INDIA (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

§ Mr. Churchill (Woodford)

When great parties in this country have for many years pursued a combined and united policy on some large issue, and when, for what seemed to them to be good reasons, they decide to separate, not only in Debate but by Division, it is desirable and even necessary that the causes of such separation and the limitations of the differences which exist should be placed on record. This afternoon we begin a new chapter in our relations across the Floor of the House in regard to the Indian problem. We on this side of the House have, for some time, made it clear that the sole responsibility for the control of India's affairs rests, of course, with His Majesty's Government. 664 We have criticised their action in various ways but this is the first time we have felt it our duty as the official Opposition to express our dissent and difference by a formal vote.

Let us first place on record the measure of agreement which lies between us, and separate that from the differences that now lead us into opposite Lobbies. Both sides of the House are bound by the declaration made at the time of the British Mission to India in March, 1942. It is not true to suggest, as was done lately, that this decision marked a decisive change in the policy of the British Parliament towards India. There was a long story before we got to that. Great Britain had for many years been committed to handing over responsibility for the government of India to the representatives of the Indian people. There was the promise of Dominion status implicit in the declaration of August, 1917. There was the expansion and definition of Dominion status by the Statute of Westminster. There was the Simon Commission Report of 1930, followed by the Hoare-Linlithgow Reforms of 1935. There was the Linlithgow offer of 1940, for which, as head of the Government in those days, I took my share of responsibility. By this, the Viceroy undertook that, as soon as possible after the war, Indians themselves should frame a fully self-governing Constitution. All this constituted the preliminary basis on which the proposals of the Cripps Mission of 1942 were set. The proposals of this Mission were not, in fact, a departure in principle from what had long been growing up, but they constituted a definite, decisive and urgent project for action. Let us consider the circumstances in which this offer was made.

The violent irruption of Japan upon East Asia, the withdrawal of the United States Fleet to the American coast, the sinking of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse," the loss of Malaya and the surrender of Singapore, and many other circumstances of that time left us for the moment without any assured means of defending India from invasion by Japan. We had lost the command of the Bay of Bengal, and, indeed, to a large extent, of the Indian Ocean. Whether the Provinces of Madras and Bengal would he pillaged and ravaged by the Japanese at that time seemed to hang in the balance, and the question 665 naturally arose with poignant force how best to rally all Indian elements to the defence of their native land.

The offer of the Cripps Mission, I would remind the House, was substantially this: His Majesty's Government undertook to accept and implement an agreed Constitution for an Indian Union, which should be a Dominion, framed by an elected Constituent Assembly and affording representation to the Princes. This under taking was subject only to the right of non-acceding Provinces to receive separate treatment, and to the conclusion of a treaty guaranteeing the protection of religious and racial minorities. The offer of the Cripps Mission was not accepted by the political classes in India who alone are vocal and to whom it was addressed. On the contrary, the Congress, led by Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru, did their utmost to make a revolt intended to paralyse the perilous communications of our Army in Burma and to help the fortunes of Japan. Therefore, the National Coalition Government of those days made a large series of mass arrests of Indian Congress leaders, and the bulk were kept in prison until the end of the war. I was not myself present in the Cabinet when these decisions were taken. I was at Cairo preparing for the operations which opened at Alamein, but I highly approved of the action which was taken in my absence by the then Deputy Prime Minister, the pre sent Prime Minister, who sits opposite, and which I think was the only one possible on that occasion.

Therefore, it is quite clear that, what ever was the offer of the Cripps Mission, it was not accepted. On the contrary, it was repudiated by the parties to whom it was addressed. In fact, on his return from India, the President of the Board of Trade—the right hon. and learned Gentleman who made such a careful statement yesterday—said: I stated when I left India that, in default of acceptance, the draft Declaration must be considered as being withdrawn."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1942; Vol. 379, c. 842.] I have taken the trouble to verify the quotation. I, for my part, have never bowednor do I make any reflection upon him—to the dictum "Ease would retract vows made in pain as violent and void." Returning to this country later in the year, I stated on 10th September, 666 1942, with the full assent of my colleagues: The broad principles of the declaration made by His Majesty's Government, which formed the basis of the Mission of the Lord Privy Seal to India, must be taken as representing the settled policy of the British Crown and Parliament. These principles stand in their full scope and integrity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th September, 1942; Vol. 383, c. 302.] That is where I stand now. Both sides of this House are bound by this offer, and bound by all of it, and it is on the basis of this offer being an agreed matter between the parties, and on that basis alone, that our present and future controversies arise. If I am bound by the offer of Dominion status and all that it implies, the Prime Minister is equally bound, or was equally bound, to the conditions about agreement between the principal communities, about the proper discharge of our pledges about the protection of minorities and the like. The right hon. Gentleman has a perfect right to change his mind. He may cast away all these stipulations which we jointly made, and proceed only with the positive side of the offer. He has the right to claim the support of his Parliamentary majority for any action he takes, but he has no right to claim our support beyond the limits to which we are engaged by the Cripps declaration.

A statement was made during the period of what is called the Caretaker Government, of which I was the head, by the then Secretary of State—the Secretary of State for India throughout all this business, Mr. Amery—to which frequent reference has been made as if it implied some further advance, but that is not true. I was not consulted on the exact terms of this statement, as I certainly should have been if the Secretary of State had intended to make a further advance upon the position established by the Cripps Mission in 1942. It was Mr. Amery who said: The offer of March, 1942, stands in its entirety. That offer was based on two main principles. The first is that no limit is set to India's freedom to decide for herself her own destiny, whether as a free member and partner in the British Commonwealth or even without it. The second is that this can only be achieved by a Constitution or Constitutions framed by Indians to which the main elements in Indian national life are consenting parties.… That, I may say, is an affirmation, not only of our own loyal purpose, but of the inescapable fact of the Indian situation. We can only transfer our ultimate- 667 control over India to a Government or Governments capable of exercising it.…Our responsibilities to the people of India themselves forbid that course, and, indeed, our responsibilities to the peace of the world forbid it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1945; Vol. 411; c. 1838.] I have ventured to ask Mr. Amery whether his statement was intended to make any new declaration beyond the limits of that of the Cripps Mission, and he wrote to me: I cannot see anything in it which affects, one way or another, the argument which you have used with regard to the sequence in which the Indian Constituent Assembly or an Indian Dominion might declare in favour of separation. In my statement, I simply recalled the two main principles on which the 1942 offer was based, one of which was that no limit is set to India's freedom to decide for herself her own destiny, whether as a free member and partner in the British Commonwealth, or even without it. At that time, none of us had considered the possibility of an Indian Constituent Assembly being invited to declare for or against separation before the Constitution had been accepted by Parliament here, and I cannot imagine that my definition of the principle could have been taken at the time as suggesting or inviting a different sequence to that which we had always contemplated.

§ The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander)

What is the date of that?

