure his friends in England he creates suspicions in India. If he says anything to show his sympathy with Indian aspirations, immediately he disquiets many of his friends in this country. Indeed, during the last 18 months I have been trying to emulate the delicate walking of Agag, no doubt with very poor success, and attempting, I fear very clumsily, the balancing feats of a ballerina or a skating champion. To one body of people I am a tyrant, to another body a traitor. Let me give the House one or two illustrations from my recent correspondence of the truth of what I am saying. Here, for example, is an extract from a letter from a British correspondent who signs himself "One of your former admirers": As you are admittedly a traitor, it would be advisable for you to blow out your brains before rather than after your surrender. Here are one or two of the more elegant extracts from the Indian Press: Everything that matters is in the pockets of Sir Samuel Hoare. Everything that does not matter will come to India. Sir Samuel Hoare is acting with the ruthlessness described as his characteristic by Mr. Churchill. And I would also add, as apparently great minds work together, by Mr. Gandhi as well. Particularly at the present time am I the isolated target of a plunging fire from two flanks. Here is what some of my friends think about the White Paper. I begin with an extract or two from the British Press. This is from the "Morning Post": Under the disguise of all its smooth reassurances, this White Paper is in essentials not a deed of partnership, but an instrument of abdication. Here is an extract from the "Daily Express," which will equally please my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill): The White Paper on India is the official hoisting of the white flag by the British Government over the Indian Empire. But some things strike different people differently. Here, for instance, is what the Indian Press think about the White Paper: Responsibility offered is like a card house behind which stands a menacing giant armed with autocratic powers of a hundred Hitlers and Mussolinis. Had India presented a united front to the enemies of her aspirations, it is inconceivable that an offer so offensive to her patriotism and entirely galling to her self-respect could have been made. There is not a single point in which the White Paper has even partially conceded to the Indian point of view. Here is my last extract, and I would draw the special attention of the House to it: If Churchill and the men of his group had been entrusted with the framing of the Constitution, they could not have improved on Hoare's performance. By one side it is said that the White Paper is the white flag of surrender; on the other side it is claimed to be the red flag that flouts Indian nationalism. Amidst this diversity of tongues and, perhaps I might also say, amidst this extremity of abuse, I am inclined to comfort myself with two reflections. First of all, both these lines of criticism cannot be right. Secondly, I am able to-day to put before the House the Government's proposals, and to ask hon. Members, in whatever quarter of the House they sit, to bring their minds to bear up-on them, to test them whether they are sound or whether they are not sound. To-day I do not ask the House to go any further than they have gone in the previous Indian Debates in this Parliament. I do not ask them to come to any decision upon the merits of our scheme.

On the day that I went to the India Office I realised that most of the problems with which I was faced were almost insoluble. I realised that questions connected with the Indian Constitution were certain to excite controversy in India. I realised that they were equally certain to start political controversy within the ranks of the parties at home. From the very first I realised the complexities of every one of these problems, and I tell the House to-day that I have shared the anxieties, felt, I believe, by every hon. Member of this House. Feeling these doubts, realising these difficulties, sharing these anxieties, I would say that it would be altogether unfair, it would be almost criminal, to ask the House, and indeed to ask Indian public opinion, to come to definite decisions after two or three days' Debate, after a series of speeches, however important those speeches may be, during the next few days.

it is on that ground that I am proposing to the House, the unprecedented procedure under which a Joint Select Committee of inquiry is to be set up before any decision is taken. The Government and I wish at the earliest moment to ask for the co-operation of Parliament in our difficult task, to put our proposals before them, and to ask the Committee of both Houses to give us the great value of their advice, before we ask the House to come to a final decision. That has always been the intention of the Government. As long ago as last June I described it in some detail to the House and the procedure which I propose to-day is exactly the procedure that I outlined last June. The Motion is exactly the type of Motion I have always contemplated, and it is all moonshine to suggest that the Government have, in any way, altered their general line of policy, or have in any way modified their proposals for procedure, as a result of pressure from this or that section of the House.

If I know anything of the House, I guess that it does not want to-day a historical lecture or a constitutional lesson in the details of the White Paper. I propose not to deal at any length with past history, not to go into great detail over the wide field covered by the White Paper, but rather to sketch to the House the background of our proposals, and the reasons that have prompted us to make them to Parliament. As to the past, I need make only two observations, and they need not be long observations. For the best part of 100 years, ever since Macaulay with that beaming optimism which characterised early Victorian Liberalism, declared that the English language was to be a bridge between Asia and Europe, and that, by 1860, to use his picturesque phrase, "there would not be a single heathen in India," rightly or wrongly we have led India along Western lines and made every responsible public man in India believe that Western institutions and particularly British institutions are suited to Indian development. That is a fact that we may or may not deplore, but it is a fact that we cannot ignore.

To-day, I venture to press it on the House, even more strongly than I would press upon the House any explicit pledge in an Act of Parliament. The pledges of the past leave full liberty to Parliament in the choice of the time and manner of constitutional advance. I accept this principle. Although it was Lord Curzon who with his own hand wrote the words about responsible Government into the Declaration of 1917, our hands to-day are free to take what course Parliament in its wisdom thinks proper in pursuance of that declaration. I submit that Parliament would be most unwise if it failed to take into account the continuous history of the last century and the fact that, year after year, we have led India to believe in the continuous bestowal of new instalments of constitutional progress.

When I think of these moral obligations rather than explicit pledges, I am reminded of the story in the Arabian Nights of the man who made a regular practice of giving presents to his friend. A. time came when he ceased that practice and the friend complained to the court of conscience that, owing to the regularity of the gifts, he had become so habituated to these grants that there was a moral obligation on his friend to continue them. The court of conscience gave the case against the man who had made the gifts on the ground that his constant practice had created a moral obligation. Our case in India is not altogether dissimilar to the case of the man and his friend. I want to emphasise to the House, and, this is the first point to which I would direct its attention, that it would be most unjust and most unwise to ignore this long continuous history and the moral obligations, if not explicit pledges, into which, time after time we have entered.

The only other observation I would make about the past is this. We cannot isolate these Indian questions from the whole field of Asiatic questions. India is not isolated from the rest of Asia. Hon. Members would be very unwise if they approached this question without reminding themselves of what has been happening from one end of Asia to the other in the years since the War—if, for instance, they failed to remember what is called the new tide in China, if they failed to remember, again, the efforts which Turkey is making to establish itself as a modern progressive Power, if they failed again to remember the events of only the last few weeks in which Japan has been challenging a big body of European public opinion. What wonder when all this ferment is going on in Asia from one end of that Continent to the other that India should be raising its voice for recognition, and that India should be making a demand for a greater share in its own government.

I hope that these two observations are sufficient to show why it is that almost universally the demand is being made for great changes in the government of India. After all, the demand for change was the very motif of the Report of the Simon Commission. The Simon Commission made the most notable and valuable survey of Indian problems that has ever been attempted. There was not a phase of Indian life, there was not an Indian political movement, that the report did not cover in its majestic sweep, but the one conclusion that stood out above any other—I will say a word or two about the details in a later part of my speech—the one main conclusion that emerged more clearly than any other, was the acceptance of the fact that great changes are now inevitable in the government of India.

The question, therefore, which I venture to put to the House is not whether changes are necessary, though I believe that every hon. Member admits that changes are necessary, but rather what those changes should be. The Government have put their proposals in the White Paper. None of those proposals is new. Anyone who has read the proceedings of the various Round Table Conferences will agree with me that there is nothing in these proposals, nor can there be anything in these proposals, that has not been fully discussed during the last two years. They are not new proposals. They are proposals that I imagine almost everyone who has been following the Indian problem for the last two years has expected the Government to make. But before I deal with some of them, let me make an over-riding contention, or rather an over-riding test, that I would desire to see applied, not only to these proposals, but to any alternative proposals that may be made.

It is quite essential that no changes that we propose, still less any changes that Parliament enacts as the statutory law of the country, should go to weaken the Indian Executive, either in the centre or in the provinces. Do not think that we have been blind, we Members of the Government, to what has been going on in the world in recent years. We have marked as clearly as any hon. Member in this House the way in which Government after Government, Constitution after Constitution, in the East as well as in the West, has foundered owing to the weakness of its executive. I believe it will be found, when hon. Members have had a fuller opportunity of investigating the details of our proposals, that we do not propose to weaken the Indian Executive, either in the Centre or in the provinces. What we do propose is to concentrate upon the essentials and to define responsibility, and we believe that by concentrating upon the essentials and by defining responsibility we shall actually remove certain of the causes that now weaken government in India, both in the centre and in the provinces. Be that as it may, I would welcome the criticisms, if need be, of hon. Members upon this all-important point. We agree with every hon. Member in this House that it is essential that the Executive Government in India, both at the centre and in the provinces, should be a strong one. Everywhere anarchy is one of the greatest disasters in the world; in the East it is the unforgivable sin.

