PLEDGES TO INDIA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In
the Spectator of November 4th Sir Patrick Fagan says that Great Britain has never given "a pledge to establish responsible government in India," and "provide for respon- sibility at the centre." He forgets the Report signed by Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford. Parliament accepted that Report, and a new Constittition was passed by the British Parliament on the basis of that Report. That Report stated : "The welfare and happiness of hundreds of millions of people are in issue. . . . Because the work already done has called forth in India a new life, we must found her Government on the co-operation of her people and make such changes in the existing order as will meet the needs of the more spacious days to come." And they declared their conception of the eventual future of India as—" a sister- hood of States, self-governing in all matters of purely local or provincial interest, but presided over by a Central Government increasingly representative of, and responsible to, the people of all the States, and representing the interests of all India on equal terms with the self-governing units of the British Empire."
If that is not a " pledge " to create a "Brown Dominion in the Empire at the earliest date possible, then I confess that the word " pledge " has lost its meaning. Parliament has since authorized a further great advance towards the creation of the "Brown Dominion."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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