The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary correspondent writes : The
India Bill has been proceeding through its report stage in such an atmosphere of bored reasonableness that the spectators in the Gallery might well have thought that it was an agreed measure. The most lively debate has been on indirect election. The Liberals made a last effort to secure a mitigation of the evils which they believe inherent in the change from direct election to indirect election for the central Legislature, made on the Joint Select Committee to satisfy Sir Austen Chamberlain and the central Conservative opinion on the committee. They proposed to give the right to Indian opinion to make repre- sentations to the British Government for an alteration in the system of election before the 10 years now prescribed in the Bill are over. It was clear from the very conciliatory answer of Sir Samuel Hoare that their long fight may even now at the eleventh hour gain a measure of success. I understand that if the Lords introduce an amendment limiting the operation of indirect election to five years the Government would not be disposed to resist it.
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