LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [Correspondents are requested to 'keep their
idlers as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of . the Week" paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.]
INDIA 'AND THE PRINCES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—One of your correspondents remarks truly that much is being heard just now about the chances of the Princes' acces- sion to Federation and about the sanctity of their treaties. But much less is being heard -about other facts concerning the future relationship of the Princes to this _country and to British India under the new Constitution ; for example, about such facts as these :
1. That our treaties and sanads with the Princes are to be solemnly reaffirmed as part of the inducement to them to accede, and that this involves a pledge to defend the Princes, except in cases of grave misgovernment, if their subjects rebel against them. Even if this is true, as your correspondent suggests, only of our engagements with the minority of the States, it includes the larger States and is surely_ a serious commitment. - 2. That the Princes' representatives will have the power in the Central Legislature, if they choose to use it, of combining with other representatives of vested interests to block .pro- gressive legislation in such matters as marriage, inheritance rights, factory laws and industrial disputes in British India, though the representatives of British India will not be allowed even to put a question in the Legislature concerning such matters in the States.
3. That the chances of the whole Constitution becoming operative—not only the Federal part of it but the Provincial —is to depend on the Princes, so that the question of whether British India shall or shall not be permitted a further step towards self-government is to depend not on the will of the country concerned but on that of the Princes.
It is a strange thing that rights such as these should be conferred by the Parliament of 'a self-goierning democracy upon autocratic rulers, and the question of how it will affect the subjects of these autocrats is perhaps receiving less attention than it deserves.—Yours faithfully,
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