He regretted that the purely academic question of right to secede from the Empire had been raised. All pledges to India were pledges Felating to its future development, in the words of the 1919 preamble, "as an integral part of the Empire. It was so stated in the Irwin Declara tion. It would apply to the Irwin Declaration even if it were not stated because that declaration was solely put forward as an interpretation of the preamble.
Quite obviously, "none of the pledges included a promise of status
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.