17 SEPTEMBER 1937, Page 6

One of the last issues of Mr. Gandhi's paper Harijan

to reach this country contains a leading article (by Mr. Gandhi himself) which opens with a significant sentence : " I have been receiving several letters from different provinces protesting against the exclusion of their or their friends' names from Ministerships, and asking me to intervene. I do not think there is a single province from which such complaints have not been received. In some such letters dire results, including communal riots, have been threatened if the excluded persons' claims are not considered."

This is an instructive concomitant of the establishment of provincial autonomy. Mr. Gandhi deals firmly and admir- ably with such pretensions, from the general text that Ministerships are not prizes but avenues of service.