Pledges to India Lord Salisbury, in suggesting, in connexion with
the Prime Minister's decision on the communal question in India, that Mr. MacDonald " is not yet prepared to deal with responsibility at the centre," seems to have forgotten that the Government is fully committed to the intro- duction in a single Bill of its proposals regarding both the central and the provincial legislatures, It is quite true that a short interval is likely to elapse between the creation of the new provincial councils and the new Central Assembly, if only because negotiations with the Princes are necessary. in connexion with the latter, but any statement that implies a separation of the reform scheme into two distinct and separate phases will only arouse fresh suspicion and mistrust in India. The Government's position is clear, and when the time comes for legislation in the Imperial Parliament it must be in the form of a single measure dealing with both Provinces and centre, and, it will of course, provide for responsibility at the centre. Great Britain has been pledged -to? that since 1919. * * * *
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