Sir John Simon ina speech at Dumfries last night, referred to the Joint Committee's Report on India in relation to the report "of the, Simon Commission, of which he was chairman. It had been said that the Simon Report recommended a system of responsible government, subject to certain over-riding control in each of the nine provinces of India, but that it didn't recommend responsibility at the centre, That was not complete nor a wholly accurate statement, "It must be remembered," he said, "first of all that the area of inquiry prescribed for the statutory commission was British India alone. The Indian States were excluded from our direct purview. When we began to grasp the true dimensions of the Indian problem, we became convinced that the ultimate scheme must be one which took into account future re-
Intionships between the two conslituent parts of greater India, British India, and the Indian States, There only one India, and it is greatest India, which includes the Indian States as well as the British pro-
The Report of the Joint Select Committee recommended a federation Ineleding both Indian States and British provinces. The argument for such a scheme was elaborately) set out in the Simon Report. "We regarded a federation og a distant deal, We thought that, if provin~ cell autonomy could be established in. the first place, this would con- Ge tribute some day to the possibility of a federal India, but since we reported there has been a new fact. We were commissioners, but we were rot prophets and it was not till after we had reported that the new fact emerged. In January, 1981, a great Indian prince, who was Chancellor in the Chamber of Princes, speaking not only to Governors, but for a Targe body of Princes whom he had consulted, declared that the Indian Princes were already prepared for a federation, but that they could not federate with British India unless constitutional changes were made at the centre, such og the Joint Committee have now recommended.
Sir John Simon declared that the broad scheme of the Joint Committee should be supported.—Wireless through Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.