A Wise Move in India
British Cabinets have a genius for doing the right thing too late. In September last year a statement was issued by the Viceroy of India announcing his intention, in spite of the fact that various political differences in India still remained, to invite a number of representative Indians to join his executive council, and in addition to establish a War Advisory Council on which important interests in India as a whole, including the Indian States, would be represented. In the House of Commons on Tuesday of this week Mr. Amery announced that the advance promised ten months ago has just been made. The Executive Council will now consist of twelve members,' eight of them Indians. The new National Defence Council will consist of about thirty members, all of them Indians. This body will sit every two months in camera and be given all possible confidential information about the course of the war, in which Indian industry, as well as Indian troops, is playing so large a part. This means no constitutional change. That is not thought practicable in the middle of a war, though on this judgement may yet have to be revised. But the new measures do associate a number of able Indians, representative, not directly of political parties but of widely differing schools of thought, with the day-to-day functions of government and the continuous prosecution of the war. As such they are to be welcomed cordially. On the solvitur ambulando basis they may achieve much. If the right thing has been done too late to have the maximum effect it is not too late to have some.
