NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE Secretary of State for India may, as he has said, have been neither disappointed nor depressed by the reception by leading Indians of the Government's plan for a settlement of the Indian question, but he can hardly have been exhilarated by it. The plan itself was hardly calculated to excite enthusiasm, for it went little— and could go little—beyond previous proposals, but it did, at any rate, provide evidence of the new Government's desire to promote a settlement at the earliest possible opportunity, and it gives Lord Wavell an opportunity to resume the attempt that failed at the Simla Conference. Some allowance, moreover, must be made for the fact that both the principal parties, or communities, in India are so habituated to destructive criticism that there is little ground for expecting much else from them. But amid the general expressions of disappointment in the Congress camp that the Labour Government did not offer India immediate independence—it has, like the Coalition Government, offered it the direct means to obtain independence— one fact of importance emerges, that Congress has decided not to boycott the coming provincial elections. Nothing has been more essential since 1939 than to get the normal constitutional govern- ment which was then operating in the provinces re-established. In spite of the restricted franchise and other disabilities, the provincial Governments elected in 1937 had settled down to working remark- ably well. If they can get started afresh, and given time to acquire political experience, the whole problem of India's future may be capable of approach from a new angle, the leaders of the provincial Governments being drawn on for service or discussion at the centre, as is indeed contemplated in the Government's new scheme. The provincial elections are therefore the next step in India's political evolution. When they are over the difficulties in the way of draft- ing a constitution may be diminished. At any rate, the road to a new attempt in that field will be opened.
