SIR,—The answer to Dr. Lofthouse's statement that "this country has
presented India with scheme after scheme for freedom from British contro!, all of them rejected unconditionally because they did not leave the position of Congress supreme and unchallengeab:e," surely is that, if Congress is as unrepresentative as we are now assured, the removal of British control would mean its swift liquidation. It does not seem to me to make sense. And I know nothing of this succession of schemes. Until thc Cripps proposals there was nothing except a promise of Dominion Status, as a far-off divine event some time. Few here realise how great was the Round Table Conference deterioration when the Coa'ition Government pushed out the Labour Government. The final constitution was one imposed "with the whole emphasis on safeguards and without any attempt to win Indian support or interest," as Geoffrey Garratt, who was in the Conference and had been a " bureaucrat " (and to the end remained a moderate) has said. To this day the Indian Moderates never forget that the final joint memorandum which every group (including the Europeans) signed was not met in any one point. The Cripps Mission was the first break away into anything definite, and after three years of war it offered nothing in the way of representa- tive government at the Centre—which is the weak point in India's war effort.
Perhaps Mr. Gandhi's worst disservice is that by his close friendship with certain Indian business magnates he let the Prime Minister get past that swift one about Congress being their agent. The ranks of Tory Tuscany cheered, naturally shocked that any party should have anything to do with Big Business. Next followed the innuendoes (they amounted to nothing more, as The Times of September 15th pointed out from New Delhi) that Congress had been working with Japan. If the Government have proof they should publish it, and let Congress reply in the Press: and not simply leave poison to act. Other things also have not been published—for example, that Mr. Jinnah (as bad an obstructionist as Mr. Gandhi but alleged to represent the 90 odd millions whom the Premier cited as solidly for us) has just said: "The British Government cannot expect us to support the war effort, for we have no say in how that war effort is to be used. You cannot expo* the Muslim League to be a recruiting agent or to raise money." We are told that nothing can be done. Congress must have 1` a change of heart," which anyway (it is added) would not be real. I don't know about that. I have seen the most wonderful changes of heart in all kinds of unexpected places, about Japan, Italy, Russia. The phrase, however, is one of the clichés of a time that feeds on cliches. What Congress needs more is a change of conviction about ourselves, which cannot happen until there are a new Viceroy and Secretary of State and some way of getting past the fog of censorship, to persuade Indians that both Mr. Jinnah's intransigence and Mr. Gandhi's non-violence are impossible. There is, too, a feelbg all over India that the Premier has no keenness to see India self-governing, and continues rather pointedly to omit India (apart from occasional references to her soldiers) from messages which have nobly included every other allied country. He has told us that he found Cairo H.Q. needed drastic cleaning up. No one could wish to add to the burden he carries for us all. But sooner or later a British Prime Minister will have to fly even farther than to Teheran or Moscow. If he went to New Delhi he might get a new slant there also, and find that more than Mr. Gandhi blocks the efficient conduct of India's war effort —Yours sincerely,
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