Orders of the Day — India (Consequential Provision) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 December 1949.

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Photo of Mr Charles Hale Mr Charles Hale , Oldham 12:00, 5 December 1949

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations did not say very much about the Bill in his opening speech, and I think he did not say very much about the Bill for two very good reasons. First, what he was saying was being said not only to people in this House, but also to the peoples of the great sister nation and the peoples of the world—and was being said very well and in a very moving manner. Secondly, there is not very much one can say about the Bill as such.

The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) has referred to the very able way in which this very short Bill has been drawn—drawn so ably but so briefly that one wonders, in amazement, whether it really can carry out all it purports to do. After all, however, it is one of the characteristics of the great State documents of history that they have all been drawn in short and moving and effective terms and it may well be that this will be added to the great State documents, as certainly this afternoon will be added to the great days of history.

On all sides of the House we find agreement in support of this Measure. On no side do we find any denigration and we can send to this great new sister nation on this day a message of new comradeship and of hope for a new renaissance in the East—a renaissance on the part of a country with a great history, which has made a great contribution to world culture and which has an opportunity of making an even greater contribution in the future. One would wish, having said that, to say no more, but the opportunities given to a back bencher to raise important matters are so few that he cannot continue self-abnegation to that extent.

I want to say something which has already been said by my hon. Frend the Member for one of the Birmingham constituencies—I never remember one part of Birmingham from another—