Agreement in India The suggestion that the Constitutional dispute in
India might ultimately have good results, not bad, has in the end been justified. The resignation of the Ministries in Bihar and the United Provinces was not followed by like action else- where, and in those two Provinces themselves not only have the resignations been withdrawn, but joint statements by the Governor and the Prime Minister on the question in dispute have been issued in each case. As to procedure, there are to be no wholesale releases of political prisoners (the numbers concerned in Bihar and the United Provinces are small) but each case is to be reviewed by the Governor and the Minister, and it may be assumed that the Governor will do his utmost to avoid disagreement. This leaves the much more difficult situation in Bengal to be dealt with in the same way. The most encouraging feature of the whole controversy is the evidence of a new sense of political responsibility in India. That is true of the Ministries themselves, of the Press and of the Indian National Congress, which was studious to do nothing to extend or aggravate the dispute. All this is precisely the effect which everyone hoped the institution of autonomy would have. There are, moreover, satisfactory signs that the sympathy expressed in this country with Indian aspirations has had a definitely emollient effect.
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