A challenge to all parties

THEY entirely miss the true meaning and significance of Lord Birkenhead’s recent speech in the House of Lords who find in it nothing but a challenge to the Swarajists and Non-cooperators. As we have seen already, the basic assumption of the speech, that which gives it its discriminating colour and distinguishing effect, namely, that India is not and never has been a nation, is as much a challenge to the Liberals and cooperators as to the Swarajists, non-co-operators and Independents. Nor are the practical and operative parts of the speech even a shade better. These parts are really constituted by two statements, each of which, as we have pointed out, is as indefinite as it is unsatisfactory. One is that the door for a revision of the Constitution is open today; and the other is that it is open to the critics of the British Government in India to produce a Constitution which carries with it a measure of general agreement among the people of India. Both these statements are as much addressed to the Liberals and co-operators as to men of the other school. As regards the first, the nail was hit on the head by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, undoubtedly one of the ablest leaders of the Liberal party, not only in his own province but in all India. “Do you not think,” he was asked by a press correspondent, “that Lord Birkenhead has kept an open door?” “If he has kept an open door”, was Sir Tej Bahadur’s unhesitating reply, “I do not know whom he wants to walk into that door.”

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