§ Mr. Churchill

That was written to me two days ago, because the point was made against me that some new declaration had been made during the time of the interim Government while the election was going on, and I am anxious to show that there is nothing which has been said by us, consciously, which in any way carries the matter—[Interruption.] There is nothing controversial about it; I am only trying to lay down the basis on which we can agree to differ—the basis of 1942 and the present time. Before this latest pronouncement of theirs, His Majesty's Government had already departed from the Cripps Mission declaration of 1942, and they had departed from it in three major aspects. First, they had eliminated the stage of Dominion status. The Cripps Mission expressly said that the objective was the creation of a new Indian Union which would constitute a Dominion associated with the United Kingdom and the other Dominions by common allegiance to the Crown, but equal to them in every respect, in no way subordinated in any aspect of domestic or external affairs.

That stage was entirely cut out by the Prime Minister in his speech sending out 668 the Cabinet Mission a year ago. I was not in the country at the time, or I would have drawn attention to the serious change, but it may well be that all my hon. Friends on this side of the House do not regard that particular change as so serious as I do. I am laying out the facts that justify the Division that is to take place tonight on what has been an actually pursued policy. If the Dominion status procedure had been involved, in my view, the new Indian Dominion would have been perfectly free to leave the Common wealth if it chose, but full opportunity would have been given for all the dangers and disadvantages to be surveyed by responsible Indian Ministers beforehand, and also for the wishes of the great mass of the Indian people to be expressed, as they cannot be expressed now. It would have been possible to insert in the Dominion Constitution the necessary safeguards for minorities, and for the fulfilment of the British pledges to the various elements of Indian life, notably the Depressed Classes. This would have been a part of the agreement between the Indian Union and Great Britain, and would have been embodied in the necessary British legislation on the lines of the British North America Act, to which the great free Dominion of Canada has always attached importance, and still does. So the second departure from the Cripps Mission declaration was the total abandonment by His Majesty's Government of all responsibility for carrying out its pledges to minorities and the Depressed Classes, as well as for fulfilling their treaties with the Indian States. All these are to be left to fend for themselves, or to fight for themselves as best they can. That is a grave major departure.

The third departure was no less grave. The essence of the Cripps Mission declaration was that there should be agreement between the principal Indian communities, namely, in fact, the Muslims and the Hindus. That, also, has been thrown overboard. But I state, as it is my duty to do when we take a step such as we are going to take tonight, of great formality and solemnness, that it is the Government who have broken away from the agreement which has been reached between parties, and has so long subsisted between parties, and that it is not we in the Conservative Party who have, in any way, gone back on our faithful undertaking. To these departures from 669 our principle, there must be added a formidable list of practical mistakes in handling the problem during that past year since the Cabinet Mission was sent out. Some of these mistakes may have been made by the Government, and some of them by the Viceroy, but they are both jointly responsible for all.

First there was the attempt to formulate a Constitution and press it upon the Indians, instead of leaving the Indians, as had been promised, the duty of framing their own proposals. That action, however well intended, has proved to be devoid of advantage, and must be rated as a mistake. Secondly, there was the summoning of a so-called Constituent Assembly upon the altogether inadequate and unrepresentative franchise, an Assembly which was called into being, but which had absolutely no claim or right to decide the fate of India, or any claim to express the opinion of the great masses of the Indians. That is the second mistake. The third mistake was the dismissal of the eminent Indians composing the Viceroy's Council, and the handing over of the government of India to Mr. Nehru.

This Government of Mr. Nehru has been a complete disaster, and a great degeneration and demoralisation in the already weakened departmental machinery of the Government of India has followed from it. Thirty or forty thousand people have been slaughtered in the warfare between the two principal religions. Corruption is growing apace. They talk of giving India freedom. But freedom has been restricted since this interim Nehru Government has come to power. Communism is growing so fast that it has been found necessary to raid and suppress Communist establishments and centres which, in our broad British tolerance, we do not do here, and have never done in India. [Interruption.] I am illustrating the steps to freedom which, so far, have been marked by every degree in which British control is relaxed, by the restriction of the ordinary individual, whatever his political view. It was a cardinal mistake to entrust the government of India to the caste Hindu, Mr. Nehru. He has good reason to be the most bitter enemy of any connection between India and the British Common wealth.

I consider that that must be regarded as the third practical administrative mistake, apart from those large departures in principle which may be charged against 670 the present British Government in this Indian sphere. Such was the situation before the latest plunge which the Government have taken was made, and it is this plunge which, added to all that has gone before, makes it our duty to sever ourselves altogether from the Indian policy of His Majesty's Government, and to disclaim all responsibility for the consequences which will darken—aye, and redden—the coming years.

I am offering the House an argument concerning the steps we are going to take, which I and my friends have regarded as most serious and most anxious steps. I have stated where we agree, and I am now proceeding to show the differences of principle and mistakes of administration due to Government action. The Viceroy, Lord Wavell, has been dismissed. I hold no brief for Lord Wavell. He has been the willing or unwilling agent of the Government in all the errors and mistakes into which they have been led, and which I have just described, but I have no idea why he has been cast aside at this juncture. The Prime Minister has refused to give the slightest indication of the differences which must have arisen between the Government and the Viceroy. It is not possible for us to form an opinion on many aspects of the Indian controversy while this concealment is maintained. It is most unusual for great political severances of this kind to take place in time of peace without statements being made both by the Government and the dismissed functionary, to justify their respective positions. I had some argument the other day with the Prime Minister about this. It is quite true that in war many Ministers were removed from their offices without their wishing to make any explanation to Parliament, but if they had wished to do so, or if there had been any demand in Parliament for an explanation, such as we have made in this case, I should certainly have felt it my duty, as Prime Minister, to facilitate such a process—I am not in the least afraid to defend any action in my public life, here in this House, if it is challenged in due course—provided, of course, that military plans were not exposed or compromised.

Before the war, statements for the reasons justifying the resignations of Ministers or functionaries were a common place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) 671 resigned in 1938. We all approved his action—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I content myself by saying that opinions were divided on that question, as upon so many others. He and Lord Cranborne resigned; they both made full explanations and were answered by the Prime Minister of the day. Going back over the years in English history, we know all the great statements that have been made on the resignations of Ministers and important persons upon great public differences, and this is what they owe to themselves today. When Sir Ben Smith resigned the other day, I was astonished that he did not make a statement about differences which were known to exist, although I am not quite so astonished about it now. It is an unwholesome way of conducting public affairs in time of peace that Ministers or Viceroys should be dismissed or should resign, and should not feel it necessary to their self respect to explain to the nation the reasons for their departure. However, I understand that Lord Wavell will be free as soon as he returns to this country. Is that so?

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee)

indicated assent.

§ Mr. Churchill

That is so. Certainly it will be expected of him to make a statement. There is one point, however, on which we ought to have some information today, because it is material to the issues before us. Was the Viceroy in favour of the time limit, or was he not? I hope that we should have some information on that point, at least.

