The Indian Deadlock
The Viceroy of India's conferences on Wednesday with Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Indian National Congress, and Mr. Jinnah, the Moslem leader, following on Sir Samuel Hoare's speech in the House of Commons last week, raise hopes that a way may yet be found out of the Indian deadlock. Sir Samuel made it c ear that Dominion status for India meant nothing less in any respect than Dominion status as enjoyed by Canada, Aus- tralia, South Africa and New Zealand. That is and must be so, but the extent of the autonomy, amounting indeed in all essentials to full independence, enjoyed by the Dominions, must be fully considered when India—with the relations between British India and the States, and the con- flict of interest and sentiment between the Congress Party and the Moslems and various minorities, unsettled—claims Dominion status definitely and unconditionally at the end of the war. We have not shrunk from certain risks in our consti- tutional evolution, as the grant of self-government to South Africa in 1909 testified, but that does not discount the wisdom of ordered progress. But dissension between so im- portant a body as the Congress and the British Government at the present moment is deplorable, and no risks which the Viceroy feels it safe to take are likely to be vetoed here. The best development to hope for is an agreement between him and the Indian leaders on a method of associating them fully and responsibly with the central administration. That would go far to restore confidence and cordiality before irremediable harm has been done. And the Congress Provincial Ministries which have resigned could at once resume.
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