Let me now come to the White Paper itself, and let me at once draw the attention of the House to a point that I feel sure most hon. Members have already noted, namely, that the White Paper includes a very comprehensive scheme, a scheme that covers the whole field of Indian Government, both at the centre and in the provinces. There were two alternatives open to the Government. There was the alternative of making proposals that would proceed by stages, proposals that would bring into operation Provincial autonomy first and afterwards perhaps, at some indefinite time, would deal with the centre; and there was the alternative of dealing with the whole body of the Government at once. It was not a question of ignoring or accepting the Simon Report. There were factors which we had to consider that were unknown to the Commissioners at the time that they made their report. There was the factor, for instance—to many, perhaps, a very unexpected factor—of the attitude of the Princes towards All-India Federation.

It was not then a case of ignoring the Simon recommendations. It was rather a questoin of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives and of taking into account the new factors as well as the factors that guided the Statutory Commission. It was one of the most difficult questions that the Government had to decide. There were obvious advantages in each course. After very careful consideration, we came to the view that it was both wiser and safer to make proposals that would cover the whole field, and we took that choice for two reasons. First of all, we do attach very great value to the accession of the Indian Princes to any system of Indian Government. I shall deal in a minute in somewhat greater length with the conditions of that accession, but, so far as our proposals are concerned, we attach great value to the Indian States being represented in the central Government—the Indian States with their long and hereditary experience of government, the Indian States, who, however much they may disagree among themselves on minor issues, are at any rate unanimous on two fundamental conditions: first, their support of stable Government, and second, their determination to rest within the British Empire. The Indian States through their representatives made it clear to us that they were not prepared to enter any Government that was wholly under the control of Whitehall. If therefore we are to have this valuable support of the Indian Princes it is necessary for us to embark on comprehensive proposals that will cover the centre as well as the Provinces.

But there was another reason that decided us to proceed by a comprehensive scheme. Being politicians, we could not be blind to the fact that political opinion in India was almost unanimous in favour of a comprehensive scheme. Being politicians, and being I believe, like every hon. Member of the House, very anxious to see political autonomy started in the provinces, we were driven to the conclusion that the re was little or no chance of provincial autonomy starting in a reasonable atmosphere of good will if we did not at the same time make proposals that covered the federal centre. These were the reasons that prompted us to take this decision. Hon. Members may or may not agree with them, but I hope that every hon. Member will see that our reasons were not prompted by idle sentiment. They were not the reasons of theorists who wish to make up a nice neat paper scheme covering the whole field. They were the actual reasons derived from the hard facts of the situation that made us take the decision that we took.

Our scheme, therefore, as the House will see, is a comprehensive scheme covering both the centre and the provinces. As the House will also see, it is a very complicated scheme. I suppose that it is the most complicated scheme that has ever been proposed as the constitution of any country in the world. It bristles with complexities, it is filled with difficulties, and it is filled, no doubt, with many anomalies, but I say to the House that if it did not bristle with difficulties, if it were merely a simple scheme that did not deal with all the difficulties, it would be a purely artificial scheme and worth nothing at all. It would be a worthless scheme for the very good reason that the Indian factors are so complex that no simple scheme could possibly deal with them. We have tried to face every one of those difficult factors and if our scheme is long, complicated and intricate, the reason is not the muddleheadedness of the Government but the complexities of the Indian problem.

Let me suggest some of the complexities which we have had to take into account. Let me suggest the main interests in this veritable jig-saw puzzle that we had to attempt to fit together. First, there is that whole body of interests that come about as the result of the long partnership between India and Great Britain. Next, there are the exclusive interests of India itself. There are the interests of the Indian Princes and of the Indian States. There are the interests of British India, and particularly the relations of the centre to the various British Indian units; and there are the interests of the communities and religious minorities. No scheme that does not honestly face all those problems and make a serious attempt to reconcile those interests—quite often conflicting interests—is worth the paper on which it is written.

Let me suggest in broad outline the way in which we have attempted to reconcile these main interests. I begin with the main Indian interests. There our object has been to give Indians the widest possible opportunities for their own self-government and self-development. The safeguards that necessarily take so prominent a place in the White Paper are designed just as much in Indian interests as in British interests. Indeed, one of the most significant facts of the proceedings at the Round Table Conference last September was the demand of Indians themselves for safeguards. There day after day Hindus or Sikhs in the Punjab were demanding safeguards for their minority communities; Moslems were demanding safeguards in the Hindu Provinces; the Depressed Classes were demanding safeguards in their interests in Provinces where there are many members of the Depressed Classes. Take another instance—the demand reiterated by all the Indian minorities for a declaration of fundamental rights in addition to their demands for safeguards. I state these facts to-day to show that these safeguards are just as necessary, and just as strongly demanded by Indian public opinion as they are by British public opinion here.

As I say, in approaching the question of Indian interests, we have attempted to give the fullest possible scope to Indians to develop themselves on their own lines. We have tried to give the fullest possible scope to Indian aspirations, and if we have introduced safeguards, it is because we believe that those safeguards are necessary if stable government is to continue. It is said in India that the proposed transfer of responsibility to Indians amounts to little or nothing. Let Indians look at the question from the point of view of the 230,000,000 people, who live in the villages of India and make their living upon the land. Practically every single matter that affects them from day to day and year to year it is proposed to place under the direction of an Indian Minister depending upon a Legislature elected by Indians on a wide franchise, and a franchise made wider than it is now for the express purpose of giving the agricultural masses a chance to make their voices heard, for the express purpose of protecting the poorer and less influential minorities.

Let the House look at the exclusively provincial subjects in the White Paper, all of which will be under the direction of an Indian Minister. What is the cultivator interested in? The rent he pays for his holding, the state of the roads by which he takes his produce to market, his water supplies, the watch and ward which protects him from the criminal, the education of his children, public health, the protection of his cattle from disease, the improvement of his seed, the provision of his credit—all of these things, and there are many more—there are 77 important items in the list of provincial subjects—all of these will in future be controlled and directed by a Government responsible to himself and his fellows. Thirteen years ago—a very short time—all these things were under the control of an official Government. No such change has ever been proposed by constitutional methods in the Government of so vast a country in so short a time.

I pass from the interests of British India to the interests of the Indian States. The House will see that in the White Paper there is nothing said about the relations of the Indian Princes with the Crown. There is nothing said about those relations, for the very good reason that the broad question known by the all-embracing term of "paramountcy" does not enter into the federal scheme at all. Princes do not enter into the federal scheme at all, except in so far as they themselves agree to modify their treaties upon their entry into federation. Subject to this, the treaties and agreements will express direct relations between the Princes and the Crown. As to the federation, the Princes will, of course, be free to enter or not as they wish. As, however, their accession in sufficient num- bers is a fundamental condition of our proposals, we have to make provision that will ensure a sufficiency of the Indian States entering the federation if we are to obtain the advantages that we desire from that accession.

The House will see that the test which we propose is the test of the entry of Indian States, representing half the population of the States, and half the States entitled to seats in the Upper Chamber. At first sight, hon. Members may think that that test is too low a test. I think if they will analyse and take into account, first of all, that there are a good many minority States, and those States cannot enter into the federation; and, secondly, if they take into account the further fact that only the more important States will have seats as of right in the Upper Chamber, they will see that if 50 per cent. of these States, representing half of the population of the Indian States actually enter the federation, the federation will, in practice, be an effective All-India Federation. This question is, as I say, of vital importance. The effective accession of a sufficient number of States is a fundamental condition of the whole of our proposal.

Let me pass to another factor of the federation. Hon. Members will remember that, speaking generally, there are two types of federation. There is the federation which retains predominant power at the centre, and there is the federation which moves the balance of power to the federal units. Deliberately and designedly we have chosen the second of these types, namely, the type of federation which transfers the main balance of power to the federal units. We have made that choice for the very obvious reason that the great sub-continent of India, with all these increasingly difficult problems, is much too big and much too diverse a unit to be managed by a highly centralised Federal Government. On that account, the basis of our proposals is that for the Federal Government there should be a definitely limited field of activity confined to the specified federal subjects, and the Federal Government should, of course, have sufficient revenue to meet its federal obligations, and that the provinces should be given the fullest possible field for autonomous development. I am inclined to think that one of the great advantages of a federal scheme for India is the opportunity that it is going to give to those great provinces, some of them—one or two of them—as populous as the United Kingdom, to develop on their own lines. I am inclined to think that we have pushed centralisation too far—at any rate, too far in recent years in India.. Centralisation was possible when problems of government were comparatively simple. Centralisation will more and more break down in India in face of those increasingly difficult Indian problems, and I should hope 10 see development in India very much on regional lines with some of these great provinces working, it may be, in close association with the States which border upon them. I believe that this decentralisation may well be a proposal that will give a great body of new life to Indian development.

