Commonwealth of India Bill

THE memorandum, which has just been issued with the signatures of 40 of our public men and political workers, urging the immediate necessity for the passing of the Commonwealth of India Bill, is a most important document both in itself and by reason of the eminent position and representative character of the signatories. So far as the second point is concerned, the mere fact that among those who have put their names to the document are No-changers, Home-rulers, Independents, Swarajists and Liberals is sufficient to establish the truth of our statement. They include Right Hon Srinivasa Sastri, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Govinda Raghava Iyer, J Chaudhary, Annie Besant, Jamnadas Dwarkadas, Sir Ali Imam, Hassan Iman, Bepin Chandra Pal, Ramchandra Rao, Ishwar Saran, Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Shaukat Ali, NC Kelkar and MR Jayakar. It is true that there are some glaring omissions. One misses, for instance, the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, Pandit Motilal Nehru, VJ Patel, Sir Surendranath Banerjea, Lord Sinha, Sir Sankaran Nair, Maulana Mahomed Ali, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Mazhrul Haque. But whatever may be the reasons for these omissions, no one can or will assert that these men or any of them, are less enthusiastic champions of immediate Home Rule for India than the actual signatories to the document, or that there are any serious differences of opinion between them and the signatories regarding the essential principles of the Bill, as distinguished from its non-essential details.