Let me now turn from the dismissed Viceroy to the new Viceroy. I do not think that the 14 months' time limit gives the new Viceroy a fair chance. We do not know what directives have been given to him. No explanation of that has been provided. Indeed, we are told very little. Looking on this Indian problem and having to address the House upon it, I am surprised how many great gaps there are in information which should be in the full possession of the House. We are told very little. What is the policy and purpose for which he is to be sent out, and how is he to employ these 14 months? Is he to make a new effort to restore the situation, or is it merely Operation Scuttle on which he and other distinguished officers have been despatched? The Prime Minister should deal with this 672 and should tell us something of the purpose behind all these movements. Parliament has its powers, but it may use them wrongly and unwisely if it is not given information which, in all other periods that I have known, would have been placed at its disposal—except, of course, in time of war when we must not tell the enemy what we intend to do.

Everyone knows that the 14 months' time limit is fatal to any orderly transference of power, and I am bound to say that the whole thing wears the aspect of an attempt by the Government to make use of brilliant war figures in order to cover up a melancholy and disastrous transaction. One thing seems to me absolutely curtain. The Government, by their 14 months' time limit, have put an end to all prospect of Indian unity. I myself have never believed that that could be preserved after the departure of the British Raj, but the last chance has been extingushed by the Government's action. How can one suppose that the thousand-year gulf which yawns between Muslim and Hindu will be bridged in 14 months? Here are these people, in many cases, of the same race, charming people, lightly clad, crowded together in all the streets and bazaars and so forth, and yet there is no intermarriage. It is astounding. Religion has raised a bar which not even the strongest impulses of nature can overleap. It is an astounding thing. Yet the Government expect in 14 months that there will be an agreement on these subjects between these races.

I speak in all consciousness of the fallibility of human judgment in regard to future events, of which we are all conscious. Sometimes I have not always been wrong in giving forecasts, though I have often failed to get the support I required at the time when it would have been advantageous. Henceforward in India, in my view, everyone will start staking out their claims and preparing to defend them; and they have the assurance of the British Government that they will recognise them and treat with them if they only make enough noise and establish themselves. They have only to make enough demonstration of their identity and right to separate existence and consideration. That will not lead to a melting of hearts, which will throw them all together and sweep away this centuries old, this millennium old, division. On the 673 contrary, it is inviting them to take advantage of the time that is left to peg out their claims, and to take up strong ground to defend their rights, which they value more than life itself.

No arrangement has been made about all the great common Services. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) yesterday, in a speech instinct with deep and slowly acquired knowledge of the problem, dealt with the question of the common Services. There are very many: Defence, foreign affairs, communications by road, rail and air, water, the waterways, with great rivers that flow from one territory into another, some greater than the Danube and the Rhine in Europe. All these manifest themselves, and come into vast populations and the broad territories of Hindustan. There are the so-called Imperial Services; that is to say, the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Police, the Customs and Tariffs; there are subsidies for many Provincial activities like education and development, both industrial and agricultural, the finding for the above purposes of reserve powers for Provinces in case of some emergency; provision for paying pensions, earned in many parts of India by Indians, by some of the bravest fighting men in the world for their loyalty to successive emperors and the British Crown, and for their bravery in the war. What guarantee have they, when divisions are to be made in this manner?

India is to be subjected not merely to partition, but to fragmentation, and to haphazard fragmentation. A time limit is imposed—a kind of guillotine—which will certainly prevent the full, fair and reason able discussion of the great complicated issues that are involved. These 14 months will not be used for the melting of hearts and the union of Muslim and Hindu all over India. They will be used in preparation for civil war; and they will be marked continually by disorders and disturbances such as are now going on in the great city of Lahore. In spite of the great efforts which have been made by the leaders on both sides to allay them, out of sheer alarm and fear of what would happen, still these troubles break out, and they are sinking profoundly into India, in the heart of the Indian problem—[Laughter]—the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought not to laugh. Although of fanatical disposition, he has a tender heart. I am sure 674 that the horrors that have been going on since he put the Nehru Government in power, the spectacle we have seen in viewing these horrors, with the corpses of men, women and children littering the ground in thousands, have wrung his heart. I wonder that even his imagination does not guide him to review these matters searchingly in his own conscience.

Let the House remember this. The Indian political parties and political classes do not represent the Indian masses. It is a delusion to believe that they do. I wish they did. They are not as representative of them as the movements in Britain represent the surges and impulses of the British nation. This has been proved in the war, and I can show the House how it was proved. The Congress Party declared non-co-operation with Great Britain and the Allies. The other great political party, to whom all main power is to be given, the Muslim League, sought to make a bargain about it, but no bargain was made. So both great political parties in India, the only forces that have been dealt with so far, stood aside. Nevertheless, the only great volunteer army in the world that fought on either side in that struggle was formed in India. More than three and a half million men came forward to support the King-Emperor and the cause of Britain; they came forward not by conscription or compulsion, but out of their loyalty to Britain and to all that Britain stood for in their lives. In handing over the Government of India to these so-called political classes we are handing over to men of straw, of whom, in a few years, no trace will remain.

This Government, by their latest action, this 14 months limitation—which is what I am coming to—cripple the new Viceroy and destroy the prospect of even going through the business on the agenda which has to be settled. This can only be explained as the complete adoption of one of Mr. Gandhi's most scatterbrained observations, which I will read to the House. It was made on 24th May, 1942, after the Mission. He said: Leave India in God's hands, in modem parlance, to anarchy; and that anarchy may lead to internecine warfare for a time, or to unrestricted dacoities. From these a true India will arise in place of the false one we see. There, as tar as I can see, is a statement indistinguishable from the policy His 675 Majesty's Government are determined to pursue.

I wish to pursue this matter and, with the great respect, indulgence and kindness I always receive from the House, to unfold a connected argument to them in all its stages. I must compare, with bewilderment, the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards India and towards Palestine. There is a time limit for India, but no time limit for Palestine. I must say, that astonished me. Two bottles of powerful medicine have been prepared, but they are sent to the wrong patients. The policy in these two places taken together is incomprehensible. I do not understand how they can have originated from any coherent human brain; and even from a Cabinet which, no doubt, has many coherencies in it, it is incomprehensible. Can the House believe there are three or four times as many British troops in little petty Palestine as in mighty India at the present time? What is the idea behind such a thing? What is the point and sense of this distribution of our forces, which we are told are so limited? I do not know where the sustained effort we are making in Palestine comes from, or what element of obstinacy has forced this peculiar assertion in the midst of general surrender and scuttle of British will power in Palestine. I do not know where it comes from, but evidently some very powerful Minister has said he is going to have his way in it, and nobody has dared to withstand him. I cannot tell who it is. I have only my surmise.