In any case, we have chosen deliberately and definitely the kind of federation that gives the fullest, freest scope to the Provincial units. I know that there are several hon. Members in this House who will be saying to themselves, even while I am speaking, "That sounds a very excellent scheme. It sounds as if the Government have held the balance between British interests and Indian interests—the interests of British India and the interests of Indian India. But what guarantee is there that an extremist majority will not hold the power in the centre and, it may be, in several of the Provinces, and smash your scheme altogether?" I do not wish to make prophecies about the future, least of all the Indian future. But I would ask hon. Members to look very carefully at the proposals which we have made in the White Paper for the constitution of the Federal Legislature and of the Provincial Legislatures, and if they analyse those proposals, I think they will agree with me that it will be almost impossible, short of a landslide, for the extremists to get control of the federal centre. I believe that, to put it at the lowest, it will be extremely difficult for them to get a majority even in a Province like Bengal. No doubt, there are these questions to which, rightly, the Joint Select Committee will give their careful attention. But I can say that, so far as Indian interests are concerned, we believe our proposals safeguard them, and we believe they do the fair thing between the centre and the Provinces, and between the centre and the Indian States.

I comp now to a more difficult question, the question of the joint interests of Great Britain and India. Sometimes these are called British interests. I will not admit that they are exclusively British interests. I would never define British interests in India as being solely the interests of the British Government, or the British bondholder, or the British trader. I put a much wider interpretation upon our interests. I put so wide an interpretation on our interests in India that I claim that they are joint interests between ourselves and Indians. After all these long years of partnership we, the Government, could not agree, and Parliament would never agree, to a repudiation of all these obligations into which we have entered for protecting the weak from the tyranny of the strong, avoiding anarchy and defending religious minorities from persecution. All these obligations I claim to be included in the general term "joint British and Indian interests." These interests are the interests that we propose to safeguard in the manner set out in the White Paper. These are the interests that are set out in great detail in the White Paper. It is much fairer, it is much more honest, to set the list of these safeguards out in full and in detail. We desire no misunderstanding about them, either here or in India. Naturally they are complicated, they must be, and they take a very prominent place in the proposals we are making.

Naturally, also, they are open to attack from both sides; they are bound to be open to attack on both flanks. The Indian says they amount to so much that the responsibility becomes a sham. The critic in this country says that no safeguards are any good at all. We often have heard these criticisms stated in the form of a dilemma. If the safeguards are effective responsibility is a sham; if responsibility is effective the safeguards are a sham. Fortunately, the world is riot run on a rule-of-three of this kind. Fortunately, great affairs are not susceptible to dilemmas of that kind. If this were a true dilemma, it would mean one of two things. It would mean either that there could never be responsibility in India, or it would mean that if there were responsibility it must be responsibility without safeguards. I claim that no serious body of opinion either in this country or in India is prepared to accept either of those alternatives. I do not believe any substantial body of opinion is going to state that at no time and never can there be responsible government in India, nor do I believe that there is any substantial body of opinion either here or in India that considers that safeguards of some kind are not necessary in the interests of Indians themselves. Certainly, among the first to protest would be some of those representatives of the Indian minorities that made their voices so powerfully heard at the Round Table Conference last autumn.

Let me at this point deal with a series of arguments that we have all of us so often heard against what is called responsibility with safeguards. "Look at the Irish Treaty," say many of my hon. Friends. "What use were the paper safeguards in the Irish Treaty? What use was even the signature of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping? What use were those safeguards even to a great country like ours, dealing with a small country like Ireland a few score miles from our shores? If the Irish safeguards were of no avail, what is likely to happen to these Indian safeguards when we are dealing with a country not a few score miles away, but with a great Continent 6,000 miles away?" My answer is a simple one. There is no similarity whatever between the Irish and the Indian case. The Irish Treaty broke down not because of safeguards but because there were no safeguards. I do not criticise anyone who made the Treaty in the difficult conditions in which it was made, but, the fact does remain that in the true sense of the word there were no safeguards included in the Irish Treaty.

Compare the Indian position with the Irish position? In India the Governor-General, the Provincial Governors and other high officials are still to be appointed by the Crown. The security Services, the executive officers of the Federal and Provincial Governments, are still to be recruited and protected by Parliament. The Army, the ultimate power in India, is to remain under the undivided control of Parliament. Those are no paper safeguards. Here are the heads of Government endowed with great powers and given, as I shall show a few minutes later in more detail, the means of carrying those powers into effect. These questions are all important, they are the key questions of the Government's proposal, and I would venture, because they are so important, to make a somewhat more detailed analysis both of the safeguards themselves and of the machinery with which they will be brought into operation.

The effect of these provisions is, broadly, this, that when in the exercise of his responsibilities a Governor feels constrained, for example, to differ from his Ministers the orders which he issues to the Services will be no less the legal orders of the Government than if they had resulted from his Ministers' advice.

This being so, the criticism of the effectiveness of the safeguards reduces itself when examined to two propositions. The first is that the Services will blankly refuse to obey orders. I need but to state that contingency for every hon. Member to brush it aside. With the record of the Secretary of State's Services, surely there can be no suspicion that they will not carry out the accredited orders of authority. With the provincial services, there, again, with their splendid record of loyalty, often in the face of difficulty and danger, I have no doubt that they will loyally carry out the orders of accredited authority. Moreover, they will have as their protection the Public Services Commissions and other means of making their complaints to the Provincial Governments. I cannot contemplate a situation arising in which the Services will refuse to carry out a Governor's orders, even if they are given at his own discretion and without the advice of his Ministers.

There is a second contingency that may be in the minds of some hon. Members. They say to themselves, "How will a, Governor be really able to carry these powers into effect when his Government threatens to resign and he may be left without a Government at all?" No doubt an extreme contingency of that kind might arise, but I do not believe it is so likely as some of my hon. Friends think. I do not believe that politicians in India are very different from politicians here, and I do not believe that the contingency is often going to arise in which it would be impossible for a Governor to find an alternative Gov- ernment. After all, the Governor, in exercising his special powers, will very likely be exercising them in the actual interests of a substantial body of the population of his own Province, for instance, one of the Minorities; and I think it will be very rare in actual practice that a Governor will not have behind him a substantial body of public opinion in a political crisis of that kind.

Briģadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT

Does my right hon. Friend suggest that the minority could then form a Government and carry on?

Sir S. HOARE

If my hon. and gallant Friend will let me finish this part of my speech—I do not in the least criticise him for asking that question—

Sir H. CROFT

I am sorry if I was impertinent.

Sir S. HOARE

It was a very pertinent question, and I am now going to deal with it. Suppose, as my hon. and gallant Friend says, that he cannot find a Government to carry on, then his course is perfectly clear. The Constitution has broken down, and he assumes the full power of the Government, and. Parliament once again becomes fully responsible here. My hon. and gallant Friend will find in our proposals a, series of explicit provisions meant to deal with a situation of that kind, in which the Constitution has actually broken down and in which, once again, the Governor-General on the Governor, with Parliament behind them, assume full and undivided powers of administration.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON

There will be no machinery.

Sir S. HOARE

I have stated the two contingencies that I know have been in the mind of many hon. Members and that have led them to believe that in actual practice it would never be possible to put the safeguards into operation. One of my hon. Friends says that there would be no machinery. I am afraid that I have not made myself clear. There will be a very effective machinery. The Governor's order will be the accredited order of the Government. The officers to carry out that order will be the Services, both central and provincial, and, in the last resort—I hope a resort that will never come into actual being—there is the Army behind the Governor- General and the Governor, in the undivided control of Parliament. I hope that I have said enough to show that our proposals contemplate not paper safeguards, but safeguards that, if need be, can be carried into full effect. There are, however, three particular safeguards about which I ought to say a word.

But perhaps before I come to them I ought to deal with another line of argument that I have heard constantly used during the last few weeks. It is made by many public men who are well entitled to speak from their own experience. It was suggested the other day in a letter to the "Times" newspaper by so distinguished an ex-provincial Governor as Lord Zetland. These men say: "Your safeguards may be all right on paper; your machinery may be all right, but it will need a veritable superman as Governor-General, or as provincial Governor, ever to carry them into effect." These criticisms deserve to be carefully weighed and to be definitely answered. Let the House therefore observe concrete facts and try to see what is likely to happen.

