India The' Maharajah of Bikaner's outspoken reply to the Maharajah
of Patiala's rejection of Federation disposes of any. fear .that the Chamber of Princes might 'be stampeded into a serious -split by that ill-timed act of dissension. Not all 'the Princes, perhaps, would condemn it. as unreservedly as the Maharajah of Bikaner does ; but it should be remembered that the eight principal States, with half the population and nearly half the area comprised by the whole of them, are committed to the principle of Federation, while most of -the others have no quarrel with that principle, but only with the methods by which it has been proposed to put it into practice. There has always been a section of the Chamber which wanted to federate outwards rather than inwardsz—to achieve, that is to say, a federal structure within Indian India, and then to fuse it with a federation of British India. Under an arrangement of this sort the smaller States would feel more certain of being " on the map." The breakdown of the negotiations between the Nationalist Moslems and the Working Committee of the All-India Moslem Conference came as neither a surprise nor a disappointment. At best they could only have produced an agreement to an- experimental compromise between joint and separate electorates, which would have been foredoomed to• failure. It is better •that the communal situation should be starkly defined, and not obscured by -false hopes. * * * *
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