That meets the desires of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and
his Liberal friends, and there is every prospect that they will take part in the Conference. Congress, no doubt, will refuse. The Liberals may have little immediate following in India, but they are men of ability and breadth of mind, and they can contribute an estimate of Indian political opinion by which the purely British official view may with advantage be checked. The announcement of the new procedure has been, on the whole, well received in India, and it is apparently the Government's intention that the new Conference shall meet and complete its work in time for the Select Com- mittee to be set up at the beginning of next year. Lord Willingdon has announced that such parts of the emer- gency ordinances as are still considered necessary are to be regularized by being embodied in ordinary legislation. That is a wise step. The ordinances were a regrettable necessity, but the authority of Government, as the Viceroy observed, has to be maintained as much for the sake of the Indian Government of to-morrow as for the British Government of to-day.