I take the case of the Governor-General under our proposals. As matters stand, there are 47 central subjects, including such matters as railways, aircraft, shipping, posts and telegraphs, Customs, currency, public debt, civil and criminal law, commerce, emigration and immigration, for the due administration of all of which he is responsible as the head of the Government of India, and no one with the slightest knowledge of Indian administration supposes that the Governor-General at present is a mere figurehead. He holds one of the most arduous and responsible offices in the Empire, and, besides his direct responsibility for the affairs of the central Government, he is responsible for the superintendence, direction and control of the important reserved subjects of the Provinces. On top of all that, though it is no part of his duties as laid down in the Act, there falls upon him the difficult and exacting political work involved in his relations with the two Houses of the Legislature. His responsibilities are at present overwhelming, and they are all-pervading. In future, I agree, they will be very heavy, but at any rate they will be strictly limited and defined. I have discussed this question with the Viceroy, with ex-Viceroys and with several Pro- vincial Governors and they all take the view that, upon the whole, the responsibilities of the Governor-General will be less rather than greater in the future.

Let me now come to what I said just now about three special responsibilities, about which I want to say a word. They are the special responsibilities, imposed upon the Governor-General, of finance, for the prevention of commercial discrimination and to prevent any grave menace to the peace or tranquillity of India. Let me say a word or two, which will be short, about each of these special responsibilities, and first of all, about the special responsibility connected with finance. One of the most difficult questions that we have had to discuss has been the question connected with Indian finance, and particularly with the safeguards necessary for ensuring the stability of Indian credit. Our difficulties were made ten times worse by the financial and economic crisis through which the world has passed. In a sentence, the problem was this: On the one hand, if the Federal Government was to have any real responsibility, it was almost inevitable that there should be a transfer of the financial portfolio. On the other band, it was equally necessary to take no action, however excellent it may be in itself, that would endanger the very foundations of Indian stability, Indian credit. The House will see, in the proposals dealing with finance, how we suggest dealing with this difficult problem, and will see set out in great detail the financial safeguards that were considered to be necessary.

We believe that, so far as we could in the very difficult circumstances confronting us, we have held the balance between these two needs, the need of transfer on the one hand and of financial stability on the other. I believe that there is no reason why any of our proposals should in any way diminish what is one of the greatest assets that the British connection has given to India, the stability of Indian credit. I deplore an attempt that seems to have been made to shake confidence in Indian stocks. In the first place, the White Paper provides for the faithful and punctual observance of India's financial obligations, and it must be obvious that it will be an essential condition of the success of the federation, which every Indian investor will have at heart, that the credit of India should be maintained. The House will realise that something like half the debt of India has been raised in India. Lastly, the investor may rest assured that Parliament would never accept our proposals if there was justification for gloomy forecasts of India's financial future.

Let me now say a word about the commercial safeguards, namely, the safeguards designed to prevent commercial discrimination, a part of our proposals that I know excites and rightly excites the keenest interest in business and trading circles in this country. The House will see that we are proposing to deal with the question of commercial discrimination upon the simple basis of reciprocity. Put into a single sentence, our proposals are that anything that we do for Indian traders or for Indian professional men in Great Britain, Indians should do for British traders and British professional men in India. That is the basis of our proposals for the prevention of commercial discrimination. Obviously, they make no change in what has come to be known as the Fiscal Autonomy Convention. I am one of those who believe that the commercial relations between India and Great Britain are much better settled by agreement, if they can be settled by agreement, and it is indeed a satisfactory augury that the Indian delegates at Ottawa were able to make a satisfactory agreement, at any rate on a part of the field, with the representatives of Great Britain and the rest of the Empire, and that that agreement has been ratified by a huge majority in the Indian Assembly. To-day I say no more about commercial discrimination—not that I do not regard it as quite one of the most important questions that we have to consider. I must pass to the last of the safeguards, which we propose for the prevention of any grave menace to the peace and tranquillity of India.

This safeguard immediately raises the very difficult question of the transfer of law and order to responsible Indian Governments, one of the most difficult questions that not only we had to consider, but that the Statutory Commission had to consider. On the one hand, there is the need for making provincial autonomy real self-government, and the virtual impossibility of making provincial autonomy real self-government if law and order are not transferred to an Indan Minister. On the other hand, there is the essential need for taking no action that will shake the morale of the police or that will endanger the Indian spirit. This was an extraordinarily difficult dilemma facing both us and the Simon Commission. We are just as conscious of the anxiety felt by many of my hon. Friends as anyone in this House; but, setting on the one side the advantages of a transfer, and on the other side the disadvantages, we came to the same conclusion at which the Simon Commission arrived, namely, that it was both safer and wiser to make this transfer.

When one comes to that decision, it necessarily follows that, if you make the transfer of law and order to a responsible Indian Minister, you cannot withhold from his control the administration of the police. I think it goes without saying that a Home Secretary without the power to order police to this or that point would be a Home Secretary without effective powers. Therefore, it seemed to us essential, in making a transfer, to make the transfer of the police administration. When I say that, I do not on any account mean that we leave the question there, and that we provide no protection for the police against the possibility of undue influence or victimisation. Let hon. Members look at the provisions that we make in this respect in the White Paper. We do not intend, nor do Indian public men intend, that the Minister should himself interfere arbitrarily with promotion, postings and discipline. All these matters will be primarily for the executive head of the Service to deal with. The officers at the top, who have been and will continue for a time to be, appointed to the Service by the Secretary of State, will have their main conditions of service regulated by him, and will have a right of appeal to him. Deputy superintendents, that is to say, the provincial police service proper, will have the protection of the Provincial Public Service Commission, and there will, we hope, be strong selection boards for appointments and promotions in the subordinate ranks. It is to such means that we look for the security of the police from deterioration.

But the morale of the police is of importance in emergencies beyond that of any other Service, and the White Paper has taken account of this. The work of the force will—let there be no doubt on the matter—be the responsibility of the Minister. If for no other reason, the Minister will be deeply concerned in its efficiency, because at every point its work will be subject to criticism. The Governor is given, as the House knows, special responsibility in case of any grave menace to the peace and tranquillity of the province, and the instrument of instruction will direct him to have regard to the close relation between this responsibility and the internal administration and discipline of the force. I want to make it clear that this is not intended to imply that the Governor is to intervene in the day-to-day administration of the force, much less in its work, but is intended to enable him to secure, if need arise, that he shall be in a position to discharge the responsibilities specifically assigned to him by the Constitution. These proposals we have discussed over and over again with experienced administrators, with the Viceroy and with, I think, every Governor in India at the present time, and they are all unanimous that, in the difficult conditions which confront us, they provide, on the whole, a sound and workable scheme, and that in any case they are much the safer and the wiser of the two alternatives to which I have just alluded.

Sir ROBERT HORNE

As this is very important, may I ask my right hon. Friend two questions? In the first place, is there any limitation of time during which the Secretary of State will exercise his discretion in the appointment of the police; and, in the second place, to whom will the police report?

Sir S. HOARE

I am very glad that my right hon. Friend has asked those two important questions. In answer to the first, there is no limit of time. Our proposal is that after five years there shall be a statutory commission to inquire into all the various problems connected with the recruitment of the Services.

Sir H. CROFT

Will my right hon. Friend take their advice into consideration?

Sir S. HOARE

Certainly. I do not suppose that I shall be in my present place, but I can assure my hon. and gal- lant Friend that my successor—probably a worthier successor—will certainly take such advice into account. In reply to the second question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne), the Governor will have a discretion to say in regard to police reports how much of the material shall be supplied to him, and what his relations should be to the police. It is very difficult here and now to make a rigid definition. But I can assure my right hon. Friend that the intention is to leave the Governor the widest possible discretion in giving instructions as to what reports he should or should not receive.

I have dealt, I am afraid at very great length, with the main background of our proposals, and with the reasons that have prompted us to make them. I hope I have said enough, even though I may not have convinced all hon. Members of their wisdom, to show that we have at least attempted to face the facts and to ignore none of the difficulties. I think there is no ineluctable fact that we have not taken into account in making our proposals. In the words of William James, we have forged every one of our proposals in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn facts. Many have helped us in arriving at these proposals; of Englishmen, perhaps, most of all, the members of the Statutory Commission. In all these long and difficult discussions during the last two years, we have found in the Simon Report a, perfect mine of knowledge, without which it would have been impossible for us or any hon. Member in this House to see the picture as clearly as we see it to-day. Of Indians, we are particularly indebted to the members of the various Round Table Conferences, who, year after year, often in the face of great criticism in India, have come over to discuss these difficult questions with us. I am inclined to think that, when the Joint Select Committee is set up, their experience will be very much the same as ours has been. I believe that time after time they will be indebted to the Simon Commission; I believe that time after time they will be indebted to the Indians whom we hope to see taken into consultation with the British members of the Committee.

