New Clause. — (Ruler of State may exclude application of provisions as to water supply.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 11 April 1935.

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Photo of Mr Thomas Inskip Mr Thomas Inskip , Fareham

The Noble Lady the Member for Kinross and Western (Duchess of Atholl) is very hard to please. It might 'be argued that water is so important that it would be unsafe to deal with it at all in this Bill and that powers ought to be maintained of the same character as those exercised by the Government of India in the matter. Nobody needs to be convinced about the importance of water, on which the Noble Lady thought it necessary to dwell just now. Clauses 129 to 131 were inserted in the Bill as it was thought they were very much in the interests of the States, while preserving the over-riding power of the Governor-General in certain circumstances and yet providing for the settlement of disputes where, as the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) pointed out, there might be an undesirable use of water rights, but the Princes—and this answers the last question put by the Noble Lord—in the Memorandum of the 27th February to the Viceroy, which is printed in the White Paper, rather objected to the machinery of Clause 130, because it allowed reference to an ad hoc tribunal of complaints made by a Ruler, as being somehow or other against their interests.

In order to meet that point, we allow them to put themselves in the same position as an unfederated State; that is to say, they would come under the same powers as those which I thought it was agreed on all hands have been used in the best way for safeguarding the water rights of the mass of the people. It is quite an unfounded suggestion that this Clause has been devised merely to please the Princes, to the great danger of the preservation of the water rights of the people of India. As I have already explained, this Clause will put the States in the same position as an unfederated State and in that case the whole of the existing powers, which everyone admits have been used to make the very best of the water rights of India, will be available.