THE SIMON COMMISSION [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sna,—In

your leading article, on this subject in last week's issue you refer to Sir John Simon's statement that the prospect

of a boycott is not so formidable as it was. I recently spent some months in India and, since returning home, have received many letters from all parts of India by each mail. I am bound to record my impression that, except possibly among the classes who wish to intensify communal differences, and possibly, as you suggest, among the non-politically-minded; the prospect of boycott is more intense. But, after all, it is the politically-minded and not the non-politically-minded Indians who will have to work the proposed new Constitution.

and without their co-operation it is bound to be a failure. There is a good deal of misapprehension in this country as to the " equal terms " offered to the Indian Committees.

You say that

" Sir John Simon invited representative bodies in India to form Committees which can sit with the Commission ' on equal terms."'

That was certainly what Mr. Ramsay MacDonald seemed to understand would happen, and what he said he was " very glad to find " the Government accepted,

" that there should be no sense of inferiority and no relationship of inferiority impoiled upon the Indian Commission."—House of Commons Debate on the Statutory Commission. Hansard, Vol. 210, No. 125, Col. 2230. November 25th, 1927.

What Sir John Simon actually offered to the Indian Legis- latures in his letter of February 6th, 1928, was that the " memoranda and testimony " put forward by the Government should

" be scrutinized, and if necessary elucidated from the Indian side on free and equal terms."

It should be noted that the " free and equal terms " only apply to scrutinizing and, if necessary, elucidating, and nothing

more. That is far from implementing the understanding outlined by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in the House of Commons as to which he was " very glad to find" the Government were in agreement.

There are other points to which leading Indians object as preventing them co-operating on " free and equal terms," but to go into these would involve my encroaching on too much of your space.—I am, Sir, &c.,

D. GRAHAM POLE, Major ;

Hon. Secretary,

British Committee on Indian Affairs.

Hill Cottage, The Ridgway, Wimbledon, S.W. 19.