To-day I make my appeal to the moderate men of good will and common sense, both in England and in India. I have often, during the last 18 months, wondered whether the task upon which I was engaged was not a hopeless one—whether it was possible to produce a scheme of government for India, and, if it was possible to produce it, whether it was likely that Parliament would pass it. That was not so much because I believe that people over here or in India are actually opposed to this or that proposal, but rather because the complexities of the problem are so great as to make it almost impossible to see a way out. Parliament here, 6,000 miles away, attempting to make a very complicated Constitution for scores of different Asiatic races and religions, and making that attempt with an alert public opinion, both here and in India, willing and able to pick out the innumerable points for criticism, willing to negative almost every conceivable proposal! In view of these difficulties, I have often, since I have been at the India Office, felt almost hopeless; but I have comforted myself with two reflections. First of all, try as I will to consider every possible alternative, as I have considered every possible alternative, I can at present see no better scheme. I ask my critics to-day not to be content with a mere negative to these very complicated proposals. Let them face the facts, as we have faced them, and as I have described them this afternoon, and let them produce a better, a more workable and a safer scheme.

I know that there are many who are well qualified to speak who are nervous about these proposals. There are men who have served India and the Empire well in the past and whose opinions deserve to be taken into account by every Member of this House. Let us take those opinions into account, but let us take also into account the unanimous opinion of every responsible British official in a high post in India to-day. To put it at its lowest, the administrator of to-day has an equal right to be heard with the administrator of yesterday.

But I have comforted myself most of all by feeling that here, particularly in Parliament, the innate good nature and common sense of the British people almost always makes itself felt. As one who has been a good many years in this House, who believes, even after that long experience, in the ultimate sagacity of Parliament, as one who is convinced that the British people, if they make up their minds, can do anything, even though it looks to be impossible, I. commend the proposals of the Government to the House and I ask the House to give the Government their help in setting up a strong and wise committee to test the truth of what I have urged this afternoon and to help us to frame a scheme which will take the Indian question out of the welter of party politics for a generation, which will safeguard both Indian and British interests and will unite India more strongly than ever to the British commonwealth of nations.

5.4 p.m.

Mr. ATTLEE

I am sure I shall be expressing the unanimous view of this House in congratulating the Minister on the extremely able and interesting statement to which we have just listened. He had a very difficult task. He had to deal with a subject of enormous complexity, and he had to address himself to two Continents at once. He was speaking to the Members of this House, but he was also speaking to India. He had to select exactly those points in a very large scheme upon which it was essential to speak. In fact, he had to make a Second Reading speech and not be led off into Committee points. I think he accomplished that task extraordinarily well. I should have liked the Leader of the Opposition to be in my place to-day. The House knows the reason why he is absent. I should like on his behalf, before dealing in more detail with the proposals of the White Paper and the Minister's speech, to make a statement laying down the exact attitude of the Labour party on this matter. It is a very important matter. The whole question of Indian reform has been a long record of dealings by all parties, and I desire to set on record exactly the attitude that we take. Since the commencement of British control in India in. 1857, successive British Governments have given pledges to the peoples of that country. The Labour party desire to see those pledges honoured, and we stand by the declaration made at our Blackpool Conference in 1927 to the effect that We reaffirm the right of the Indian peoples to full self-government and self-determination and, therefore, the policy of the British Government should be one of continuous co-operation with the Indian people with the object of establishing India, at the earliest possible moment and by her consent, as an equal partner with the other members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Labour party believe that, as stated by the Statutory Commission, the new Constitution should contain within itself provisions for its own development. We think the new Constitution should contain the principle laid down in the Irwin-Gandhi Pact, that such safeguards as are necessary should be in the interests of India, and we think they should be agreed on in co-operation with the leaders of Indian opinion. The new Constitution should adopt the principle laid down by the Labour Government at the first Round Table Conference and repeated as their policy by the National Government at the second Round Table Conference, that the reserved powers should not be such as to prejudice the advance of India through the new Constitution to full responsibility for her own government. The Labour party stand by the principle that no settlement can be reached without the co-operation of all sections in India and with their consent, and therefore ask for the immediate release of all political prisoners not guilty of violence. If a Joint Select Committee is set up, the party will nominate representatives to serve, because it is our duty to serve on such a body representative of the two Houses, and we will do our utmost to get our views discussed and incorporated in the Committee's report.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that this is no occasion for a historical retrospect. On the other hand, it is idle to deny that this matter must be looked at in the light of the past, and particularly in the light of the declaration that has been made to India. I do not want to go back to the declaration made in 1837 or to trace the conception of Indian self-government right through the declaration made by the Duke of Connaught at Delhi and the various declarations made since. I should agree with the Secretary of State that everyone must remember that those declarations made on behalf of this country are part of the facts of the situation. You cannot escape them. No contribution to this discussion is of any use at all which does not take those declarations into account. I am going to quote only one, and that is the declaration made by the Prime Minister at the end of the second Round Table Conference on 19th January, 1931, when he said: I hope and trust that, by our labours together, India will come to possess the only thing which she lacks to give her the status of a Dominion amongst the British commonwealth of nations—what she now lacks for that—the responsibilities and the cares, the burdens and the difficulties, but the pride and honour of responsible self-government. That was an important statement made by the head of the Government to the assembled delegates from India. The policy of the Labour Government was reaffirmed by the Prime Minister as head of the National Government. The policy adopted by the Labour Government was one of co-operation. It was one that laid it down that the decision on these constitutional matters must be had by free discussion, co-operation and agreement with the representatives of Indian political thought, and to that end the Labour Government went to what some people thought very great lengths of conciliation, and they did achieve a very remarkable triumph when Congress representatives were present at the Round Table Conference and when, in fact, the whole range of Indian political opinion was called into co-operation. But there then ensued a change. The Round Table Conference was dismissed and, although it was dismissed with the specific assurance that in the end that Round Table Conference would meet again for a final review of the whole scheme, it never did meet again, and from that point we mark a very great change in the whole situation. The Round Table Conference was dismissed. An era of repression against the Congress started in India. The whole laborious structure of conciliation and co-operation which had been built up was shattered and the third Round Table Conference, when it was summoned, contained a small number of hand-picked, unrepresentative delegates, and those delegates, when they assembled, were not regarded in the same way as their predecessors. They were there much more to give advice and to make suggestions, while all matters of decision were left to the Government.

I will not go at length into what I consider the most disastrous results of that policy in India. I think that policy was a mistake. I think it was an entirely false idea that you could smash the Con- gress by force, that you could brush it aside, that you could deal with a few Indian representatives and come to a satisfactory agreement. I think the fact was that the Prime Minister was the prisoner of his majority. He was in the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) at the Peace Conference. Each one of them had raised a Frankenstein that he could not control, and the result is that we have this White Paper, which seems to me to be in direct conflict with principles and with pledges. I am sure the Secretary of State has tried hard to hold the balance, in fact his speech was directed mainly to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) and his friends. The greater part of the time was taken up in explaining to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping and his friends how safe was the whole matter, and how strong were the safeguards. The difficulty in this matter is that you have to deal with two sets of people who, I am willing to grant, are unreasonable—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping and his friends, and the members of the Congress party, or many of them, in India. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is trying to steer a very careful course between the two, but, in our view, the White Paper really sets up a state of affairs which should have entirely satisfied the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping and the "Morning Post." I cannot see of what they have to complain when one really examines what the White Paper does.

I am not going to suggest—I should be the last person to do so—that there is an easy way out of Indian constitutional difficulties. It is not an easy question. It bristles with every kind of difficulty. You have, on the one hand, certain facts of the situation which make it impossible to establish full self-government on the Dominion model immediately; secondly, you have the people who demand that that should be done; and, thirdly, you have the difficulty of finding some halting-place between complete responsibility and complete irresponsibility. The White Paper tries to find that place. It tries to give a limited degree of responsibility subject to safeguards. I maintain that the only possible way in which you can get a halting-place between irresponsibility and responsibility in the central government in India is by consent. You cannot set down some logical arrangement, because no halting-place is a satisfactory one unless the people who are to abide there are prepared to show approval and to work the arrangement.

