Round Table Progress
FOR reasons that must, on the whole, be accepted as adequate the Third Round Table Conference has been sitting in private. That has, no doubt, speeded up the work, for members have not felt themselves under the necessity of delivering speeches mainly for outside con- sumption. But the official communiques have given considerably more prominence to declarations of British policy by Sir Samuel Hoare than they have to criticisms of proposals by the Indian members, and there have indisputably been sharper differences of opinion on certain points, notably defence, than the authorized reports would indicate. It is as well that this should be realized, for while the present Conference is not charged with the presentation of a list of formal findings, but rather with the formulation of a general plan which the British Government will on its own responsibility embody in a draft Bill, it is of the first importance that the main lines of that plan should be such as the Indian delegates can defend with sincerity and conviction on their return to India. They represent as a whole the most liberal and conciliatory section of Indian opinion. A plan that will not commend itself to them will commend itself to no one. To achieve a large measure of agreement with them is not merely desirable ; it is little short of essential. Fortunately, considerable progress in that direction has already been made. The franchise question has been settled, broadly on the basis laid last winter by Lord Lothian's Committee. About the powers of the Governor-General and the relation of the States to British India in the new federal system there is little difference of opinion. The same is true of certain secondary questions, like Anglo-Indian education. In these domains the work of the conference has been harmonious and effective.
But at the present moment a stage more difficult is being traversed. Safeguards are under discussion, and the Indian members are frankly uneasy at the derogation, as it seems to them, from full and unrestricted self- government contemplated on the British side. That is both inevitable and unfortunate—unfortunate because of the handle discontent over these problems can give to extremists in India. It is all too easy to represent Whitehall as reluctant to relinquish its military grip on India or the City of London its financial hold. Arguments along those lines rest mainly on misrepresentation, and it is as necessary for the Indian delegates to realize the need for prudence as it is for the British members to realize the need .for courage. In the matter of defence it is common ground that the ultimate responsibility for the safety of India must for the present rest with the Governor- General. It is accepted that he shall have under him a Minister of Defence, but while the Indians want that Minister (like the Cabinet as a whole) to be chosen from among the members of the Legislature, all sections of the British delegates insist that if the Governor-General is to be responsible for defence he must be free to choose from anywhere he will the best man available for the post of Defence Minister. In view of the manifest importance of the post, the case for maintaining the Governor- General's freedom at the outset is strong. Conditions in India are by no means the same as in a country with settled traditions like our own, and the fact that the Minister for War in Great Britain is regularly a member of one of the two Houses is not a sufficient reason why the same practice should immediately be followed in India. The Indianization of the whole defence system, including, of course, the output of Indian officers, must be developed steadily, and with an absolute pledge from this side that as and when the new instrument proves itself able to bear the strain, responsibilities up to the limit of that strain shall be laid on it. It is as true of defence as of every other outstanding problem in connexion with India that solvitur ambulando. The government of the country will be in the hands of a Governor-General and of Ministers responsible to the Legislature. It must be assumed that it will be the sincere endeavour of all the parties concerned to make the constitution work. If it is, then the safeguards considered necessary to-day can be and will be gradually discarded. If it is not, then nothing that is put on paper is worth the paper it is put on.
The same is broadly true in regard to finance. The anxiety of the Indian delegates to reduce all safeguards in that sphere to a minimum is perfectly intelligible. Self-government which does not include financial inde- pendence is self-government in a very truncated form, and safeguards can easily be. interpreted by the malignant as a form of distrust. An Indian administration that started without the confidence of the British Parliament which brought it into being could have little hope of commanding the confidence of its own countrymen. That is one side of the argument—but only one side. The other equally demands consideration. The new administration will need to borrow money, if only to replace existing loans, many of which are falling in within the next few years. And apart from them there may well be need for new borrowings for legitimate productive purposes. India is a poor country and it will make a great deal of difference what rate it has to pay for its money. The rate will be low so far as the potential lenders, which means in the main the City of London, have confidence in the conduct of India's finances, and high in so far as they have not. That there is ground for misgivings is undeniable, not on account of any shortcomings on India's part, but by reason of the defaults recorded almost daily by borrowing countries in every continent. Everyone wants double security for his money to-day. India is taking her destinies into her own hands and while she will inevitably make mistakes, as this country and every other country did in the early stages (and happy if it was only in the early stages) of its political evolution there is every reason to believe in her capacity to manage her affairs better than a great many other independent States.
But she cannot afford to add to her own difficulties. Any suggestion of interference with her internal financial system, or of the establishment of some veto on the main provisions of her annual budgets, would rightly be resisted to the death. But such provisions as would place the service of existing loans beyond all suspicion are more in India's interests than in anyone's. There is, indeed, a common interest in the matter. The best security the City of London can have is in the creation of a strong and stable Indian Government, and any stipulations calculated to make such a govern- ment's way difficult will be fatal to the object they are intended to serve. On the other side, as has been said already, willingness to give all reasonable guarantees regarding existing loans is the condition on which future loans at favourable rates can be counted on. Mutual recognition of those fundamental facts ought to provide a bridge quite broad enough to span what- ever gulf may still exist between the two views on finance.
Previous page
