India in Suspense

BY SIR ST ANLEY REED.

Bombay, December.

TO those who were in India during the height of 1 the civil disobedience movement the change in the scene is almost inconceivable. I missed the worst _days of 1930, but coming back in the cold weather felt how the movement had exacerbated racial feelings and opened a deep gulf between the communities which bad almost closed. And I was in Bombay last cold weather when the Ordinances were fresh and Mr. Gandhi was arrested. Apart from the active manifestations of lawlessness there was the profound uneasiness every- where ; no one knew where he stood from day to day ; business was almost at a standstill ; Gandhiism was in every walk of life a hateful social tyranny.

I landed here on December 1st, • 1932, to fmd a totally different situation. Outwardly there is no sign of political unrest. Everyone goes about his occasions without uneasiness. The trade boycott has broken down and business is carried on under normal conditions: Despite the frantic protests of half-baked professors and embittered politicians, the legislature has ratified the Ottawa Pact. Everywhere the Legislatures have trans- lated or arc translating the essential clauses of the Ordinances into Special Powers Laws. Lord and Lady Willingdon have been passing hectic days in Bombay. They have been welcomed with enthusiasm everywhere, and at every corner large crowds of the common people have met to cheer them.

Trying to analyse the causes of this remarkable change, it does not seem to me that they can be attributed to any single factor ; they are a combination of several. Foremost is an awakening to the real meaning of civil disobedience and resentment at the dangerous and abominable tyranny it represented. Then there is a realization of the immense losses it inflicted on the trading and professional classes, especially in Bombay. City, where there is a bitter feeling of resentment at Gujarati millowners at Ahmedabad financing the Congress movement, which strangled Bombay trade and industry whilst Ahmedabad flourished undisturbed. Paradoxical as it may seem, a good deal of this reaction can be traced to the Poona Pact between Gandhi and the Caste

Hindus relative to the Untouchables. There is a wide- spread feeling that the country was stampeded into a " settlement " which is unjust to the Caste Hindus ;

gives the Depressed Classes a larger representation than they can find the men to fill, with a consequent further

lowering of our reduced standard of public life ; and the danger that the country may be further stampeded into mischievous changes by .the threat of further _fasts.

Mr. Gandhi's influence has so declined that his talk of further fasts leaves almost everyone unmoved ; indeed, a good many Hindus are protesting against the latitude of the Government in permitting him such freedom for the pursuit of his campaign against Untouchability.

The worst feature of the present situation is the 'deep- seated economic depression. As no unemployinent figures are published, it is almost impossible to estimate it. It falls with the greatest weight on the middle classes, which have to bear the whole burden of Poor Law and Unem- ployment relief through the Joint Family system ; but is terribly severe on all classes. In one concern with which I am connected we have an army of between two and three hundred applicants every month for jobs on a com- mencing wage of about forty rupees (£4) a month. Fully qualified doctors and solicitors are clamouring for clerk. ships. This follows on a rise in taxation far transcending anything India has experienced in the past. A reduction in the scale of expenditure, accompanied by an active development policy, is the pressing need of the hour.

Another factor in the situation is a certain, though qualified, faith in the Round Table Conference. The faith is weak, but feeble as it is it has influence. If the Confer ence breaks- down we must expect a marked- reaction towards Congress, not from any love of Congress, but as the only means of expressing Indian political thought. It is easy to jeer at the Liberals, and to say they represent none but themselves. But we cannot deal with Indian politics as if they were organized on the Western model: The strength of the Congress lay not only in its organiza- tion, but as the expression of Indian nationalism. The strength of the Liberals lies not in their organization, for they have none ; but because they represent the ambi-. tions of reasonable Indians. If they are cast into the political wilderness again, there will be no force between Government and the Congress.

In this matter the question of finance is paramount. I am told, on authority so high that I cannot ignore it, that under pressure from the City, the Government is proposing either entirely to reserve Federal Finance, or so to hedge in what they call responsibility by condition; that it will mean nothing. This, I am convinced, will be fatal to the. Conference, and to the financial connexion between.

Britain and India. 'Indian opinion is prepared, if reluc- tantly, to accept the financial securities outlined by Lord Reading at the first Conference. But it will not accept a constitution where there is not a definite responsibility for finance. Moreover, if Indian constitutional progress is wrecked on the opposition of City bondholders, it will

create a feeling of ill-will disastrous to the City in the long run. We have one evil legacy in the aftermath of the

Lancashire demand for the cotton excise, which damned fiscal relations between the two countries for a generation ; we do not want another. To my mind the least justifiable cog in the administrative-machine is the method of con- trolling Indian finance. In theory it is in the hands of the Secretary of State ; as he never knows anything of finance, it is controlled by a junta at the India Office, exercising plenary power without any responsibility,

During Montagu's days he once said to me—" I have never exercised any control over the Finance Committee, nor interfered with it ; I have given instructions that. you can call for any papers you like in order to verify this statement." My reply was—" Mr. Montagu, you have said the last word in condemnation of the system ; that means the Finance Committee is an imperium in itnperio, exercising absolute power and responsible to no one." This is a system against which. I have fought for over twenty years, and its maintenance cannot be justified.