I think that the difficulty of the Prime Minister, and of the Labour Government when he was Prime Minister in the Labour Government, was in recognising the fact that whatever you did on paper was no use whatever unless you could get politically-minded people in India to work it. I very much fear that there is very little hope of getting full co-operation in India on the basis of the proposals of the White Paper. You have there a Constitution in which, at the centre, it is proposed to start a limited amount of responsible government, but it is hedged about by safeguards, and the difficulty I have is in finding responsibility underneath the safeguards. It was notable that when the right hon. Gentleman came to discuss safeguards, he told us that safeguards were wanted for various purposes, but he put the interests of this country first in the order in which the right hon. Gentleman discussed them. He said that the first safeguards we had were for our own people.

Sir S. HOARE

This is rather important. I took the joint interests, the interests of the partnership first. I particularly said "joint interests," and I then went on to the Indian interests.

Mr. ATTLEE

I withdraw at once. I will leave out the point of the right hon. Gentleman about that matter. But the safeguards which he has here are predominantly safeguards for the interests of this country. It is possible to read into them, if you like, and to say that the interests of this country are the interests of India, but, in my view, the safeguards here go far beyond what is required in the interests of India. I will say something more about those particular safeguards a little later on, but I want, first of all, to come to one or two essential points about these proposals. The first thing is, that the whole idea of Dominion status has entirely gone. It was laid down definitely as a goal. It was laid down by the Prime Minister, and it was explicitly stated by the Prime Minister at the Round Table Conference, but the whole idea of Dominion status entirely disappears from the White Paper even as the ultimate goal. The second thing which entirely disappears is any idea of a progressive advance to full responsible government.

The Sankey Commission, among other things, definitely laid it down that the Constitution should contain within it the seeds of growth. In the White Paper we have one mention, and one only, of an Interim Constitution before the final Constitution, and thereafter the whole transitional aspect of these proposals disappears altogether. In the whole of the proposals there is no suggestion of growth. There is no suggestion that at any time, or on any occasion, will the powers of the Governor-General be relaxed. There is no suggestion that at any time the power of the Secretary of State, and of this House, through the Secretary of State will be relaxed. There is no hint of time. Perhaps you may say that you cannot put in a time. There is no hint of any occasion. There is no provision for any machinery whereby there will be any change whatever from the position at the centre as laid down in the White Paper. There is no suggestion that the financial safeguards will be relaxed.

There is no suggestion as to when the Indian Army will be Indianised, and, indeed, no provision whatever with regard to the Indian Army beyond leaving it in its present position. Anyone who has studied Indian constitutional matters knows that the biggest obstacle to self-government is the existence of the Army in India, and one would have thought that he would have found some suggestion whereby the Army, which is now to be kept out of the control of elected representatives altogether, somehow or other, would be transformed, and that at some time or other, however distant, Indians might look to controlling their own defence. That is not contained in the White Paper. There is, in fact, no indication that these proposals are transitory at all. The next thing which strikes one is the extremely vague time at which the Constitution at the centre is to come into force. It may well be that you have to get your provincial reforms into force before you reform at the centre, but I have never seen such an extraordinary series of obstacles put in the way of these reforms. There is an optimistically headed paragraph on page 8: The Date and Conditions for the Inauguration of Federation. Let us look at the obstacles. There is, first of all, which must inevitably occupy some time—the preparation of new and enlarged electoral rolls for the Provincial and Federal Legislatures, and the demarcation of constituencies —and so forth. That is the first, hedge. The next hedge consists of the adhesion of the States, and then there come a surprising number of prerequisites of a financial character. These are something quite new to me. I believe that they appeared at times at the Round Table Conference, but they are certainly new to me in the Simon report. We find that there is to be a Reserve Bank, that you are to have a, balanced Budget, short-term credit must be reduced, a surplus must be accumulated, and the export surplus restored. Why has India to pass this extraordinarily hard examination which, probably, no modern State at the present time could possibly get through? It is an amazing thing. When you come to examine these proposals not one is in any way essential for starting the new constitution. It really suggests that the Bank of England is to-day a separate party in the State with these financial securities embodied in it before this can go forward. Finally, when we have got through the difficulty of the provincial constitution and through the adhesion of States, and passed the final examination, there is a final veto left in the hands of both Houses of Parliament, and even then it is not to come into force until both Houses of Parliament have presented an Address to the Crown. Therefore, we are left with the possibility, or even the probability, of a very long period elapsing between the passing of the Act and even the setting up of a provincial constitution and the final form of a federation.

As everybody who has had anything to do with Indian politicians knows, the point which they have insisted on time and time again is that you should not have your provincial reform coming first and a long delay before your reforms at the centre. They have been met with the fact that the two reforms are to be put into one Act. But it will certainly be necessary that the date and conditions for the inauguration of federation should be made a great deal clearer and nearer than is the case at the present time. Suppose all those obstacles have been surmounted, what kind of responsibility are we to get at the centre when in effect you are only going to get diarchy? It was my business as a member of the Statutory Commission to examine dyarchy, and my colleagues and I were all completely agreed that diarchy was a most unfortunate system. In fact, we stated most emphatically in our report that the one thing you did not want was diarchy at the centre. This is precisely what you are to get. You are to get two wills operating, one, that of certain Ministers who are to be responsible to the Assembly and the Council of State, and the other, that of the Governor-General, who is responsible to the Secretary of State, and, through the Secretary of State, to this House. You are to have Ministers in charge of certain departments and you are to have reserved departments, the Army and external affairs, which are entirely under the Governor-General. But when you look at what are the powers and duties of the Governor-General, you find that his power is bound to extend right throughout even the transferred subjects. Look at the list of safeguards: The prevention of grave menace to the peace and tranquility of India. That is a necessary and extremely wise safeguard. Safeguarding of the financial stability of the Federation. Imagine making the Chancellor of the Exchequer responsible for the Budget in this House while somewhere else there is someone, sitting with a separate financial adviser, who is responsible for financial stability. What sort of position would the Chancellor of the Exchequer have? You might say, if you like, that there have been Chancellors of the Exchequer who have seemed not to have much of a position in these days, and that there has been some other power sitting in the City of London who has ruled. Then there is the safeguarding of the legitimate interests of the minorities and the securing to the members of the Public Services of any rights provided for them by the Constitution and the safeguarding of their legitimate interests. That is pretty wide. The Public Services are given extremely wide rights. They will be entirely free from control by the Ministers. They are under the actual control of the Governor-General. You then have the prevention of commercial discrimination and you have any matter which affects the administration of the Reserved Departments"— the services of the Army which depends upon communications, the railways and so on. When you have taken into account all these powers you find that there is no sphere in which the Governor-General's power does not enter. The Governor-General is to have two Cabinets—one a body of Ministers, and his three advisers. He is to consult with them. That is what they propose in diarchy. There you had two advisers and the Ministers, sometimes acting together like a Cabinet and sometimes separately, and all the time you had happening what it is suggested must not happen in the present case, but what inevitably will happen, and that is, a blurring of responsibility throughout.

In my view, a dyarchy so far from being an opportunity for learning responsibility is a lesson in irresponsibility. Anything that a Minister thinks may be unpopular he can get out of doing by getting it done through the overruling power of the Governor-General. That is not imagination. That is what actually happens in the provinces. In many of the provinces, not in all of them, dyarchy is the greatest lesson in irresponsibility that could have been given. The position of the Governor and the official members of his Council under that system became, like that of the Secretary A State, an unhappy one, and also like that of the policeman, whose lot was an unhappy one, because in effect they became policemen and had to do all the unpopular things, while the loaves and fishes went to the Ministers of the dyarchy. It is a terrible position to try to set up dyarchy at the centre, when it has been so discredited in the provinces. What sort of a government can that be 4 The powers of the Ministers under the scheme are extraordinarily small. The railways come under a board. There may be something in regard to posts and telegraphs, but most other matters are provincial and in everything finance is paramount. We all know the power of finance in this House. If you set up a Government, and its finance is in the hands of somebody else, it will be a very weak Government. I think this scheme is a frank recognition of what is the real power under capitalism, namely, the position of power given to the bank and the position given for the protection of the rentier. What puzzles me is why the "Morning Post" should be disturbed. So much for the Central Executive.

Let us see what kind of Legislature is set up. We have two Houses set up, of equal power, and we have the most reactionary Council of State. The Council of State to be set up is to be representative partly of the rulers of British India and partly of the provinces. It will make things safe for property and privilege. It will be a wonderful pillar for the vested interests, elected as it will be on a narrow franchise. I cannot see—here I agree with the Secretary of State—how any extreme force is ever going to get expression in the Council of State, except an extremely reactionary one. Then you have the Assembly. The Assembly, again, is on a narrow franchise. I think it is an utterly impossible body out of which to make some kind of a Parliament. You have a most impossible system of representation. When we considered this matter in the Report of the Indian Statutory Commission we came to the conclusion that representation in a Parliament or an Assembly could only be really effective if there was a proper contact between the electors and the elected. That cannot be so if you are going to have constituencies representing a million people. Let me give one example. Take the great Presidency of Madras. They are to have 19 general seats, and as there are to be four reserved for the depressed classes you must have four-member constituencies and five-member constituencies. Therefore, the smallest constituency must be a four-member constituency. If you take the most favourable place for that, the six Southern districts of Madras, there is a population of 8,000,000 or 9,000,000, and there is an electorate of between 200,000 and 250,000, spread over a population of from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 and scattered over an area equal to England, less the six northern counties. An election in those circumstances is an absolute and utter farce. You will have no real representation, and you will have no real Parliamentary government.