The sustained effort we are making in Palestine, if applied in India, would have enabled the plan of the Cripps Mission to be carried out, fully discussed with full deliberation and firmness; and we should have kept all our pledges, and we should have gone steadily forward through this crisis. It is indeed a paradox that the opposite courses should be taken, and that here, in India, where such vast consequences are at stake, we are told we must be off in 14 months; whereas, in this small Palestine, with which we have been connected but 25 years, and hold only on Mandate, we are to make all these exertions, and pour out our treasure, and keep 100,000 men or more marching around in circumstances most vexatious and painful to them.

Well, I have made the case of the reasons and grounds why the Opposition, 676 the Conservative Opposition, feel it necessary to dissociate themselves from the further progress of the Government on this road to ruin. I have given, I think, good grounds for the step which we now take, and which we are not taking without a great deal of heart-searching and consideration. But before I sit down, I should like to touch upon another aspect. I read this morning in the OFFICIAL REPORT the speech of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Zilliacus). I do not know whether he is in the House.

§ Mr. Zilliacus (Gateshead)

Here.

§ Mr. Churchill

We do not often find ourselves thinking on similar lines—not in agreement.

§ Mr. Kirkwood (Dumbarton Burghs)

The right hon. Gentleman will have to watch himself.

§ Mr. Churchill

David, keep quiet. [Laughter.] We are old allies, and do not interfere with each other when we are in action. As I say, I read the speech of the hon. Member for Gateshead. We do not often find ourselves in agreement or thinking along similar lines. Nor am I in agreement with much that he said last night. But it is a fact that I had already intended myself to strike the note of the United Nations being brought into the Indian problem. I have for some time pressed upon His Majesty's Government that, if they are unable to carry out their pledges in Palestine or keep order there, they should return their Mandate, or, at any rate, invoke the aid of U.N.O. to help them in their work; and that, after six or seven months' delay—a needless delay—they have actually done. Now, is it not difficult to resist the feeling that the same train of reasoning applies on a far greater scale and with much stronger force to India? We are told that we cannot walk out of Palestine because we should leave behind us a war between 600,000 Jews and 200,000 Arabs. How, then, can we walk out of India in 14 months and leave behind us a war between 90 million Muslims and 200 million caste Hindus, and all the other tribulations which will fall upon the helpless population of 400 million? Will it not be a terrible disgrace to our name and record if, after our 14 months' time limit, we allow one fifth of the population of the globe, occupying a region nearly as large as Europe, to fall into chaos 677 and into carnage? Would it not be a world crime that we should be committing, a crime that would stain—not merely strip us, as we are being stripped, in the material position—but would stain our good name for ever?

Yesterday, the President of the Board of Trade and other speakers brought into great prominence our physical and military weakness. How can we keep a large Army in India for 15 or 20 years? He and other speakers stressed that point; and, certainly, it is a very grave point. But he might as well have urged that in our present forlorn condition we have, not only not the physical strength, but not the moral strength and will power. If we, through lack of physical and moral strength, cannot wind up our affairs in a responsible and humane and honourable fashion, ought we not to consider invoking the aid or, at least, the advice of the world international organisation, which is now clothed with reality, and on which so many of us, in all parts of the House, base our hopes for the peaceful progress, freedom, and, indeed, the salvation of all mankind?

I say to His Majesty's Government that, if they feel it right in the case of little Palestine to lay their difficulties before U.N.O., what conceivable reason can there be for not following a similar course in the case of this vast sub-continent of India? Granted the position to which they have carried affairs by their actions, if they cannot, through their weakness and moral prostration, fulfil their pledges to vast, helpless communities numbered by scores of millions, are they not bound in honour, in decency, and, indeed, in common sense to seek the aid of the wider instruments and authorities? I say that if all practical hopes of Britain's discharging her task have vanished—it is not my view, but it is the prevailing mood: it is the mood of those who are all powerful to day—if they have all vanished, then, at least, there is this new world organisation, brought into being by the agonies of two devastating wars, which should certainly not be overlooked or ignored.

The hon. Member for Gateshead spoke of the precedent of the multi-national membership of the United Nations, he instanced the Soviet Union and spoke of the possibility of affording those safeguards for minorities which, we are assured 678 by His Majesty's Government, Britain has lost the strength and will power to provide. He spoke of the right of minorities to appear before the Permanent Court of International Justice. I must say that I do not think such aspects should be overlooked in this position, in this period of British depression and eclipse.

I thank the House for listening so long and so attentively to what I have said. I have spoken with a lifetime of thought and contact with these topics. It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. I am sure that in the hour of our victory, now not so long ago, we had the power, or could have had the power, to make a solution of our difficulties which would have been honourable and lasting. Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself. We must face the evils that are coming upon us, and that we are powerless to avert. We must do our best in all these circumstances, and not exclude any expedient that may help to mitigate the ruin and disaster that will follow the disappearance of Britain from the East. But, at least, let us not add—by shameful flight, by a premature, hurried scuttle—at least, let us not add, to the pangs of sorrow so many of us feel, the taint and smear of shame.

§ The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander)

On this great and historic occasion when we discuss the latest major step which has been taken to give long-promised self-government to India, I should have liked this Debate to have proceeded on the same practically non-party lines as those on which previous Indian Debates have been conducted. But this afternoon a challenge has been thrown down. Quite clearly, the Leader of the Opposition, whose war leadership and many aspects of whose personality I have never ceased to respect, has thrown down a challenge on this great issue, which I am quite certain those who support His Majesty's Government are in no way afraid to take up. He has made one of his usual speeches, and from the point of view of language, perhaps one of the best phrased speeches of his lifetime. It will be recorded, and it may well be history will decide that perhaps his speech has been the principal factor in preventing the parties in India coming together.

§ Mr. Quintin Hogg (Oxford)

That will be your alibi.

§ Mr. Alexander

I would say to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) that I have listened in silence to the right hon. Gentleman's carefully phrased and prepared speech. He has not minced his language, and I do not think, therefore, that I ought to be subjected to that kind of noisy interruption.

§ Mr. Hogg

Do not lose your temper.

§ Mr. Churchill

We are not likely to lose our tempers with each other.

§ Mr. Alexander

The right hon. Gentleman opened with one or two remarks concerning the historical background to the present situation, and what has happened since 1917. I must say, while a good deal of it was historical and factual, the contrast he drew from his historical examination, between the build-up of past negotiations on Indian self-government and our present proposals, will really not bear examination. One would have thought, from what he said, that the proposals of 1942 and the statement, in 1945, of Mr. Amery, the then Secretary of State for India, had no relation at all to the kind of policy we now pursue, which is inherent in the offer we now make. For example—I take his actual words—he said there was a great difference betwen Mr. Amery's statement and our approach to this matter as to whom we should hand over power. One would have thought, from what the right hon. Gentleman said, it was absolutely incumbent upon us, in the light of the Amery statement, to hand over to a single Central Government. That is not so. I drew that deduction from what the right hon. Gentleman said. Mr. Amery said: We can only transfer our ultimate control over India to a Government or Governments capable of exercising it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1945; Vol. 411, c. 1838.]

