Round Table Developments As for the Round Table Conference itself,
a statement by Sir Samuel Hoare on Wednesday and an answer by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on the same day go far towards giving the assurance asked for on another page of this issue that the Government will refuse firmly to yield to the demands Mr. Churchill and a section of the Government's following in the House are putting forward. The question by which the Conference stands or falls is responsibility at the centre. Is the new Govern. ment of India to be responsible ultimately (apart from certain agreed safeguards) to an elected legislature at Delhi or to a Secretary of State in Whitehall ? For Mr. Gandhi, of course, it is responsibility at the centre or nothing. More significant is the letter signed by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr. Sastri and other Hindu moderates declaring that they would never have come to England at all merely to secure provincial autonomy without responsibility at the centre. Though no final agreement can be reached in London, owing to the refusal of the Moslems to discuss central responsibility till the com- munal question has been settled, there is good reason now to believe that the Government will reiterate in unmistakable language the declaration the Prime Minister made last January in favour of the responsibility of both Central and Provincial Legislatures.
