THE SWARAJ DEBATE

WE have purposely set forth our views regarding the possible effect of the great victory won by the popular party in the Swaraj debate in the Legislative Assembly before taking note of the debate itself. The reason is clear. The consequences to which the victory will lead are immeasurably more important than a debate, the trend of which, so far as its main lines were concerned, could easily have been anticipated by any well-informed person. On both sides, the arguments were of the familiar sort. There was a difference in the marshalling of them and in the spirit and temper which most of the speakers on either side brought to bear on the discussion. But there was little or nothing in the arguments themselves that could be said to be new. The ablest speech on the official side was, as we have said already, that of Sir Malcolm Hailey. Except for the distinction drawn by him between a responsible government and dominion status and the skill with which he quoted from past utterances of leading advocates of Swaraj to show the inconsistency between their past position and the present one, we challenge anyone to point out anything in the speech that had not been said again and again, perhaps with less ability, but with no other differences. Similarly, on the non-official side, the ablest speeches were those of Pandit Motilal Nehru and Madan Mohan Malaviya, Sir Purshotamdas, Jinnah and Patel; and as might have been expected, the arguments contained in these speeches, those based on India’s inalienable birthright of liberty, no less than those constituting a complete and conclusive answer to every official argument, were the commonplaces of Indian politics.