§ Mr. Churchill

I read out the statement. There is no difference— to a Government or Governments capable of exercising it.

§ Mr. Alexander

I am going on to show what deductions the right hon. Gentleman drew. He said that our present line of saving we will get out of India on a given date, if necessary before a Central Government is set up, will mean that everyone will he staking out his claim, and 680 there will, therefore, be a lot of different authorities. Mr. Amery contemplated that there might be more than one Government too, and his statement was made on behalf of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was Prime Minister. I cannot see that there is any serious point to be made against us on that. Let us take his remarks about the setting up of the Interim Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), in his speech yesterday, said that he was sharply critical of our having set up the Interim Government, which the right hon. Gentleman called the Nehru Government, before a Central Constitution had been agreed on. What is the position there? Mr. Amery made it quite clear in his statement. He said: It is proposed that the Executive Council should be reconstituted and that the Viceroy should in future make his selection for nomination to the Crown for appointment to his Executive from amongst leaders of Indian political life at the centre and in the Provinces, in proportions which would give a balanced representation of the main communities, including equal proportions of Moslems and Caste Hindus.

§ Mr. Churchill

That was the body you dismissed.

§ Mr. Alexander

Not at all. This was the proposal of Mr. Amery, and he went on to say: His Majesty's Government feel certain that given goodwill and a genuine desire to co-operate on all sides, both British and Indian, these proposals can make a genuine step forward in the collaboration of the British and Indian peoples towards Indian self-government and can assert the rightful position, and strengthen the influence of India in the counsels of the nations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1945; Vol. 411, cols. 1835–1837.]

§ Sir John Anderson (Scottish Universities)

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman does not see the essential difference between the Viceroy making his selection from a list of persons suggested by Indian leaders, and handing over executive authority to leaders in their capacity as leaders? Does he not realise that the profound difference between the Amery proposition, and the plan favoured by His Majesty's Government, is well illustrated by the consequences that have followed from the action of His Majesty's Government?

§ Mr. Alexander

That is a very long interruption on that point.

§ Mr. Sidney Marshall (Sutton and Cheam)

Rather a puzzling one.

§ Mr. Alexander

I do not think anyone is puzzled except the hon. Member. I suppose that the interruption of the right hon. Gentleman means that, if he, with his Indian experience, had been Viceroy in these particular circumstances, he would not have used the word "selection" on any other basis than going around himself, choosing somebody, and putting him up to the Crown

§ Sir J. Anderson

Not at all.

§ Mr. Alexander

This was intended to cover proper consultation with the leaders of all the Indian parties as a step forward, genuinely offered by a Government such as there was then—

§ Sir J. Anderson

I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman unnecessarily, but we are now dealing with a matter of fact. I was associated—and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman was—directly with the discussions that resulted in the Amery statement, and I am quite certain that nothing of the kind that has come about under His Majesty's present Government was in contemplation at that time.

§ Mr. Alexander

That may sound a very ponderous statement. It is true that I was not in the Caretaker Government, but I was in the Government shortly afterwards, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that that statement was followed by the Simla Conference. The Viceroy, at that Conference, put this up and did his best to secure agreement, and nearly did so. As my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade has just pointed out, the procedure was laid down in the statement. I, there fore, submit that the point made by the right hon. Gentleman, in this respect, is not a sound one at all. An extraordinary situation develops when, two years afterwards, at this very late stage in our Debates, in connection with the offers made by the present Government, the right hon. Gentleman produces a letter from Mr. Amery, only a few days old, to explain exactly what he meant by his statement. When you have the printed word of an official Government statement in 1945, and you take it to the Indian leaders with whom you negotiate, they put their interpretation on the written 682 word as it stands, and not on a letter written two years afterwards by the then Secretary of State. We have acted on that statement, made on behalf of the Caretaker Government, and kept up the sequence of endeavours to bring self-government to India in good faith. It is a great pity that these reflections are now made against our action on that point.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said, a little later in his speech, that we had totally abandoned all our pledges to the minorities, that we had thrown them overboard, that one of the main reasons why they have come down to party division today is because—as he feels—it is our Government, and nobody in India, which has broken away in any respect from the pledges. In the case of the minorities, the position that we have always taken up is that in any Constitution framed by Indians, there ought to be provided proper protection for the minorities. I think it is only fair to both the leading parties in India to say that never at any time during our negotiations have they taken up any other line, but are anxious and willing to make the fullest legal protection for the minorities, of whatever class they may be. At the Simla Conference, in 1946, both parties pledged their word on this matter. I ask the House to consider the terms of the resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly, defining the objects of that body. It lays down that in the Constitution to be framed that there shall be guaranteed and secured to all the people of India justice, social, economic, and political equality of status of opportunity before the law, freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, and association of action subject to laws and public morality. Adequate safeguards have been provided for the minorities in the backward and tribal areas, and the Depressed Classes and backward classes. I give just as much appreciation to the good faith of Indians in a pledge of that kind, in a public Constituent Assembly, as I would give to a pledge given in my own country. I believe that they intend to form a Constitution which gives this protection, and I should very much regret it if it was to be reckoned that when members of all parties settled long ago that India ought to have self-government—and we have all professed at one time or another that they 683 should be given self-government—we were now to doubt the bona fide of the people who drew up that statement, as regards their desire to protect minorities.

The remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford with regard to the work of the Cabinet Mission in India, were, I thought, in some respects, unfortunate. I should like to ask him, for example, what he means by his words that when we were in India last year we attempted to formulate a Constitution, and force it on the Indians? I wrote down the words which the right hon. Gentleman used. When did the Cabinet Mission attempt to formulate a Constitution and force it on the Indians? Not at all. For weeks we talked to them to try to see how much progress we could make in getting the two sides together. All we did then, as we carefully explained in our White Paper on 16th May, was to make suggestions as to the procedure which might be followed to get where they want to get in having a Constituent Assembly, and in having a Constitution drafted by Indians for Indians. So far from settling a Constitution for them, it was never in our minds, or actions, and there has never been any attempt by this Labour Government, to force a Constitution at any time on the Indians.

§ Mr. Churchill

I did not use the word "force." I used the word "press." I have not my notes with me now, but at any rate there is not much in it.

§ Mr. Alexander

If my shorthand is so bad that I took "force" for "press," then I accept the correction at once, but at any rate, the idea was that we were going to push it on them.

§ Mr. Churchill

The right hon. Gentle man and his colleagues did make a great constructive contribution in the shape of a plan, both of procedure and long-term results. Whether they forced or pressed this on them we need not argue about, but they no doubt commended it to the Indians with all the address they had.

§ Mr. Alexander

I think I have said enough to make it clear in the official record that we do not accept the view which the right hon. Gentleman put for ward in his speech.

