Former MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook
The number of the persons detained in connection with Congress activities on 1st April last was 1,252. The 21 persons still remaining in detention in the North-West Frontier Province on 1st March had all been released by 1st April.
If the hon. Member will restrain his curiosity just a little longer, he may perhaps, in the words of solicitors' notices, hear of something to his advantage.
May I take the opportunity of reading to the House a statement which I have been authorised by his Majesty's Goverment to make on the subject of India, and which is being published at the same time in India? The statement is in the form of a White Paper, and is now available in the Vote Office. It says: "During the recent visit of Field-Marshal Viscount Wavell to this country His Majesty's...
I shall, of course, explain and amplify what is in that statement. As the statement has only been released a little while ago and a good many hon. Members have not had an opportunity of reading it, I thought it would be for the convenience of the House that I should read it.
It has been of great importance that the issue of the statement should be synchronised in this country and in India. It was not possible to issue it earlier than this afternoon, and, therefore, I still hope that it may be for the convenience of the House that I should read the statement. If not, I am prepared to give an explanation of it without reading it.
I suggest that in that case I need not submit the House to that tedium. As proceedings have been a little delayed, there has been time for a great many Members to see the White Paper, and I think I can cover the essential points in it sufficiently well in my explanatory statement. Therefore, I shall be only too happy, with the consent of the House, to proceed at once to some explanation of...
The opinion of the House is divided, and it would certainly suit the convenience of a good many Members that I should read it out. I will read it as speedily as I can, and I hope hon. Members opposite will have patience with me while I do so because, after all, it is a statement of considerable importance not only to us here but to the people of India. I think I reached the end of the fifth...
The main political parties are, of course, the Congress Party and the Moslem League. There are other important major elements in India, like the scheduled castes, the Sikhs, the Christians and so on, but those are the two main political parties. May I, after apologising to those hon. Members who have already read the White Paper and have listened patiently to my reading of it, now proceed...
