The Simon Commission A Calcutta correspondent send us to-day an interesting st events s they avait Sir John and his fellow-Con setting w" work on their inquiry. Their former visit to India was in the nature of a general look round.
the real business has begun, uscertain how far Indi government, The opinion of dispassionate obs-r-vers is that she certainly is not. Those who had to put in operation the: Government of India Act of 1920, which was by way of a pre: liminary experiment in represent government, have tried to dai partial success for it, but one feels that they d so because they could not damn it, at it deserved, in their positions," The fact is, of course, that the Act has failed bes cause it_was the very last thing that the Brahmin and the politically minded Babu desire. The underiying principle is.that all Indians shall ultimately have an equal right to fa say in their country's affairs, To put the low castes ard the outcastes on terms of political equality with the Brahmin is unthinkable to him, whose idea of representative government is all power in his hands, with the British army and navy conveniently near behind the seenes to save him from the eon sequences of his folly. There is no doubt in the minds of serious observers that the Act of 1920 was. fan egregious mistake. An American resident in India, quoted in Miss Muyo's famous book, says that what the Government should do is up all universities and give wath of India several years' hard illing in primary and secon~ dary schools. But hard sense and cal fetishes have little in com-
We have received from Captain A. E, N. Howard a pamphlet jesued by himself dealing with the affairs of the Constitutional Defence League, which have in recent weeks been the subject of a good deal of cerrespondence in the press of Shanghai Captain Howard was engaged.) the' C.D, Lo in March 1926, his duties being mainly to edit "The ynstitutionalist," and was dine charged at the end of that year.
fays in his pamphlet that "on more than one occasion 1 suggested that my salary be reduced as 1 did not consider the work 1 was justified an expenditure of public money to the extent of 350 taels monthly. No action was taken." Captain Howard then analyses the paid staff of the C. D. La, which be Says was nine, and he estimates the salaries paid ut Tis, 1025 monthly and $200, The number of publica tions distributed by the C. D. copies of the "Constitutional other pamphlets and posters to November 0, 1926, was 275,990. Besides this orders were given to Messrs, Kelly & Walsh for 309 copies exch, of three books of Bolshevism, but Captain alleges that numbers of these were mot, taken up and have not been paid for, We have no means of checking Captain Howard's figures, Dut if his assertions are correct, the management of the C. D. L. certain.
does not seem to have erred on the side of business-like economy. On October 10 Mr. R. N. Swann wrote to us on behalf of the chairman of the C.D. L. recalling an Announcement made a few weeks earlier "that an auditors' report on the League's accounts and dissolution would be published. Nothing has occurred to render any departure from this course necessary and the statement will be published in due course." This would be a much more satisfactory method than inviting inquirers and members of the C. D. L: to call at its offices and see the accounts, which few people have time to do.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.