The next point in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to which I would like to refer is this: He said that this Constituent 684 Assembly had been set up on a totally inadequate franchise, that the decision of that franchise could not be regarded as right and proper for the future, that there were many people outside the franchise who had the right to be consulted, and so on. I do not know whether the House remembers that at the time of the despatch of the Cripps mission to India there was a Debate on this mater, and it was decided that the basis we adopted in our suggestions for setting up the Constituent Assembly was the one to be acted on. The position is of course that the elections for the Provincial Assemblies were held under the 1935 Act, an Act passed by a Conservative Government. They settled the basis of the franchise, they settled the special community voting, they settled the very system under which many minorities complain now that they do not get adequate representation. In 1942, after Debate, it was settled that that should be the basis for proceeding with the election of a Constituent Assembly. That is all we have done. I think it is a very great pity therefore that the right hon. Gentle man should have expressed the views he did to the House.

The right hon. Gentleman referred again to the great mistake that we made in setting up the Interim Government. As he was making that part of his speech I felt that it was very unfair to my comrades on this side of the House, who were faced with a situation, in November and December, 1945, of which it might be said that the Indian authorities were literally sitting on the top of a volcano, and that as a result of the situation which had arisen after the war the outbreak of revolution might be expected at any time. Ever since then, the Government and their supporters have laboured incessantly to try to get an agreement from India which would avoid a great outburst of that kind. In the same part of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman delivered an attack on Mr. Nehru. I do not know whether he intended it as an attack, but certainly in places his language about Mr. Nehru was pretty forcible. I have not written it down, but we will look at HANSARD in the morning. I must say that whilst in the past we have had cause to regret Mr. Nehru's attitude in the pursuit of his own conscience in regard to the leadership of his party in India and the Home Rule policy for which he was often willing to go to prison, nevertheless he is a 685 most able, cultured, experienced person to be at the head of the Interim Government which has been set up. I believe that he and his colleagues, if they are given a fair and reasonable opportunity to co-operate with the other great communities in India, will be able and willing to lead in bringing India through her present difficulties into realms of power, influence, prosperity and peace. I therefore, much regret the reference that was made.

§ Mr. Churchill

I said nothing about Mr. Nehru except that he had very good reason to be a bitter enemy of all connected with Britain—very good reason. [HON. MEMBERS: "Men of straw."] That did not specially refer to Mr. Nehru, but it does refer to the political leaders, of all the Indian parties, who have no authority. I have certainly not made any personal attack upon Mr. Nehru, except to point out that he has good reason to be our bitterest enemy in that he has been for 10 or 12 years interned in gaol.

§ Mr. Alexander

I should be very glad if at any time the right hon. Gentleman repented a little of some of the attitudes he has taken.

§ Mr. Churchill

I do not repent at all. I went out of my way, when I spoke on the last occasion on India, to draw attention to Mr. Nehru's courageous action in ordering the troops to fire on his own co-religionists in Bihar when the Government officers had failed in their duty. I have not said anything derogatory to his character, but he is an enemy of this country, and has every right to be if he chooses. That, I think, it is perfectly proper to say.

§ Mr. Alexander

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will think again and look at his words again in the light of the fact that what we want, and what I am certain the British people want, is to have longstanding friendship and brotherhood with the Indian people. After all that has happened so far, for the right hon. Gentleman to get up in the House, in the position of responsibility and authority that all his great government experience carries with it, and talk about leaders of this kind—with whom we have negotiated and with whom we have got more closely together in the last 12 months than ever before—as enemies of this country, is not a proper thing to do.

686 The right hon. Gentleman referred again this afternoon, as he did when our statement was first made, to the position of the Viceroy. I shall be content to leave it to my right hon. Friend and leader to make a general reply to that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but in view of the explanation given at the time the statement was made, I must say that I, who in the course of our Indian mission came to form a great personal friendship for Lord Wavell, resent the terms in which the right hon. Gentleman referred to him, both on 20th February and today. I feel bound to say, here in public, that I am most grateful to Lord Wavell for all that he has done to try to help us in the crisis through which we have been passing. The reason for the change was stated, and I shall leave the Prime Minister to say anything further about it which he may wish to say. But I do want to place on record my own gratitude to Lord Wavell for the services he has given. I feel quite confident that when the records of our country come to be written, he will be found among those men who have earned the right to go down to history as having displayed, at all times, the great British spirit.

I must say a word also about the rather sneering aside the right hon. Gentleman made when he referred to my right hon. Friend, my colleague, as he used to be, Sir Ben Smith. One would have thought from what the right hon. Gentleman said that one who had been in a Labour Government would be the only person ever to take an office of profit in a public organisation. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would have to search very far back in political history to find many precedents in his own party for the procedure which has been followed in that direction. The suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman that this Government seek to take advantage of the cover of brilliant war figures—I think those were the words he used—to cover melancholy and disastrous transactions was quite unworthy. Is that so? We shall wait and see, I suppose, what will be the final conclusions of the right hon. Gentleman on the change from Lord Wavell to Lord Mountbatten. We shall wait and see, but certainly we did not appoint Lord Wavell. The right hon. Gentleman opposite appointed him when he was Prime Minister—or, rather, he made the recommendation for his appointment. We certainly seek no cover We 687 are the responsible people, and we take the responsibility to this House and to the British people for our actions as a Government. In just the same way we take responsibility for whatever, has to be done in what we hope is the concluding phase of the process of handing over self-government to India under a new Viceroy. I have not yet met anybody—I was glad to see how well this was taken in the House yesterday—who does not wish well to Lord Mountbatten in the great task which he has voluntarily accepted, and who, I am quite certain will be in accord with the wishes of the Government in this matter.

There was a suggestion in the right hon. Gentleman's speech that the political parties in India do not represent the masses. It may well be true that there are large numbers of the political masses who have not yet got the franchise and do not hope to get the franchise until there is a new Constitution, but a great many of those masses who have not yet been given the franchise are certainly well behind the two political parties, according to what their particular communal association may be. Therefore, when it is said that the political parties do not represent them, I do not think that can be proved at all. I was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman pay a tribute to the fact that a great volunteer army was raised in India. It gave magnificent service. It is the best reply that could be given in this Debate today to the somewhat slighting reference made last night by the hon. Member for. Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) to India's war service, when he suggested that they had done very well out of the war, and, indeed, had done a good deal of profiteering.

§ Mr. Molson (The High Peak)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) is not here, but I listened to his speech, and I think the right hon. Gentleman should withdraw what he has said. My hon. Friend paid a tribute to the Indian soldiers. He referred to other people as being those who were going to receive the benefit of the sterling balances.

§ Mr. Alexander

There are a great many people in India who will, I suppose, take their respective shares of the sterling balances and things of that kind, but I must say that the general reference to the Indians last night was, I repeat, slighting.

§ Mr. Molson

It was not.

§ Mr. Alexander

I am only saying that the hon. Gentleman's leader, I am glad to say, has given the best answer today by referring to the volunteer services of that Indian Army and Navy. The right hon. Gentleman then asked why it was that the Labour Government have come to a time limit.

