Mr, MacDonald said:—"It is no gocd your starting to work on Indian Constitution and asking any outside authority to settle one of the essential conditions to the suc~ cessful working of that Constitu-on. Therefore I hope you 1 end all your energies to creating fan atmosphere of goodwill and ress"
"Inthe Franchise Committee of the Round-Table Conference speeches were delivered by Mrs. Subbarayan and Begum Shah Nawaz, who submitted memoranda on the position of women under the proposed new Indian Construct The speakers said it was vital that the Round-Teble Conference self should define the future posi-Hon of women, as it would be hard secure a proper examination of he question if it were postponed to a future date, after the Indian Cone stitution had been reformed and the 1s of others to special consider-ion had been weighed, and The present votinie gua given on equal terms to men and wotnen and. based mainly on proerty, produced it actual practice very great discrepancy between them in voting power, as the num-tet of women holding property was They hoped that a franchise qwalifieation would be accepted giving women their due weight in returning representatives to the legislative bodies. They also felt strongly the necessity for special consideration of the question of seats for women in the legislatures. Bven with a franchise which produced equal voting power with men, they doubted whether, at first, real equality of opportunity in the' political arena would be produced owing, to the force of convention and habit.
In view of the importance of the first years of India's new life, they Jdeclared, it was vital that the voice of women in the legislatures should]
heard and they urged some spe-[cial arrangement all Jarily a small proportion of the seal Subsequently, when the public was no longer startled by of women in public lif learnt to appreciate their presence, such a provision should no. longer be necessary. They further suggested that the principle that sex! should be no fication for serving the country should be entbodied in the Constitution.
After a general discussion the! Franchise Commitice discussed the question of the number of voters in provincial legislatures and when ther the basis of the feanchiso should be broadened.
As to the general basis of the franchise, views were freely expressed by the delegates. In the Simon Report an extension of the franchise to include ten per cent. of the adult, population was recomimended. The view was advanced to-day that the increase might be up to 25 per cent. and a suggestion was made that such a proposal might be accepted for a period of ten years subject to review every There was some further discussion on the proposal that groups fof say 20 villagers should nominate Jone of their number to go on the! voters' register as their "Voice.
The general opinion of the meeting was that the basis of franchise should be governed by what was! considered practicable by an expert franchise committee, which must in due course be set up; and, re-carding the qualifications of voters, it was felt that an expert committee should be added to ensure as far a3 possible the same proportion of voters to the population in different communities, thus removing, to a large extent, the disabilities' which many communities now suffer.
Considerable discussion took place on whether there should be a property qualification and there appeared to be general agreement that some form of economic qualification was desirable.
The Federal Structure Sub-committee of the Indian Round-Table wed its general]
today of No. 4 of the heads of subjects prepared by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Sankey, with, special reference to the distribution of seats in the upper and lower houses between the federating units.
Consideration of representation of the Crown was deferred untill questions regarding the constitution, character, powers and -respor ties of the federal executive were placed before the Committee.—Wireless through Reuter.
Tendency Towards Force London, Dee. 22, The Government of India's appreciation of the situation up to December 20 states that there have been further acts of sabotage in Bombay City, followed by. clashes! with the police which, together with other recent, incidents, show that resistance to the boycott on the part!
cloth dealers is being followed by an abandonment of the policy of non-vidence and an increasing) tendency towards the use of fore.
Deterioration of the tone of the Press continues and a small section is giving direct or indirect incitement to crimes of violence.
There is nothing communal in the outrages reported. The causes appear to be economic, supplemented joy the encouragement given by the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.