Legislative Assembly Debates Wednesday 29th March 1933 Official Report

Sir I take it that the Government of India if not the Government of the entire country is at least a great portion of the Government of this country and it seems to me to be inexplicable that when the fate of the Government of the country is involved the Government of India should have nothing to contribute to the discussion. [...] presenting the British Parliament but all the same if the Government of India are the agency of that Parliament and nothing more even then one would have expected that the Government should have been prepared in a matter of this importance to defend the proposals of the Secretary of State of the Government of Britain as contained in these proposals. [...] We see that in some directions there is some advantage but we do hold and I believe the majority of the Members the Non-Official Members on this side of the House will agree that unless there is considerable advance in the direction of devolving further responsibility on the representatives of the people the proposals of the White Paper will not receive acceptance in the country (Hear hear) [...] Sir the Honourable the Leader of the House has read a portion of the first paragraph of the introduction to the White Paper proposals I wish with the leave of the House to react the whole of it : Tn December 1.931. [...] Sir we know that defence costs nearly half the revenues of the Government of India not taking into account the revenues of the Railways: we also know for instance from the very motion moved today by Diwan Bahadur Mudaliar the question of foreign relations also is of the utmost importance to us as it determines the status of this country before the eves of the world.