§ Mr. Molson

If I may intervene again—I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's courtesy in giving way—may I say he has been most unfair to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, who said: I am not saying that in any way as a reproach to India. Her fighting war record was a magnificent one.

§ Mr. Alexander

I will read the next sentence: But anyone who was in India during the war will bear me out when I say that the profit motive, which was limited in this country, was certainly not limited in India."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 5th March, 194.7; Vol. 434, c. 583.] I have stated my position and answered the interruption, and I do not propose to pursue the matter. I come to the next point that was made by the right hon. Gentleman, who asked why there is a time-limit for India and no time-limit for Palestine. I must say that I found it difficult to understand why the right hon. Gentleman asked the question in that way. One would think the circumstances were entirely the same. Are they? In the case of Palestine, we are acting under a Mandate, and we must go to the body that has succeeded the body which gave us the Mandate before we can change the position. That is what we propose to do. If it is said that there is no time-limit in the case of Palestine, all I can say is that we are going to refer the matter to the next General Assembly, and, therefore, that is in one respect a time-limit. We have given them warning that if they will not agree among themselves, we will take the matter to the General Assembly, and that that will be the next step. I hope that there may be preliminary studies going on under the United Nations even before the General Assembly has had the matter put before it.

§ Mr. Alexander

I think I have been fairly reasonable in giving way to hon. Members. Because of the arrangement of 689 the Debate, I have been prevented completely from making the considered speech which otherwise I would have made, but I think it is essential, when the right hon. Gentleman has made these important statements, that they should be answered immediately, as far as possible.

§ Mr. Pickthorn

I think the right hon. Gentleman—

§ Mr. Alexander

The hon. Member is a very learned gentleman, but I have expert advisers also, although they do not all come from Cambridge. [Interruption.] I wish that some hon. Members opposite would give me the same consideration as I have given them. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are doing their best to stop my speech being delivered. I was dealing with the time-limit and the comparison between Palestine and India. I pointed out that there is, in effect, a time-limit in the case of Palestine. There is a time-limit up to the time when the United Nations make a decision upon the matter when we lay it before them. The right hon. Gentleman said that if we had had the kind of sustained effort in India that was being made in Palestine, something on the lines of the Cripps plan could have been forced—the right hon. Gentleman may not have used that word, but that is what he intended to convey—upon India, and that, at least, it could have been pushed through under the threat of force. That was what the right hon. Gentleman intended to convey. He said that, instead, we were on the road to ruin. I am as certain as I stand at this Box that if we had proceeded like that, we certainly would have been on the road to ruin. The possibility could always have been canvassed, by those who did not want immediately full and free self-government in India, of trying to hold India down. That possibility would always have been there to be canvassed and experimented with.

But I understand that is not the general view of Members of the party opposite, except for a very small section of them. All the time the right hon. Gentleman was speaking this afternoon, I felt, bearing in mind the Debate in another place a few days ago, and bearing in mind the different opinions that have been expressed in these Debates by hon. Members opposite, that the principal thing that was happening was the marshalling once more, if he could possibly arrange it, of a united party on India on those lines. That was 690 the great object of the speech. I am quite certain the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) could not have agreed with a great part of that speech, otherwise he would have been completely inconsistent with previous speeches he has made in the House. Certainly, if one considers the expressions from Conservative Benches, as well as other Benches, in another place in the Debate last week, one could see that there were very serious rifts in the ranks. It would have been very much better if the Conservative Party had had second thoughts about this matter, in the other direction, as they had in another place last week. It would be very much better indeed. The attitude of a former Viceroy—and Lord Halifax was a great Viceroy—on this matter, was far more likely to lead to peace, concord and co-operation in India than the kind of speech that we had from the right hon. Gentleman. The noble Lord put himself into the position of saying that he was not exactly sure whether the policy of fixing a date was right. It might be right or wrong.

§ Mr. Churchill

On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I should very much have liked myself to refer to Lord Halifax's speech in the other House, but I understood the rule was that we could not make references to speeches in another place. I should be glad if the rule were relaxed.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont)

I was expecting that this point might be raised. I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman use any words which were used or quoted from a speech made in another place. Up to this point, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is in Order.

§ Mr. Alexander

The noble Lord to whom I was referring has had great experience in India. He took the general line that although he might not agree with the fixing of a date he could not very well object, unless he had some better alternative to propose. What better alternative was proposed by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon? What is his constructive policy? [HON. MEMBERS: "None."] It is said that the period of 14 months which will remain from the time that the new Viceroy takes over is insufficient for a Constitution to 691 be set up. Is that so? I suppose it might well be that the very difficult matters which are bound to be dealt with—the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) quite rightly referred to those difficulties—will take a considerable time, but this case is not in any sense parallel to those of many of the countries referred to yesterday. We have for years in this country been helping to do all the preliminary work on a new Constitution for India. There have been the Round Table Conference, the five years to which the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. G. Nicholson) referred last night taken for building up to the 1935 Government of India Act, the Cripps Mission, all the work of the Cabinet Com mission, and the drafting of the plan of 16th May. There are actually in being Provincial Governments elected under the Act of 1935. Undoubtedly this is a different situation to that which obtained in many other countries who have had to form a Constitution. If the people of India will come together at this stage and co-operate, in the light of the circumstances I have mentioned, it is perfectly possible for them to complete the drafting of a Constitution within 14 months.

There may well be certain matters of administration and the like which will call for adjustment and might not be finally settled on the date fixed, in June, 1948, but if they wish now to come to a settlement, that Constitution can be formed and can be sufficiently advanced for a Provisional Government at the Centre to be set up. Adjustments can be made afterwards. Beyond that, I am not prepared to speak at the moment.

§ Mr. Lipson (Cheltenham)

Has the Constitution to be approved 'by this House?

§ Mr. Alexander

I think we have said in our White Paper that one of the necessary steps is that we shall lay the necessary legislation before Parliament. That is already in the White Paper.

I had hoped to refer to many of the speeches which were made yesterday, but time has gone very quickly and there have been many interruptions. I am grateful to the leader of the Liberal Party for the careful and considered speech which he made and which, with the helpfulness given by the noble Lord in another place 692 who belongs to his party, will do a great deal to strengthen the co-operative spirit in India which we need at the present time.

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member who spoke for County Down (Sir W. Smiles) will not now come under terrible disciplinary measures from the Conservative Front Bench for the very courageous and experienced speech that he made last night. If I may say so to the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities, who is an old friend and is very experienced, I would probably be prepared to put the opinion of the hon. and gallant Member for Down about the present state of India, in regard to trade, commerce and legislation, before anything I have heard from that side of the House in this Debate.