Coming to the composition of the Assembly, I think it is most reactionary in the representation given to working men and in the representation given to women. When you have this mixed body, drawn partly from the States and partly from British India, you will have a caricature of Parliamentary institutions, with no real responsibility and no real representation. What you will get will be an irresponsible central body. When you turn to the provinces, I think the position is a great deal better. There is some danger in the Governor's powers but, of course, the Governor must have power. Here I would make the point that it seems to me, from these proposals, that an essential point has been lost sight of in regard to reserved powers, and that is that reserved powers should be used only in a state of emergency. If you want responsibility, that responsibility means the possibility of not making mistakes and not being picked up every time you slip. It seems to me that in this Constitution every effort is being made so that the Governor-General may constantly step in if any Minister is going to make a mistake. I agree that you must have emergency powers to prevent everything from going to rack and ruin, but there should be a serious line of demarcation between responsibility and emergency powers. Do not blur the two by giving responsibility but allowing that responsibility always to be escaped by falling back upon emergency powers.

I do not want to go into details at this time, but I think it is a great pity that the franchise in the provinces is not wider, especially in regard to women. I deplore the setting up of Second Chambers in the most landlord-ridden provinces, and I deplore the giving of special seats to landlords. The Indian Statutory Commission was of the opinion that landlords were over-represented already throughout India in all the provinces. We were told that the landlords had enormous political power. I think they divided the political power with the moneylenders and the lawyers. On the top of that, the landlord is to be given special powers in those very provinces where there is most need of agrarian reform. I am glad that the Government have stood firm on the question of handing over the police and what is generally called law and order. Those who seek to reverse that, do a very grievous disservice to the British civil servants, the British police and the British officials throughout India. The suggestion that the English should be retained in India to keep order and collect taxes while everything else is to be handed over, is asking too much of Englishmen.

Here I should like to refer to a point made by the Secretary of State when he said he was in favour of strong government. He said that times were dangerous and that strong government was necessary. I never met anyone in India who was not in favour of strong government. Of course, their Governments were of different sorts. The question is, what is meant by "strong government"? You do not get a strong Government because you give it strong powers. You only get a strong Government if you have the consent of the governed. That is what, I fear, you will not get. Your provincial Government will be weakened because Indian nationalists will use the Provinces merely as strongholds to attack the centre. You will not get a strong Government at the centre because there is a definite reaction in the way the central legislature has been formed; you endeavour to form a strong Government by resting upon privilege and property. It has been a disaster to our rule in India for many years that we have tended too much to stand by vested interests, which were on the backs of the peasants, because we have considered that forces like landlordism were the supports of our rule. If we go in for these vested interests we shall not support, but weaken, our rule in India, and arouse against us everything that is vital in India.

I want the Secretary of State to understand that if I criticise it is not because I do not know the difficulties. It is perfectly easy to criticise every kind of Constitution or proposal, and I know that critics of Indian matters are singularly lacking in constructive suggestions. But you are here making the worst of affairs in your proposals for the centre. The only possible basis for an interim Constitution is complete agreement with the people who are to work it; and those are the politically-minded people in India. It is no good suggesting that the politically-minded are seditious, are of no use, and that you admire the peasant. You rule India to-day through the educated classes, whether they are politicians or civil servants and the strain of nationalism runs through. We on these benches demand self-government for India, not on abstract lines, but because of the economic and social condition of the masses.

I recognise quite clearly the point of view of civil servants who fear that if the peasants, the workers of India, are handed over to an entirely Indian Government, they will be exploited. I have great sympathy with that point of view, but as a matter of fact when once you have a nationalist movement, such as we have to-day, it is impossible to continue on the old lines in which you had one person, an impartial benefactor, helping the people of India in their distress and protecting them from the oppressor. The evils from which India is suffering to-day can only be remedied by Indian action. Let me quote again from the Statutory Commission's report: Until the demands of nationalism have been reasonably met the enthusiasts for various reforms make common cause with every discontented element and attribute all the evils which they attack to the absence of self-government. In our view the most formidable of the evils from which India is suffering have their roots in social and economic customs of long standing which can only be remedied by the action of the Indian peoples themselves. Nationalism appears to be the one force that may perhaps contain within itself the power to overcome the deep and dangerous cleavages which threaten its peace. I have no illusions on nationalism, Indian or otherwise, but the nationalism of India is a force which you cannot ignore. I should describe nationalism as the illegitimate offspring of patriotism, out of inferiority complex. It is nourished on repression; the more repression there is the more it grows. It is nourished on alien rule. Only responsibility and freedom will get rid of nationalism. Nationalism dies when repression ceases, and alien rule ends. I claim that the proposals in the White Paper do not provide a condition for the supersession of self-conscious nationalism by a self-respecting patriotism. They do not provide conditions under which we shall get young Indians to work at the reforms which really matter. Those reforms of the whole system of society, bound up with social and religious customs to such an extent that no outsider, no alien, can possibly touch them. You have only to read the correspondence and the newspapers with regard to the Untouchables to see how difficult it is for any alien to deal with them. We want to set free the forces of young India. This Constitution will not do that. There is no real responsibility at the centre. I agree that you cannot expect full responsibility in an interim Constitution, but there is no suggestion of any progress towards full responsibility; there is no relaxation of the control of this House or the Secretary of State; there is no approach whatever, therefore, to Dominion status. On the other hand, in the proposals for the central government, every vested interest is protected.

If we really made progress under this Constitution, if we left representation at the centre as it is to-day and quite free of British control, India would be tied to the moneylender and the landlord. The banker will rule in Delhi, as he does in Downing Street; the landlord will rule in the Council of State as he does at the other end of the passage. The Government have sacrificed the possibility of good will and co-operation, sacrificed everything, for timidity, for fear, for insistence on safeguards. The Secretary of State has suggested that this is just the time to debate the dilemma as to whether, if you have safeguards, there should be responsibility, or whether, if there are no safeguards, there should not be responsibility. There must be some balance in this matter, and it is undoubted that the more safeguards you give the less really becomes your responsibility. As a matter of fact, your safeguards are utterly useless unless you have good will and co-operation. Often and often we were asked, as a Commission, whether an elaborate system of rights for minorities could not be embodied in the Constitution. You have only to look at the Continent of Europe to find out how much good they are to minorities. They are utterly useless unless you have the spirit behind them.

I feel that in the last 18 months the state of affairs in India has definitely put back that co-operation which we might have obtained. The Government to-day is tied to the forces of privilege and reaction. I am not going to suggest that there are not things of value in the White Paper. There are. There is the conception of Federation, there is the freedom of the provinces from the centre, but in the essentials, which are those which are going to call for Indian cooperation, this document, to my mind, fails. We shall serve on a Joint Select Committee and do our utmost to contribute to a solution of this problem, but we cannot accept this as a solution. We shall work, as far as we can, to see that those who speak for India shall have a chance of putting their points to the Select Committee, but unless great alterations are made in this document I very much fear for the future of peace in India.

5.56 p.m.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL

The hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) has engaged in many criticisms but he has not made one that has been advanced elsewhere against the form of the Motion. It has been suggested, wrongly I think, that because the Motion does not ask the House in terms to approve of the proposals of the White Paper, therefore it is a weakening of the position of the Government with regard to Indian reform. It has been suggested that because the Motion asks the House to suspend its opinion on the proposals until after the Select Committee has been appointed and has reported, that is a yielding to the representations of the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) and those who act with him. That is not so. The form of the Motion is right. It would not be reasonable, if it is proposed to set up a Joint Select Committee, to ask the House to decide the question first and set up the Committee afterwards. Consequently, the Motion in its present form is one which commends itself to my friends and myself on these benches. The hon. Member for Limehouse, however, has engaged in almost every other possible criticism. As he has said, criticism is easy, but if he and his colleagues were to-day on the Treasury Bench and were called upon to deal with the problem of Indian government, taking into account the general conditions in India, in British India and in the States, and taking into account the political conditions here as well, they would, I think, find themselves compelled to lay before Parliament conclusions approximating to those which have been approved by the Round Table Conference and are embodied in the White Paper.

