The India of To-morrow
NOTHING emphasises the importance of the new White Paper on India more than the fact that the adoption of the proposals it embodies involves the total repeal of the existing Government of India Act of 1919. So the last chapter of the prolonged discussions that began with the appointment of the Simon Commission in 1927 opens. Before it closes a Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament will have considered the Government's proposals clause by clause, together with representative Indians ; a Bill, framed in the light of the Select Com- mittee's debates, will be brought before Parliament, and when it is duly passed the new regime—definitely substi- tuted for the old, not merely evolved from it—will be brought into existence by Royal Proclamation. That at least is the programme the Government has in contempla- tion. Its execution is probable but by no means certain. The new constitution has its enemies here and in India. Mr. Churchill and his friends attack it for going much too far in the direction of self-government. The Congress party certainly, and perhaps the moderates too, in India will attack it for not going far enough. The natural conclusion, that the proposals do in fact represent a well-judged middle course, may be reasonable enough, but everything will depend on whether the volume of support from sober and practical men in both countries is sufficient to put the British and Indian extremists in a minority too inconsiderable to be dangerous.
From that point of view the White Paper invites one general comment. It sets out clearly enough the main features of the new regime—a bicameral federal legislature at the centre, composed of representatives of the States and of British India, with an executive responsible to the Chambers ; and eleven autonomous provincial • governments, elected on a franchise which gives a vote to about 27 per cent, of the adult population—but dwells at wholly disproportionate length on the reservations and safeguards which reduce the central government, and to a lesser degree the provincial governments, to something much less than the free and independent organizations they appear to be. To some extent that was inevitable. The powers of the federal and the provincial legislatures can be briefly described. The special prerogatives reserved to the Governor-General and the provincial Governors must be more precisely indicated, that there may be no misunderstanding of them on either side. But it looks none the less as though the Cabinet were more concerned to convince the Churchills and Page Crofts of the reality of the safeguards than to convince India of the reality of the self-government offered to it.
That is dangerous strategy, for unless the Constitution commends itself to India as reasonable and just it is futile to hope that the mechanism set up under it can yield results satisfactory either to this country or to India itself. Dominion status has been clearly and definitely promised to India—to an India in which the more vocal sections were demanding not that, but independence—and while it is true that no date has been set for the realization of the recognized aim, it is a fatal policy to be always meeting a clamorous people with the explanation that "some day" means "not yet." The opponents of the White Paper policy are satisfied that the world can stand still, that the insurgent demands of Eastern peoples, stimulated for better or worse to new desires by their contacts with Western civilization, can be suppressed by a blank and adamant negative. It is fatal folly. The question is not whether the White Paper withholds enough to content *r. Churchill.. but whether it concedes enough to induce India to accept the plans it outlines and make them work.
It has to be frankly recognized that what is being conferred on India, if it can be rightly termed Dominion status at all, is Dominion status qualified by the retention of immense powers in the hands of the Governor-General.
• Indians may well be excused if they concentrate their attention and their criticism on this section of the document. Three departments—Defence, External Affairs and Ecclesiastical Administration—remain com- pletely in the Governor-General's control, and he can if necessary add provisions to the Budget in order to supply the needs of these Departments adequately. In addition to that the Governor-General has "special responsibility "in certain wide fields, and in those spheres he may in the last resort refuse the advice of his Ministers and legislate by decree over their heads. In the matter of finance the freedom of action of the new Legislature will be seriously restricted in other ways, in that by far the greater part of the annual expenditure at the centre —in respect of pensions, civil service salaries, defence and the service of loans—will be non-votable, the Legislature having no power to oppose its automatic insertion in the Budget, or to modify it in any respect. For Indian op- ponents of the new proposals the cry that self-government that does not include financial control is no self-govern- ment lies ready to hand.
The cry, clearly, is plausible enough. The reserved powers do on paper make a formidable show, and it is matter for some regret that the authors of the White Paper did not, as they well might have done, expand the positive side of the new proposals. But a little sober examination changes the aspect of things considerably. The reservation of Defence, External Affairs and Eccle- siastical Administration, for the present at any, rate, has always been taken for granted, though the Legislature may well demand the power to set some limit on defence expenditure. In the field of finance, it is essential to maintain India's credit in world markets and enable her to borrow cheaply. Only so can her financial position be established at all. That is the justification for tem- porary measures to maintain confidence among potential lenders till the new regime has created confidence for itself by proof of its ability to endure. And as to the provisions for a possible clash between the Governor-General and the Legislature, they are inevitable in a document that must necessarily make provision for every contingency.
• But if in fact the likelihood of a clash were to be assumed the White Paper would hardly be worth discussing at all. Actually, the presumption is precisely the contrary. It will be to no one's interest so much as to the Governor- General's and his Ministers' to make the new system work. The single aim of the former will be to avoid using any one of the special powers entrusted to him. The one aim of Ministers, it may be hoped, will be to manifest a modera- tion and a statesmanship that will justify the gradual abolition of one after another of the reserved powers. Some provision for that, lacking in the White Paper, ought unquestionably to find a place in the Bill to be laid before Parliament. In the new Legislature the represen- tatives of the States will have an important steadying influence, and the large Moslem element may be a useful check on possible Hindu impetuosity. Given the right spirit on both sides (which is the spirit neither of British nor of Indian extremists) the constitution outlined in the White Paper can be worked successfully to the great benefit of India and the Commonwealth as a whole.; Without that spirit no constitution can be worked at a)-1.
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