I have known that hon. and gallant Member for many years. I have known of his connection with India's productive trade, in which I myself have had to take a considerable interest. I know of his experience, not only in trade but as a Member for many years of the Legislative Assembly of Assam. If we had any real regard for the future connection of this country with India, for building up a constant, continuing co-operation and for the development of trade we should do far better to follow the advice of the hon. and gallant Member for Down than be guided by what has been said from the Front Bench of the Opposition. The hon. and gallant Member has obviously lived with the people, helped to govern the people and has produced for the people. He knows a great deal more about the subject than anybody I have heard speak in this Debate from that side of the House. I hope that he will accept thanks from this side of the House for a great effort to promote a settlement. That is what he did last night. I hope he will not suffer for what he has done. I do not know what the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden thinks about it. I have been in the House for many years and I have seen Members of the Conservative Party receive discipline. I have heard many grumbles about the discipline of the Conservative Party.

We have had, of course, to take a very difficult decision. Everybody knows that we are doing our best to get the parties together but the gap to be bridged between them is very great. How long was this to go on? What would be the result? Were we prepared to stay in India and 693 to hold down India? That would have been a very grave decision to take, and we were not prepared to take it. We thought not only that it was a decision which would not be in accordance with the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and of the Atlantic Charter, with the formulating of which the right hon. Gentleman had so much to do, but it would also have been a decision that we ought not to face in the light of our present resources. Above all, it would have been one to which my hon. Friends on this side of the House would never have consented The desire of the Government is that the two parties—[An HON. MEMBER: "Indian parties."]—the two Indian parties will come together. I hope very much that they will. The consequences if they do not come together must be very grave in deed for India. I hope that those who speak in this Debate during the rest of the day will do their best to induce them to come together, and not make statements which are likely to keep them apart.

It is true that we have, in the end, come to put suggestions to the House and to India which will take the "bridging of the gap," if it can be accomplished, in one jump. I once heard the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) quote in private something which was said by the late Earl Lloyd-George to the effect that "When you have to jump a chasm, you cannot do it in two hops." I would say to the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities that I perceive no fundamental difference in what he has in mind, except that we should wait a considerable time longer—at least a certain measure of time longer—to see whether they came together, before taking the kind of action which we are taking now. In fact we have been doing our very best, since December, 1945, at least, to find out if they will come together without having to take such action as this. In the meantime, the services have been running down, and the position has become more difficult. If we do not take this action now, the position is bound to deteriorate. I hope and pray that we shall all in this country do our best to see that this action is received in such a spirit as to bring the two great sides in India together; and if so, I can promise them from this Box that it will always be the intention and practice, I think, of whatever Government is 694 leading this country to give them the utmost good will and to give them at all times the utmost co-operation. Whatever help it is within our resources to give, we shall be only too glad to give.

With regard to the future of defence after June, 1948, we shall also be glad, if in the course of the Treaty which we hope to make on the transference of power, they will agree to co-operate with us in that respect, subject only to the limitations of each contracting party to the provisions of the United Nations Charter.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor (Paddington, South)

The question of the defence of India was not mentioned by the President of the Board of Trade in his speech yesterday. This question of defence and of maintaining law and order is of vital importance to the peoples of India. In June, 1948, we withdraw all our troops from India, including those, of course, from the North-West Frontier. Are the Government satisfied that when we with draw all troops in June next year, the Indian authority to whom we transfer our governance will give to India that security from invasion by the hill tribes on the North-West Frontier, or by invasion from any other source, which we have given to India and which has been so vital to the peace of India?

§ Mr. Alexander

I would refer the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the question of the external defence of India to the statement made in reply to a Question by the Prime Minister on 25th February. He has already referred to what is the actual position. Of course, with regard to the defence of the Frontier, much will depend on whether the parties come together in such a way that they can maintain that splendid unity and integrity of the Indian Army.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor

The point is—

§ Mr. Alexander

It is for that reason, among others, that I beg hon. Members of this House and all parties in this country to do their best at this time not to divide India but to help to unite the parties in India in the acceptance of the plan which we have put before them, so that they may obtain unity and co-operation at the earliest possible moment; and in doing so we wish them God speed.

§ Sir Ralph Glyn (Abingdon)

I am quite sure that no one on this side of the House or, indeed, in any part of the House would want to say a single word that would prevent the Indians from coming together. I believe that the speech delivered yesterday by the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) impressed the House, because it was a speech constructive and delivered by one who has very great practical experience. There is not such a great difference between the policy of His Majesty's Government and the suggestions put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities. It seemed to me, when we heard the Leader of the Opposition today, that he emphasised what is surely necessary—that our pledges and obligations must be met, otherwise a situation is created for which we are responsible, and which we cannot possibly throw off—the responsibility of this House and of Parliament for the situation in India.

I think that this whole question has caused every one of us a great deal of pertubation and consideration as to what the right course should be. I have listened to the Debate in another place, and I must say that the speeches there, most of them delivered by people of unique experience, confirmed me in the view that the whole problem is really whether the people of this country are willing to accept the responsibility of continuing to be charged with the great task of government in India; and it is quite impossible for the instrument of government, which is derived from Parliament, to carry out its task unless it has the backing of the people of this country. I am firmly convinced that people of all parties in this country have a genuine wish to see India flourishing and contented with a form of Government which fits its own peculiar problems, and one which I hope will be prepared to enter into Dominion status.

There is one matter which I feel is of paramount importance. I do not think that the problems of India are ever sufficiently considered by this House. The opportunities are very few, and yet we have this tremendous responsibility. There was previously a Standing Joint Committee for Indian affairs, which represented the strength of the parties in this House, and on which sat Members 696 of another place. The fact that such a Standing Joint Committee was in existence enabled Parliament here to be kept in close touch with events in India, and, even more important, it gave the feeling in India that Indian affairs were being looked at and studied by Parliament here. I wish that His Majesty's Government would again consider the possibility of setting up a Standing Joint Committee for Indian affairs, so that during the intervening period of 14 months, Parliament would be kept in close contact with the events taking place in India. During the period of British occupation in India advances have been made, and we have to realise that India herself is presenting new and vital problems which I doubt very much whether Indian civil servants as administrators will be able to deal with effectively if a crisis arises. For instance, the famine of last year produced a situation which caused a great embarrassment to one of the Provincial Governments, and it was only effectively dealt with by the intervention of the Central Authority and the assistance of British troops and transport. The result of all this was that the damage done by that famine was to a great extent alleviated.

Another position which I think should never be forgotten is that owing to the improvement in health conditions the population in India is increasing at an astonishing pace. During the last 25 years the numbers added to the population are equivalent to the population of the United States and yet the size of India does not expand. That, surely, does mean that there will have to be most carefully thought out plans so that India can produce more of everything to raise the standard of living of its people. We heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities suggest that the date of 14th June, 1948, should be the date on which we should say, "If you cannot set up a Government truly representative of the great races of India, then we must consider reviewing the position and ensuring a proper administration by handing over the Government of the country to one or several authorities."

I do not think that it is appreciated that the number of people in India really interested in politics at all is small. The great masses are illiterate, and all they wa