Many criticisms have been made against them, in India as well as in this country; in India, not only by the Congress, but Indian Liberals find many reasons for objecting to the limitations embodied in these proposals. The Moslems object and many of the Princes demur, from entirely different points of view, to these proposals. Here each section of the House will have its own criticisms to make. Certainly when the Measure is before the Joint Select Committee we shall have several suggestions to propose, but at this stage I submit that it is the duty of the House of Commons to show that the solid mass of responsible British opinion is behind these proposals in the main, and that the House of Commons will help the Government to get them through. The complexities are very great, as the Secretary of State has said—complexities arising from the constitutional relations between the States and British India, between the centre and the provinces; from the variety of religious communities; from the conflicts between the higher castes and the depressed classes; problems of finance, problems of defence.

As the right hon. Gentleman has rightly said, no Government, no Legislature, has ever had to face more difficult, more complicated or vaster problems. We are exceedingly fortunate as a Parliament to have had the guidance of the Round Table Conference, which has given to all these matters prolonged and careful consideration. It is most remarkable that any consensus of opinion should have been reached in a body such as the Round Table Conference, representing so many diverse elements. The fact that substantial unanimity was reached is a tribute to the tact and skill of the Secretary of State himself. The Secretary of State to-day said that he felt like Agag, walking delicately. I sincerely hope that he will not be subjected to the fate that was meted out to that king by my ancient namesake: to be hewn in pieces. On the contrary, we ought to be grateful to him and honour him for the sincerity, the tenacity and the courage with which he has faced all the difficulties which surround this problem, and has at last reached the results that were achieved at the Round Table Conference. The Liberal party, also, may claim to have contributed to that end in the assistance which was given by Lord Reading, by Lord Lothian, by my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. I. Foot) and by other hon. Gentlemen sitting around me to-day.

Many hon. Members of this House are nervous that we may be going too far; that perhaps these steps that are being taken are too dangerous to be accepted. Let them be guided by the knowledge that European opinion in India—nonofficial European opinion: mercantile and professional, for instance—is in the main in favour of these proposals. That is a very important factor. Such authorities are not to be accused of ignorance of the situation; they know it well and not from without, and would not be prepared to support, as they supported through their representatives at the Round Table Conference and in other ways, the general purpose of these proposals, unless they felt quite sure that, on the whole and on balance, this was the right course to pursue. We have the results of the Round Table Conference, which included their representatives, and they have made proposals substantially similar to those now before you. I suggest that it would be a profound error to reopen the whole matter and, as the right hon. Member for Epping and his friends propose, for a Round Table to substitute a melting pot.

Let it be remembered that this House is in a very anomalous position indeed with this great issue. We here, sitting in Westminster debating in these days the future Constitution for 350,000,000 of people thousands of miles away in Asia, are so accustomed to the position that it does not seem strange to us. But it would be a great lack of imagination if we did not realise that to the Indians it must seem strange that we, the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, should be legislating for them, and that not one of them is represented here by a single Member. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are here, but India is not here. My right hon. Friend below me speaks for 100,000 of the population in the Epping Division of Essex; but who speaks here for the fifty millions of Bengal? I am one of 66 Members for Lancashire, but where are the Members for Madras, or Bombay, or the Punjab, or the United Provinces? It is the fact that the destinies of an ancient, a proud and a most populous nation are being decided by a, legislative chamber in which it has no single representative, a majority of whose Members have never set foot in its country. We have imposed upon us by history and circumstance the duty of so legislating, but let us be restrained and remember our disability in that regard.

I always thought that it was a deplorable thing that the Statutory Commission which was appointed to deal with this matter should have consisted only of Members of our two Houses of Parliament. It was severely hampered by that fact, and the hostile reception which it received from the mass of Indian opinion when it reached that country was due to the fact that the self-respect of the Indian people was hurt; they felt that they were not allowed to be in any degree judges of their own case, but were merely being summoned as witnesses to appear before alien judges. Although an attempt was made to associate with this Statutory Commission a body drawn from the Indian Legislative Assemblies, it was too late, and the initial impression could not be overtaken. Afterwards, the mistake was to a great extent redressed by the fact that the Round Table Conference consisted both of British and of Indian representatives, sitting together on an absolutely equal footing. We were most fortunate to secure the attendance here of so many Indian representatives of the highest character and ability, who consented to come so great a distance for so long a time and to share in those deliberations.

I cannot understand the position of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping and some of his friends who seem to demur at the suggestion that when a Select Committee of both Houses has been appointed to go further into the matter, representatives of India should be called upon to associate with them. That is the least that we can do. Our constitution does not allow us to go further. But at all events we should invite them to come here to advise, to consult, to state their point of view, in order that the tribunal which is adjudicating should not be entirely a foreign one. While we are settling the terms of the fundamental Statute under which their people are to be governed for generations, they should not be regarded as wholly outside the doors and no parties to the Measure. The attitude taken by those who object seems to me unwise, unjust, and ungenerous.

The real opposition to the Government's proposals does not come from the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken and his friends, or from their point of view. The really formidable opposition in this House, the other House and the country, comes, of course, from the right hon. Member for Epping and his friends, and principally from himself. If he were not there to give leadership and energy and to form a centre for this movement, I believe that very little would have been heard of it from the beginning. He has thrown the whole of his energies into this controversy. He has left no stone unturned; one might almost say that he has left no stone unthrown!

Mr. CHURCHILL

My right hon. Friend can hardly say that, because he said that in the country last night!

Sir H. SAMUEL

I was unaware that that witticism had been reported, or I should not have repeated it. I hope that my right hon. Friend has never been guilty of the grave error of mentioning twice a jest which he may have made at the expense of some opponent. My right hon. Friend, of course, makes many brilliant speeches on all subjects, but that is no reason why we should necessarily accept his political judgment. On the contrary, the brilliance of his speeches only makes the errors in his judgment the more conspicuous. I do not think that during the last 10 or 15 years his advice on public matters, whether military, financial or political—[An HON. MEMBER: "And betting!"]—has really been very helpful to the nation. The House loves to listen to his speeches; he prevents our Debates from being dull. But whether he helps to make our decisions wise and fruitful is another matter. I feel inclined to say of him what Bagehot wrote of another very distinguished Parliamentarian: "His chaff is excellent, but his wheat is poor stuff."

After all, what alternative does he propose for a Measure such as that which is now being presented to us? Like many orators, he emphasises the strong features of his own case, but he passes over in complete silence the stronger features of his opponent's case. That may be very effective at the moment in a representation assembly, but it is unconvincing in the long run. Are we not pledged to promote, to the utmost of our power and to the furthest limits of safety, the growth of Indian self-government? Ever since the days of Queen Victoria's pronouncement, and still more in the solemn declarations of 1917, that has been a pledge given, and it is no use making clever and specious endeavours to conform to the letter of that pledge while you are breaking it in spirit. It must be kept in its full spirit and meaning. We must genuinely do our utmost to promote full Indian self-government. If we do not do so, the Indian people will never be able to believe our word again. What is the right hon. Gentleman's proposal in that regard? Secondly, is it not obvious that the government of India cannot, in fact, he carried on without a very large measure of Indian cooperation? That is obvious, and every one must agree that such co-operation is essential. Yet my right hon. Friend's policy of coercion and repression—because that is the inevitable result of the course which he is endeavouring to pursue—

Mr. CHURCHILL

My right hon. Friend has no right to say that. He is inventing it all as he goes along. Why should he say that the Report of the Statutory Commission is coercion?

Sir H. SAMUEL

The right hon. Gentleman does not even go as far as the Report of the Statutory Commission, because he withdraws from one of the most essential features of it, namely, the transfer of the responsibility for law and order in the provinces to Indian Ministers. Even the Statutory Commission would very likely not secure the co-operation of politically-minded India. I am not speaking merely of Congress, but of all the middle, the central elements of Indian opinion. If they were to boycott the Constitution and to refuse unanimously civil co-operation, it is possible that the English in India would be able effectively to carry on the administration of that country? If not, they would be obliged to have a system of coercion and of repression in order to maintain any form of government. Success is not certain for these proposals, but I am sure that failure is certain for his alternative.

Mr. CHURCHILL

What is my alternative The right hon. Gentleman has been asking me. What is it?

Sir H. SAMUEL

The right hon. Gentleman has made so many eloquent speeches in this House and in the country that I think most of us have an idea of the poor thing that his alternative is.

Mr. CHURCHILL

Hear, hear!

Sir H. SAMUEL

I trust that tomorrow, or on the following day, he will define it more specifically. As to the parallel which has been drawn